| Welcome to
Kek Lok Si Temple on the island of PENANG, Malaysia. |
| We arrived on PENANG
as Lisa has already told you, extremely tired of travelling.
We had one day to see the sights of Georgetown. Taking
the advice of a friend, we decided to take a self guided
walking tour of the city and then visit Kek Lok Si temple,
located on a hill inland about three miles from the city. |
| |
| |
| After eating breakfast
in a lovely Malay cafe (photo of Lisa, right), we attempted
to find the much talked about temple of the Dragons. |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| After walking a
few minutes in the heat, we decided to get a ride in a
bike-taxi. These contraptions are extremely comfortable
and relaxing on the passengers but seem to be hard on
the driver who has to pedal the passengers along. |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| We reached
the temple of the Dragons, which as you can see is being
renovated. Come back next year and it will be finished.
OK, maybe we will.
At this point I feel it is important to mention that
if you are going to the Louvre in Paris - it is closed
on a Monday. We found out the hard way. |
| |
| |
| |
| We did see
a few other temples on the way. The Cheah Si Sek Tek
Tong temple, which needs to repair its lanterns, has
an impressive rooftop and is easily accessible from
the city centre.
We were amassed at the amount of work it must have
taken to complete a roof like this. I wonder how they
keep it maintained. |
| |
| After visiting
Cheah Si Sek Tek Tong, we went to the city bus station
and caught a bus to Kek Lok Si. On the way we saw a few
things we would like to share with you. There are many
mosques and temples in Penang owing to the may different
religions present. We did not have a chance to visit a
mosque during our stay, but as you can see, they are very
impressive feats of architecture. |
| |
| |
| |
| Lisa was enthralled
by the school children who gradually filled the bus to
overflowing, and took this for you. Every student we came
across has the same uniform. This is the girls uniform. |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| And this is one
of the schools. |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| We also passed
by many large housing estates surrounded by large grassy
areas and hills. The location for each estate seemed to
be very well chosen with pleasant scenery and a sufficient
number of stores. The buildings were BIG though. Hundreds
of balconies sprouting from the sides of each building,
grated for protection, and obviously used for drying laundry. |
|
| |
| |
| |
| Getting to Kek
Lok Si was adventurous, and the sight that met us on our
arrival was spectacular. Have a scroll down and see what
we saw. |
| |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
| It was a wonderful
day, the sun was shining and the temple was by far the
most beautiful and elaborate structure I have seen on
the trip so far. One of the most interesting things
about it was that it was still a functional temple.
Many Malaysian people were visiting to pay their respects
to Buddha, and there was a constant sound of chanting
in the air. |
| |
| After climbing
up through the levels of the temple complex, we finally
came to the place where the chanting originated. It
was a large hall, heavily decorated with gold and red
with tables set out parallel to the front of the hall.
At the tables were about a thousand people singing and
chanting the same song, reading it (I assume) from large
tomes placed in front of them. It was quite an experience.
|
