July 30, 2017
George Town: Sight seeing
We wandered down to breakfast at about eight thirty this morning. In true cycle tourist style, we pigged out on the buffet - fruit, mee goreng, egg and sausage, toast, orange juice, more toast and marmalade, coffee, some more toast, even more toast and marmalade. Eventually we left because we wanted to check out the ferry to Lankawi.
Once we found the wharf from where the ferry leaves and the ticket office, we were dismayed to find that both of tomorrow's boats were fully booked. After lots of to-ing and fro-ing, one of the ladies in the ticket office suggested we come back at seven am tomorrow because there are often cancellations and if we are first in the stand-by queue we might make it onto the boat. This means we will have to miss breakfast at the hotel but I guess we unconsciously preempted that this morning.
Next was St George's Church. A service was on the go so we decided it would be bad manners to stick our heads through the door. So we carried on to Cheong Fatt Tze's Blue Mansion, a wonderfully restored mansion of a Chinese tycoon from the late 19th century. Entry is only on a guided tour with the first starting at eleven o'clock giving us an hour to spend, which we did at the old Protestant Cemetery up the road. Interestingly for the dates of internment, the cemetery has a grave of someone who had committed suicide, being that of the Registrar of Justice in the early 19th Century.
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Back at Cheong Fatt Tze's mansion we were treated to a lively tour by a guide whose sense of humour and lively patter made up for the large number of people in the group (many of whom seemed bored out of their skulls).
After roti for lunch at a dive around the corner from Cheong Fatt Tze's mansion (found while looking for St Xavier's Church - remember him from Melaka ?) we went off looking for some street art, prompted by this lovely one at the roti place:
On our way to look for the next one in a list that had caught our eye, we bumped into a Hungarian cycle tourist who is into the last months of a journey from Hungary to Singapore.
While looking at the Indian in the boat an English girl hurried over. She has been cycling up from Indonesia and is on her way to Thailand and we were the first other cycle tourists she had seen in the two and half months she has been on the road.
We returned to St George's Church, assuming that the service should now be over. Not only was the service over but the church was locked up. I guess we shouldn't have worried about being inconsiderate to the worshipers earlier in the day.
With a loud clap of thunder, a storm broke and sent us hurrying back to our hotel.
Today's ride: 11 km (7 miles)
Total: 3,566 km (2,214 miles)
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