A Rushed Visit to Kek Lok Si Temple @ Air Itam Penang

Our last but not least destination on the Penang trip on 6th Oct was the place that is so synonym with Penang's tourism, the Kek Lok Si temple near Air Itam. Supposed it was the 1st or if not the 1st it would be the first few venue to visit in our plan but somehow we changed it just because of the asam laksa at Air Itam which according to our tour guide will only open in the afternoon.

We reached the place at past 4pm, a little bit late actually. Tourists are advised to leave the temple compound latest at 6.30pm and some places such as the Bronze Kuan Yin statue area will be closed at 5.30pm.

We knew we were seriously out of time. Kek Lok Si isn't small and it is among the biggest Buddhism temple in South East Asia! With just less than 2 hours to go, we got to be hurry!

Therefore, we stopped at each station for a short while just enough to snap some photos before we continue to the next. We were looking for the entrance to the bronze Kuan Yin statue along the way which required a short ride of incline lift.

By following some signboard and after walking through a series of souvenir shops, we finally found the incline lift station which is "hidden" at a corner of a souvenir shop. Using the incline lift required a person to pay RM2.00 for one way. The staff told us the last lift to come down from the hill is at 5.30pm. There is an alternative road lead down, but it requires you to walk down the hill.

The unique thing about the incline lift is it moved diagonally instead of vertically for a typical lift. The interior is about the same, but the upper part of the incline lift was made from glass to allow tourists to view the beautiful scenery along the way.

It only took about 10 minutes to reach the higher hill where the bronze Kuan Yin statue is located. This is amazing! The 30.2 meters tall gigantic Goddess of Mercy statue was in front of my eyes and it was truly impressive!! A 20-story tall octagonal pavilion was still in construction to serve as the canopy shelter to the Kuan Yin statue with 16 granite pillars supporting the structure! It's truly an amazing construction to me!

 [The impressive gigantic Bronze Kuan Yin statue and the pavilion which served as its shelter]

We couldn't spend too much time here as the workers were chasing us for the last inclined lift downhill 15 minutes earlier than the actual time. After reaching the lower hill, we then continued our visiting to the most iconic Kek Lok Si building structure - "Pagoda of Ten Thousand Buddhas" by paying RM2.00.

[Pagoda of Ten Thousand Buddhas]

We spent some time here snapping photos before ended up our trip by visiting the most famous Penang asam laksa near the foot of Kek Lok Si temple.