Penang (Day 2)

Since Penang is full of cars and full of sites, we decided to splurge and book a private tour with a certified tour guide.  He arrived at to pick us up at our apartment and we set off at 9 AM.

First stop is Reclining Buddha Wat Chayamangkalaram, a Thai Buddhist temple.  As you know from following our blog, reclining buddha is our favorite of the Buddhas, so we were looking forward to it.

Oh...since we have a tour guide, we also have a photographer, so there will be many good photos of all of us versus the usual selfies....and here is the first of many.

This Buddhist temple is guarded by two seven-headed land dragons and two sea dragons.

And inside...there he is...reclining Buddha.  This one is supposedly the 4th longest reclining Buddha in Asia.

Besides the reclining Buddha, this temple had different Buddha poses for the day of the week you were born.  I was born on a Thursday, so my Buddha pose is meditating,  

Tim's pose is reclining, although he refused to lay down on the ground :-(

There are also Buddha based on the Chinese Zodiac.  Tim, on the left is a snake and I am a Dog.

One last thing to do is to get your fortune.  You insert a token an a light spins around the wheel.  Whatever number it stops on, you take that number fortune from the box....why not.

I spun number 2, but I really didn't like what my fortune was.  Our tour guide said that if you like the fortune keep it, it you don't like it throw it away...so away it went.

The next stop was right across the street, Dhammikarama Burmese Temple.  This temple has a standing Buddha with a granite head and gold-leaf paint on most of the surfaces.

We are done with Buddha for now.  Next stop is taking a funicular to the top of Penang Hill.  You can actually hike up, which Tim and I would have chosen, but it takes 2-3 hours versus the 5 minute funicular ride, so the funicular it is.

The incline at the start is pretty steep at 28 degrees, and it traveled at a pretty good clip at 33 ft/sec or almost 23 miles per hour.  Oh...this part of Malaysia is very Chinese, hence the need to still wear a mask on the funicular.

A view we didn't earn by hiking, but a view none the less.

Also at the top of the hill is the Hindu temple, Sri Aruloli Thirumurugan.  The temple is dedicated to Murugan, the Hindu god of war who is the brother of Ganesha, the human with an elephant head.

Here is the whole, happy family, Ganesha, Agni, Svaha, and Murugan.

Awwwww...we posed inside pitcher flowers...how cute and touristy.

Before heading back down the hill, we stopped and had a fruit juice.  I decided that we should try something different, so for Tim I ordered an avocado and palm sugar juice, and for me a hog plum & sour plum.  Both were weird and oddly delicious.

After the juice break, we headed back to the funicular.  Oh...I didn't mention to you that when we got to the funicular at the bottom of the hill, the line was at least 2 hours long, so we paid the extra money and bought the express pass.  With this pass we can walk by all the "unfortunates" and take our snobby, westerner attitude and cut the line.  I felt a little bad, but oh well...we have a lot to see and only today to see it.  So...cutting the line it is.

Back down to the bottom of Penang Hill and we headed to the nearby ​Kek Lok Si Temple, the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia.The grounds are very colorful and beautiful. That tall tower with the golden peak is called the pagoda of Ten Thousand Buddhas.  The top of the tower is build in Burmese-style, the middle is Thai-style and the bottom is Chinese-style architecture. We didn't get to go up and inside of the pagoda because we had lots more to see, but the rest of the complex was very cool.

This was the second time we saw these "wishing ribbons".  You purchase your choice of ribbon for 1 MYR => $0.22 USD and place it on the "tree."  Examples of what ribbons you can purchase are: Academic Progress, Successful Career, Bodily Health, Family to be Safe, and World Peace.

Time for lunch, but first durian.  We heard the local durian was very good, so our driver took us to a place that had two different kinds of locally grown durian.  Both of them were really good, but expensive. I think it cost over $35 USD for the two that we shared.

After the durian Tim and I shared a plate of Char Kway Teow, a smoky flat wide rice noodles with shrimp, fish tofu, scrambled egg, bean sprouts, and Chinese chives.  I opted for duck egg this time instead of chicken egg.  The duck egg added a little bit of good funkiness to it.  This dish has become my go-to when I don't know what else to order.

