Phuket

Phuket is in Thailand, and didn’t feel as progressive and prosperous as we expected.  We hired a taxi to take us to the three places we were most interested in seeing.  Our first stop was the Big Buddha, built over 2004-2014.  It is 148’ tall, built of concrete and covered in Burmese marble.  It sits on a hill with a grand view out to sea.  

Our next stop was at Wat Chalong, the largest of Phuket’s 29 Temples and the most visited.  It was built in the early 19th century.  It was ornate, beautiful, and well maintained.  We climbed to the top.

We spent a few hours in Old Town Phuket, known for brightly painted, century old Sino-Portuguese townhouses, selling all sorts of souvenirs and foods.  We enjoyed walking about and then we had lunch at the Charm Dining Gallery, a Michelin recommended restaurant in a century old colonial house.  Our Thai lunch was delicious!  We had a really good day!

Langkawi Island

On Monday we visited Langkawi Island, Malaysia.  We took a cruise excursion to a rice farm and then to the northern part of the island to take a cable car up to a sky bridge.  The cable car is one of the steepest in the world, ascending 708 meters above sea level to the second highest mountain on Langkawi.  The views were spectacular, particularly of the vast rain forest covering the mountains.  Langkawi has about 100,000 residents, and many major international hotels have property on the island.  It has been found!  The rice farm excursion was interesting too.  We had a good day!

Penang

We arrived early this morning in Penang and we were dumbfounded!  Honestly, we had no idea Penang was such a big city, mostly modern.  We love historic places and had I focused my research on the historic old city.  Wow!  What a surprise!  For lots of information on Penang, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penang.  Amazing!

I arranged a 3 hour Heritage Walking and Food Tour several months ago.  Our guide, Lim is fifth generation Chinese born in Penang.  He knows the city well and took us all over the historic area of George Town, a UNESCO site, eating as we toured, at two Michelin recommended restaurants plus several others, and tasting things we never had before and loved!  George Town is colorful, and the multicultural capital of the Island of Penang.  It is known for its British colonial buildings, as well as skyscrapers.  Lim is very proud of the city’s multicultural life, blending Chinese, Indian, Malay, and the rest of the world.  The city is obviously proud of the locals religions, celebrating Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Christian traditions.  One street has churches of each religion within a two block area.  We had a great time with Lim!

We spent the afternoon on Penang Hill, taking the funicular to the top, and visiting The Habitat rainforest, with the world’s longest two span stressed ribbon bridge and the highest public viewing point on the island, 800m above sea level.  The views were beautiful and the experience was quiet and cool.  We enjoyed every moment!