George Town, Penang I arrived on Penang Island, off the west coast of the Malaysian Peninsular, by a clunky old ferry in late 2019. My first stop was Penang's capital of George Town, named after King George III back when the island was controlled by the East India Company. It was the first-ever British settlement in Southeast Asia and that colonial legacy is certainly still visible. But these days, Penang is more famous for its generous splash of both colour and gastronomy. It's affordable. The food's great. It feels safe and secure. And while it's touristy, it's not obnoxiously so. What's not to love? A painfully common cliche is to describe a location as a melting pot. But with George Town, I have to be frank: this city is a goddamn melting pot. It positively sizzles, in fact. The general architecture is eclectic. The cultural and religious aesthetics are heterogeneous. The street food is wildly and deliciously diverse. You can't walk down around the corner without seeing a confident commingling of Chinese, Malay, and Indian influences, among many others. The Clan Jetties Now for a change in perspectives. Just slightly adjacent to George Town are the Clan Jetties, a group of stilt villages founded by 19th-century Chinese immigrants. And many of these clans still live and work here. It looks picturesque at high tide, with its rustic stilt houses. Come low tide, however, it looks (and smells) like a classic example of slummy, developing country squalor. I generally have quite a high tolerance for stuff like this (e.g. open greywater gutters, trash piles festering on the roadside, open-air restaurants next to truck fumes, rats the size of small cats) and have seen much worse examples outside of Malaysia, but others might find it less bearable. Penang Hill One morning, I decided to take an exhausting hike to the top of Penang Hill where I spotted snakes, monkeys, giant millipedes, and the chunkiest ants I’d ever seen in my life. After a while, I emerged from the bush like a sweaty, delirious wild man onto a very touristy hilltop. Everyone else either drove or took the funicular to the top like respectable members of society. Such is the way I like to do things sometimes. I refuse to regret it. Penang National Park I also did a much less exhausting hike the following day through Penang National Park to Turtle Beach. After my killer Penang Hill hike, I permitted myself to be a bit lazy and took a bumpy boat ride back to the park entrance. Kek Lok Si Temple Now, I’ve been to a few Buddhist temples in my life (as well as previous lifetimes) but this is quite possibly the largest complex I’ve ever visited. It’s so large you need to take a funicular to see the temple’s incredible, 36-metre high bronze statue of Guanyin, the so-called “Goddess of Mercy”. The Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion and Pinang Peranakan Mansion There are two famous historic mansions in Penang: the deep blue Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion and the gentle green Pinang Peranakan Mansion. While the bluey former was pleasant (and a filming location for Crazy Rich Asians, not that particularly care for that grossly overrated flick), it woefully pales in comparison to the splendour of the green-hued latter. The Peranakans are a distinct multiracial ethnic group with Southern Chinese heritage and were, during the colonial period, an elite community in Malaysia. And the Pinang Peranakan Mansion is a stunning showcase of this prosperity. It houses a vast collection of items from the upper crust of Peranakan society. The best furniture. The fanciest ceramics and glassware. The swankiest clothes. The sparkliest watches and jewellery. Fun fact: during my visit to the Pinang Peranakan Mansion, I met an American gentleman who told me that he was in Penang to buy antique opium paraphernalia and erotic ceramics. Apparently, there's a good collectors market for that sort of stuff in George Town. So now you know. Doors of George Town I briefly considered doing a more extensive “doors of Penang” photo album but got bored a few minutes into the attempt and gave up. Touristy street art of George Town Ditto with a “touristy street art of Penang” photo album. "Gorge town" Now for the obligatory food remarks:
Epilogue Ah, yes. The awkwardness of eating alone in a nearly empty food court in Penang. You’re here because Anthony Bourdain ate here. You’re partly in Penang because you liked that episode where he came here. You plan on eating at many of the George Town restaurants Bourdain ate at. Because he was cool and you are not. Well, guess what you uncool idiot. He also probably ate mouldy leftover burgers while deep into a methadone program. Is that something you want? The beer arrives like minor salvation. Finally, something to do: get drunk in the syrupy, malaise-mongering heat while the overhead fans nuzzle your back. You’re not even nursing your beer, you’re slamming it like a speakeasy regular with burnt-out eyes. You see a thin blonde with a strawberry smoothie half her size. Probably an influencer. You watch a stocky white man order a bucket of Tiger beers all for himself. Also probably an influencer. You’re not even a normal person who follows the pied piper of social media. You’re following old-school television recommendations like a Neanderthal. Oh, look. A baby cockroach just scuttled across the tabletop and sipped on some of the beer you spilt. A curious sesame seed with antennae. Wonder if it’ll get as drunk as me tonight? And feel as goddamn awkward. Shit. Now a large Malaysian Chinese family with children have settled at the tables around you. Why did they have to flank you when there are so many other empty tables? And now you find the place too busy. And bad Christmas jingles are playing over the speakers. Too many patrons! Too much humanity! When will this constant tension, the inexorable forces of aversion and craving, end? Time to make your choice. Get up and order some chicken skewers. It’s better than nothing.
