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Published: August 8th 2011
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We woke up on the overnight train. It was almost an hour late getting into Butterworth, which made me nervous that we missed it. But a good general rule is that if it’s not obviously not your stop, DO NOT get off the moving vehicle. We got into Butterworth at about 7:30 am. The train station, bus station, and ferry station are all connected by walkways, so we immediately walked to the bus terminal to buy our tickets for Monday (despite the cab driver who very helpfully offered to drive us to the bus station because the walk was “steep”). This was an amazingly easy process. We walked to the ferry station and paid RM 1.2 (about 50 cents) to cross over to Georgetown.
After taking a bus to our hostel (the amazingly beautiful Old Penang Guest House) and brushing our teeth, we set out on a recommended walking tour of Georgetown. We had some trouble finding the beginning of this tour though, and ended up taking a rickshaw to the start. The rickshaw had spinning pinwheels and bunches of fake flowers and played Indian music. It was pretty subtle.
Our first stop was the Queen Victoria Memorial
Clock Tower. It was commissioned by a Chinese man (interesting) for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. It’s 60 feet tall because it was the 60th anniversary of her reign. Right next to the clock tower is Fort Cornwallis. It’s a pretty small fort, but you can walk around the whole thing, go up on the walls and take pictures with the many cannons. We walked by City Hall and Town Hall (not the same thing? This confused me) which are both classic examples of colonial architecture. They’re both right on the sea, which was nice and cool for a little while. We walked past the Supreme Court building and St. George’s Church, supposedly the oldest Anglican church in Southeast Asia, before heading to the Penang State Museum. Our favorite section was the interactive traditional games section which featured both mancala (called congkak) and checkers (called Dam Aji). We headed back to our hostel for lunch and they recommended an Indian place nearby. I got tandoori chicken (came with naan and 3 amazing dipping curries), Joel got chicken tikka masala, and we both got lassis and split a plate of roti canai, which is similar to naan, but special to Malaysia.
After lunch we decided to rent a motorbike. This lasted less than 30 minutes when it became readily apparent that this was dangerous because a) we didn’t know where we were going, b) Malaysians are pretty dangerous drivers, and c) they drive on the wrong side of the road (blame colonialism). So we brought the bike back, asked the guy working at our hostel to give the keys back and finally checked into our room. Naptime was definitely needed. As was aloe vera time since the sun is ridiculously hot in Malaysia.
After our nap we headed back out to see the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion, but we had missed the last tour. We convinced the man at the gate to let us onto the grounds to snap some pictures. We also visited a really old cemetery from the colonial times. One headstone said that the person was a superintendant and was murdered by a gang of Chinese robbers. Pretty detailed for a gravestone! We visited the local craft market and bought some old books, but unfortunately we left them on a chair at dinner.
We visited this restaurant that overlooked the beach and watched some kids play,
some dogs play, and a man raft out his boat and back. We got our first taste of koay teow, which is our new favorite Malaysian dish. It’s got wide noodles, vegetables, and meat, with a sauce that I have no idea what it is.
For dinner we went to Red Garden, which billed itself as a “food paradise”. This was spot-on. We got lamb and beef satay, another plate of koay teow, and a plate of fried oysters. I was nervous about the oysters, having never tried them. But after some inspired motivation by Teacher Jojo (“If you don’t like this, you’re dumb.”) I tried it and they weren’t half bad. After that we visited a bar popular with expats and the Australian military, who have bases in Malaysia. They taught us a few more Malay phrases to use on our trip.
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