After a bit of a hike from the jetty, we arrived at the Old Penang Guesthouse on the smoochily-named Love Lane, settled into our delightful dorm room and then set about exploring our neighbourhood. Georgetown was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site a few years back and you can see why – architecturally and culturally it is a fascinating fusion of different cultures from across the globe. As a former trading post, there are influences from all over; quarters like Little India and Chinatown are steeped in the history and culture of the motherlands and this is still evident today. The British ruled Penang from the late 18th to the early 20th century and this colonial history has given the island some impressively grand hotels, mansions and churches, many of which look as imposing now as they must’ve when they were first built. Our guesthouse was in the heritage district of Georgetown and was a grand colonial-style structure from the mid 1800’s itself, featuring a breezy tiled courtyard, sweeping mahogany staircase leading to large airy rooms upstairs (though these were now divided up into smaller ones) and ceiling fans and indoor tropical plants aplenty only adding to the ambience! As with much of Georgetown, our street was predominantly two-storey shuttered terraced houses, with the odd temple or church thrown in the mix. Interestingly, Love Lane acquired its name as a result of rich local men housing their mistresses there – naughty! The slightly promiscuous air is no longer evident (well we didn’t notice it anyway!), though apparently other areas of the city do reveal their seedy side when the fleet arrives and the city is flooded with sailors – say no more, nudge nudge, wink wink!
Walled courtyard at our guesthouse
Shop-houses on Lebuh Chulia towards Little India (note the Wycombe woodwork shop – maybe from good old High Wycombe?!)
An old, old Odeon cinema on Penang Street
Putting culture and history aside for a few minutes, we stumbled across an absolute beauty of a restaurant for dinner. I say restaurant, it was actually a pub called Soho Free House which was pretty much a carbon copy of a Wetherspoons, complete with 2 for 1 deals on meals fresh from the microwave! A spot of home comfort indulgence was definitely the order of the evening; the bangers and mash went down a storm! They had both Carlsberg and Strongbow on tap so had two out of the three essential ingredients for Snakey-B but they had no blackcurrant cordial – gutted! As Penang is no longer a duty-free island (Langkawi now has that privilege), booze is pretty expensive meaning our Snakey-B’s would have set us back £6 each - perhaps it was a blessing in disguise!
Is it the Catherine Wheel in Henley? No, it’s the Soho in Georgetown!
Thumbs up for unhealthy stodge for dinner!
After a pretty abysmal nights’ sleep courtesy of the night-time nasal notes from a frontrunner for the World’s Worst Snorer title in our dorm room, we knocked back the essential super-strong coffee with our free toast & jam breakfast, ready for a day’s exploring. We first wandered around the nearby Little India quarter, past enticingly colourful shops selling everything from saris to the spices, all accompanied by impressively loud bhangra music blaring out of massive PA systems in every shop!
Tricycle in Little India
Bollywood video stores and sari shops in Little India
Heading North from Little India back towards the quay at which we arrived from Langkawi, we passed the stone fortress walls of Fort Cornwallis. Dating from the early days of the British presence, the fort is mostly underground so not immediately architecturally alluring. We stumbled across the entrance to the old lighthouse at one corner of the fortress walls and scaled the sturdy steel steps around the building to the top, Fran leaving me to carry on up the rusty, bird poo covered ladder to the beacon by myself! The view was pretty pleasant at the top, the shiny white facades of Georgetown behind us and Langkawi, the Malaysian mainland and a few billion litres of seawater in front of us!
Cannon and lots of bricks at Fort Cornwallis
Resident control room supervisor taking a nap
Scaling the lighthouse ladder
View over Fort Cornwallis back towards Georgetown…
…and the other way!
Our explorations of the town took us back past a number of grand colonial offices and banks (notably the beautiful, and possibly taxpayer-owned RBS building!) back towards Chinatown. Whilst there are Chinese shops all over Georgetown (the Chinese do make up about 40% of Penang’s population after all), the concentration is much greater in Chinatown. Shops adorned with Chinese script, hanging red lanterns and Buddhist shrines line Chinatown’s streets, though the architecture is still quintessentially Penang (and there are still no pavements!). A fair number of the crumbling terraces appear derelict; this is more and more evident as you head toward the KOMTAR complex. Built in the 1970’s, the KOMTAR centre towers above the shop houses below, its menacing concrete octagonal style a world away from the gentle shuttered buildings below. It does house the local government offices so perhaps this contrast is intentional!
