A Day in Penang

We have been to Penang twice before, eight and nine years ago, both times to get Dan a new Thai visa so he could stay on in Chiang Mai. Our plan was to get off the ship and look around on our own. But our travel agent gifted us a tour with Distinctive Voyages, a company that works exclusively with travel agents. Their representative, Helen, met with us several times before. We told her we weren't that interested in a walking tour, but it included lunch and we might join for that. In the end, we went with the tour for the morning and had lunch with the group before taking off on our own. 

The start was not the greatest -- the distance from the ship to the street area where we met the buses was very long, by far the longest we've seen. But we did eventually get to the bus. The first stop was at one of the Chinese family jetties, well-known villages built over the water. We had seen them before, so we stayed on the nice air-conditioned bus. We did that again as they stopped at a Buddhist temple. When we got to the restaurant, the Yeng Peng, we realized that it was directly across the street from the hotel we had stayed in twice before. So we were familiar with the area and knew that the Penang free bus stop wasn't far away.

After lunch we crossed the street (but didn't go into the hotel) and walked toward the bus stop. Shortly before we got there, we spotted an Indian clothing store -- one we think we visited before. We spent some time in there and Dan finally found the kind of shirts he wanted to get in India. I also found some nice tops and a couple of dresses. All Indian-style fabrics which we love. So, great shopping opportunity!! 

We only had to wait a couple of minutes for the free bus, which went around the edges of the city, passing sights we had seen earlier on the tour bus. When it stopped right at the pier, we got off. The walk back didn't seem quite so long, as it was more familiar. We found a shop in the terminal and Dan was able to get some cough syrup and a new hat. It was very hot and it was 4:00 by the time we got back on the ship.

Today (Sunday) we are in Port Klang, the port for Kuala Lumpur. We signed up for a city tour, but I am going alone, as Dan has a cough and cold. I think he also had enough bus riding yesterday.

Chinese temple we passed while the others were at the jetty; unusual decor on the roof

Magnolia tree near St. George's church.

I saw this in an area with multiple dried fish shops.

The Buddhist temple the others toured

Yeng Peng restaurant. The woman in teal was our local guide and she kept bringing dishes to our table. Some of our group sat upstairs but a small number of us were given a table downstairs.

The hotel we enjoyed staying in twice

A few of the garments in the Indian shop; it was quite large.

The pier terminal, reached after a rather long walk, and then even more!

After we were back on the ship, we heard thunder. It was wonderful to watch the rainstorm come through. By the time I took this shot, it was lifting a little bit. For a while we couldn't see anything except gray mist. Beautiful!