Day 309: George Town

Feb 6 - Sit a lot of time this morning, waiting for the bus going toward Penang Hill. It finally appears and we disembark near Air Itam and walk the last bit to the Penang Hill Funicular Cable Car Station. The cable car runs on a steep track up the hill for two kilometers. Even though it is Monday, there are a ton of people here, and it takes over an hour to catch the car up (non-express tickets are 30 RM/adult). Based on the number of ethnic Indians here, maybe it is because of Thaipusam, a Hindu celebration held on the first full moon during the Tamil month of Thai.

It is raining heavily at the top, fortunately we have some umbrellas. It is also a fair bit cooler here than in the city. For this reason, the British made this part of the island a hill station (in 1793), a place where they built residences to remove themselves from the stifling humidity and heat of the lowlands. Penang Hill is one of the lowest elevation hill stations (most of them are at the edge of the Indian Himalayas).

There is a lot of normal tourist stuff to do up here, like ziplines, a toy museum, and numerous expensive restaurants. We visit Thirumurugan Temple, a Hindu place of worship up on the top of the hill next to a mosque.

A display outside the temple, with some of your favorite deities.

The style of this temple looks South Indian to me.

Ganesh, the elephant-headed god.

The front alter area of the temple. Odette and I went inside. I figured it was worth it because I’m not sure how many other Hindu temples we will see on the trip.

Like Buddhist temples, there is always a lot of imagery going on, and a lot of color.

By now the rain has slowed down a bit, so we head to The Habitat, a long rainforest walk along the steep hillside.

Some nice canopy walks here, at their highest point nearly a hundred meters above the forest floor.

One of the first animals we saw here was a pair of black giant squirrels. I didn’t get a photo of them, but there was a handy cutout of one so I could use Odette as a stand-in. The squirrels are, as their name describes, very large, far larger than I thought they would be (size of an otter).

The park is really well set up for walks, with easy concrete paths.

The Skywalk gives dramatic views of just about everywhere in Penang. We didn’t spend much time up there, however, due to the rain.

Unsurprisingly, lots of orchids.

Odette and I were disappointed that the canopy walks weren’t more like swinging rope bridges.

Some wildflowers.

This fish, about four centimeters long, was in a puddle of water on top of a rock. How a fish can get to that size in a tiny puddle is a mystery.

As hard as it is to walk around in the rainforest in this weather, it does seem appropriate.

Odette being slowly digested by a pitcher plant.

The cable car, seen from the upper station.

Get back to downtown George Town and seek out dinner.

The displays are out in force for Thaipusam on the street north of our hotel. There were a few trucks that came by with cows in them, horns painted bright pink. Designs were also being spray painted on the street.

Walking around George Town today, hear the call to prayer. Only notable because we only hear it every so often now. It is no longer a thundering omnipresence everywhere we go. I also note that it seems like the muezzin (person orating the prayer) seems to be reading from a transliteration, because he is so careful to annunciate every word as though unsure of himself in an unfamiliar language.

Malaysia I