Pretty swish RBS building
Georgetown’s Dewan Bandaran (City Hall)
Some retro Chinese shopfronts
Campbell Street in Chinatown
The humongous KOMTAR centre with tiny shophouses below
Charismatic crumbly buildings galore
KOMTAR up close – pretty scary!
There are a number of shopping malls in and around the KOMTAR centre which were eerily deserted and devoid of any big name shops (despite some being over 7 floors). Another two massive new shopping centres were being built nearby but we contemplated whether there were actually any shops going into these developments! With our search for the city centre on hold, we found the bus station and hopped on a local bus towards Air Itam, home of the Kek Lok Si Temple. The temple lies in the hills surrounding Penang Hill, the island’s highest peak. From Air Itam it’s a fairly gruelling 20 minute walk up a cobblestone path, flanked by stall upon stall selling trinkets, souvenirs and T-shirts. Just before you reach the first level of the temple, you arrive in a truly bizarre structure which looks like a 70’s shopping complex / car park, containing public loos and a supermarket! Once you’re through this though the temple slowly reveals its’ charms – lots of Chinese architecture and Buddhist shrines, plus a small gold leaf-encrusted statue of Shiva (a Hindu god). The roofs of the temples were shiny yellow terracotta, like the Forbidden City in Beijing, and featured the usual dragons and serpents! The views over Georgetown from the top were pretty impressive, though sadly we were too late to get the funicular railway right up to the peak of Penang Hill – darn! Anyway, we headed back to town on the bus, happy with a day’s hardcore exploring!
Through the shopping centre and up the stairs to the temple!
Mini pagoda in mini courtyard en route to the main temple
Quite a few Buddhas…
…and a Shiva for good measure
Temple parapet usefully shielding us from the blazing sun!
The following day we checked out of our guesthouse and, rather than hopping on the next boat off the island, had the guilty pleasure of two nights in 5-star luxury courtesy of Fran’s Dad and Jenny’s wedding present – awesome! We checked into the fab G Hotel in Georgetown (receiving free ice cream upon check-in – genius!) and thoroughly made ourselves at home in a clean, quiet, spacious, nice-smelling slice of non-backpacker heaven! We seized the opportunity to do some training in the gym, had a relaxing massage, went for a swim, nicked all of the toiletries (obviously) and generally had a break from public transport and hostels for 48 hours. We also indulged in a spot of shopping at the neighbouring Gurney Plaza, where we found all of the shops we’d been expecting in the malls in the city centre, including a Nike store for Fran’s new trainers and a new pair of £3 flip-flops in the Adidas sale for me (last of the big spenders)! On our second day at the hotel, I convinced Fran it would be a good idea to cycle to Batu Ferringhi beach where I had been on holiday 20 years ago! It didn’t look far on the map at 10 miles each way, however the roads turned out to be pretty darn hilly and distinctly bike-unfriendly! As a result, as soon as we arrived we pretty much had to turn round and go back, cycling full pelt in order to make the massage appointment – whoops! We made it just in the nick of time, which was lucky otherwise I wouldn’t be here to write this blog entry!!!
Fran + ice cream = happiness
Our room in G Hotel – definitely beats a stinky dorm!
Awesome pool – yay!
Happy faces at the start of the epic cycle ride
Batu Ferringhi beach – very pleasant for the 10 seconds we were there!
In summary, we’d say that Georgetown is a vibrant, cosmopolitan town with buckets of colonial buildings that ooze history from every crumbling crack, a few concrete monoliths, plus a smattering of stylish hotels and boutiques at which to indulge. The mix of different cultures makes it unique and intriguing to explore, and with the locals being so friendly and the food so tasty it’s a pleasure too!
Anyway, after our thoroughly enjoyable time on Penang, we made our way to the Malaysian mainland and up the winding mountain roads to the Cameron Highlands – Fran will be your blogger extraordinaire for the next episode!
Lots of love to everyone,
Rich and Fran
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