The largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia

It's been a while since we visited a temple and seeing as Penang has the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia and some say in the whole of SE Asia, it would be rude not to visit on our last day here. We set off early and caught the bus to the temple. The buses give you no indication of where to get off so we spent an hour looking out for road names and signs but luckily another passenger informed us when to get off. The temple site is a bit of a building site. They're currently renovating and expanding the structures so that did ruin the whole feeling of the place. The area is huge though and set on a hillside which did mean some walking to get to see certain buildings. Luckily they have put in a hillside elevator to reach one of the monuments which was such a relief as the temperature became almost unbearable. When we first arrived we discovered a pond which was filled with hundreds of turtles which we were able to feed. Our favourite place was a garden that surrounded a tall white progoda. It was full of lush greenery and tropical flowers and had spectacular views of Georgetown which could be seen through a huge archway. We were able to climb up the progoda and see even more of the citiy from up the top. After exploring the temple we caught a bus to Penang Hill where you ride a train up to the top at 712 metres above sea level. Once again we discovered the annoyance of being a foreigner when they charged us 3 times the price of a Malay person. It makes no sense to us when you're taking up as much room as anyone else is. At the top the view was incredible though so it was worth going up there. After we headed back to Georgetown and visited a burger place we've wanted to try which was amazing. I had only two instances of negativity towards me today. At the temple, of all places, an elderly local man gestured to spit on me and then when walking to the burger place we walked to the 'little india' area and a woman spotted me, told her friend and they both glared at me with utter disgust on their faces as I walked past. Some people are so welcoming everywhere we go but there are still very judgemental people out there. We met a Malaysian family who all found it funny to call us 'you white people', which we didn't mind but upon reflection if that was us saying that in the UK about Asian people we'd get a very different response.Read more