Old George Town - World Heritage Site and one interesting place

We went into George Town yesterday, an old town that is now a world heritage site. At one time it was an English Colonial City- relatively short lived and now it is incredibly multicultural. Chinese, Indian, Malay and of course less of English influence. There are also all sorts of other Southeast Asian influences like this reclining Thai Buddhist temple we went into. This thing is huge. See below.

See what I mean.  (most Buddhas are not laying down - FYI)

Also a Burmese Buddhist temple, good thing they had signs to let you know as I am not that discerning in my Buddha recognition.

George Town has recently become famous for a street artist that painted scenes on buildings that somewhat invite participation. Here Charles has joined in the fun.

Others are just real interesting large pictures.

The city is one busy market place with lots going on.

I think this is a close up of the Burmese Buddha.

One of the giant street art paintings..

Here is a Chinese polytheistic worship or something, they had a host of gods, and a host of offerings and incense burning.

A man told me at a temple place of worship that this is the god of finance and he said a lot of Chinese worship him. I thought to myself so do a lot of Americans. Well perhaps not this one, but similar.  The temple is also a Clan house - a family sponsored hall that serves as an extended family center.  By extended, I mean back to when the family emigrated from China in 1880's or there abouts.

Some of the entrances are quite extensive and fancy as our group is posed in front of this one.

and I like the name of this hotel. Oh and check out the sky, the date was February 1, so the ground hog, should he have been here, would have seen his shadow and we would be expecting six more weeks of winter.  I reckon that would not be all bad as it is not terribly cold right now.  Note the clothing we are wearing above.

The red "lanterns" hanging over the street are the first of the decorations for Chinese New Year which is a few weeks away.  In the meantime a big Indian holiday is about to kick off.  More about that in the next post.

A monk blessing a devotee at one of the polythestic temples of which there are many.

and a Muslim tourist posing for a photo with more of the street art. The bicycle and basket are partially real and partially painted.

as is the swing set where the American tourist is posing for a photo.  Having fun too.