Tuesday 29th February - Penang

happy leap year!

Yesterday when we were travelling up Penang hill we spotted a huge temple near by. We knew it would be very special to see so we set off today to find it. We got the local bus there and arrived at Kek Lok Si Buddhist temple  within twenty minutes. You can't enter the temple from the front, as you would think. Instead you are lead up this cave of nick nack shops which climp and climp and continue selling all this gaudy merchandise.

Eventually after about ten minutes of wandering through Aladdin's scrap yard we got to the entrance of the temple. It was REALLY impressive. I've never seen so many colours, shapes and decorative patterns merged together. We were both completely snap happy, as you can see!

 We were baffled by the massive pressence of the Swastika symbol which addorned EVERYTHING in the temple. I googled it when we got back to the hostel and learned that the Buddhist symbol means "may you prosper and have good fortune." The Thai word for hello and goodbye, 'Sawasdee Kha' is actually derived from this. It crazy how a symbol that signifies such evil in the west has such significane here.

We spent about three hours meandering throught the different sections of the temple.
We left and headed down towards the street vendors for some food. One of the guys working at the guesthouse reccommended we try some Leaksa, it's the native dish of Penang. It's basically a fish broth with chilli and other vegetable added. We both had about three mouthfuls then left the dish, whilst the locals around us devoured theirs! I felt quite bad so we made a quick escape!

We met Melinda and Ian at the guesthouse again so had a few beers with them and chatted about everything and anything. They are pretty big health food advocates so it was really ineteresting hearing them talking about how they eat and the crap that is pumped into the foods we have become so accustomed to.
I have vowed to eat more fruit and less chocolate...gotta start somewhere I guess!!