Friday, March 29, 2013

Penang Hill Train Ride

The train up Penang Hill is a funicular train meaning it has two cars balanced on a cable, when one goes up the other comes down. It is a 51% slope and made the 2,000 feet in just a few minutes with 100 people in our car.

Greg and Grace at the top.
There is a Hindu temple and a Masque at the top.


You can just see the Katie Lee center frame with a little imagination.

A closer view of Katie Lee from the ferry to Butterworth yesterday.

Before

After
Oh yeah, and as we were walking almost to the top, there was a snake charmer. That really is a king cobra she is kissing!

Ole Georgetown on Penang, Malaysia

We took a walk around Old Georgetown here on Penang. Some of the sights are below. A sign on a busy street saying "no street food vendor carts. Hahaha!
Then there was this confused prickly-pear and ocatilla. Don't know if it is an oriental one or just too close to the equator.

Trinda found a hat that doubles as a paper fan.
And Grace is ready to defend us against the pirates at the old Fort Cornwallis.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Our last trip to Singapore included lunch again.
Ahh... but not this lunch! We ate Indian food across the street from this!   They also had "Pig's Organ Soup" and Trotter stew (pig's feet).
Trinda is fascinated with the toilets here...that's her foot for scale. She calls it a 'squatter'.

Singapore across the strait, from the top of my mast in Danga Bay Marina.

Looking north from Dang Bay

Our second trip to Singapore included lunch in Old China Town with Greg and Grace.



A temple at the end of China street. Trinda, Greg and Grace lower right.
It is way over time for an update here! So I'll try. Some of these were posted on FB, but here again. At the Sunday market in Kuching I saw the bananas. Mostly in this part of the world we do NOT se "Chiquita Bananas" but smaller. These beauties are the largest I have seen.
Sunday market - Kuching, Malaysia (Borneo)

Before we left Kuching, we went to the 'Cultral Village'.
Our first visit to Singapore included a visit to the top of the Sands Hotel. Three buildings with a 'boat' on top.
Top of the Sands Hotel, Singapore with really large ferris wheel in the back.

The infinity pool on top

Part of the new botanical gardens park and part of Singapore Strait.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Tuba River

We Checked out of Porto Princesa and went on south toward Malaysia. The wind came up so we sat in the mouth of the river at Tuba River for a few days waiting for the weather to get better. As you can see this was not much of a town, just a squatter village by the barge loading area. There is a very large nickel  mine a few miles inland. They ship the raw ore out and refine it elsewhere.



As you could guess, Trinda got bored here.

7 New Wonders of Nature

While we were in Porto Princesa we took a tour to one of the "New 7 Wonders of Nature". This is the Underground River. It is a river that has eaten a path under a limestone mountain for about 8 kilometres. 4.5 Km is navigable. Our ride on a small paddle boat was only 45 minutes, about 1.5 Km into the cave. I took lots of photos inside, but the new cheep Kodak didn't think much of the dark. Twas a nice day all in all. Included in the tour was a 1.5 hour ride each way in a 9 passenger van, this time with less than 9 in it! Beautiful scenery and an all-you-can-eat buffet. What more could you ask for.

Nothing like Carlsbad though.
Larry & Trinda waiting for our banghka to take us to the cave opening.
The mouth of the river/cave.
The only photo that came out, the mouth of the cave, exiting.
In the waiting area, with signs all around and the guide saying not to feed the animals, this little monkey was enjoying  a banana.
While he was sitting on the rope, guess what Trinda did. Yep she jerked the rope! Really excited the little bugger. I thought he was really going to come after her for a minute.