Georgetown, Penang

Here we are in the large city of Georgetown on the island of Penang, south of Thailand and west of Malaysia, and we love it. Many streets are narrow and lined with small shops while wider streets hold massive colonial buildings on larger properties. Tree covered hills are visible in the distant.

Our accommodation is the Chulia Heritage Hotel – a mansion that has been converted into a guesthouse. The entire place is white – white floors, bed linens, cupboard, tables, slipcovers on the chairs, you name it. The place is down a small lane off a busy street so it’s quiet except for the call to prayers from the many mosques in the area – but I don’t mind that.

A walk helped us get the lay of the land before settling on a place to eat. Off a street close to our hotel, we found a fantastic food court with Japanese, Thai, Indian, fish head curry, fresh fish, noodles, etc. I had Pad Thai and Ian had some sort of noodle dish and they were yummy (and very cheap). We will definitely be back.

On our way to the hotel we were surprised to find the streets booming with business. Things come to life when the sun falls because of Ramadan.  

Day 2

We started our day with a visit to the Chocolate Boutique. I had come across the place in my travel book and it promised to be an interesting experience with its 60 varieties of chocolate. We were met by a ‘guide’ who rushed us into the ‘healthy chocolate’ room, opened a Tupperware container of chocolate pieces, and gave us each a taste of dark chocolate. She didn’t introduce herself or offer any information other than the flavour of the chocolate we were sampling. Then she hurried us to the next room which was the fruit room where we received orange chocolate pieces and strawberry ones – the next was coconut, and so on. After this attack on our taste buds, a basket was thrust into my hands and we were encouraged to make our purchases. At this point, I felt a bit ill from the speed at which we sampled all that chocolate and neither one of us was interested in buying any to eat but we felt obligated so we got a bar.  It was all very odd.

We continued down a busy street with a decent sidewalk but no shade. It’s a rarity to find a sidewalk here; it’s almost as if they were an afterthought. The stores that line the side streets have covered fronts that butt up against the streets but all are different heights so you have to watch where you are going because you never know when there is a step. You’ll come to a restaurant or café which are typically open to the street with its tables and chairs out on the front. If you are walking here, you end up weaving among diners. Walking on the street is worse; you risk getting hit by a car or motorbike.

St George’s Church, the oldest working church in Malaysia came up on our right so we decided to stop for a visit. It was very simple inside, everything was white. We met a gentleman from Reno, Nevada who has been living in Penang for 15years with his wife who teaches at an international school. We had a nice little chat and then made our way to the esplanade and the waterfront, hoping to find a breeze. No such luck. We continued on, past Fort Cornwallis to the Clock Tower, a gift to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee – it’s 60 feet high, each foot representing each year of the Queen’s reign. It was somewhat anti-climactic after such a long hot walk! We ventured on through the traffic and discovered a food court packed with Malay office workers, a good sign, so we stopped here for lunch.

We both had nasi lemak, a Malaysian dish of coconut rice wrapped in a banana leaf – you can get nasi lemak with an egg, chicken, pork, fish, etc. We had chicken. They are quite small so we also had a stuffed bun – I had chicken curry and Ian had fish. Two lemon ice teas and the entire meal in total came to about 9RM – 3 dollars. Incredible.

We kept walking along the streets towards our hotel and came across Hainan Temple. We were drawn to it by chanting monks and couldn’t help but venture tentatively into the courtyard to listen. When the ceremony was finished, a man motioned for us to enter. After first removing our shoes, the gentleman gave us a bit of history and tour. The temple was small but well appointed with an open air courtyard. It is a Taoist temple, founded in 1866. While we were wandering around, the rain started and poured down. We were stuck. No one minded us being there, so I planted myself on a stool and we waited out the rain. It was very peaceful.

Following this, we made our way to Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion, or the ‘Blue Mansion’ as it’s been named due the fact that it is dark blue. We signed up for the English tour and had a wonderfully funny guide who made the hour long tour fascinating.

