Naughty Nyonya: Penang Hill Discovery Trails

Penang Hill Discovery Trails

with missdimsum.my@gmail.com

This funicular train, on display at Astaka, is the third generation hill transportation, until the current funicular hill railway. The first generation hill transportation? Coolies carrying British and Colonials up the hill, on sedan chairs.

This particular coach is preserved on display as it was the coach in which Queen Elizabeth travelled in when she visited Penang in the early years.

This is not the facade of Bel Retiro. Rather, it is the servant's quarters.
Bel Retiro's main building is on the other side.

We passed a wooden gate and descended.
Along the way are old metal rail tracks with cables as rails for balance and safety.

During Colonial times, the British build and live in bungalows,
and coolies in these houses in the valleys, or ravines.

Creepers are like social climbers, hitch a ride on another personality, event, etc.
Some creepers climb up on a host tree, and eventually, smother, suffocate,
and take over the whole tree.

Whenever one comes across these ferns, they are an indicator that the forest is dinosaur age.
Since they are dinosaur food, as seen in the movie 'Raptors'.

Thus each cycad is functionally either male or female, and the spores can be life-threatening.

Cycads (Cycadophyta) were dominant vegetation at the time of the dinosaurs. It is thought that they were the food of many of the early dinosaurs. The sporophyte is very much like a fern with a thick stem and long compound leaves called fronds. As the stem grows vertically in most species, they resemble tree ferns or palms.

A coil of rattle snake!!!??!!!

A guide once told me that these are used as leis in Hawaii.

I lived in Hawaii for 2 years and have never seen these 'leis'.

Perhaps he confused it with the kukui nuts.

A mushroom puts out a swirl of latte skirt.

Mushrooms are necessary to the eco system of the forest. They are usually missed as they are at forest ground level. A network of fine fungal tendrils, or hypae, reaches down to absorb nutrients from the soil. These hyphae then secrete the necessary proteins directly onto the edible matter, leaving the food supply partially liquefied and oozing over the surface of the fungus. Exterior cells of the fungus can then directly absorb the desired nutrients without the need for a distinct digestive system. Mushrooms are essential in passing nutrients to host plants and trees, as well as help in the disintegration process of plant materials in forrest ground.