Breakfast, as always , just downstairs, began with fresh fruit. Then Ted chose French toast, and I had the yogurt pot and croissants – this time with kaya (a coconut “jam” made with coconut milk, eggs, and sugar) which tasted exactly as delicious as I’d imagined it would.
Today’s destination, because Kumar said “you must go” was The Habitat on Penang Hill.
When we were here last year, the closest we got to Penang Hill was the Kek Lok Si temple (Episode 634). It was pretty spectacular, so we had no idea what we’d missed.
Accessing the temple involved a funicular and stone stairs; to access the top of Penang Hill we had a choice of funicular or a hill hike. Given that the funicular can the travel 712 m (2336 ft or 0.44 miles) of the hill’s 831m(2726ft) above sea level in just 4.5 minutes, it was an easy choice. I’d like to think we’re learning something about how much we can exert ourselves in the equatorial heat.
The views over the city were hazy with the mid-day heat, but cleared up in the early afternoon.
The area at the upper funicular station is quite touristy, with vendors, eateries, caricature artists, a small museum, gift shop, and staged photo ops – and destined to become even more-so with the completion of a cable car currently under construction.
My big strong man got captured by a bright pink bunny and needed help to escape its clutches.
The walkways and stairs are beautifully landscaped.
We were climbing ever higher, but the haze persisted.
We didn’t linger in the touristy area; our goal was the UNESCO Biosphere rainforest area called The Habitat.
The area has been curated to encourage visitors while still protecting the plants and animals. During a visit that lasted about 2 hours, we only encountered 8 other people. It was sublimely peaceful – just the sound of crickets, cicadas, a few birds, and the rustle of leaves whenever a breeze appeared.
In addition to interpretive signs describing flora and fauna, there were also signs describing the area’s history.
But for us, it was all about spending a day in nature.
The first portion of our walk was along a stressed ribbon bridge.
We saw several Great Egg/Blue Moon butterflies
A short way past the end of Langur Way was Curtis Crest Tree Top Walk, the highest publicly accessible viewing point in Penang (at 800m above sea level). For perspective, had we chosen to go up to the skywalk atop the Komtar Tower, we would only have been 817 FEET above sea level, or just 1/3 as high.
Ted and I took turns taking photos of each other in the sky.
Once back on terra firma, there was the obligatory silly photo of Gramps for our grandsons.
We met a lovely young German couple at one of the photo stops, and traded photo-taking with them so that we could each have “couples” photos.
Ted noticed these really interesting looking ginger plants growing under one of the trees.
Although we each came away from the walk with a couple of bug bites, we never saw what bit us. In fact, despite the absolute cacophony of cicadas, we didn’t see them or any other flying insects. This Giant Pill Millipede was the only insect we saw (not counting butterflies).
We also got a partial glimpse of an Asian fairy-bluebird.
We had almost despaired of seeing any rainforest wildlife when from the trees above things started dropping all around us, and branches began wildly bouncing.
DUSKY LANGURS! Lots of them – jumping from tree to tree anything but gracefully. They were a lot of fun to watch, although several times they startled me by jumping off a branch near my head causing the branch to spring up abruptly with the release of their weight. These “leaf monkeys”, so called because of their leaf diet, have been designated as endangered since 2015 due to habitat loss, so this biosphere is especially important for them.
On our 1.5 km/0.93mi stroll from The Habitat back to the upper funicular station, we took advantage of a few more photo spots.
We’re glad we took Kumar’s advice, because it was a really lovely way to spend the day..
While we both like rice, I wanted a change of pace and was craving noodles (“mee”), so we headed hungrily to Mee Tarik Chulia (Chulia Street Pulled Noodles) for our evening meal, my lunch meal having been yesterday’s second pot-de-crème that Ted hadn’t wanted, a plum and this afternoon’s treat of a slice of banana bread, and Ted’s having been a handful of sweets.
We were very impressed with the clean fresh ambiance of this 100% halal Muslim Chinese restaurant, and the fried noodles with beef and pork were really yummy. They absolutely satisfied my craving.
After dinner we strolled around for a bit soaking in how much lovelier all the buildings look lit up.
We continued to discover more street art. Most of that I’m saving for a photos-only post on our next travel day, but I couldn’t resist including these famous people in today’s memories.
Rose and Ted’s Excellent Adventure 