What a day!

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We need to be up early today to see the beginning of the Thaipusam Hindu festival. We walked to the first temple for 6.30am. It was packed. There are 2 chariots - gold and silver - that do a 6km route that takes all day from 6.30am until late in the evening, mainly due to the crowds.  We followed the chariots most of the morning. There was free food given away every few metres with coffee and drinks for the worshipers too. We were surprised it wasn't Indian tea but there are lots of sponsors so thought Penang White Coffee may be one of them.There are thousands of coconuts smashed on every street corner, drummers played, dancers and singers joined in too. It was busy and loud and we loved it!



We left at lunchtime and couldn't eat another thing however, we needed too! Our friend had planned a trip to A very fancy Haidilao hotpot restaurant in the Queen's Mall. It was so fancy that we were served by robots and Christine even had a manicure as part of the deal. 



We had noodle making dances and were totally blown away by this place. 


There was so much food of every kind from sweet potato noodles to super skinny duck intestine (They were actually really nice!) Incredible place. The staff were phenomenal. They treated everyone like royalty.

No more food please but we were next taken on a tour of Penang searching for special coffee with butter. The cafe we searched for was actually closed so we purchased loads of snacks to try later from a local market! We even bought more snacks at a sunset view point, the pit stop on route P14!


Next stop was a friend of a friend who knew about the timings for tomorrow's Thaipusam procession. We ate our snacks and spoke to him about the festival whilst people offered us 100 plus to drink. We then went to meet the designer  of the Hindu kavaldi pieces that the devotees carry. His work was wonderful and we chatted to him about his designs.

What a day!



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