Penang, Malaysia (George Town)

Penang is a new place for us so we took a ship excursion to two temples, a mansion and the Khoo Kongsi clan temple. Penang is a province with a population of around 1.7 million. It’s capital, George Town, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and it’s where we spent our time today.

We started at a Burmese Buddhist temple and as we arrived, the monks were receiving alms. The temple itself featured a huge standing Buddha. The next temple was a Thai Buddhist temple directly across the street and its centrepiece was a reclining Buddha. We then visited Chung Kent Kooi mansion/museum, originally a townhouse built in the 1890's by Chung Keng Kooi, a tin miner who was also said to have been involved in the opium trade. Next up was the Khoo Kongsi clan temple, a clan house for members of the Khoo family. It was built in 1906 and is considered the oldest in south east Asia.

When the tour ended around noon, Brad and I chose to stay in the historic area rather than return to the ship and explore further on our own. Despite the heat (it was 33 degrees Celsius) we wandered around, had lunch at The Jetty food court and went searching for George Town’s famous street art. Because this app only allows 10 photos per footprint, I’m going to do a subsequent footprint solely about the street art. It was that incredible.Read more