Penang, Malaysia (March 8, 2016)
The British East Indies Company established a colony on Penang Island in 1786. As such, it is the oldest British settlement in Malaysia. They brought in Chinese and Indian laborers to work in the rubber and tin businesses. Today there is a mixture of cultures on the island. Penang became part of the independent nation of Malaysia in 1957.
The ship was docked at George Town, the largest city on the island, and the capital of Penang state. Today, the population of Penang is 1.5 million, and it is rather urbanized and industrialized. However, downtown George Town itself still retains a good bit of its British heritage, and it has been certified on the UNESCO World Heritage list. It was only a short walk from the pier to some of George Town’s attractions.
We drove through the city on our tour this morning and decided not walk back onto town after returning to the ship. Most of the beaches and international resort hotels are located more than an hour away, by taxi, from George Town.
We decided to take it easy today, and signed up for a shore excursion titled, “Penang Light & Easy.” It was a short tour, only 3½ hours long. Our first stop was at Wat Chaiya Mangalaram, a Thai Buddhist temple in George Town. This temple is home of the fourth largest reclining Buddha in the world. Being a Thai temple, the exterior was very colorful, with smaller shrines of different Buddhas and other Thai mythical creatures and deities. Our tour guide Proteen walked us around the interior of the temple (after we took off our shoes). She told us that the reclining Buddha is 108 feet long and is made of gold leaf, while the white of the eyes and the toenails are composed completely of Mother-of-Pearl.
Across the street from the Thai Buddhist Temple is the Dhammikarama Burmese Buddhist Temple, which is a place of retreat for Buddhist devotees with Burmese heritage. As the pictures below will attest, the Thai and Burmese architectural temple styles are very different. Proteen gave us free time to wander this temple on our own.
Our last stop was for a drink at the Eastern & Oriental Hotel, which was built in 1885 by the Sarkies brothers, who later went on to build the world-famous Raffles Hotel in Singapore. When it was built, this hotel was called "The Premier Hotel East of Suez.” It’s now a historical downtown property and not located close to a beach resort. We did, however, admire views of the beach hotels from along the hotel’s seafront location.
It was a fairly short overnight cruise to Langkawi, which is a grouping of about 100 islands in a strategic location at the northern end of the Strait of Malacca where the Strait meets the Andaman Sea. To be more precise we are18 miles off the west coast of northern Malaysia and five miles from Thailand. Pulau Langkawi, where we’re docked, is the largest of these islands, with a population of approximately 95,000 residents. Kuah is the largest town on the island, but our docking location (Porto Malai) is located about 10 miles from Kuah. Once again, this is an island with a large number of outstanding tourist hotels and beaches, which are located at the northern tip of the island. That didn’t really appeal to us, especially the very long taxi drive as we were at the extreme southern end of the island.
The port was bare bones – a long cement pier – and there were no shops or other facilities. However, a shuttle bus was provided for passengers to go to and from the nearest small town. Serenity was safely docked at 8:00am, right in the middle of a partial solar eclipse (more on that later).
There were very pleasant views of this beautiful island from our ship. We can understand why it’s such a favorite tourist spot.
When we were last here in 2013, we greatly enjoyed a gondola ride up to the summit of Machingang Mountain (2,300 feet). The gondola went up the mountain at a 42º incline. When we reached the top we had great views. This is one of the major attractions in Langkawi, and we’d recommend it to anyone. However, we decided we didn’t need to do that again. So we chose to catch the shuttle bus into the closest small “town,” which was the location of some duty-free shops and Underwater World
We took the shuttle bus at about 9:40 am and rode through some construction zones. Apparently developers plan to start building more resort hotels in this southern part of the island. Once we reached the duty-free shops, we wandered around a little bit, but found nothing of interest to us, other than a refrigerator magnet and a Ritter Sport candy bar. We did walk down to a beach area (we believe it was called Pantai Cenang Beach). This beach seemed to be mostly for local people. As with the other locations we visited in Malaysia, there is a mix of races and ethnicities here. We read that, once again, Muslim and Chinese seemed to have the largest percentage.
Underwater World looked fairly nice, but we’re going to a big aquarium in Singapore. So we skipped it and headed back to the ship after about an hour in “town.”
Life on board Crystal Serenity is still very good. We’ve gone to the three specialty restaurants (Prego, Silk Road, and Tastes) at least once over the past week. On March 4, we were invited for cocktails at the Captains Quarters adjacent to the Navigation Bridge. There was a group of about 20 of us that attended. We assume that everyone on the World Cruise gets at least one invitation.
We tend to attend most of the evening entertainment in either the Galaxy Lounge or Stardust Café. They are normally scheduled for 8:30 pm and 10:30 pm. Since we eat dinner at the main seating (6:00 pm), we always go to the 8:30 show. Those who eat dinner at Late Seating (8:30 pm) go to the 10:30 show, although sometimes there is a 7:00 pm show for them. Several of the shows that were especially good were Steve Stevens (comedian & musical entertainer) and a special show developed for the World Cruise by the entertainment team – “Radio Hour – A Sentimental Journey.” A part of this show also included The Spinettes, a trio of young, vintage-inspired performers from London who sing hits from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. They were very talented, and everyone seemed to love them. They returned several days later for their own show in the Stardust Café accompanied, of course, by the The Galaxy Orchestra.
Through the first three segments of the World Cruise, there have been three different magicians, from the Magic Castle in Hollywood. They perform 30-minute shows in the Pulse nightclub. The audience is restricted to 20 people maximum, and tickets are hard to get. We’ve been lucky enough to see all three of them, and they’ve been amazing.
This morning, March 9th, there was a partial eclipse of the sun, visible here in Malaysia. There is an astronomer on board ship for this segment of the cruise. We were told that, if we wanted to see the eclipse, we should go up to the 13th deck between 7:30 and 9:30 am. We went up at 8:30, and it was really happening! They gave each of us a pair of “Eclipse Shades,” which are safe for direct solar viewing. When we put on the shades all we could see was the sun, and the moon was hiding about 40% of the sun. Without the shades, it wasn’t apparent that anything special was happening. We tried to take a picture, but it didn’t turn out. However, our friend Karen did successfully capture it, as shown below.
We have one sea day on our way south in the Strait of Malacca. We're scheduled to arrive in Singapore on Friday morning, March 11 at 8:00 am. We’ll spend three full days here, departing Sunday, March 13 at 6:00 pm.
Jim & Ginny
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