Hong Kong: Ngong Ping 360 Cable Ride Views in Lantau Island and the 2-Hour Wait

August in Hong Kong is cra-aaaayzy. It’s almost impossible to queue up for the popular tourist attractions because it takes hours. We went to The Peak and experienced madness. A sardine-packed Victoria Peak viewing point, a long tram queue and an unruly bus drama.

So we wanted to see something else other than busy Kowloon and the skyscrapers of Hong Kong Island and set off one morning to Lantau Island in the New Territories to visit the Ngong Ping Village where the Big Buddha lives. It is easy to get here as it is the last tram stop of the Tung Chung Line, the Tung Chung Station (after Disneyland).

Ngong Ping 360 Cable Ride 2-Hour Queuing Wait
Website: Ngong Ping 360

Amazingly I was (well we were) as patient as a turtle to queue up for 2 full hours! There’s not much we can really do, except call it off which we did not obviously do, or go to Disneyland (no freaking way!). We were already there and it was quite a long way to get to this part of the country so we decided to push through with the plan. We took our place in the line.

The queue on the ground floor, adjacent to the Tung Chung Station.

The queue in the upper walkway. You will definitely lose a kilo standing in line!

Need some fishball snack while queuing up. With hot sauce.

Halfway through the queue, and this was after reaching the walkway, a personnel were letting people with small children and senior citizens wait in the lobby, which is a nice gesture if I may add. SisterJ and I decided to take turns standing in the queue instead.

If you have the Hong Kong card though that indicates Ngong Ping 360 cable ride is included then you are in luck, you do not have to queue up. This queue is for the tickets at the cashier.

The longest I have queued though was 3 hours which happened a few weeks ago at the Charles Dickens Festival in Deventer, the Netherlands. So this was not the worst.

This is the actual and real queue (another queue) for the cable car ride. 

I was in a special lane with my parents because they are senior citizens, so they can sit down while one of us (my sister) queues up. Advantage when travelling with senior citizens =)

Ngong Ping Cable Ride Views

Funnily, my family has acrophobia, especially my sister, haha. They all did not want to move in their seats, don’t even want to look down, and when I was moving a lot taking pictures, standing up, sitting down, leaning on the glass here and there, they didn’t like it. They said I am making them nervous, lol.

I think they much preferred the 2-hour wait than this 25-minute cable car ride, hehe. See here my sister’s acrophobia experience when I was with her in Singapore: The Cloud Forest in Singapore is not for the Acrophobics

Anyway, these are the views from the cable car ride.

My sister who has fear of heights and moi =)

My parents are tickled. I mean their feet haha.

One of the few surviving fishing villages in Hong Kong.

The cable ride is 5.7 kilometres and takes 25 minutes. 25 agonising long minutes for my parents and sister, haha.

View to the Chek Lap Kok Hong Kong International Airport (cargo airport area) in Lantau.

My sister pretending she is not scared while I kept teasing my mother to look down. She is holding on to the bar for safety, lol.

But the parents agreed to pose for a nice picture =)

Chek Lap Kok Hong Kong International Airport.

I can see Ngong Ping village from the distance.

These guys were fixing one of the cable car towers.

The Big Buddha is waiting for us. We are going to climb to the top!

Go here for my next entry:

Hong Kong: An Afternoon in Ngong Ping Village and Climbing the Tian Tian Big Buddha

Travel Period: August 2013
Destination: Lantau Island (New Territories), Hong Kong

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