Penang

We took the ship’s walking tour of a local food market and a flea market. The local food market was very busy as women were doing their daily food shopping. This type of market is strange to us, although it is similar to fish markets in seaside towns in America. Meats were being carved; fish were laid out and being cut up; live chickens were for sale, and were butchered on the spot. All of the fish and meats were laid out at room temperature; there was no ice and no refrigeration. Meat would have to be sold and cooked the same day before it spoiled. Fruits and vegetables were laid out in beautiful displays. Many other household products were also available.


The flea market was quite extensive and sold both items (mostly used items) and foods -- beautiful fruits and vegetables. It was similar to flea markets in the U.S. except that it also sold fruits and vegetables. It was not very interesting to us, and we returned to the bus to wait for the others.

The tour then stopped at the Penang museum with an interesting display of the history of Penang. Half of the building had been bombed by the Japanese during the war and not rebuilt.  I am not very interested in museums, and I wandered around a bit, and then waited for the bus to reboard.

This was a morning tour only. After we returned to the ship, Rae took a nap and I went out again. After walking a short distance, I saw a young couple with a map and asked them where they got it. They said far from there, but they had another one in their backpack. As they searched for it, we talked about sites, and agreed that it would be nice to go to the big temple on the mountain (see name). A taxi came by and we asked him how much he would charge us to take us there. He said $10 American, and I said let’s go. On the way, he stopped for photos at the national mosque and then a Hindu temple. After the mountain temple, he took us to the sleeping Buddha temple and the temple across the street from it. We then stopped at a mosque for photos before returning to the ship.

The young couple were Alex and Catarina, from Chile. They were on a work-study program in Australia and in Penang on holiday. I took many photos of them, and they gave me their email addresses so I could send the photos to them later. It was a truly great day. I gave the taxi driver $40; he reminded me of the taxi driver in Istanbul, an older man just trying to earn a living.