Sha Tin, located directly north of Kowloon, 11km north of Tsim Sha Tsui, is one of Hong Kong's fastest growing new towns, with massive housing projects occupying what were once rice paddies. Once famous for cultivating incense, Sha Tin is best known for its fascinating temples, walled village, mountain trails and horseracing.

Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery

Founded in 1950, this monastery is a major attraction here, probably the most interesting temple in the whole New Territories.

The temple was built on the top of a hill and people can reach it via either escalators or some 400 steps leading up the hillside. On the inner walls of the lower temple hall are shelves with lots of tiny golden Buddha statues. In total there are now about 13,000 images, all of a similar height but rendered in slightly different poses. On the upper level of the temple you find the ancestral worship halls - rooms with hundreds and hundreds of small niches in the walls. Each niche contains an urn and is covered with a tablet with a picture and the name of the deceased. Outside the monastery, fires are burning in small stoves, where paper representations of food, money, and other offerings are burned in order to gain the god's favour for the dead.

On the first of the two levels of the monastery lies a high pagoda with decorated pavilions on either side. From the pagoda you have a very good view of Sha Tin and the surrounding mountains.

Che Kung Temple

Renovated in late 1993, Che Kung Temple is another major attraction. The ancient Taoist temple is dedicated to a deified general - Che Kung.

The story goes that Che Kung used to be a general of the Song Dynasty (960-1279), who is believed to have saved the inhabitants of Sha Tin Valley from the plague centuries ago. After the plague was eventually eradicated, the villagers constructed a temple in memory of him.

There is a copper windmill inside the temple and it is said that good luck comes if one rotates the sails of the windmill after worshipping Che Kung.

On the third day of lunar New Year, which was the birthday of Che Kung, townspeople crowd into the temple to pay homage to him with burning incense and rotate the sails of the copper windmill praying for good luck.