Penang, Malaysia, Day 121

Another day in yet another tropical paradise. Actually we are visiting Penang Island and its capital city of George Town. From that name alone you are likely to surmise that it was a British crown colony and you would be correct. Though its history predates British rule by some 5,000 years, their rule extended from 1867 to 1957, except for a brief period in 1945 when it was occupied by Japan. One can still see their influence today, i.e. colonial architecture and driving on the wrong side of the road - at least to me. Penang appears to have a very strong economy inhabited by Malays, Chinese, Indians, Indonesians and blends thereof. Modern, well maintained streets, some even with guardrails, abound. Not a lot of auto traffic nor the multitude of scooters/motorbikes as in some of our other stops but the infrastructure is there. Beautiful, proud, hard working people making the most of this tropical island paradise.

My tour of choice this day was Highlights of Penang. Excellent choice! We visited an actual batik factory where they produced the most gorgeous hand-painted silk batik, and a butterfly farm, ending with a drive through the mountains.

Our first stop was the batik factory which produced gorgeous hand-painted silk batik with a conveniently located retail shop adjacent where one could purchase just the material or finished garments made from the batik. Shop we did after about twenty minutes of watching the ladies painting the flowers onto the silk while their supervisor explained the process from start to finish. A very large piece of white silk is stretched onto a frame, then one of the ladies commenced to draw the outline of a flower free-hand (they have some other designs, but this day they were producing flowered batik), next another lady with a handful of cups of paint fills in the outline. After the design is painted, the background is painted and the entire piece is waxed thoroughly so that the design will soak thru to the opposite side. Next the fabric is treated with chemicals to set the colors and remove the wax resulting in a beautiful piece of soft, supple, silk art. As this man was describing the painting process he kept repeating "all it takes is time and a steady hand". I strongly disagree! True those ladies did have very steady hands, but they also had an equal amount of artistic talent. Give them some credit! Due to the numerous steps, a single sheet of fabric requires four to five days to morph into a true piece of art. I, of course, did make a purchase or two, but did not receive a marriage proposal.

From the batik factory we visited the Butterfly Farm which to my surprise had almost as many other of God's little creatures as it did butterflies. Butterflies are fast and these were not particularly adept at posing for my camera. Instead, they were intent on gathering as much pollen as possible in as short a time frame as their wings could take them. Inside the farm was a two story waterfall, a goldfish pond, a huge daddy long-legs, a brunt orange and white bull frog (I kid you not!), countless flowering plants and a maze of tunnels with contradictory signs pointing to the exit. As they had a gift shop at the exit, you would think they would make it less confusing.

Perhaps it would not have been a problem had I not spent all of our allotted time actually enjoying the flora, fauna and creatures. Oh well, I was not the only one to get lost nor was I the last one back to the bus. Great treat this butterfly farm!

A Longhorn frog?

Then we took a ride through the country-side with this one photo op stop.

And the purpose of that string stretched along the cliff's edge is?

Sunset on what promises to be a stormy night. While we have had predictions of rain, so far it has not dampened an excursion with most of the heavy lightening and rain coming at night.

Today Is Someday! Watch the Butterflies!