George Town is the capital of the Malaysian Island State of Penang. When approaching George Town by sea one is struck by the large number of tall buildings that crowd the township and nearby waterfront areas.

George Town is named after King George III of England and was founded as a British township by Francis Light a Royal Navy Captain in 1786. Permission to occupy the island was granted by the local Sultan in exchange for military assistance in a conflict with the Sultan of a nearby state. Penang, renamed Prince of Wales Island, was the first British colonial possesion in South East Asia. In 1826 George Town became the capital of The Straits Settlements, the British name for their possessions of Penang, Malacca and Singapore.

Our first stop of the day was the Penang Hill Fenicular. This was opened in 1923 having been built for the British colonial community to enjoy the cooler air of the Penang Hill (alititude 800 meters).

While we were at the top of the Fenicular we came across a little shop selling wax hand-molds and got talking to the Pakastani man that was manning the store. Eventually we scraped together a collection of Singapore and Australian money to get our selves a mold of us holding hands. The process was facinating. We clasped hands (one each) and repeatedly dipped our hands into cold water and a warm solution of wax. After doing this a dozen times our clasped hands were held firmly in a cover of wax. The shop guy then gently separated our hands from the wax while maintaining the shape formed by our hands. He then filled the mold our hands had made with a firmer wax solution and started to carve the mold wax away from the newly added firm wax. At that point we ran out of time (we were already past the time we were scheduled to rejoin our group). Had we had the time, once the original mold wax had all been removed from the harder inner wax the entire item would have been dipped in coloured wax, a base added and our initials added to the base.

We enjoyed the process and the interaction with the shop assistant, and were probably saved from trying to carry something in our luggage that would have easily melted.

The second visit of the day was to a massive temple complex which seemed to have structures representing all of the religions of the island. The center pieces of this complex are Kek Lok Si Temple and the Ten Thousand Buddhas Pagoda which contains a 120 ft tall statue of Kuan Yin - Godess of Mercy.