March 20th, 2024

It was another hot day with clear blue skies. George Town is the capital of the Malaysian island Penang. We had a tour this am that took us to 2 of the most popular things to do in George Town.

The view from our balcony this am after we docked.

We got off the boat with Linda & Michael and Kathy & Michael. We all had the same tour. The first stop was to a funicular to take us to the top of Penang Hill. The ride was steep at 46 degrees and quite fast for a cable car.

The cable car track with the tunnel and the city below.

There were good views of the city but because of the heat and smog there is no clear view. Everything is hazy. We are 2700 feet above sea level.

Views of the city below and you can actually see the outline of our ship right in the middle of the picture.

At the top of the hill there is view points and lots of flowering plants and also a Buddhist temple and a Mosque. The Buddhist temple was quite colorful.

The temple has a fancy name but most people call it The Buddhist Temple on Penang Hill.

There were tons of flowers and everything is in bloom.

Some of the different flowers in bloom.

They had some cute places to take photos. The one on the right was actually from yesterday at the rice fields.

After walking around for a bit we took the cable car back down. We sat in the front of the car so we could see and at 1 point it was like being on a roller coaster because it went almost straight down.

The next stop was to another Buddhist temple which is the largest in Malaysia and one of the biggest in southeast Asia. The temple is called Kek Lok Si and the whole complex is quite large with lots of different levels.

I liked the dog statue at the temple

At the beginning of the temple they have a sacred pond called the Pond of Longevity. It is home to hundreds of tortoises. In Chinese culture tortoises are a symbol of longevity, strength and endurance and local worshipers bring them here and set them free. It was amazing how many tortoises there were.

You take a cable car to the bottom of the seven teired pagoda and then you can walk up the pagoda. They still had decorations up for the Chinese New Year. You can see the large red dragon in the picture and there was also a green and blue one.

Us at one of the view points before we started the climb up the pagoda.

It was really hot and they had some fans placed throughout the temple complex. Here is Kathy enjoying one.

Some views from the temple

We climbed up all the levels of the pagoda and after each level the staircases got narrower and steeper.

You can see the green dragon on the left and the red dragon on the right. This is about halfway up the pagoda.

Views from the top

After we finished at the Temple we had one more stop at a hotel that had a restaurant on the 21st floor. We went up and had some food and enjoyed the views.

Views from the 21st floor

We made it back to the boat around 2pm and we immediately jumped on the shuttle into town. The shuttle dropped us off at a mall but not much else around. We walked around the mall some and then caught the 3:30 shuttle back to the boat. We were going to walk around some but it was so hot and full sun so we just headed back to the boat.

We sailed around 6pm and we are headed for Phuket, Thailand the last stop on our 7 day stretch.