Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia

Another surprise after the modern KL to see Penang Island or Pulua Pinang as it is now called maintain so much of it's colonial heritage. Penang was a British colony and once capital of the "Straits Settlements" that housed much of Malaysia until Singapore got going strong. It then kind of decreased in importance and because of that the Japanese didn't do much to harm it in WWII and they haven't felt the need to tear down every old building in favor of a new high rise like Hong Kong or Singapore. What is left is a neat little city that maintains it's neighborhoods and little restaurants and bars on the street and in the suburbs they have developed more modern apartments and buildings leaving the city much as it stood 100 years ago. The Little India section was fantastic and we are still recovering from the curry smells coming out of every shop. We are also recovering from the site at the market where the live chickens were being slaughtered. Nancy and Ali did not really need to see that. They have been eating vegetarian since. :-)
The only downside is the heat. 96 and humid makes for short walks and since we left before dark I suspect we missed a lot of the life of the city although we would have probably had "people overload" if there were any more walking the streets. All in all a great little city and one that should be on everyone's list of things to see if ever in the area.
See even the dogs a looking for a cool place. :-)Read more