7/8 MARCH - FLIGHT BACK TO UK

Our flight left Penang for Qatar (Doha) airport at 8.20pm local time.   We made very good time and arrived 1 hour ahead of schedule - 7 hours flying instead of 8 hours.   Sadly that just meant that we had a 3½ hour stopover at Doha instead of a 2½ hour stopover.   The final leg of our journey took 7 hours. 

The flights themselves were brilliant.      The seats in Business Class are fabulous - you can raise and lower the armrests, the chairbacks and the foot/leg rests which start under the knee and give complete support to the lower legs, regardless of how high or low you position them.   The seats convert to flat beds for sleeping.      The area around each seat has numerous shelves and storage areas so your belongings are kept out of the way.

We were provided with 'sleep suits' from the White Company - lightweight joggers and long sleeved T shirts, slippers, and a toiletry bag filled with moisturers, lip balm and anti-ageing moisturer.

Meals are 'on demand' so you tell the crew at what time you'd like to eat.   The large tray tables get laid with white linen tablecloth/serviette and a (fake) candle and there are several meal choices available - you could mix/match so in theory could have 3 desserts if you wished. 

I think there were 8 different wines to choose from, plus 2 types of champagne, a dessert wine and port.     After every snack/meal you are offered hot or cold towels to freshen up and the staff are so attentive - asking frequently if we wanted more wine, soft drinks or snacks.    If you don't want to bother the staff, there is a bar at the back of the cabin with 'serve yourself champagne' and a selection of snacks and fresh fruit!

And Godiva chocolates after every meal.   So we have 8 boxes of chocolates, 8 toiletry bags, 4 sleep suits (we gave our first lot to the villagers at the Rain Forest Inn, Cameron Highlands, as we knew we'd be getting more on the journey home and our cases were pretty full already).

We highly recommend Qatar Airways (Business Class) ... look out for special offers!

Driving to Penang Airport yesterday afternoon (at 5pm) the temperature was 43deg - the hottest day we experienced on our trip.   We arrived at Gatwick at 6.30am local time to 4deg.    At least the house is warm and we're not venturing out today.

Mud Skipper video

I haven't been able to upload videos to the Blog using Blogger's video uploader so have used You Tube ...

On our first visit to Penang we visited the Clan Jetties (houses on stilts) with a view to getting some sunrise pictures.   Sadly that wasn't possible.

The tide was out and there was lots of activity from thousands of crabs and these mud-skippers.   Strange little creatures aren't they?

7 MARCH - THURSDAY. Temple of the 9 Emperors, Butterworth, Penang

Temple of the 9 Emperors is a very beautiful Taoist temple in Butterworth which is on mainland Penang. 

Most Chinese temples seem to be slightly 'grubby' inside thanks to all the incense sticks and food offerings left by devotees.   This temple however, was spotlessly clean and very ornately decorated.

So much Bling!

Even the external walls (around the courtyard and car park) have decorative panels like these:

Chinese lions (or Foo Dogs) guard the temple entrance.   The lions are always in pairs.  The male has one paw resting on a ball and the female one paw holding down a boisterous cub (which is normally lying on its back)

Around the back of the temple I came across these 'floats' which I assume were used in Chinese New Year parades.   They are as ornately decorated as the temple itself.

7/8 MARCH THURS/FRI: Half day in Penang. evening flight to Qatar

We hired a car for 24 hours from Penang airport to give us some flexibility with sightseeing and to save us getting a taxi to and from the airport.  We arrived at our hotel around 8.30pm and went straight out for a beer.   We'd had a snack meal on the flight from Singapore so weren't bothered about food.

Our hotel for one night.   Yeng Keng Hotel in George Town, Penang.

This is a 200+ years old anglo-Indian  mansion that belonged initially to Shaik Eusoffe bin Shail Latiff an Indian-Muslim family with a name that trips off the tongue!  The building was donated to the trustees of the Straits Chinese Building Association in 1939 and leased to Yeng Kent Hotel.   The present owner took over its conservation and upgrade in 2009 and completed the upgrade to a heritage hotel in 2010.  

Gateway to hotel grounds

hotel frontage:

 Once again, the staff at this lovely Heritage Hotel have come up trumps - helpful, friendly and informative.  Lovely place to spend our last night I think.

Bedroom

with adjoining private lounge room

Landing outside our room

and downstairs ...

Patio area - there is also a large courtyard area but the temperature reached 41deg today so far too hot to sit outside, even under parasol umbrellas.

Pool area

and I think there's something quite special about having your name on the stair risers ... perhaps I'll get the carpet removed on ours at home and have 'CLINKERS' in gold lettering!

It would have been nice to spend a little more time here but this is the end of our trip.    We stayed in the Ren i Tang Heritage hotel when in Penang 2 weeks ago and it was a lovely place and probably in the better location in terms of shops and bars.   However there were steep/shallow stairs to negotiate to get to our room.   Here we are on the first floor and the stairs are easy to negotiate so I think on balance this was the better experience for us.

When we left Penang to drive to Cameron Highlands a couple of weeks back we opted to exit the island via the bridge (the fastest route) so today as we had a half day to spare we decided to take the car across to mainland Penang (Butterworth) via Ferry.   Both ferry and bridge crossings are free of charge when leaving the island but you pay a fare (or toll in the case of the bridge) to return to the island.  The fare is only 7.70 Ringgits (about £1.45).

Ferries leave around every 10 minutes and the crossing takes around 20 minutes.   There are good views of Penang island (Georgetown) when you leave but today was quite hazy.

They are all decorated differently but the ferries look like this

and from the car deck ...

Views from the ferry, looking back to Penang island (Georgetown).   Its hazy today unfortunately.

The Clan Jetties along the shoreline (houses on stilts)

Jetty temple

We admired this yacht from afar .... and thanks to Google now know that the Asean Lady is a Catamaran motor yacht worth US$60,000,000 and belongs to Brian Chang (net worth US$100m - reduced from US$560m in 2008 according to Forbes).   How the other half live eh?!

To give a purpose to our visit to the mainland we decided to visit the Temple of the 9 Emperors.  We had no sat-nav with this car so made a few wrong turnings and ended up at Tesco (I kid you not).   David insisted we have a look around.    Superficially its the same store that you'd visit in England but all the signs are in 'foreign' with translations helpfully provided.    They had an F&F clothing section and a range of Everyday Value foods!

We bought some black peppercorns which were sold loose in the veggie section - very peppery and very cheap!

We found the Temple eventually but I'll make a separate post as am writing this from the Plaza Lounge in Penang airport and not sure how much time I'll have available.

PS:  Before we left the UK I discovered that The Plaza Lounge gets slated on Trip Advisor.   As a result of the reviews I decided definitely not to have anything to eat here and as they don't serve wine (!) have just had a beer..   Not a very good Lounge - can't wait to get on the plane and get decent food/drink/service.