Georgetown

Georgetown is a Unesco World Heritage site and the view from my hotel window demonstrates why. What do you mean, it looks like a load of tin huts? It may well do but look at the level of these buildings compared with the height the photo's taken from and the buildings at the edge where the heritage area finishes. I've added an extra which is a closer view and in which you can see some of the 19th century colonial buildings.

Penang Island was established by Francis Light on behalf of the British East India Company. It was opened up to settlement by Chinese, Malay, Indian, Thai and so became the multicultural city that it is today.


Although only a 40 minute flight from Kuala Lumpur, it took us a large part of the day to get here. The traffic from the Airport to the town centre was incredibly busy. The driver told us that because the population is so diverse, Penang celebrates holidays from all the different cultures so has twice the National Holiday that we're used to in the UK. They work only four and a half days so the traffic is very bad on a Friday afternoon. No matter, we're settled nicely into our hotel for the next few days before we move on up the coast a little further.


Thank you very much for all the comments, stars, and hearts on my last couple of blips. I'm trying to keep up and make a few comments and replies but it's not so easy to do as we're out and about enjoying our time here.