So, continue my story Short Escape to Malaysia, after our breakfast, we comeback to hotel, take a shower, do some a little bit makeup for “agak cetar” looks. And then we ride out motorcycle to next location. We want to go to Kek Lok Si Temple, it’s so popular tourist attraction there, Standing on a hilltop at Air Itam, near Penang Hill, Kek Lok Si is the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia. The complex is divided into three zones while the temple grounds comprise the hill entrance, souvenir, food and drinks stalls and the turtle liberation pond. The mid section of the temple houses temples, gardens, the pagoda and the four heavenly kings pavilion; meanwhile the hilltop plays host to an enormous statue of the Goddess of Mercy, Kuan Yin as well as more gardens and temples. So, that’s the reason why we want to go there.
The journey from our hotel to Kek Lok Si Temple is quite far 10 km and we rode motorcycle when sun exactly on top of our head, super hot guys. Using GPS we find the right route and luckily we arrived without getting lost. But yeah we know in air itam, there is a very popular curry mee. This curry mee is must visit and must eat item when you visit Penang. This curry mee is run by 2 sisters since 1946 and become famous day by day until now. So yeah we not directly go to Kek Lok Si, we stop at this curry me first to have lunch. So our rote is like this
You can at the picture above there is 2 old woman, 1 using a purple clothes and 1 in the middle with black clothes, they are the sister who run this stall since 1946. I don’t know how old are they, but from their appearance I know they are old enough to not working anymore, enjoy their old day with family relax and happy. But they still there, still run the stall and serve the customer. But because their age, they not working alone anymore, there are some worker that help them to run this stall, maybe their kids. If yu read my other short escape to malaysia stories you know that I eat curry mee at Pulau Tikus market, and compare to that curry mee, this sister curry mee is more delicious. It’s so good, i even want to have another bowl, but yeah it’s a big portion and I eat my breakfast that morning, so i am really full. The curry mee doesn’t have thick santan soup, it’s not spicy, but if you like spicy think you can ask more spicy curry sauce and they will give it to you for free. the curry has pig blood curd and squid, so yeah it’s not halal guys. It open from 7.30 am to 1.00 pm but sometimes they close early because the curry mee is gone. So come early if you want to taste it, and you must taste it.
After, we eat our lunch, we ride our motorcycle to Kek Lok Si Temple. The curry mee is located near the market, the way to Kek Lok SI Temple also start from that market. you can find the road sign and We must go up to the temple, first we found so big parking area for tourist bus and car this is the first entrance, we go up more and find the second entrance, and then we go up more but as we go up it’s really creepy and so quite road, so we decided to go to the second entrance. But the fact is, you can go up more and find the third entrance that directly bring you to Kuan Yin statue.
We parked at second entrance and enter the temple, I think this is the main temple here. there are 3 Buddha statue inside and there is a wishing tree inside. There are a lot of colorful ribbon that each color represent your wish, like pink for love, blue for peace, etc. You can make wish as musch as you want and make a donation for it. Tourist really like doing something like this. And then we go up to Kuan Yin Statue using monorail, and we must pay for that up and down. The view at Kuan Yin statue is so breathtaking, you can see Penang from above, so beautiful. After sightseeing the temple, we decided to go to other place.
Kuan Yin Statue
Kek Lok Si Temple
From Kek Lok Si Temple we go to Chew Jetty. To enter the Chew Jetty, we park our motorcycle near the entrance, and walked inside.
“Having been a home on stilts on the shores for the Chew Clan community more than a century and is still now, the Chew Jetty has withstood the test of time and a strong testament of living heritage for Penang and the world to mesmerize.
Started merely as a wooden passageway and slowly created into a cluster of houses perch above the sea shores by stilts above the never ending shifting tides, this communal site is locked in a time zone by itself, disregarding the urban development that is taking place around it.” ~ www.visitpenang.gov.my.
It’s definetly a tourist hotsppot. We strolling the way from the entrance , see so many houses, so many shop that sell food, souvenir and of course so many tourist. You can see how people live there. Some people just hate about the tourist i think, because the close their door thightly, and yell when some tourist take a photo of their home. I think it make sense, because it’s their area, their privacy, and it’s like a stranger enter their yard and take a photo of course someone will be angry, but most of them it’s okay with all of this tourist activity, even make money from sell something in front of their house.
We found a temple at the end the road, just a small temple, but you really can smell sea ther, sea breeze, salty air. So we decided to sit down for a while and enjoy the wind and the wave sound. But yeah we become so sleepy guys. Mr Damz even sleep there for awhile.
