Malaysia - Penang

This is a notice we saw on the Thai/Malaysian border - 'those damn hippies....'

We came into Malaysia from the north and went to Penang, 'The Pearl of the Orient', which is an island off the north west.  It used to be colonised by the British, so there's some very familiar sights around...

This is Queen Victoria Memorial Clock Tower.  It was built in honour of her Diamond Jubilee and is 60 feet high, one foot for every year that she reigned.

The biggest place or city is Georgetown.  It was named Duke Of Wales by Captain Francis Light, the founder, but then changed when the Duke became King George IV.  When he first set foot on the island, he built this star shaped fort, first out of wood, then almost immediately rebuilt of stone and brick, with added moat

Within its grounds is a lighthouse

This would've been the dress at the time, nice.

Most of the cannons were taken from pirates and brought here

Where the moat would've been

There's loads of Raven looking birds in Penang

This is City Hall, built in 1903 and very British in design

As is the Town Hall, built in 1880's and used as a social venue for Penang's elite. It was also the backdrop in 'Anna and the King'

It was quite clean, but they're never too far away...

Maybe they got drunk in the board meeting when they were supposed to be choosing the name.  Quite nice though

Penang can be driven round in 5 hours or so, not very big.  We went to Batu Ferringgi, 'Foreigner's Rock' after Georgetown where the best tourist beaches on the island are

There is also a National Park on Penang where you can traverse some quite challenging walks along the jungles and the coast

This means that you come across beaches with nobody else there

Well, the locals soon scoot off when they see you.  This Monitor Lizard was around 2m in length and we met it upon one of the jungle trails

It's hard work, but the end points make it worthwhile.  Here I am on Monkey Beach.  They get all the best beaches named after them...

After a while it started to get busy, when some people arrived on a boat, lazy swines. 

Took about 2 hours to get here

Stunning

You can't go too near the monkeys as they're likely to bite

The intrepid explorer

This was actually another day on another walk.  The trails aren't always that clear to see, but the trail in front has orange paint on the trees sometimes to help you

For a small island, the jungle seemed to go on forever.

Although public transport here is great, buses being better than back home, to see the whole island is best done under your own steam.  This is one of the most popular units ever sold, made by Honda, 100cc and will go up anything.  Even managed to have some fun on it, puncture aside (up a hill miles from anywhere)

Sometimes it was hard finding a beach that wasn't deserted!

Not that we tried too hard...

This is the Botanic Gardens, built by the British in 1884 to collect botanic specimens from the surrounding hills, on a 30 hectare site.  It's mainly used by joggers now and was very tranquil

Some of the collections were surprising

It's also a bit cooler, esp down near the stream.

The highest peak in Penang is Penang Hill at 830m.  To get to the top we got a train that put the 'fun', in funicular - sorry.

The views were well worth it. Here you can see the 13.5km bridge that links Penang to the mainland, completed in 1985 and is the longest in SE Asia

We watched the sun go down as we were on top of the hill

There's a mosque and also this Hindu temple at the top.  This was originally built for and by the Indians whose labour it was that built the railway up here

The lights started to come on in Georgetown as we watched

After another hard climb.....

....another beach well worth the effort

Even though it was fairly busy...