From Cochin, the ship continued heading south down the coast to the southern tip of India and then headed east, around Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is a kind of tear-drop shape just on the eastern side of the southern tip of India. We passed within 59 miles of the coast of Sri Lanka, and then headed in a fairly straight line east across the bay of Bengal (ben-GAHL), then continued in the same straight line over the top of Sumatra and across the Malacca Strait to the bottom of Thailand where Malaysia is located.
We are at the tail end of the dry season for this part of the world and the monsoon season is about to begin. We’ve had gray skies for several days now and occasional light rain -- I hope the rain holds off until we leave. Last night we had a pretty spectacular lightning storm but I didn’t hear any thunder. You would think the rain would cool the temperature but not so -- it just makes everything like a steam bath.
Our first stop was Georgetown, the largest city on the island of Penang. Wow, what an amazing contrast Malaysia is after visiting India. Penang is a busy, thriving, city filled with modern and traditional buildings, lots of temples (Burmese Buddhist, Thai Buddhist, Indian hindu, Chinese Buddhist), each with a very distinct building and decorative style, street-side food stalls and carts, and mega shopping malls (didn’t go into any but apparently there are plenty of shoppers to keep feeding the shops -- not sure where the shoppers come from).
We decided to chuck the ship tours and just walked outside and negotiated a price with a taxi driver for a 4-hour tour. This strategy really worked out well because we were able to visit the temples before all the bus tours arrived.
We went into a Burmese temple, a Thai temple, and a Chinese Buddhist temple -- so very beautiful. The Thai temple had a 110 ft-long reclining Buddha and the Chinese temple had a 40 ft-tall standing Kuan Yin made of bronze that is located high on the mountain side just outside the city (approximately 100 steps up and another 100 steps down, in the afternoon heat). Wondrous art work in all the temples -- intricately carved wood walls and panels, some gold-leafed and some not, delicately painted panels, thousands of little Buddhas lining walls, and lotus patterns painted on the floors (you have to take your shoes off before walking a temple, which helps to preserve the floors). Statues and roof carvings of dragons of all styles and Thai angels and elephants and every sign of the Chinese zodiac and Hindu gods and goddesses and oh my, so much more. In every color you can imagine. With lots of gold leaf and often little flashing twinkle lights and sometime lotus-shaped candles burning.
We also visited a place where they make batik cloth. Very interesting to watch the artists at work. And the sales room was very tempting -- enough said.
By that point my sister and I were wilted so we returned to the ship about 15 minutes early. We had originally planned to do some shopping at a local craft market, but we just didn’t have the energy or the time. It’s probably just as well for my wallet.
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