THURSDAY, MAR 25TH--PENANG, MALAYSIA

We were late leaving Kuala Lumpur last night because of getting provisions (food & booze) on the ship. Several of the suites on deck 6 aft (that is where we are) do not have passengers in them and are not stuffed full of cases of water, sparkling wines, wine, and liquor. I was awakened at 3am and 4 am this morning with someone going in and out of these suites so reported it to Manuela, the ship’s concierge, this afternoon. Then at about 5am was awakened due to some big thunderstorms. We sailed into Georgetown, the port for Penang, a little late this morning. The weather had passed so was nice sailing in. Penang is a small island about 10 miles from mainland Malaysia. There is a ferry and a bridge that connects the two. The population here is around 640,000 and they are Malaysians, Chinese-Malaysians, or Indians. Penang’s main income comes from electronics factories with tourism being #2. New factories and new high rise apartments are abundant. Our “Penang and Snake Temple” tour was about a half hour late due to arrival. The first stop on the tour was the Snake Temple. The small green Wagler pit vipers were on two stands above the temple altar and were sedated due to the burning incense in the temple. This area of the island of Penang use to be forested and these poisonous vipers use to live in the trees. Now there are no trees, only new buildings. In the building next to the temple you could pay $10 to hold some snakes while they took a couple pictures of you. Of course I had to do this but no way Rebecca would. Will attach pictures I took last two days tomorrow sometime, if internet works. We drove over the big hill to other side of the island for a stop at an old village to see the houses. They were built on stilts as it sometimes floods during the rainy season. You will note in the pictures that the poles the houses are built on are square and not round. Reason: Snakes can climb round poles and not square ones. Good reason!! We drove past fruit and spice plantations. Nutmeg and cloves are grown here. Lemon grass is normally grown near the houses as it is a good natural mosquito repellent. Continuing around the island we came to a small handicraft factory. Here we saw how the colorful textile, batik, is made. The process is hard to explain but maybe the pictures will show you. These colorful designs are made on clothing, tablecloths, and things like that. Then we continued past the beach areas with all the 5 star hotels and back through Georgetown to our ship. I had wanted to take a short trishaw ride but the tour ran long and not enough time for it. However, I got some pictures of other of our passengers doing it. After some lunch Allan and I entered the shuffleboard tournament and won! We did not fare as well in the Baggo tournament after that. The ship was scheduled to depart at 2pm but again we were delayed until 3:30 with more provisioning. Not sure what the problem is with getting our supplies onboard but this was second day in a row. We had to take on lots of food and drink as it will be about 2 weeks before we hit Africa when we can get more supplies. Only 4 days at some small islands in between and nothing there. Other 7 days are at sea. I better start getting ready for dinner. Tonight we are dining with Paula and Charles. They just boarded back in Hong Kong. I started talking to Paula a few months before the world cruise started. She found out we were doing a safari in Africa and wanted to know the info about it. Anyway, they ended up booking the same safari, through the same travel agent we were using in Cape Town, South Africa. So we will be on the same 4 day safari with them on April 11th. How exciting!!