Day 41 - the sights of Georgetown, Malaysia

This morning we started the day off with a visit to the hotel's shabby gym, then the pool, which had a lot of screaming children clothed head to toe in Muslim-friendly swimming outfits.  We had a hard time finding the closest laundry place but after we asked four or five locals we dropped our huge bag off (for $3 USD) and had our brunch at an open market.  We bought our meal from one server but were referred to a different server to pay for our beers.

Chicken and Rice...$2USD

We decided to rent a scooter so we could tackle all of Georgetown's sights and we drove to Dhammikarama, the first Burmese Buddhist Temple in Malaysia, built in 1803.
Entrance to the Temple complex

there were bowls of cat food everywhere, to keep the rats out?

Stunning!

We almost left but I insisted on seeing the Liberation pond, which sadly turned out to be a small, filthy pond where about two hundred turtles of various sizes were trying to swim around.  There was a sign asking people not to throw in food as it makes the turtles sick but that's exactly what some kids were doing when we got there...
Not knowing we were about to embark on a culinary journey!
Of course fried rice
Wonton soup

Disneyland meets Temple

Women warrior Buddha

View of the Temple grounds

A whole round of Buddha's

Entrance to the temple

Beautiful chandelier in the temple

Depictions of the same Buddha from different countries around the world

From Burmese to Buddhist...

Across the street was Wat Chaiya Mangkalaram, a Thai Buddhist temple with the 3rd largest Reclining Buddha statue in the world - 33 meters long.  It was built in 1845 on a piece of land given by Queen Victoria as a gesture of goodwill to boost trading relations with Thailand. 

Reclining Buddha

An large wall of urns with the resident's photos

A smaller room underneath the Buddha filled with the same

Gold statue of a famous Monk

Ty posing beside the Year of the Dog

Large temple

Posing with the Year of the Rat

Buddha covered up for Winter season

Nearby temple that was closed

A random assortment of decorations on this Buddha

Not wanting to waste the day and scooter rental we drove for about twenty minutes to Kek So Li, the largest Buddhist Temple in Southeast Asia. Construction on this temple started in 1890 and it is also known as the Temple of Supreme Bliss!

View from the parking lot

Gorgeous gardens

Brilliant!

The Pagoda of 10,000 Buddha's - we didn't have time to climb it!

Don't you wish you had this in your house?

We paid $3USD to take a cable car up to the top of the complex  This is a view of downtown Georgetown.

Bronze statue of Kuan Yin, a bodhisattva associated with compassion, venerated by  Buddhists.

Guardians of the Statue

Ladies in waiting

Monks playing music in the lower part of the complex

We had spied a storm coming so Ty hurried me through the rest of the complex, but I insisted on seeing the Liberation pond, which follows the Buddhist tradition of merit-making (releasing a turtle into the pond).  What we found was a sad, dirty pond full to the brim with turtles - who didn't seem that free to me.

poor little guys

Thinking we could spend a few hours eating, shopping and watching a movie, we scooted through a bit of traffic to find the Gurney Plaza/Mall! We arrived and bought tickets to the Life of Pi in 3D and then ate dinner at Max Gourmet, which was just next to the theater.  It was literally one of the best meals of our trip and SO cheap!  We ordered way too much and it was all fresh and served really fast!

What a great idea!

Nummy chicken

Despite cramming our bellies full I did get popcorn and a drink and with that we fully enjoyed the Life of Pi (only $10 USD for everything)!  After the movie we scooted back to the hotel and went right to bed, thoroughly wiped from the day's scootering and sight seeing!