Malaysia and the Colonial George Town

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Georgetown, the colonial heart of the island of Penang. Pulau Pinang is an island off the west coast of Malaysia which is connected by a 13.5km bridge to the industrial town of Butterworth, there is also a ferry service which shuttles across the straits every twenty minutes or so.

After a horrendous 12 hour journey from Ko Lanta in Thailand, involving the usual 3 buses combined with stops at the mandatory 5 travel agents along the way, we finally arrived into Georgetown at 20:30, en-route, we were a little nervous about the location we were to be dropped at, no one at any of these travel agents would confirm it was Georgetown, some would say it would be Penang Town, our guidebook didn’t show a Penang town anywhere on the complete map of Pulau Pinang, assuming it would be Georgetown we went with the flow. The chap in front of was playing with his new toy - an iphone, a must have it appears while travelling these days, he had the sat nav up and was mapping our route, from the obscured view from behind a head rest we worked out that his final destination was the other side of the bridge. This is some 8km outside of Georgetown, with likely hood of no ATM’s or anywhere to change our Thai baht. Thankfully the driver dropped us all in the centre of Georgetown near a guesthouse we had decided to view.

The guesthouse was called the Tourist Guesthouse and charged a reasonable 30 ringgit - roughly 5 pounds of the Queens English, a large bed, shared bathroom and strangely A/C. After checking in we ventured out in the rain in search of food and then had an early night.

On our first day in Malaysia we went out for a day of sightseeing and set about in search for Fort Cornwallis. En-route we stumbled past the Eastern and Oriental hotel, which stood grandly on the bank of the river, after a few minutes of wondering which tourist leaving the hotel we could mug, so we could stay, we decided to walk away quickly!

Fort Cornwallis was an old fort created by Captain Sir Francis Light in 1786; he was a trader originally with the East India Company, he named the fort after the Governor - General of Bengal. It was not used primarily a military fort - having never been exposed to battle, though members of Her Majesty’s Royal Artillery have been stationed there over the years, its main role was as an administration hub, as a safe place merchant ships could stop in the Malaka Straits on the trading routes between India and China.

The Fort was originally built of a nibong (Malay for palm trunk) stockade and had no permanent structure to the fort, which span an area of 417.6 square feet. It wasn’t until 1804 that the nibong was replaced by brick and stone which was constructed by Indian convict prisoners under the governorship of Colonel R.T. Farquhar’s at the cost of $80000, there was a surrounding moat some 9 metres deep, but this was filled in the 1920’s due to a malaria outbreak.

During our visit to the Fort T’s flip-flop broke, so we went in search of a replacement with T walking down the street with one flip-flop on and the other swinging in his hand. We then stumbled on a shop which sold flip-flops and sold only hideous ones at that, having purchased the least offensive pair we went about our day and explored the streets that made up Little India.

Little India is a very interesting place, firstly, you are hit by the aroma’s of spices and the beautiful food smells, the streets are awash with colour, this instantly brought back memories of a previous trip to India. As you walk the streets, you stumble on Hindu temples, Buddhist temples, Taoist Temples, Churches and Mosques all co-habiting in this relatively small area in peaceful harmony, it is an example to the world that it can happen, and is a credit to Malaysia.

Having spent time walking around smelling this lovely food we ventured into a local restaurant and order a chicken tandoori naan each, this arrived on a large metallic plate reminiscent of a school dinner tray, with a sizeable garlic naan, large piece of tandoori chicken, curry sauce and a dhal mixture along with a coke each, it was delicious and G to her credit stripped the chicken bone well! The total cost of all this was 16 ringgit, roughly 3 pounds of the Queens English. With full bellies we ventured out again and continued our exploration, including the very well laid out State Museum, until we returned to our hostel.

That evening we headed to the Red Garden’s Food Paradise, this is a square of food stalls, selling everything from chicken satay, to nasri biriyani even a Mc Waffle shop!!! We sat amongst the crowds and the atmosphere was brilliant, groups of locals, families gathered together alongside a few foreigners, T ordered a mutton biriyani which was a fair old size for 7 ringgit about 1 quid 30, G was still full from our afternoon feast. We sat and enjoyed a couple of large Tiger beers and watched the locals sing from the stage.

Our first whole day in Georgetown and we have to say it’s a breath of fresh air from Thailand!

Our next day, we headed out after a breakfast of scrambled eggs and baked beans on toast to find the 204 bus to venture up Penang Hill, we found the bus stop and after an embarrassing moment when we tried to over pay, we took our seats and watched the town and its outskirts pass by, about 1 hour later we arrived at Penang Hill train station - note Penang Hill train station isn’t your typical train station, for one, it goes up the side of the hill at angle of 45 -50 degrees and it goes at a snail’s pace, it took 30 minutes or so to climb 700 metres. On arrival at the ‘summit’ we had a spectacular view of Georgetown and Butterworth across the stretch of water. We could see the massive Penang Bridge - which we have since been informed that it was designed by Americans to British specifications and built by Koreans, which might explain why they have appeared to have built the bridge at the widest section of water! We then had a stroll around the top, where a Hindu Temple and a Mosque stands, as we continue around G notices to her immediate fear - Spiders, big bloody spiders everywhere and there were loads of them, hanging everywhere from trees to lampposts, so we rushed through the covered area into the open an sat at a bench with nothing over it watching the view.

Whilst waiting for train in the ‘waiting area’ a tourist fed a monkey, next thing there is an almighty crash, bang, wallop in true Batman style, above us two monkeys are fighting over the food, then they start circulating above us like preying vultures, watching, looking for food, ready to pounce. They were not big monkeys and a swift kick would have had them running for the hills, it’s just one little bite from the little buggers and you are then spending the day in hospital getting rabies jabs - which wasn’t our idea of fun!

That evening, we returned to the night market again for more food and beers and after a very productive day, we headed back to our hostel early as we were getting up at 5:30am for our 6am bus to the Cameron Highlands.

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Comments

[lilly]

prices
It look like you had a great vacantion and new experience,can you tell me how much did you spent for this holliday?I'm planing a very similar holliday for me and my friend,just wondrering?thank you

[Tony and George]

prices
hi there, we were spending about 25 to 30 pounds a day between us, more where you can drink and especially more on the Perhentian islands. Hope you're holiday goes well, Malaysia was one of our fav countries of our trip.