23rd July - Penang

Struggled to wake up again due to airless, windowless room and so were late getting started.
After breakfast of our first Nasi Lemak (coconut rice with anchovy sambal) we went to the bus stop where we thought we could get the bus to the National Park. After waiting a long while for a bus that was apparently due every 5 mins there was still no sign so we hopped on the free shuttle bus that we couldn't find yesterday. We did a circuit of Georgetown and ended up back where we were before finally hitting jetty main station.

By this time it was past lunch so we amended plans and went to Penang Hill funicular instead. It's apparently the largest one in Malaysia and it was quite fun to ride even though I didn't enjoy it as much as the one in Hong Kong. I annoyed a lady who had pushed past us in the queue by refusing to move for the other two people she was waiting for so I guess I must be getting more self-assured in my old age. The view over the city was expansive but, like Hong Kong, the visibility was rubbish due to the weather.

We had a giggle about the 'Owl Museum' at the top because when I asked of there were any real owls there, the guy looked at me like I was insane!  I'm not sure of the appeal of a whole museum of stuff shaped like owls but someone must like it. We walked around top to 'Monkey Cup' carniverous plant garden and waved at the lazy gits who took the golf-buggy ride along the same route. I accidentally waved at the ;ady who took the huff with me and so ended up looking like a smug git but she waved back, despite looking very confused.
We bought some very tasty chickpeas (a surprise to Matt) and took a look around the Hindu temple and the outside of the mosque, both of which had been build for the people building the original railway.

The journey back down the funicular was a bit more scary because they packed it so full that I was afraid that it would go flying and crush us all into flesh soup at the bottom but we arrived safely and caught the bus to nearby Kek Lok Si buddhist  temple. We stopped to try the local speciality, Penang Laksa, which is a fishy stew that sounded lovely in theory (and was rated 7th most tasty world food by the New York Times) but was a bit too strong tasting for me.

Walked up to temple through an indoor market. The first thing we saw was the seven storey octagonal based 'Pagoda of 10,000 Buddhas' towering up in front of us and beyond, the rambling, multi-level complex of prayer halls, pagodas, bell towers and just about every other typical temple structure you can think of, in varying styles from Burmese to Chinese to Thai.

We took the inclined lift (more fun than the funicular) to very top to see the 30.2m bronze statue of Kuan Tin. As well as that and the other impressive statues, there were also smallish plaster-type figures spread around the garden including ones of Mickey and Minnie Mouse!

After walking down the big hill and catching the bus back to Georgetown, we went in search of more food from 'the leaflet' and tried Won Ton Mee and chicken satay sticks at the street stalls near our guesthouse.
We had a quick explore of the classier end of town with its expensive bars and hotels and took ourselves to bed.