So, here's something from some time in early August of 2013. The exact date has long faded into the forgotten library of history.
“Welcome
to Lantau Island,” my taxi driver said. “Watch out for all the spiders!”
Or,
that’s what I like to imagine he said. A more accurate, equally speculative
translation might be, “Due to your inadequate information and our strong
language barrier, I have no idea where you’d like me to take you, so how about
I drop you off right here?”
And so I
found myself, a twenty-eight year old American man, alone on the side of some
rural Hong Kong road. It was definitely not where I planned to go, but with a little
more leg movement I found what I guessed was Shek Mun Kap beyond some leering
villagers hanging out in front of a store. I passed a modest working temple and
ascended into the forest behind it, just as my vague reference book had told
me.
All
around me, lush, tropical nature slowly encroached onto the narrow concrete
trail. It was leading generally up, which was a positive sign. Occasionally a
hiker would walk past—another positive sign. I passed a dilapidated Buddhist shrine
where I stopped to attempt to decipher the shotgun blast of graffiti left by
hikers in ages past. No dice. My Cantonese language skills had not improved
since the taxi ride.
As I
pressed on, the grade increased and the mountain became more rugged. Am I going the right way? I wondered. Will I ever be heard from again?
Naturally, I had only packed a single 500ml bottle of water, which I guzzled
down in the first twenty minutes of my climb. Hong Kong is hot. And humid. A
perfect recipe for dehydrated hiking.
After a while, I began stumbling upon
creatures that could only be described as fantasy-sized. An earthworm carcass
the size of my foot splayed out on the path, a plastic-coated, bony spider the
size of my hand guarded its web above me. Am
I hallucinating? I realized that I had not passed a hiker in some time.
From
seemingly out of nowhere, a smattering of buildings appeared. These captivating
temples before me had surely been established by people who were like me: lost
and delirious. They had given up their pilgrimage to live among the giant
creatures of the forest. Now, their descendants survived through occasional
sacrifices to these beasts. Was my destiny to be one of these sacrifices?
Internalizing this possibility, I crept as quietly as I could through the
inhabited area, watching the handful of monks I noticed carrying on with their
lives and none-the-wiser of my existence. They strolled, they farmed, they sang,
but they did not once look in my direction. Not even the resident dogs barked
at me. Perhaps they were allowing me free passage. Perhaps they could not see
the ghosts of hikers who had died in the forest and not yet known it.
Still no
water. I was awash in sweat as the forest beyond the temples enveloped me. If only I could drink my sweat for
hydration! I thought as I wrung out my hair. Climbing further, I came upon
another shrine. This one was historically
old, as opposed to just dilapidated. It looked like a crematorium. Or a water
tank. I hoped it was the latter, filled to the brim with pure, potable water. Again,
no dice.
 |
| That shirt was once a much lighter blue. |
The
foliage eventually relented, giving way to grasses and the looming conical
Lantau Peak. For the first time in hours, I knew approximately where I was.
There was a sign! And a trashcan! And people!
I would not perish in the jungle. But my day was still far from over.
The sun
was directly overhead by the time my sweaty, smelly body half-stumbled into the
courtyard of the great Tian Tan Buddha at Po Lin Monastery. I had made it,
grizzled and course, to the place where pristine Disneyland tourists snapped
selfies—and there were water vendors. I guzzled a whole bottle immediately,
washing away the memory of my hardship in the woods. I bought two more, which I
slowly sipped under the judging gaze of the 38 meter tall behemoth. “Who is
this unwashed ruffian?” his expression seemed to say.
 |
| "Just...just go away." |
Somehow I climbed the 268 steps and
entered the altar on which the Buddha sat. It’s
worth it, I reasoned. Herein lies
some of the alleged cremated remains of the Gautama Buddha. I had little
idea what that actually meant to the world or to Buddhism, but I circled around
with the others in anticipation anyway. Seeing the charred remains of an
ancient, god-like man is enough to call any day a success. When I reached the
gift shop without seeing a single ash, I realized that the relic part of the
altar was closed at this particular time.