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Malacca City — some lukewarm observationsMalacca. It is a city of over half a million people on the south-western coast of the Malay Peninsula. It is a major tourist attraction and its historic centre has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2008. It is a confluence of Malays, Tamils, Chinese, Peranakans, and other peoples. It is the story of the Portuguese seizing it from the Sultanate, the Dutch seizing it from Portuguese, the English taking control, and then union with the Malay States in the aftermath of the World War II. So much blood spilt for a place that is now a leisurely day trip from Kuala Lumpur... Despite the high levels of cushy and, quite frankly, tacky tourism in the city, oddities abound. The Tan Kim Seng Bridge that crosses the Malacca River, the nexus of the historical city, is a deafening cacophony of birds in the evening and an action painting of droppings... History can be found in unusual nooks. For instance, the mausoleum of Hang Jebat, a 15th-century local legendary warrior, can be found indignantly squeezed between an auto repair shop and a cookie store on a rarely explored side road. Meanwhile, the revolving panoramic tower of Malacca, the Taming Sari Tower, makes a warbling, extraterrestrial sound that resonates across much of the city... As for the famous Christ Church Malacca, it is prosaic in a style that only the Anglicans can pull off. Nice to sit in. Strangely, I was the only one inside despite the throngs of tourists milling outside the church in the heat. Nearby is the Stadthuys, a historical museum and former colonial Dutch city hall, which is believed to be the oldest surviving Dutch colonial building in Asia. It's now a bland, mildly passable museum which also has an odd room upstairs dedicated to China–Malaysia foreign relationship over the decades. Lots of photos of Mao. Lots of photos of Xi. Pictured below: the beautiful 16th-century hilltop ruins of Saint Paul's Church, with its chunky and imposing old Portuguese tombstones... The Melaka Straits Mosque, built on stilts to make it appear at times as though it is floating about the waves, makes for a great visit, but it's in a bad location. I wouldn't recommend walking there like I did (just take a taxi instead) — not because it felt unsafe, but because it felt lonely and dull. Vacant lots, tenantless buildings, and silent construction sites. There is also an unoccupied and half-completed faux-European shopping boulevard nearby, which is a hollow and dispiritingly kitschy thing to see. Malacca is ultimately a place of conflux. One can be walking behind some Indian tourists in a Chinese folk temple — partly distracted by the sight of Buddhist nuns across the road taking selfies — when the Islamic call to prayer starts blasting from around the corner... Now for some notes on Malacca food. To be honest, I didn't try a large variety, but I did manage to sample of few that caught my attention:
Finally, Malacca is synonymous with bombastic, fever-inducing bicycle rickshaws. Glum men pedalling middle-aged Chinese tourists around on flashing contraptions covered with plushy cartoon decorations, blasting "Gangnam Style", "Let It Go", or that cloying call-me-señorita song at painfully high volumes. They are a terror to behold.
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AuthorMing is an economist, traveller, and creative writer from Melbourne, Australia. He’s a nebulous collection of particles on the lookout for a good corner to sit with a book and a cup of coffee. Archives
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