After lunch we did a bit of driving and looking out the window on the way to George Town historic area.  The building on the left is the KOMTAR tower.  KOMTAR is an acronym for something in Malaysian. It is the third tallest building in Malaysia at 816 feet.  There is a skywalk and observation deck at the top, but we didn't visit. 

The green building is Tap Clan Building.  Meaning it is the building for the family name Yap...which is Susan's family!

We didn't stop at the Tap Clanhouse.  Susan said she had been there before and there is nothing much to see, but that brings us to our next stop, The Khoo Clanhouse.

The house is guarded by two lions...a female on the left and a male on the right,

The Khoo's came to Penang Island in the 1600's from China and became wealthy traders.  In 1850, the clan house was built.  There are documents here that allow Khoo's to trace their lineage back over 650 years.

This photo below is interesting.  The Khoo's came up with the idea to set the middle name for each generation up to the 47th generation.  So, according to this table, every 25th generation person will have the middle name "Lay" allowing people to know what generation Khoo they are.

The clanhouse has 2 entrances.  A left and a right.  The tour guide explained to us whenever you see 2 doors, you should always enter to the right because that is the dragon door.  The left door is the tiger door.  At this house, the doors are clearly marked as you can see the dragon near this right door.

Inside is a shrine to past generations along with Khoo's that did well in life.  The plaques used to be large until they started running out of room.  Now they are small as seen below the big ones.  There are multiple rooms like this with plaques of Khoo's.

Wow...it is hot.  Getting back into the air-conditioned van felt good.  We are now driving to the UNESCO portion of George Town.  But first....the driver stopped to make Susan get out for a photo of her clanhouse.

George Town is know for some very nice street art.  Here is a taste of the really good ones.

We passed this old-timey blacksmith shop.   This guy was making stakes by hand.

Time to visit the famous Chew Jetty.  When the Chinese came here in the 19th century they built communities of stilted houses along the water.  Each family or clan had their own Jetty.  Today there are a few of these 100 year old jetties still hanging on with some being very commercialized like Chew Jetty, and others being more tranquil. Today we walked down Chew Jetty just to get a feel for what they are all about.

The first thing you come across at any of these clan jetties is a temple.

Then you walk from the solid land onto boards that are on stilts above the water.  There are commercial businesses and private residence along this jetty.  Yes...peoples still live here.  As you can imagine, since these clan jetties are along the water, they are sitting on prime real estate.  Luckily, because this area is no a UNESCO Heritage Site, these jetties are protected allowing the residents to continue living their lives the way they have been for over 100 years.

At the end of each jetty there is a temple as there was at the start.

After 8 hours, our tour has come to an end.  Here is our tour guide showing us everything he showed us and also pointed out all the places he will show us on our next visit to Penang Island....uhm...probably not going to happen.

After such a long and hot day you would think I would just go back to the apartment, shower, go out for dinner, and call it a night.  But, it just so happens that today I am participating in a virtual 5K with other friends in memory of our good friend Dave Grassie.  So, after about 1 hour of relaxing in the air-conditioned apartment, I headed out for a 5K walk.

Let's go.

1 Kilometer down.

2 Kilomenters complete...cool coconuts.

3 Kilometers done.

4 Kilometers done in front of a hamburger vender.

Rain started and I was lucky to find a covers walkway at the 5 Kilometer point.

This is my finish line.  It was actually 5.55 Kilometers that took me back to the delicious hawker center for a beer and some dinner.

5 K walk summary.

Today's dinner consisted of Tiger Beer, Fish Head Soup, and Baby Octopus.  Tim met me there and he had some grilled prawns.

Oh..see that bottle below.  That is Pep poh, a drink that I ordered because it sounded interesting.  The bottle is actually the concentrate that they put some in a cup and added water and ice. It tasted a bit medicinal, but pretty refreshing.  

You have to check this out.  This woman was sitting at the table next to us.  Check out her iPhone case.  So crazy.

After dinner we walked back to the apartment, blogged, did laundry, and finally went to sleep.  Tomorrow we have a 2.5 hour drive to Ipoh, so not too bad.  Until then...