In front of Chew Jetty parking area, there are so much food stall, and we decided to enter the food court across the street . And this is what we eat :
Fried Chicken
We found friend chicken stall, and because we just need a snack, we decided to bought this. And it’s really delicious on my pinion. the skin is crispy, but the meat is still tender and not dried. So good for snack.
After we eat, we decided to come back to our hotel and take a little bit resting time. Mandra want to go mall because she want buy something for her husband, but me, Miss Pepz and Mr Damz did not want to go to mall so we decided to stay at hotel. But while taking a rest Mr Damz said we must try cendol in Penang. There is a cendol stall in penang that really popular, so must travel blog said that this ice cendol is something we must eat in Penang. So we go, it’s not far from our hostel, we ride motorcycle and with GPS we arrived safely maybe less than 5 minutes.
The queue is so long, so many tourist want to tried. At that street there are 2 ice cendol stall, but this one is really have a long queue. So contrast with other stall. we queue too, and we bought 2 type of ice, here it is :
Ice Cendul aka Ice Cendol aka dawet
Ice Kacang
Honestly after we taste it, I don’t think it’s really worth to queue that long. Because in my opinion ice cendol in Indonesia especially in Bandung is better than this one. Ice kacang too more delicious in my hometown, Sungailiat Bangka. So I don’t really get it why it’s so famous. Maybe because the weather, Penang is hot, and eating ice is so good in this weather, and maybe because it’s the pioneer of ice cendol in Penang it became famous, but the taste is so so.
After we eat es cendol we come back again to hostel, take some rest again and our break got disturbed by Mr damz. He really want to eat at really famous restaurant in George Town. It’s called Tek Sen Restaurant. It’s really famous with local and tourist, it always pack with hungry people. Tek Sen restaurant open at 12 – 2.30 pm and 6.00 – 8.30 pm, so short opening time, that’s why it’s always full of people. So, at 6.00 pm we went there and we must wait a little bit to got a seat. I think this is a family restaurant, we can order some menu and have it with family. We order 3 dishes, here they are :
After eat, we decided to have another meal, this night is our last night in Penang, tomorrow we will comeback to Jakarta. So we want to taste India food, nasi kandar. It’s look like nasi padang in Indonesia, but maybe it’s have indian taste or smell inside, we quite curious about it. so we found this restaurant Nasi Kandar Line Clear, It’s not too far from our hostel, and from food review, it’s must to try, so although we full, we still went there to eat. I and Miss Pepz, order 1 portion of nasi kandar and shared it. But suddenly Mr Damz that owned a india food restaurant in Bandung want to compare his restaurant food and this restaurant that run by Indian people. So at the end we eat a lot of indian food and get a short tutor about Indian food and how to cook that from Mr Damz. And happily Mr damz said his restaurant food is similar with this so he on the right track.
Nasi Kandar – It’s really looks ike nasi padang, but the sauce is different, and the topping it’s not same with nasi padang, but i am pretty sure they are still family. The taste is nice, the sauce is have a deep flavour, typical Indian food i think
Naan
Chapati
Dossa
After our dinner, we come back to our hotel and meet Mandra there. And the packing time is arrived, we organized our luggage and prepare to fly back to Jakarta tomorrow. Our flight in on the afternoon so, at the morning we have time to strolling around to find breakfast and having lunch there.
We having breakfast at dimsum place, we just roaming around without destination to find a breakfast place. We plan to eat nasi lemak or eat at kopi tiam, but the popular one is already packed with people, we can not sit, and we already hungry, so we find another option and find this restaurang. It’s a big dim sum restaurant, so even it’s full of people, we still got a table. We must took the dim sum by ourselves at the station, we can order drink or other food beside dimsum on our table. The waiter/waitress mostly old people and they speak chinese so it’s quite hard to communicate so we just order dim sum (because we can took it by ourselves) and drink. After eat, we must call the waiter/waitress, he/she will count how much we eat and then we pay it to them. The name of this restaurant is Zim Sum restaurant.
some of Dim Sum selection
After eat, we come back to our hotel, take a bath, and mr damz is go to Little india to find his restaurant think. When he come back we go to penang famous street art. to taking some photo. But mostly the spot is full of people and some picture as not good anymore, so accidentally we arrived at durian ice cream stall, it’s a small shop that sell durian mochi. We bought some for our family in Jakarta, and tried their ice cream too. We want eat durian so badly, but unfortunately it’s not durian suason so we can got any. this ice cream really help us, it’s taste so good and really taste like durian , so yummy.
