George Town is the capital city of the Malaysia state of Penang. It is Malaysia's sixth largest city, with a population of about 708,000, with 1.7 million in the metro area, as of 2020. The city of George Town has a diverse set of attractions. Aside from George Town's living heritage, colonial-era buildings interspersed with towering skyscrapers, modern shopping malls and other amenities, the city is lined with sandy, tranquil beaches. Over the centuries, the city has evolved into a melting pot of sorts and is now home to a cosmopolitan, multi-ethnic populace. Due to its unique architecture, the old core of the city is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. George Town is also regarded as the culinary capital of Malaysia.
I went on a panorama tour of George Town and we had a crazy driver. He looked like a schlump, not very professional. Our guide was ok. I got the impression that Malaysia is very socialistic; our guide kept referring to the government this the government that etc. We seemed to drive around in circles. There was one portion where we were able to get off and walk for about half an hour, but I decided to stay on the bus. Again, the bus driver drove like a maniac with four of us on board. We picked up the rest of the group and then proceeded to view the Kek Loc buddhist temple. Michael went there on his tour climbed and it; we just had a 10 minute stop just to take a few snapshots.
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| Colonial buildings |
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| Trikes |
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| Chinese temple |
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| Kek Loc Buddhist temple |
We returned to the ship, and fortunately the walk from the bus to the ship was not all that far.
Later that evening, we had dinner with Melinda and Duncan and Stuart and Jenny. We were talking about our excursion and Melinda told me that she took pictures of what I had missed. So she shared these beautiful wall art and the street with umbrellas pictures with me.
Today I was tasked to escort a 7.5 hour excursion in Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia. This excursion was entitled Penang in a Day, and that’s exactly what we did. Penang is one of the smallest islands in Malaysia and we were actually able to circumnavigate the entire island. Penang is also interesting in that it’s the only Malaysian island that is predominantly Chinese. The largest industry in Penang is tourism, including medical tourism. This used to be a Singaporean business, but Singapore has gotten so expensive that people are now coming to Malaysia for operations that would be prohibitively expensive at home. Many of the major American hospital chains have caught onto this, and now have constructed world class hospitals here in Penang.
The excursion began with a 1 hour drive out to somebody’s house. I mean that’s really what it looked like; like the tour guide just picked a house at random and said, “let’s go see what’s growing in the backyard.” I’m sure that wasn’t truly the case, but when we got to the backyard he asked “what do you see”? And people said, well we see a whole bunch of weeds. He said that’s exactly what I expected you to say but let’s check out some of those weeds. So one by one, he clipped off a bit of the weed, and we all smelled it, or tasted it, and it was one spice after another, and it was really quite amazing. Penang is known as one of the spice islands and properly so.
We next started driving up the mountain to get a good view, but halfway there we stopped at a roadside vegetable and fruit stand. And I really mean roadside. The stand, which had every kind of fruit, vegatable and spice you can imagine, was literally on the road, and we had to dodge cars just to be there. From there, we went to an actual spice garden. This spice garden, which had been a rubber plantation until a couple of years ago, grows every imaginable kind of spice, as well as fern. We had a professional spice grower take us through the garden, and introduce us to all the things that were growing there.
Roadside fruit and vegetable stand
Cocoa pod
Our next stop was lunch at a delightful resort, called the Golden Sands. We had a combined Malaysian and western lunch and it was quite good. After lunch we had a chance to go through the grounds and see their terrific pool and then out to the beautiful white sand beach. At that point I was asking why we weren’t spending the day at the white Sand Beach because by now it was beastly warm.
Now, it was time to tour several Buddhist temples, which was really the whole purpose of this excursion. Our first stop was at a combined Chinese and Burmese Buddhist Temple, which was literally over the top. So many Buddha’s, and so many different configurations that it was overwhelming. From here we went to the Kek Lok temple, another Buddhist Temple, but much grander than the first. It was built on multiple levels, so high that we actually had to take a funicular to get just to the middle section. We saw sitting Budhas, reclining Budhas and every other configuration you could imagine. It was amazing. By now the heat was oppressive, and fortunately, it was time to return to the ship.
