Our Great Adventure: Day 88 15/12/2014

We had planned to go up Penang Hill today but the weather was grey and overcast and by the time we'd had breakfast it had started to drizzle. So instead we headed to Penang Museum. It was a great little museum and at only 1 ringet (20p) really good value. It includes a range of exhibits on the customs and traditions of Penang's diverse ethnic groups, of the 9 the Chinese, Malay and Indian make up over 90%. From here we headed to the Heritage Trust (open on Mondays!) to get a copy of the self guided walking tour map. The cooler weather and occasional drizzle made it much more pleasant for walking around. Diane took the role of tour guide only to get put on a PDP after about 20 minutes for getting confused between the red and purple routes! It was a great way to get to understand more about the history of Georgetown and see a number of the historic buildings from Chinese, Indian and Malay heritage. We stopped off for lunch at a Chinese cafe before continuing on the route, visiting temples, mosques, churches, trading houses and clan houses. A better appreciation of the history of the town has certainly made us feel a little bit more enamored by the place. In the evening we went to another local Indian restaurant that specialises in biriyani. This time Simon got what he had ordered from the menu and the food was tasty and not too spicy. Diane's vegatable biriyani was OK although with the exception of the odd pea lacked in vegetables. Still no beer though so we stopped off at a street bar for a Tiger beer, the nearest thing to local beer being brewed in Malaysia but actually originates from Singapore. Fingers crossed for better weather tomorrow for heading up Penang Hill.