Georgetown, Penang was touted as a larger Luang Prabang, Laos. Both are UNESCO towns for their architecture preservation among other things. Penang promises a food lover’s paradise, with new dishes, cheap food and infinite flavors.

We fell for it, and fell into a tropical swamp! Temperatures rested between 90-97 degrees Fahrenheit, with humidity around 70-90 percent. In other words, you step out of your room and in two minutes feel like you’d done back to back spin classes. Strangely, the trip photographer did not document this.

With Chinese New Year, it has been a calculus of which places are closed and when they re-open. The year of the goat (or sheep – same difference?) has not had the most fortuitous beginning.

So, I could regale you with our mosquito kills and amount of hand washing per day, but it would bore you and make me seem trite when others are suffering this winter.

So instead, I will focus on glass half full and give you Penang as it would like to be: food, art and history.