Penang Hill and Kok Lok Si

A couple days ago I went to Penang Hill.  I took the bus from Komtar (the shopping center) to the botanical gardens but during the ride it started to rain, I’ve been dragging my poncho around everyday but somehow while switching bags I forgot it!  Fortunately there was a cafe near the entrance of the park and I ended up waiting out the storm with a German guy that had been on the bus with me.  Once the rain let up we took a nice walk through the botanical park where we saw a really interesting tree and a group of monkeys.

The hike turned out to be a walk up a very steep road.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a road that was that steep for that long.  It wound back and forth but didn’t level out at all until we were 3.5 km up.  It was exhausting!

We saw another group of monkeys on the way up.  It’s amazing how close they will get. I was taking pictures of a few in the trees when I realized that another one had come to check me out and was only a couple feet away.  

We made it to the top and checked out a small Hindu temple.  We went to a restaurant that overlooks the city but it was so foggy I could only make out vague outlines of buildings.

We took the funicular train down which was an interesting experience, the train travels at a steep angle but the floor is horizontal.  It took only a few minutes to travel down the hill that took a couple hours to climb.

After Penang Hill we took another bus to Kok Lok Si which is home to 10,000 Buddhas and a large statue of Kuan Yin.  

To get to the temple we had to walk
by lines of touristy shops

Turtle pond complete with a pagoda and hundreds of turtles

Just a small fraction of the Buddha's, there are supposed to
be 10,000