Day 6 - Snakes! Why did it have to be snakes?

It’s Alan’s turn to blog tonight. About time!

Today’s plan was to be chauffeured around by a driver in his car to see the sights of Penang, so we organised it with our hotel concierge last night.

First thing this morning was a trip downstairs to the breakfast buffet which is included in our room rate. There was something for everyone with tons of different stuff to choose from so we had a good feed. We were particularly impressed at the fact that they had strawberry milk.

Our driver, James, arrived at exactly 10am and we set off in his Proton. Thankfully he has air conditioning as the day was warming up already. Our first stop was at the Botanical Gardens at the base of Penang Hill. This wasn’t one of our scheduled stops but James said it was worthwhile. There used to be a funicular to take people to the top of Penang Hill but it has closed recently and a new one is being built but won’t be opened until March. James said that there’s a dude with a jeep who can drive us up there for RM100. We decided against that especially since when we arrived there we saw a sign saying RM15 per person or RM60 for a full car. Tourist trap!  They must have thought we couldn’t read. So we had a bit of a walk around the unspectacular Botanical Gardens, although the orchid house was very pretty. Unfortunately no photography was allowed in there. Maybe the flash hurts the orchids eyes?

We then proceeded to our next destination which was the two Buddhist temples right opposite each other. Well that should have been our next stop except that James took us to a pewter showroom first, where the ladies gave us a detailed history of all things pewter and tried everything within their power to get us to buy something. I didn’t think we were going to be let out of the place without giving them a donation. But we didn’t anyway.

Ok so finally we made it to the Wat Chaiyamangalaram Thai Buddhist temple, also known as the reclining Buddha. He was huge and indeed he was having a lie down. The temple also contained thousands of urns holding the ashes of people who donated money for this to be their resting place.

 

Right across the street was the Dhammikarama Burmese Buddhist Temple which was built in 1803. The grounds contained numerous ponds and statues of lots of different animals. Oh and a bell which I donged with a big wooden mallet. Sarah had a toilet break at the temple but she didn’t pay the 20sen (6 cents) entry fee. Naughty naughty! You never let me have any money whilst on holidays.



We continued our journey onwards to the Penang Bridge, the 3rd longest bridge in the world at 13.5km. It’s actually not easy to get a good view of it which is understandable given that it’s such a tiny bridge. Apparently it’s due for an extension soon which will make it over 25km long.

A bit more driving and then we arrived at the Snake Temple. And as the name suggests, yes, it’s inhabited by a lot of snakes. Oh fun! There were people having their photo taken with snakes being draped over them and before we knew it we had a big heavy snake around our shoulders, Sarah had one around her neck and I even had a little guy on my head. It was heavy and a little bit freaky but we survived without too much trouble. We then entered a section with a lot of snakes in cages and glass cubicles. There was a big yellow albino python who we were allowed to touch and he was just adorable. There were all sorts of different deadly snakes in there, including a king cobra in a cage with a warning sign saying don’t let him kiss you or it will be your last kiss. Of concern were the rabbits in a cage.  There for show or snake food?



Our last stop was at the Kek Lok Si Temple which is a huge impressive temple built on the side of a mountain. James drove us to a higher section so that we could walk down and meet him at the bottom. 

During our walk down the many steps we came across a pond area filled with hundreds of big turtles, many of whom were trying to climb over each other to find shade or a cooler place. We walked down the alleyways, past all the street vendors trying to sell us their shirts and souvenirs until we reached the bottom where James was having his lunch. The aim here is to not stop and not to look at any shops.  I stopped to look at some masks and the lady told me RM27 (less than A$10).  I wasn’t really interested and as I walked off, she hit me across the arm and said, “OK RM15”. Maybe I would have bought at that price had she not hit me.

We’d seen everything we wanted to see today so it was back to the hotel for us, although James tried to get us to visit some other showrooms along the way. He probably gets a kickback for every sale he brings into the places.

I had a splitting headache so I had a lie down for a while and Sarah went down to the pool for a swim and to read her book. I met her down there later on and we had a swim together and played on the water slides for a while because there was hardly anyone else around. Water slides just don’t seem to like me. I tend to stop halfway down.

We were looking forward to dinner tonight as we’d heard good things about a joint just up the road from here so we walked up there only to find that they’re closed on Wednesdays. Bummer! Oh well, we just went to the place next door. The spicy Malaysian satay was delicious.

Back in our room now and listening to some really bad singing coming from downstairs. We thought it must be karaoke because it was so off-key, but Sarah went down to investigate and it’s two dudes playing in the hotel lobby and nobody watching them. I’m not surprised since we can all hear it clearly in our rooms.

There probably won’t be too much to report tomorrow as we’re planning on having a very relaxing day by the pool. But we’ll see. From what I know of tomorrow’s schedule, it seems to be totally food related.