Lantau, the green half of Hong Kong

Lantau is twice the size of Hong Kong Island and almost entirely the opposite of it: hills, monasteries, fishing villages and beaches, with the airport bolted onto one corner. The Ngong Ping 360 cable car climbs 5.7 kilometres from Tung Chung over the water and the ridgeline, and the ride is half the experience — a glass-floor cabin, the runway shrinking below, and then the Tian Tan Big Buddha appearing on its plateau. The 34-metre bronze figure sits at the top of 268 steps above Po Lin Monastery, where the vegetarian canteen has been feeding pilgrims for decades; the Wisdom Path traces a Heart Sutra inscription in wooden columns on the hillside behind.

West along the coast is Tai O, a Tanka fishing village of houses built on stilts over a tidal creek, linked by narrow footbridges. The lanes smell of drying shrimp paste and salted fish, both still made here, and small boats run out into the estuary looking for Chinese white dolphins — the pink dolphins of the Pearl River Delta.

The island also holds Hong Kong's best walking. Lantau Peak is the second-highest summit in the territory and a classic pre-dawn climb for sunrise above the cloud; Sunset Peak turns silver with waving grass in autumn, its stone huts scattered across the ridge. On the south shore, Cheung Sha stretches for three kilometres of quiet sand, and Mui Wo receives the ferry from Central in under an hour.

Give Lantau a full day — it is the easiest way to see that Hong Kong is mostly countryside.