I
wallowed over the monastery food that was included in the ticket price. It was
surprisingly good for vegetarian fare, and I was famished. Every grain of rice
and ounce of liquid brought to the table ended up in my belly that day. Only
when my scarfing, snorting eating frenzy subsided and I noticed the array of
empty dishes did I realize the time had come for me to move on. Once again I
had embarrassed myself in public, judging by the looks of the other patrons. Or
I was just an exotic white man. In all my years of living in Asia I never could
tell.
With a
fresh water bottle in hand and two more in my bag, I ambled over to the nearby
prayer monuments—upright wooden steles inscribed either with Buddhist prayer or
warnings against entering the Spider Kingdom just beyond. Since my Cantonese
had still not improved, I had no idea this place existed yet. I was in high
spirits, and eager to begin the hike back down.
 |
| "Do not disturb the Spider King's slumber!" |
I saw a
lone hiker emerge from a path next to the prayer monuments, and recalled from
my vague guidebook that this was the trailhead I desired to take back down. A
different hike from the one I took up. This one, I reasoned, could only be
better than the first one. The guidebook explicitly promised a restaurant with
good, exotic beers at the end. That would do much more for me than leering
villagers in front of a store in Shek Mun Kap. I yearned for the unfamiliar.
But only once
the dark canopy of trees enveloped me like Red Riding Hood skipping through the
forest to grandma’s house did I come to the realization that this path had not
been traveled by another human in quite some time. That lone hiker must have only
been a lone urinator returning to his Disneyland family. I was entering another
world alone. Slowly, the trail diminished to a pencil-thin rod of dirt,
surrounded by thick branches, thigh-high grass, and leafy trees. It was
precarious at times, so my eyes followed the ground. Quite a ways in I
stumbled, only to catch myself from falling. I paused to find my equilibrium and
looked up for the first time in a while. Three inches from my face was the
biggest, most knuckly-looking black spider I had ever seen. It was the size of
my head. I could see the individual joints; the pointed ends of its long,
spindly legs; the multi-hued, hairless body; its eyes. Oh god, its skull-hole eyes.
 |
| No banana for scale, but that thing's huge. |
I
determined that most likely he was the gatekeeper, and his massive web that
sprawled across the entirety of the path was the gate. “Who dares enter the
Great Spider Kingdom?” he must have bellowed, inaudible to me. My response was driven
by panic. I flung a stick in his direction and let it clear the path for me. For
those animal rights enthusiasts, remember how large this thing was. (I can
never forget!) It would be impossible for me to have killed it with a measly
stick. I’m more surprised it didn’t catch it and throw it back at me. It would
be back in business with a new web probably before I had finished my hike that
day.
I grabbed a fresh branch and
perpetually practiced my fencing thrusts as I continued on lest another web
creature catch me off-guard. Through babbling streams, green brush, rock stairs,
precarious switchbacks, steep drop-offs, wind-rustled leaves, squawking forests,
and probably ticks, I encountered no less than a dozen additional spiders of
only marginally smaller stature than the gatekeeper. Was he their king? I pondered. At first I attacked their webs, but
soon I came to realize the fragility of these creatures and their innate right
to life. As I continued to encounter them, I tried limboing under the higher webs,
shimmying beside them, and stepping over the lower colonies. I discovered that
they were not jittery. In fact, they hardly ever moved unprovoked. I did not
need to disturb them to pass by. I could gaze upon them without the worry of my
soul being sucked out through my face. I was becoming one with the spiders, an
honorary citizen admiring their kingdom as a mindful tourist. It felt good to
simply be there observing the nature
happening in my midst.
I dallied longer than I could have,
resting on rocks and feeling the breeze. I had found a place in Hong Kong where
I did not see another human being for hours. I would not have guessed such a
place existed before I’d visited. I wondered if any of those spiders had had an
interaction with a human before. How did they get to be so huge? Did they eat the
other humans they’d interacted with before? Maybe they saw some good in me.
Enough to forgive my initial reaction when encountering their king. They spared
me, just as those monks had.
 |
| Not to mention the views from the Spider Kingdom. |
My feet
were killing me by the time I reached the village at the bottom of the
mountain. I was greeted by wandering cows among the smattering of houses. As I
stared into the very soul of the IPA I rewarded myself with, I found it funny
that I felt more at peace among the spiders in their kingdom than at the
tranquil temple on the way up.
After re-reading that story, I agree with you that it's a little Halloween-y with the Spiders and all. So booyah, it ain't so random after all.
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