Once we had made it through the taxi hawkers who were quite aggressive in vying for our business, we headed along waterfront past the Queen Victoria Clock tower. Unfortunately the clock tower was finished only a couple of days before she died. It’s about 80 feet in height, with each foot representing a year of her reign.
After the clock tower we had a very quick look at the exterior of the fort that was constructed by Captain Francis Light in an attempt to protect the city . Captain Light was the guy who bought what is now Penang (on behalf of the Dutch East India Company) off the local Sultan.

We continued our journey north and had a look at the City Hall and an interesting war memorial that
included the normal world wars as well as the Malaysian Emergency and the Burma Death Railway.
To get a little bit of culture, followed our free tourist map to the State Museum to have a look at the history of the city and the various ethnic groups that comprised its original citizens. Each group contributed something to the development of early Penang.

Next it was off to the Snake Temple. The Temple of the Azure Cloud is dedicated to the god Chor Soo Kong. Legend has it that after the temple was constructed several snakes moved into it. As this was seen as good luck, no one bothered to kick them out. The snakes living in the temple comprise of Pit Vipers and Green Tree Snakes, so not exactly the type of snakes you want to encounter in a dark alley . The incense burnt throughout the temple keeps the resident snakes fairly placid, so much so signs have been erected confirming that yes they are real and asking people not to poke them.
After surviving the snake temple, we headed to one of the many shopping centres in Penang. This was only a quick stop to try to find some more shorts for mum, while I happened to find a nice top. The stop itself turned out to take longer than first thought as we encountered some issues around what size of clothes is needed. We were also hoping to find somewhere to have lunch, however this part of the mission failed miserably and we didn’t really get anything to eat until we returned to the ship.

Purchases in hand we headed to our next temple, Wat Chayamangalaram. This temple features the world’s fourth largest reclining Buddha – a gold covered statue over 100 feet long. The main template also includes a Buddha for each day of the week, as well as one for each birth animal. It was quite a busy temple and unfortunately had a reputation of being frequented by shoe thieves . I figured that if someone wanted my stinky $10 sand shoes that badly that they were willing to steal them, then good luck to them! They didn’t want my or mums shoes… not sure if that’s saying something about our foot ware choices or not.
Across the road was the Burmese Buddhist temple, it has a very tall standing Buddha, as well as one for each Asian country. I believe there was a little bit of competition between the temples, as they were both VERY ostentatious and shiny.

By mid afternoon we were both hot, tired, sticky and hungry. As the ship was due to sail in about 2
hours, we decided to head back to the dock to see if there was any food around even if it meant getting back on to the ship). We stumbled across a random little food shop across the road from the dock. Since we had no idea what we were ordering, we opted for noodles with vegetables. It was a little spicy, very juicy and oh so yummy.
We boarded the ship with full stomachs and ready to head to our final Malaysian ports.

Fun fact: 
Penang is named after the betel nut tree which grows across the island.