The Funicular to the Top of Penang Hill

This is one of the 'must do' things in Penang and a short bus ride takes us to the Penang Hill Funicular.  If you look carefully in the second photo, you can see the funicular track up the hill.

We know this is 'school holiday' time in Malaysia (don't tell your school pals in the US but the children here are off from mid-November until early February!) and I think half the families in Malaysia have come to the funicular!  The operators cleverly don't let you see the whole line because it would deter all but the hardiest from waiting it out.  The lines snaked around . . .

and around . . .

you get the idea.  It took over an hour to get to the actual funicular car; we kept telling ourselves it was worth it.  We got a wee bit nervous when we saw two offices near the top:  one said 'Halliburton' and the other 'Flagstaff'!  Huh??

The actual ride takes about 2-3 minutes and the ascent is dramatic and very, very steep.  There are only two cars which explains the awful wait time and we read that this is the newly-renovated funicular - can't imagine what the old one was like.  We both find it hard to complain when we see a display of sedan chairs used to transport the British to the 'crag' (think that's about half way up) using coolie laborers.  The mind reels . . .

The view from the top is indeed impressive.   We are looking down at Georgetown and the straits over to the mainland.

The 'lock thing' has obviously caught on here.

And it's Penang so there's food, lots of it.  We reward ourselves with a mango ice which is a huge treat of flavored shaved ice, sliced mango, topped with mango ice cream.

Yet another long line for the return journey and we're back home.  Tomorrow is our last day in Penang . . . it's been a lovely, fun-filled time here.

Penang Butterfly Farm

How can anyone not love butterflies??  They are magical, beautiful, delicate, and have no real purpose in life but to bring joy - oh and reproduce.  Did you know that a butterfly's life span is about 2 weeks and they spend 48 hours of that in one mating event??  How's that for a useless but jaw-dropping piece of trivia?

An hour or so on Penang Transit and we're at the entrance to the Butterfly Garden.  What a surprise - getting out of the 'city' - we make our way up the east coast of the island and are amazed at the beaches, mountains, jungle . . . this could be any one of the Hawaiian Islands.

This isn't a butterfly garden, it's a farm where butterflies are literally cultivated along with the plants needed to sustain them.  We're in luck and a guided tour has just started.  The guide is very knowledgeable (trained in IT but could't find work!) and encourages the 6 of us to let the butterflies land on us, take photos of them, even hold them, ever so gently . . .

Let them ride along on your collar . . . 

Or your ankle . . .

Or just sit quietly in your hand . . .

Just for variety, we have some other creepy crawlies (millipedes)-

And the most amazing stick creature . . .

And the once daily release of the 'baby' butterflies . . .

All in all, a magical afternoon!

Cannons, Coffee, Chocolate, Houseboats, Buddhas, and Jellyfish Chips

That about covers it!  I can't remember the last time we went on a full-on bus tour, complete with tour guide and microphone but this was a delight.  Our guide, Corinne, spoke perfect English as well as Chinese (don't know if it was Mandarin or Cantonese) but, like all our stops on this trip, the number of Chinese tourists is staggering.  Our first stop is Ft. Cornwallis, a remnant of the British presence and, of course, it has a cannon pointed at the harbor.

The Fort remains, but only as a tourist attraction.

On to the Chocolate and Coffee Museum complete with displays of the history of these two most wonderful - and essential - dietary items and samples galore.

Next stop, the Chew Jetty.  A bit of history - when the British brought the Chinese to Penang to work, they built houses on stilts at the water's edge (the surrounding jungle was too dense to clear).  At their peak, there were 36 jetties, each inhabited by clan members from China - thousands of workers in hundreds and hundreds of houseboats.  Over time, they were urged to stake out a plot of land and move off the jetties, which most of them did.  But not all.  There are now 6 remaining jetties, still inhabited by members of the original clans and the Chew Jetty is the biggest and definitely the most visited!

For us, it was like stepping back in time to our life at 2420 Westlake in Seattle.  But this jetty didn't float and these houses didn't bobble around with the tide.  The reason, they're built on concrete encased pilings.

These are some very serious walkways!  The sign in the background advertises an auto repair shop - not sure if that's part of this jetty or not!

Could be our dock in Seattle.  Complete with potted plants - desert rose just like we have in Tucson!!

A view to one of the other 5 jetties - you can see how low the tide is.

Corinne explaining to Tim how the tsunami affected Penang - 36 people died here.

On to the two most famous Buddhas in Penang - a 90' reclining Buddha and an equally long/tall upright one.

Interestingly, this is a Thai temple - on ground owned by Thailand - in the middle of Penang, Malaysia.

The splendor and bling of this temple is amazing.  These dragons out front are made of mosaic glass, each piece painstakingly hand-set.

And right across the street is the Burmese Temple and Buddha - 90 feet tall.  This too on land that belongs to Myanmar right in the middle of Penang.

Just one of the many structures on the Burmese temple grounds.

So we've been wondering about Buddha's earlobes - every single Buddha statue has these super elongated earlobes (even the ones we saw in the museum in Phnon Penh and those are very, very old).  Check out the earlobes in all my photos.

No one has been able to explain this to us so we asked Corinne, our guide.  She tells us that the 'perfect' Buddha has 88 physical characteristics, including the elongated earlobes and fingers and toes that are even, namely not graduated in length.  She didn't remember any of the other 80 some odd so we looked it up when we got home - couldn't find any reference so we're still curious about those earlobes . . .

After Buddhas, it's off to the Penang Botanical Gardens, a lovely, green spot about 20" out of the city.    We take a quick tram ride and see a most bizarre tree - the bomb tree. It has branches growing from low down on the trunk and the fruit(?) is encased in a coconut shaped thing that looks like a bomb.
Most bizarre.

Monkeys along the way . . . they always look like worried old men to me.

A view of the field of the Gardens . . .

And last stop on the tour, the 'Local Products Emporium' where we watch bakers making some sort of Chinese delicacy (?) that's about the size and shape of a golf ball.  Even after sampling, we can't decide if it's a sweet or a savory.  Can't resist a couple of  purchases including some sort of fried/salted fish chip, the Chinese biscuits, and jelly fish chips . . .

A lot of excitement for these two kids for one day . . . tomorrow, the Butterfly Farm and our first foray on Penang's public transit.