The first important stop is at the booming New Town of Sha Tin, best known to Hong Kongers as the site of the territory’s second racecourse, which is packed with fanatical gamblers on race days during the season . For tourists, howev- er, the main attraction of Sha Tin is the Heritage Museum at I Man Lam Road (2180 8188, www. heritagenmseum.gov, hk; Mon & Wed-Sat 10am-6pm, Sun & public holidays 10am-7pm; $10; free adnfission on Wed), About fifteen minutes’ walk from the New Town Plaza at Sha Tin KCR sta- tion (there’s a good location map, or pick up the museum newsletter with loca- tion maps at the customer service centre of Seiyu in New Town Plaza phase III), you can reach it by following signs through the Sha Tin Park. The nmse- nm is packed with permanent and temporary exhibitions; one of the best covers life in the New Territories across the ages and features a mock-up ora tra- ditional fishing village.
Another popular attraction is the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery (daily 9am-5pm; free), dating back to the 1960s, which is probably the single most interesting temple in the whole of the New Territories, if not in all Hong Kong, and the Po (or Bo) Fook Ancestral Worship Halls (9am-5pm;free). Unfortunately, there are illegal structures within the monastery, rendering it unsafe; tourists are therefore currently advised not to visit and the–actuary around thirteen thousand - Buddhas may be re-housed in another monastery at some point. From the monastery you can also follow a path farther up the mountain to another terrace containing some smaller temples, although recently this has been closed by landslides caused by monsoon rain.
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