Batu Ferringhi

Since Wednesday we have been staying at a beach resort about a half hour drive outside Georgetown on the north coast of Penang Island. It is beautiful, there's a pool surrounded by gardens leading down to the beach. There is a swim up bar in the pool, stainless steel bar stools under the water that you sit on, see the second photo.

On Thursday we visited a tropical spice farm, where we thoroughly enjoyed a talk from a lovely Chinese lady who shared her passion for cultivating plants to use for cooking, bathing, and to take for their good health properties, as she showed us around, and got us to sample things like lemon grass tea, stevia( a natural sweetener), cinnamon nutmeg. At the Batik factory, we saw the process of making batik and I bought a few pieces to do some patchwork at home.

 Finally the butterfly farm, where we could wander through beautiful tropical gardens where there were so many types of beautiful butterflies.

Yesterday we went back into Georgetown to drop off our car and spent some more time checking out historic buildings.

Cheong Fatt Tze, a restored Chinese mansion dating from late 19 century, was particularly impressive, it has been restored so sensitively and carefully to retain the essence of the original. The photos as always tell the story much better than my words.

Temples and monkeys

Yesterday we saw some of the temples here, mostly Buddhist. They welcome visitors to come in as long as you take your shoes off.

They are incredibly ornate, over the top really for my taste, but I guess the degree of decorativeness is an indication of how important they are to the Buddhists.

These were taken at the temple of the reclining Buddha.the third one shows the feet of the reclining Buddha, which gives an indication of how enormous the figure is.

Also saw cute monkeys in the botanic gardens, as long as you don't have food or bags that look like they might have food, they will leave you alone.

Georgetown

Yesterday we arrived in Georgetown on the island of Penang, a city that has world heritage listing.

It was settled by the British in 1786 and has retained many of its historic buildings.

We have only had a quick look around so far, but already I can see the diversity in cultural influences here.

We are staying at yeng Keng hotel which is lovely with Chinese style.

The next two photos show street scenes.

They could be described as cluttered, haphazard, chaotic to Australian eyes.

But somehow it seems to work, although you do have to literally watch where you put your feet.

Looking forward to seeing more today.

Chow kit market

Some of the confronting, colourful, weird and wonderful sights from Chow Kit market this morning.

You will just have to imagine the sounds of men calling out the prices of their goods, and the smells , often not very pleasant. Sensory overload.

My day trip to Melaka

Yesterday I went to Melaka for the day from KL. It is about 2 hours south on the coast. I was feeling pretty confident in handling the transport systems here, so I managed to get there and back via buses and taxis. Taxis are so cheap , the equivalent of $7 buys you a 20 minute ride. The only hiccup was missing the bus for the return journey that I had bought a ticket for, because I was waiting in the wrong place. Not to worry.

Melaka was the site of early European history in malaysia.

I took a ride on trishaw and saw evidence of early Dutch and Portuguese buildings.

Here are some old buildings from Melaka's Chinatown area.

Photos KL

Figured out the photos at last

These are images of the Wesak Day street parade and also the Petronos twin towers I mentioned in my last post.

Two days into our stay in KL and I am getting used to the craziness that passes for normal around here. The first night we arrived I was in culture shock, never having been to Asia before. It is so busy, noisy, footpaths cluttered with stalls, motor bikes, any other odds and ends. People try to coax you into their business to see you something. It feels strange to be part of the racial minority for a change. So we have shopped, visited Petonas Towers,tasted new dishes, visited markets,seen many interesting temples and public buildings. In spite of various pieces of incorrect information, we managed to find out where and when the Wesak Day street parade was last night, and it was worth it. Many colourful lit up floats, followed by devout Buddhists carrying candles, making thir way through the crowded streets. Having technical issues with attaching my photos, sorry, will post some when I can.