Day 62: Penang, Malaysia

We had a short time in Georgetown, on Penang Island, Malaysia today, but we made the most of it. Penang actually turned out to be one of my favorite ports on these itineraries, because it is a rare one in which we can walk right off the ship and be in town. And there is quite a lot to see in Georgetown. 

Georgetown, on Penang Island, Malaysia

Where in the world are we?

First, though, we had what was almost a sea day, at least until 2:30pm or so. It was a gentle way to ease me back into the world of the living. G was up early and went to the International Dining Room for breakfast, but I was in no hurry today. I dressed and did a breathing treatment and wandered over to the Horizon Court Buffet (we are loving this Lido Deck cabin!!)…and ran into a mob of my fellow passengers. I got my items and found a table to share in the back of the buffet. Headwaiter Francoise asked if I was surviving the crowds okay, and of course I was, but, wow, this ship is full. 

G met up with me there and we spent some time walking across the upper decks. As we sailed through the Strait of Malacca, mainland Malaysia was visible on our starboard side all morning. It looked to me like Kuala Lumpur is not the only major metropolitan city in Malaysia. We saw plenty of high rises...but areas of beautiful green mountains, too. 

British Pub Lunch was offered in the Savoy Dining Room today. I wasn’t feeling like fish and chips, but also didn’t want to have to sit through two separate lunches to eat what I wanted, so I ordered the chicken curry and just left the chicken. It was very good, and a good compromise for that lunch that G loves and I am not particularly fond of. 

In his noon update, Captain Ravera told us we were going to arrive a bit early into Georgetown. We swung by an activity called Musical Bingo in the Explorers Lounge just to see what it was and it looked liked it was going to be a lot of fun, but we kind of wanted to get packed for the day and I wanted to do another breathing treatment before we left the ship. The requests (in both English and Mandarin) to please not line up on Deck 5 to get off the ship before it was cleared began early…and were naturally ignored. About 2:50pm we went down to see how bad it was, and the line was long but it moved quickly when we were cleared by the local authorities just a minutes later.

I got another $10 in Malaysian Ringgits (40 MYR) and we set off to do some exploring on foot. It was hot and humid (naturally), but we were armed with Tilley hats and water and sunscreen and did just fine. Though the sidewalks were mostly a mess or non-existent, the area around the pier is completely flat and that helped a lot. 

Traditional local attire reflects the many cultures present on Penang Island

Local schoolchildren’s art project

We first walked toward the area called Little India, which we had driven through during our last visit. One knows when one has reached Little India because of all the Indian grocery stores, sari and jewelry shops and restaurants…and the Indian music blaring from speakers on every corner. It is the kind of place we love to wander through, particularly the grocery stores. I have to tease my mom a bit here. Her retirement center has a bus that takes residents to a grocery store once a week. Mom doesn’t like that store (an independent grocery) because it doesn’t carry her favorite Kroger generic brands. So every time someone visits, Mom is driven to a huge Kroger Supermarket where she runs rings around us shopping from one end of the store to the other…but she gets her Kroger generic brand items. 

Meanwhile, today we were in an Indian grocery store on a Malaysian island that had a narrow storefront but was L-shaped behind several of the smaller shops along the street, using Google Translate to see if a colored soap in a bottle was shampoo, shower gel or hand soap. We finally found a huge bottle of  antibacterial hand soap and bought it for 7 Ringgits (less than US $2). G mentioned today that with so many kids on board this cruise and the next (he calls them the “pick it and lick it” crowd), norovirus is a strong possibility and we need to prepare now. 

We continued our stroll through Little India, eventually coming upon a large truck backing down the narrow street with cars and motorbikes on each side. In what I’m sure will be one of my favorite memories of this season, G stopped to watch, joining eight local men already entranced by its maneuvering. Along with them, he was pointing and offering opinions (mimicking his hands on a steering wheel) on how this should be accomplished. 

Men! They’re the same everywhere. 

