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Published: February 3rd 2007
The road to Penang turned out to be very comfortable indeed, courtesy of the Super VIP Konsortium Bas Ekspres. We decided that the extra one pound 50 pence would be wisely invested in the aforementioned service, that came complete with airline super snoozer seats and individual entertainment console......and before we knew it, we were at the bus station on Penang Island. The scenery en route was more of the previous in peninsula Malaysia, although generally it was a lot drier than anticipated.
The express bus station on Penang is about 12 kms outside of Georgetown, which leaves you with limited choice but to get a taxi (at least, if you are carrying your backpacks and it's 90 degrees). The taxi ride therefore costs about 2/3 of the price of the bus ticket from KL and there was no sign of any airline seats in this Proton. We'd spoken to a guy in the boutique cafe in Melaka - a native of Georgetown - who pointed us in the direction of two very nice hotels and a nominal extra cost of the very average looking backpacker hostels and guesthouses in the backstreets of town. We therefore took his advice and landed
a very plush ensuite place with two kingsize beds bigger than most rooms we've stayed in since we left home - all with a view of the city and over towards Butterworth on the mainland. We dined like kings on the buffet breakfast the following day.
As you might have read on the KL blog, we've arrived in Malaysia at the height of the festivities for the Hindu festival of Thaipusam. We had considered staying in KL to see all this in action so to speak at the Batu Caves....and indeed we had seen a few devotees ending their fasting of a month with various parts of their body being peirced before they climbed to the temple. However all the advice seemed to suggest that there would be over a million people around and it had been pretty busy during our visit. Penang was reputed to be another good place to witness this event - so we hit the road to Penang. At a temple near our hotel, they were preparing for the day - the blessing and the transfer of the golden lance to the high temple near the waterfall on the edge of Georgetown.
In
the intervening day, we thought we'd take in the other end of the temple spectrum - Kek Lok Si. It is alledgedly one of the finest Bhuddist temples in SE Asia, the largest in Malaysia and built in 1890. It was supposed to have taken 20 years to complete, but they seemed to be still hard at the construction on our visit. The central part of the temple is the Pagoda of the 10,000 Buddhas. The temple was at the foot of Penang Hill, about 7 kms from town. We caught the local bus and passed the continuation of the Hindu celebrations - smashing coconuts and setting light to them seemed to be the order of the day.
The Kek Lok Si Temple is a fairly impressive structure - not surprisingly Buddhas everywhere and some commanding views over Georgetown. We finished the day off with some local fayre and washed down by an obligatory Tiger at the very convenient Red Garden Food Court.
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