Actually, Penang is much more than that. Add street art and street food to the list too. Oh, and thunderstorms. More on these in a bit.
It’s been a bit of a shock between Kuala Lumpur and Penang. We like to walk everywhere (generally > 15k steps per day) but Georgetown is not pedestrian friendly, and the humidity feels very oppressive. So we’ve taken to the buses – which don’t come when you expect, and sometimes deviate from the routes Google tells you about. But, they’re air conditioned, cheap ($7.30 USD for a 7 day pass), and get us where we want to go – albeit slowly.
We arrived on Monday to our cozy little 18th floor condo with a water view (though also looking over some slums and a garbage dump). After unpacking and cooling down for a bit, we headed into “old town” Georgetown (a UNESCO world heritage site), checking out the street art (only a few pics, but it’s all over town, and very cool), having a couple beers, and picking up some food from street vendors (hawkers as they’re called here)… Of which there are thousands (it seems) all around town. We question how they all stay around – every corner seems to have 5 or 10! Hmm, that paragraph had a lot of perenthetical thoughts – I don’t know if that’s good blogging form. Nonetheless, after a few hours of wandering in heat and humidity, we were burnt out and ready for bed.
Tuesday we were lazy early, but made a grocery trip so we didn’t have to go out every meal (Only ~$15 USD for a few days of food). Around 3 pm, we finally started to head to Batu Ferringhi beach for a walk, and to watch the sun set. Using the bus system mentioned above, we finally got there around 5:15pm for a fantastic walk and sunset while enjoying a beer.. Or two. More bus adventures and we got home just before 10pm!
But about those thunderstorms! We woke up in the middle of the night to lightning, building shaking thunder, and rain/wind that seemed like it might wash away a city (I commented “is there a tropical storm we didn’t hear about?”) Alas, this morning (Wednesday) the city was intact, and barely any signs of rain. We got up early to go ride the Penang hill funicular railway for some amazing vista views. We did the “long” walk around the top (~2km) and felt like we were the only ones there! After descending we made a quick side trip to Kek Lok Si Buddhist temple – beautiful!
But you probably just want to see pics, here you go…
I’m loving your descriptive adventures. Besides the air conditioning, I suppose those interesting bus trips are great for observing the culture. And, I’m wondering if you will be acclimateing a bit to the heat and humidity . Love! elf
Yes, there is the aspect of “cultural education” you get by observing people taking the bus – we really don’t mind it. I say observing because nobody has really chatted us up (nor have we tried either). Except for an Aussie last night who really wants to visit Boulder some day. It’s mostly sitting in the heat waiting for the bus that get us! We’ve adapted to the heat/humidity by moving slower and taking it easy – but I don’t know that acclimation will happen. Two years in Seattle and I still think 73 and humid is “really warm” when trying to be active . I do like the dry climates…