Pedicab

Drive-thru, Malaysian style

 

A hostel-type hotel built from shipping containers

We purchased ready-to-eat jackfruit (yum) and durian (yuck) from this vendor. 

After we walked out the other side of the Little India area, G wanted to find an area called Clan Jetties he had seen on Google Maps. Destination Expert Narelle Froude had not mentioned this in her lecture on Penang, and she is extremely thorough, so I wasn’t certain if this was a safe area for tourists or not. We decided to give it a try and are so glad we did. It was an entire area of houses and businesses built on piers over the water. Picture overwater bungalows in French Polynesia and you’ll get the picture, but, unlike those, this was decidedly down market accommodations. Toilets were community and I’m not sure how they got their water, but the people, who mostly appeared to be Chinese, were very friendly. 

It’s quite close to the cruise ship pier and Little India.

(The blue dot is the pier)

Houses and businesses built on stilts, called Clan Jetties. 

The shadows don’t help, but maybe you can see an entire neighborhood of Clan Jetties in the near distance. 

A community toilet for the Clan Jetties. At least it’s Western style!

At the end of one of one of the piers was a small temple or shrine. We removed our shoes and went in, but I really couldn’t figure out which religion it was. There was no Buddha statue inside, so it wasn’t Buddhist, and I doubt it was Hindu. But I lit an incense stick anyway and offered prayers to all Higher Powers to cover my bases. 

I lit an incense stick. 

Walking back along the waterfront, we encountered this. Of course, it had to be studied to figure out what it was. G’s best guess was that it had been the bottom of a crane. 

The Queen Victoria Memorial Clock Tower 

We passed the ferry terminal on the way back to the Sapphire Princess, then stopped into a small shop near the terminal to stock up on gum and Mentos. We had bought there during our last visit and their prices were incredibly low. Once back in the ship, we ran by the Vivaldi Dining Room to tell Headwaiter Nazzario that we’d get to dinner after quick showers, and he thankfully saved our table for us. With an on board time of 8:30pm, the dining room was nearly empty…but they expected the buffet to be packed later on. 

G had the best suggestion of the day, to sit in a lounger on the Promenade Deck after dinner and watch the ship traffic in Penang Harbor. It was quiet and peaceful and beautiful with all the lights. There was only one evening show in the Princess Theater tonight, scheduled at 9pm, and we went early to get seats. That was the best joke of the day; at showtime the theater was about 10% full. But the performance was stellar, vocalist and pianist James Fox doing a Billy Joel tribute show. We had missed this last cruise due to the Most Traveled Guest cocktail party, and I was quite excited to get a second chance. 

These are the songs I played over and over again on the cassette player in my car on my way to college in the late 70s and early 80s. I knew every song by heart (including “We Didn’t Start the Fire”), and, with no one sitting anywhere around us, turned it into a semi-singalong. He finished with Piano Man then encored with what I used to consider “my” song, “Only the Good Die Young”. Loved, loved, loved it. 

The Tropical Deck Party is happening tonight right around the Neptune Pool, but it is 10:30pm and we are tucked into bed. We return to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow, another long day that is certain to be hot and humid too. G is committed to finding the koalas this time (that’s a joke), and we have yet another appointment with a tall building. 

I told you early on that tall buildings would be a recurrent theme this season!  ;-)

Day 48: Penang Island, Malaysia

Due to Penang’s unique location on the Melaka Straits, the island has always served as a convenient and successful trading post as far back as the 1st  century AD. India and China were the first to take advantage of the island’s geographical location and 15 centuries later, the Portuguese, Dutch and British arrived looking for aromatic woods, timber, tin and spices. 

Penang, named Pulau Pinang by the Portuguese, was officially settled in 1786 by British traded and captain Sir Francis Light on behalf of the East India Trading Company. Penang became the first British settlement on the Malay Peninsula but also Britain’s first trading post in the Far East. Penang remained under British colonial rule until 1957, when Malaysia gained independence. Source:  Princess Cruises Port Guide for Penang

The Sapphire Princess was docked at Georgetown on the Malayan island of Penang

Where in the world are we?

