Thursday, September 22 

I’m here! After a really long trip we finally made it. We didn’t have any trouble getting to where we needed to be except when we arrived in Dhaka and went through immigration. They asked us to write down the address of the place we were staying and we didn’t know. After much discussion with the security officers about how we would get past, we remembered we had the phone number of Simson, the man who was picking us up. They tried calling that number but it was the wrong number. As it turns out, the last two numbers were switched. After a while I noticed a man pointing and waving his hands in huge gestures. He was far enough away that I couldn’t read the sign he had in his hands, but I was pretty sure he was motioning to us. I asked the guard if I could go out and see if this was the Simson and told them that if he was our ride, he would know the address. The guard agreed and escorted me out. It was Simson! It was such an answer to prayer! By this time most everyone had been cleared out of the airport and our luggage had been collected off the baggage wheel. They stamped our passports and gave us our luggage and we were off. We were thankful that Simson had waited around and found us. 

Now, let me back up a bit. We had an 11 hour layover in Hong Kong. This would have been quite dull if we had stayed inside the airport. However, we were told that there was a great place not that far outside of the airport that we could get to very easily by bus. It’s called Lantau Island. We took a public bus to a gondola station and then took a 25min gondola ride up a gorgeous mountain. We could look down on the bay and the airport. As we got further up the mountain we could see waterfalls and green landscape everywhere! When we got off the gondol we walked through this cute little town with shops and booths set up. Up ahead we could see this HUGE Buddha statue. Apparently, it is the tallest stone Buddha statue in the world. We climbed many steps to get to the top of the hill where the Buddha sat. Also in this village, they have a monastery. The landscaping was so peaceful and beautiful. While we were there we got to hear a monk chant and hit a big bell with what looked like a carved log. We wondered around the town for a bit longer and then headed back to the airport. We had to pay per hour for our luggage to be stored so we didn’t want to be out too long. The Hong Kong airport in gigantic so we hung out in there for the remaining 6 hours.