Opening hours: 7 am–9 pm daily

Entrance fee: The entrance fee is free for most of the temple, but the elevator lift costs 3 MYR ($0.80), and the entrance to the pagoda is 2 MYR ($0.54).

Kek Lok Si Temple is one of Penang's landmarks. The location is on a hill, a little outside the city center of Georgetown, in the Aer Itam area. If we use grab it will cost around 20-25 RM.

This temple is a Buddhist temple complex. The architecture is a combination of Chinese and Myanmar style. There are several entrances. We entered through the bottom door where the turtle pond is. So you have to climb up. If you don't want to climb, you can enter through the top door where the statue of Goddess Kwan Im and the pagoda are and then go down.

In this complex there are several altar buildings for prayer with quite beautiful gardens. A large white pagoda is at the top, but we have to pay again if we want to enter the pagoda.

To get to the temple, you first have to walk up a gradual inclining set of stairs and walkways, that are all sheltered by a labyrinth of souvenir shops. It almost felt like a cave packed with souvenirs, and there was hardly any air or breeze walking up – so be prepared to start dripping with sweat. This complex is quite interesting to visit and nearby there is the Air Itam market which has many food stalls. Unfortunately we didn't have time to explore this market and taste the various foods being sold.