The next stop on our Celebrity Millennium adventure was Penang Island, Malaysia, where we would arrive on Friday, 14 November 2025, overnight, and not depart until 5:00 PM the next day. That gave us two full days to explore and also gave me enough photos to spend the next five weeks showing you this amazing destination. So, over that period we will hit several temples, visit George Town, and even take a funicular to the top of Penang Hill. To misquote Margo Channing (All About Eve, 1950), “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a fun five weeks.”
We disembarked at a little after 11:00 AM and headed out to catch our first-day tour.
After joining up with our group, we loaded up aboard our roomy and very comfortable bus and headed for our first Penang Island destination — Wat Chayamangkalaram. Try saying that very quickly) three times!
Wat Chayamangkalaram is a very colorful, quite elaborate, highly detailed Theravada Buddhist Temple. It was built in 1845 in the Thai Temple style.
When I say this place is colorful, I mean colorful. The image above doesn’t even begin to hint what awaits your camera lens and your eyeballs. Especially attention grabbing are the brightly colored glass mosaic dragons in the front of the temple:
Wat Chayamangkalaram Dragons
In Wednesday’s article I’ll take you inside and then tour again the grounds for more views. And in the same article we’ll stroll across the street to another fascinating Buddhist site — Dhammikarama Burmese Temple. Until then, enjoy today’s photo gallery/slide show:
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