Continued from Part 1 and Part 2
We lazed around and barely made it in time for breakfast! The buffet at Spice Market Cafe was awesome as always, and my meal was made thanks to the parfait and bread pudding. I also saw what suspiciously looked like a snide remark on Twitter 😉
The day was not really packed in terms of schedule, but we were a bit delayed and when I learned that the taxi to Penang Hill would work out only to about 30 MYR, I immediately voted to skip the elaborate bus plan. We reached the Penang Hill station in about 45 minutes and it actually worked out to 50 MYR (contrary to what the lady at the hotel said) but it was a wonderful ride – peaceful settings with only a couple of traffic bottlenecks. There are a couple of queues to be navigated – one for the tickets (30 MYR per person) and the other to actually get into the train that will get you to the top. The internet suggests that one person should stand in each, since the waiting time could turn out to be quite much, but the line for the latter seemed reasonable, so we stood united!
The waiting time turned out to be around 20-30 minutes and the place seemed to be very popular with the young crowd and local tourists. We had a Tamil radio standing behind us! The last leg of the waiting is beyond the notion of queues, so prepare to rush in! The train ride is about 10 mins of practically vertical climbing, and it’s more fun standing. There are some minor site to see on top of the hill, but the actual reward consists of a few super views of Georgetown. At one point, there are love locks available, and far in the distance you can see the Penang bridge.
After another train ride, we took bus #204 (right next to the ticket counter from earlier) to Kek Lok Si in Ayer Itam. This is less than 10 minutes away and since the payment is made soon as you get in, the driver announces when it’s time for you to exit. From the bus stop, there are directions to help you reach the base of the temple. A pathways with shops on either side took us first to the turtle liberation pond, which had a lot of inquisitive turtles! This place was actually teeming with Tamils who were shopping their way to a higher plane! This was around the time our feet reminded us that they had a life too! The two things to see here are the Pagoda of 10,000 Buddhas (made in Chinese, Burmese and Thai styles across 3 levels) and Kuan Yin (Goddess of Mercy) We had already caught a glimpse of them from down below, and chose to stop at this level. (One good idea might be to visit this at night, when it’s all lit up)
At the base, we got a cab to take us to Georgetown to see the Watchaya Mangkalaram for 30 MYR. The cab driver was super friendly and talked to us about everything from the source of the Shangri-La owner’s wealth (sugar) to Diwali celebrations to his love life to climate in Malaysia. He also advised us to visit another temple across the road from our planned place of visit and gave us directions to our dinner spot! We decided to visit the Burmese temple first and caught the Buddha sitting and standing. It also had wall art showing the story of the Buddha. Watchaya is famous for the reclining Buddha, and we found what seemed to be the final resting place for many people. (jars of ashes) The Buddha stories, in the form of images and explanatory text around the huge Buddha, cite India (!) as the King of Gods and have Shravan Kumar’s tale in some other form! Again, Buddhism was a religion here (like I’ve seen in Sikkim, Lanka, and as opposed to the faith I saw in Leh) and religion needs its myths, I guess. Seems they also need Trip Advisor certificates in this age!
The 1.4 km walk to Gurney Drive pretty much killed us! We first reached Gurney Paragon, explored it a bit, found some top luxury brands, figured there was no way to get a foot massage, and dragged ourselves to Gurney Plaza, a few painful footsteps away. Three floors disappointed us before we found what we were looking for! An hour and a Chinese foot massage later, we were ready for some traditional mall retail therapy! At least D was. I was more interested in our dinner destination – Gurney Drive Hawker Centre, a short walk away. This one is much bigger than Long Beach and the mission was to find everything in our list, and eat it!
We began with the Wantan Mee I’d missed the previous day. Superb stuff if you like pork. But the oyster fry we had next was probably the dish of the day!
Close competition came in the form of Curry Mee, which had coagulated pig’s blood and a fantastic sambal for spice! D didn’t care for it, but I loved it. Lor Bak was pork wrapped in bean curd skin and gave a nice crispy texture to the meal. The grilled fish that was up next wasn’t that great, and we ended the meal with Rojak ( a salad with cucumber, mango, honey and even squid if you want) and Ice Kacang (true to its name, lots of ice, some ice cream, nuts and pretty much everything else they could find!) We couldn’t find a couple of dishes we wanted – Fish Ball Soup and Loh Mee. (which has chicken feet) A cab (for 30 MYR) took us back to the hotel. We had a final round of shopping to complete, and I ended the night with a local find – Pelican! I had to try the 100Plus, whose signs were everywhere, and the lime version was just okay! Meanwhile, we also figured out that trishaws were expensive – 20/30 MYR for a couple of hundred metres!
This was to be our last night at Batu Ferringhi. Sigh.