Tai O is one of the last remaining fishing villages on Lantau Island.
The island was mostly noted for the Buddhist monastery which occupies
nearly half of the island and contains the largest seated bronze Buddha
in the world. The island was long isolated and only accessible by
ferry. Tai O village fishermen still sun dry fish using very old
traditional techniques but the old ways are quickly changing. Fishing
has long been a dying craft here replaced by smuggling goods, including
refrigerators and VCR's, up river to mainland China. In the 1990's the
Hong Kong government decided to build a new airport and picked this
area for development. Here it leveled an ajoining island, built a
beautiful bridge with highway and rail connections and created one of
the world's largest airports. The next change will come with Hong Kong
Disneyland to be constructed at the opposite end of the island.