Cheong Fat Tze was a Chinese business tycoon who owned houses all over Southeast Asia. The one in Penang housed his favourite 7^th wife (50 years younger than Tze) and combined both Chinese traditional and Western architecture. It has 38 rooms, 5 courtyards, 7 staircases, and 220 windows. The house is designed with Feng Shui traditions in mind. The symmetry of the house ensures that the Feng Shui heart, or chi, is located in the middle of the house, in its open air courtyard. Here you find air, water from rain, earth from the plants and metal in the posts.

According to Feng Shui traditions, the best location to build a house is on the ‘dragon’s back’ with a slope behind and water in front. Since Penang hill is so far away, Cheong Fatt Tze built the back half of his house eleven inches higher than the front. I wish I could show you the beauty of the interior but we were not allowed to take photos.

Despite coming across many rats on our evening stroll – we had a super day.

Day 3

Today we ventured out on the city bus to the Kek Lok Si Temple, a traditional Chinese temple situated on a small hill on the edge of the city. ‘Temple of Supreme Bliss’ is a Buddhist temple with construction beginning in 1890 and in 1930, the 7 story main pagoda of 10,000 Buddhas was completed.  

We climbed a pagoda – 198 steps in all - with an incredible view of the city. The temple complex is huge and takes a few hours to appreciate all the details – wooden ceilings, carved pillars, mosaic tiled dragons, fish and turtle ponds, gardens, etc.

I found the turtle pond a bit disturbing, the poor things seemed a bit overcrowded…

In 2002, a 30.2m bronze statue was completed and this sits higher than the rest of the temple – we took a funicular to this level and were not disappointed with what we found.

Not only was there the statue, but another temple, a fish pond with waterfall, a small park, and statues representing the Chinese horoscope – here are photos of Ian and I with our Chinese symbols.

At this point it started to rain – seems we get caught in the rain at the same time each day here – so we made our way down the hill through the stores and into the first restaurant we could find. Ian had assam laksa, a Penang signature dish of noodles in a fish broth garnered with a variety of different vegetables. It is a spicy hot and sour dish. I had Fried Koay Teow, a dish of flat rice noodles fried in an iron cast wok over very high heat.  Shrimp, garlic, egg, soy, bean sprouts and chives are added and it was delicious; the noodles neither too wet nor too dry.

We returned from our visit to the temple tired and hot (our usual state) but happy.

Day 4

Having discovered Komtar where the city buses originate, we decided to board bus 101 and head to the National Park with no plans whatsoever.  The bus cost us 3.40 RM (about a dollar and change) and was an hour long. On the drive we could see the beach and we both noted a very large lizard-like creature on one of the empty stretches of beach – to us it looked like a small crocodile.

The bus let us out at the last stop and we moseyed over to the park office where we signed in and took a look at the map. There’s a canopy walk but it was closed (darn it!) so we opted to do a trail to Monkey Beach, that ran along the water.

Before setting off we figured we should load up on fuel so we headed to the closest food stand and asked what they served and were introduced to Pepper Roti – a roti loaded with peppers and onions. It was perfect for our lunch.

The trail was fairly easy, starting off with a concrete path then turning into a trail where we crawled over roots, rocks, and fallen trees. Some areas had wooden stairs, others had concrete ones, and others had none.  It was hot and muggy and we watched in both awe and worry as rain clouds approached over the water.  We unfortunately didn’t see any wildlife and despite sweating profusely, thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We came across a University Marine Studies centre with a long dock out to the water and asked about a boat ride back.

Now that was fun. First of all trying to get into the boat from off the dock was interesting – I thought for sure I’d end up breaking something getting into that rocky thing.  The dock was very high and there were some stairs that went down to the water but the boat couldn’t come close enough so you had to jump from the side with not much to hang onto.

We were joined by several women who work at the centre and take a boat out there every day.  It certainly wasn’t a luxury ride, we were all sprayed with water but it felt great after that hot trek.  As we approached our drop off point, instead of heading to the dock, the driver moved close to shore.  The women stood, rolled up their pants and began climbing down a ladder attached to the front of the boat. Off went my socks and shoes, up went my pants, and over I went.

All good fun.