Shangri-La

Submitted by derms on Tue, 07/12/2004 - 11:56am.

Given our less than pleasant stay at the hotel hong ping, Lotte and I decided to treat ourselves and try the Shangri-La hotel. The Shangri-La is a luxury hotel chain in Asia and I must say that it's unbelieveable! Our room has a couch, minibar, fridge, amazing view and is perfectly air conditioned. The ensuite has a shower, bath, toilet, phone and even has speakers so you can listen to the tv while you're on the john! We also get gym, pool and internet privelages as well as a gourmet breakfast and dinner. All this for $60 each! We considered not leaving the hotel, but we decided that while we were in Penang that maybe we should actually try to see some of it. So we reluctantly pried ourselves from the perfectly controlled air conditioned comfort of our room and stepped out into the bustling and humidified state that is Penang

We decided to go to the Snake Temple, which is situated 8km south of Georgetown (the capital of the state of Penang). I must say that we were quite disapointed as there were very few snakes there. In fact, I only saw one snake there. I was considering complaining, but then I realised that it was called the "Snake Temple" and not the "Snakes Temple", and that I had actually seen everything the site has to offer in about 15 seconds. I then had to appreciate how efficient that actually was - no messing about with pointless tour guides and crappy souvenir shops - just here's the snake, now beat it (as in leave the temple of course ;).

I must say that the highlight of that visit was the bus ride down to the temple. I couldn't actually fit into the seats of the bus and so had contort my body so that half of it was in the seat and the other half was sprawled out into the asile, much to the ammusement of the locals on the bus. We got chatting to one of them, who said that I looked like one of the Back Street Boys and that I should consider doing some modelling work - which if you've seen what I look like would probably be the last thing on your mind (or first thing on your mind, depending on what cranks your cheesewheel ;).

( categories: Malaysia )