Day 3

Check out was at noon so we made the most of the morning by going off exploring. The ever courteous Royal Park Hotel staff suggested that we visited the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery, just a short walk from the Sha Tin MTR station. We followed the signs, took lots of photos, made sure we took it all in but something just didn't feel right about the place. Unperturbed, we pressed on towards the summit, expecting to find some grand statue or monument but were denied access by the staff who told us they were renovating. Childishly I though to myself "fine, it wasn't vey good anyway". It wasn't until we were descending towards the exit that I noticed the light reflecting off something out of the corner of my eye. In the distance we could make out a series of gold statues amongst the trees and suddenly it dawned on us...we had been wandering around taking photos of Po Fook Hill cemetery for an hour! Slightly embarrassed, we headed (sprinted) for the exit and went next door, where the path to the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery began.

To get to the monastery we had to climb, what seemed like a never-ending path, lined with Buddhas of all shapes and sizes. Having only had the essential injections, we were a little concerned at being stalked by a family of monkeys but they soon disappeared off in to the trees when they realised we didn't have any food for them. Similarly, we were less than pleased to be greeted by a far-from-healthy-looking dog when we had almost reached the top and the sight of two 6ft guys running away from a ropey mutt because they haven't had their rabies jabs caused much amusement amongst the locals at the monastery.

We did finally manage out-manoeuvre said dog but refrained from jumping around like Rocky when we had completed the final step to the top because, well quite frankly we felt stupid enough already. The monastery was well worth the effort though, as the views were amazing and the attention to detail that has gone in to building the place is incredible, so i'm glad we did it. Even in that heat!

After the monastery we checked out of the hotel and in to our first hostel. As you can see from this picture of our room, there isn't much space for the pair of us (I can nearly touch both walls!) but it is clean, has air con and we don't spend much time in there so the little sweat box will do for now.

We dropped our stuff off in the room and got the ferry over to Hong Kong Island and then a bus to the Peak tram station that took us up to Victoria Peak to see the Symphony of Lights but the weather wasn't great and most of the show took place on the other side of the buildings, so it was looking like a wasted trip until we met Sean, Stefan and Alan. A Canadian, German and Irishman (there's a joke in there somewhere!) Stefan had to go back to his hostel to check some flight details but Sean and Alan suggested we go for a few beers in Soho (HK). This was the first opportunity we'd had to make friends with fellow travellers so we gladly accepted the invite. We started in the California Bar and then moved on to a few more before settling down in a late bar. I don't really remeber much after that, except the bar tab was huge, as was the cab fare back across the river to Kowloon, which might have also involved an argument with the taxi drive as we think he was trying to fleece us. Still, at least we didn't have to worry about the heat in our room. Long day + alcohol = asleep before head touches pillow.