Today’s been a three personal shower day so far, but that might stretch to four. The mercury’s hit 33 degrees but the humidity’s been ramping up a bit which has made the day a bit sticky to say the least. Even so, I’ve had another fascinating day wandering around the town. How often do you get chance to spend so much time in a UNESCO world heritage site, but also one that’s so colourful and vibrant?

As I’ve mentioned before, every day’s different, you see so many things. But there’s also an advantage to spending so much time in one place. You start to recognise patterns and people start to recognise you. Apart from wandering, one of my favorite pastimes is to find a street corner with a good field of view so that I can use the camera with a good field of view and see what slips into my lens – as you’ll see later.

Weekends are always much busier than the week but I’ve no idea where the influx of Chinese and European tourists has come from as I checked the harbour and no cruise-ships have arrived. Penang’s a popular place for Chinese tourists as it retains a lot of Chinese culture that’s been lost in China as a result of Chairman Mao’s 1960s ‘cultural revolution’. Plus, here’s part of the Chinese diaspora from the 1800s in the same way the Irish, Scots and many others were scattered around that time.

Whilst I didn’t find any cruise ships, I dis find a rather good food fair with an environmental and youth slant that’s on the seafront for the next couple of days. The people on the stalls were delighted to see Europeans and talk to us about their foods and other products. I was filmed a number of times in order that I could appear in their social media profiles. Purely by happenchance I was their for the grand opening by a local dignitary, but I’ve not had chance to find out who they were. What was nice was swapping nods and handshakes with the local press pack as I’d got the 400mm lens on the D5, so straight away they spotted a fellow professional. What was interesting was the opening ceremony. After said VIPs turned up the MC launched into a very long Islamic prayer, after which the national anthem was played and literally everybody within earshot (even those in the nearby park) stopped and stood up whilst it went on.

I’ll add a lot more pictures tomorrow, but I’ve had a busy day, which is why this blog is so late. I also bumped into a couple of people afterwards whom I stopped to have a rare been with. I’ve not se foot in any of the tourist bars but several times I’ve passed a small shop that seems to sell a huge range of beers and wines. In the evening you grab a plastic chair from a stack and sit in the road outside. As I was passing I overheard a conversation about railways, so interjected. Next thing I know I’m chatting to a Japanese IT chap and railway enthusiast and an Aussie civil engineer about all sorts of stuff, so thought, bugger it, I’ll stay for a while. Then the wind sprang up as a forewarning before the heavens opened. Now I’m back at the Blue Star whilst the rain beats down good style.

So, here’s a few pictures from today in Georgetown.

Remember when I’ve said this place has a lot of money sloshing around? Some of the cars tend to give that way.

Before I go, here’s today’s random cat picture.

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