“Without a war, America would descend into total confusion and would have to form itself into a police state to survive, because its people no longer have any internal structure. Americans can never be defeated by war. It is peace they find intolerable.”
A line from a novel by John Burdett (2005). As we wind down two wars and crank up the police state in America, Mr. Burdett seems frighteningly prescient.
We were in Penang for 8 or 10 days of the two weeks we were in Malaysia. My brother drove us all over the island, in some of the most insane traffic I’ve ever seen (he said it was nothing compared to Jakarta). We snapped lots of images and this is our catch-all post. I’ll get around to captioning these in coming days.
Spotted a couple of these guys on the promenade of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore.
A street in one of the Chinese sections of Penang. We were on our way to visit the Kek Lok Si Temple.
Sri Aruloli Thirumurugan is one of the oldest Hindu temples in Penang. It started off in the 1800’s as a small shrine to the Hindu deity Murugan – the deity associated with Thaipusam – by the Indian sepoys and sedan chair carriers, and is located at a mount within Penang Hill called Gun Hill.
Barb had her heart set on some beach time and Penang doesn’t have really great beaches. So she booked a couple of days at the Berjaya Langkawi Resort, an island to the north (about a 30 min flight).
Langkawi, Malaysia