Malaysia Day 2 – Cram as much touristy stuff in as you can

We knew there was a lot to see, and lots of ground to cover. So we hired a driver and crammed in as much as we possibly could in one day.

The day started off with going to another food market that my sister knew of. The word that would sum up my entire experience would be “smelly”. All I could smell was seafood mixed with body odour, it was disgusting. However, the food was apparently amazing. I had just filled up on some stuff at our hotel so wasn't in the mood for it, although my sister tucked in to some tofu something-or-other. I may be wrong in what it was, and I'm sure she'll correct me at some point. All I know is that I tried it and wasn't a fan, but she was and enjoyed it thoroughly.

After that the temple rampage began. We visited:

• A laying down Buddha, fittingly called “The Reclining Buddha Temple” (Wat Chayamangkalaram)
• A large area called the “Thousand Buddha Temple“
• Some other temple that had turtles, and a globe, and a statue that I was disrespectful and mimicked the statues, but now in hindsight regret a little bit
• A HUGE, massive, gigantic Bronze Statue buddha that was at the top of the hill for the “Thousand Buddha Temple” mentioned in the second one

I basically lost count of the ones that we visited, and can't remember their names. Oops. I just know that I looked at buildings with a LOT of intricate detail, got to see monks blessing some people (pretty sure that's not the right term), and put some wishes for the future on a wishing tree.

After all the temples, we opted to head to Penang Hill. We caught the cable car to the top of the hill (it's an incredibly steep climb, and quite fun in the cable car), then wandered into the restaurant and promptly ordered ourselves some snacks and cocktails. You know, the important things.

Afterwards we booked in the driver again for Friday (we have one more temple that we want to visit, this time it's one I'm insisting on and it has LIVE snakes, eep) and also to drive across a bridge. I should know more about the bridge, and I will definitely find out once we do it on Friday. I think it's the one you would take if you were driving to KL, and it's the longest something-something bridge. Very informative aren't I?

We retired to our room for naps, showers and chilling out, then headed out for a wander around for dinner and to look at the uber-luxurious Eastern & Oriental Hotel. We managed to find our way into a food garden called “Red Garden”, which actually turned out to be the one that Anthony Bourdain had visited when he travelled to Malaysia! We had been watching the episode the night before we flew out, so we were super excited to find it.

I shared the world's best butter chicken with Claire, drank the foulest coconut water and a super strong passionfruit float, and finished up with getting mildly pissy with mum on some beer. All in all, a very unhealthy and unbalanced diet, the exact kind you have when you're on holidays.

It was a lot less walking than the previous day, and thank god for the driver, but it was SO hot. I had never been so relieved to have a shower when we got back to the hotel, and passed out heavily in bed for a great night sleep.