Day 96 - Penang (Last day)

Two main activities today. First was a wander around Georgetown taking in Fort Cornwallis and the Chinese clan houses (where incoming Chinese families in ghettos last century were introduced to Malaysian culture).
From there we headed to the funicular railway (which we had failed to get on the first day, due to a three hour wait). There was still a two hour queue so we decided to walk up through the jungle. 350m of climbing later we were drenched in sweat and exhausted. It’s really hard to believe that 6 ‘coolies’ used to carry up the English in sedan chairs. Even carrying ourselves we only made it halfway. We managed to get onto the funicular at the mid station (unfortunate for the other travellers!) and made it to the top. Once there we headed to The Habitat which had a sky bridge and some great viewpoints. To round off the day we headed back down the hill to the botanical gardens where we caught a cab. We were lucky enough to see a rare black dusky leaf monkey with an orange baby (they change colour from orange to black after 6 months).
The 800m descent was so steep we were advised to walk down backwards to save our muscles - seemed to work but looked quite comical. Unfortunately halfway down it started raining monsoon style! We paid the taxi driver a big tip (five times the original fare) to compensate for leaving his seats soaking wet.
Finished the evening at China House for a meal and live music!Read more