Wanderings in Penang

As I mentioned in my previous post, we have spent our last few days in Malaysia in Penang. The inner city of George Town, where we have been staying, is UNESCO World Heritage listed just like Melaka, and similarly is full of remnants of colonial times.

The charming little lanes and alleys here are added to by lovely street art that seems to pop out at you at random. And the street stalls are in absolute abundance, I think even if you lived here your whole life you wouldn't have a hope of sampling all the food on offer. I will now take this opportunity to declare my most true and fervent love for chicken rice, which I will miss most sincerely when I return back to steak/sausage-loving Australia.

Temple Tuesday: the Penang bonanza

The past few days I have spent with an irritating head cold that has left me feeling boiling hot and less enthusiastic for getting out and about in the sun here on the island of Penang. I had thought I had escaped the illness my travel tour manager contracted whilst we were in Singapore but was ambushed while recovering from a "quick" trip to the pub to watch the football. Oh well, these things happen to even the very best of us.

This Temple Tuesday, in the pangs of sickness I visited a Chinese ancestral temple and marvelled briefly at the beautiful woodwork and paintings before my camera's battery chose that highly convenient moment to die and I left sweaty and scowling. 

However, earlier in the week I visited the Thai and Burmese Buddhist temples here. Both are the height of religious grandeur - the Thai temple features an enormous reclining Buddha as well as many ornate story paintings about the life of Gautama Buddha himself. Visiting temples and churches always instills a quiet feeling inside me but that was further magnified when walking through the rows of funeral urns behind the Buddha. It was quite sad to look at the young people's plaques especially. I guess it's the same in any cemetery or crematorium - perhaps I was feeling especially reflective that day.

Directly across the road the Burmese temple sprawls over a large property with beautifully maintained grounds. Inside the main building is a statue of Buddha as tall as the reclining one is long (but stupid me forgot to upload a picture of that!). There are some lovely statues about but one that did puzzle me was of a rather hideous little woman. If anyone can illuminate the significance of her that would be grand.

The Thai temple:

 

 

The Burmese temple:

 

Those tortoise-releasing scallywags have obviously been up to no bloody good again!

As a bonus for those of you of the Christian persuasion, here is the oldest Anglican church in South East Asia - St George's:

All extremely windy mountainous roads lead to... Cameron Highlands

For the first time since arriving in Asia, I spent the last few days wishing I'd packed a jumper.

After a four hour bus ride from Kuala Lumpur, half of which was up a windy mountain-side road not for the weak of stomach (someone behind me was sick halfway up, which left me tightly pursing my lips for the remainder of the journey), we reached Tanah Rata in the Cameron Highlands. The town is quite the little tourist hub, and I entertained myself guessing nationalities of the Europeans wandering about (Germans, Germans, Germans and more Germans). 

Sitting 1400m above sea level the clouds hang low above Tanah Rata, giving everything a rather damp feel, but the vivid colours of everything reminded me of a cooler Taveuni in Fiji. It was the first opportunity for me to try the new camera I'd purchased in KL (my travel tour manager having purchased his own too every shot was fiercely competitive) as we wandered around town taking in the parks, waterfalls and tea plantations this area is famous for.

Temple Tuesday: Batu Caves, Kuala Lumpur

Temple Tuesday once again fell on an auspicious date for the common man, as we spent the first afternoon of 2013 on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur visiting the Batu Caves. These limestone caves are home to one of the largest Hindu shrines outside of India dedicated to the god Murugan. 

It seems in the world of religious shrines bigger is often better. Upon arrival at the train station we were greeted by an enormous statue of the monkey deity Hanuman (incidentally, almost my entire knowledge of Hindu gods comes from the 1992 animated marathon Ramayana I had to watch several times when I was sick in Fiji one week, Youtube for 170 minutes of occasional lols). A short stroll along and you are faced with a 42 metre high golden statue of Murugan himself, the largest in the world.

A mere 272 steps up the hill (avoiding the rapscallion monkeys and toppling over backwards) and you are rewarded with a nice view of KL, some cool caves and the opportunity to watch a Hindu service in action in a rather unique locale.

(Apologies for the crap quality of the pictures, was relying on the iPhone that day.)

Lazy days in Melaka, Malaysia

We've been staying in Kuala Lumpur these last few days for the New Year (pictures to come soon) but as I haven't yet talked about our time in Melaka I will share some pictures from those few days last week first. 

We left Singapore on the bus last Tuesday, on my first ever crossing to another country that wasn't via plane. The journey from Johor Bahru at the border to Melaka took about three hours along the very good motorway. 

Melaka is a UNESCO World Heritage listed city, due to the various remnants of Dutch and Portuguese colonisation that decorate the city. The Dutch influence is especially obvious when wandering along the river that cuts through Chinatown and Little India.

Here we were able to relax after the full on experience of Singapore, and I must confess I did spend one entire day in bed. I was suuuuper chilled after that.