We had decided that, after yesterday’s long tour in a very hot and humid Kuala Lumpur that we would not set an alarm this morning but instead sleep as long as we needed. Apparently, I needed just over 9 hours of sleep (per my Fitbit) and awoke at 8am. We lingered over breakfast in the Horizon Court Buffet. Most people were off the ship and it’s so quiet and enjoyable on port days. I was also getting periodic updates via text and Snapchat about McGuy’s first high school basketball game (they won big).

Finally, though, we decided to walk off the ship and hire a taxi to take us to the funicular to the top of the Penang Hill. That G had zeroed in on this one activity was not a surprise to me. I think his motto is “We will let no funicular go unridden”, because we sure have been on a lot of them over the years. There is a taxi stand inside the cruise terminal, and we hired John for three hours for 50 MR (Malaysian Ringgits), about $12.50 an hour. Things are so cheap in Malaysia!  Our first stop, though, had to be an ATM, because I had not passed one yesterday to get Ringgits, and hadn’t needed them then anyway. With the international transaction fee, they were exactly 4 MR to $1 US. 

John gave us a bit of an overview of the city of Georgetown on the island of Penang on the way to Penang Hill. Penang Hill is actually comprised of six peaks, with the highest standing 2732 feet above sea level.  the 18th century, while under British rule, the earliest more of transportation to the top was by Sumatran long or a sedan chair attached to a  pair of bamboo poles hand carried by 4 to 8 people. In 1905, the Penang Bill Funicular Railway was completed but was ineffective due to technical faults. In 1924, a second funicular railway was opened. Today’s railway is the 4th generation, it climbs the 2000 meter track in about five minutes, making it the fastest, steepest and longest funicular in the region and one of the most technologically advanced in the world. 

Once we arrived at the Railway Station, we were greeted with long lines that we had been warned about. Kids are on their school break until January, and there were several groups waiting in line to go up.  Use er, G had read about the fast track tickets online and they were only $7.50 US more per person. When you’re paying $12.50 an hour for a taxi to wait, that’s a deal. In was also very nice; we bypassed the long queue and walked right on, getting the best seats in the next train. 

Well, the track certainly was steel. It was rather like climbing the first hill on a roller coaster while seated backward, looking down the hill. There were a couple of intermediate stops for the residents who live in some of the gorgeous colonial houses on the side of the hill, but we were quickly st the top. I didn’t expect the carnival-like atmosphere up there, with buskers and restaurants in addition to the usual lookout points. We were also lucky to see two of the dusky lead monkeys that fall the top of the hill their home. After walking around the top, we returned via funicular to the bottom where are driver John was waiting. 

This was a steep funicular!

Allowing two trains to pass 

A bit of a roller coaster

View from the top showing the tunnel at the end

The Sapphire Princess at her berth

View of Georgetown showing bridge to mainland Malaysia 

He suggested a store to buy a traditional hat that G wanted to buy, and waited while we bought it, and we returned to the ship shortly after 3:30pm.

We had time for a rest before getting showered for dinner. We had skipped lunch, and were starved. Luckily, it was Italian night, and I ordered the penne arrabiata, but it was way too spicy. Instead, Joffrey brought me a seafood soup. We have regional items on the menu every night, and this was one of those. It was delicious. 

The entertainment tonight was Aiden Wu, the world champion harmonica musician, and we sat in the just in case seats but ended up loving his show. He was a wonderful entertainer. Afterward, it was the night for the Tropical Deck party on the open decks, but it had stormed while we were eating dinner, and everything was drenched. Instead it was moved to Club Fusion and we stopped by, but it was poorly attended and we didn’t stay either. I think people are worn out after days in the heat, although Penang was admittedly more comfortable today than Kuala Lumpur was yesterday. 

We move clocks back an hour tonight just for Thailand tomorrow, then lose that hour again tomorrow night. Still, our arrival in Phuket isn’t until 9am, and that makes for another nice night of sleep.