Penang and Langkawi

Pulau Penang

Day 1

Known as “the Pearl of the Orient”, Penang is the only Malaysian state with an ethnic Chinese majority. Yet, it doesn't feel that way. The island brings together a broad mix of cultures, but mainly those of the Indian sub continent, China and Malaysia, living in harmony, against a backdrop of colonial architecture and with a highly entrepreneurial spirit.

Victoria Clock Tower

In 1771 the British East India Company signed the first agreement with the Sultan of Kedah giving it the trading rights on the island in exchange for providing military assistance against Siam. Captain Francis Light took possession of the island on behalf of the East India Company in 1786 and the island was formally signed over to him in 1791. He established the island's capital, naming it Georgetown after the Prince of Wales.

 By the 1800s the Island was home to over 10,000 people. It thrived thanks to its liberal economy and tax free status, but was supplanted by Singapore, which became the hub of the far east sea trade routes.

It suffered badly through the war years and many of its old buildings were destroyed or damaged. After Malaysia's independence in the 1960s, Penang prospered as a free port, but lost its duty free status to Langkawi in the mid eighties. Despite this there are many high technology businesses based there and some call it the “Silicon Valley of the East”.

In 2008 the harbour and old town parts of Penang were awarded World Heritage Status so the old buildings are being restored and new development more restricted.

Our first day found us sightseeing and following some of the Georgetown Walking Tour outlined in Lonely Planet. After a breakfast of roti canai and sweet tea, we walked to the Han Jiang Ancestral Temple.

We had to experience a ride in one of the many trishaws and we agreed a price of RM10 for the ½ kilometre ride to the Penang Museum. When we arrived the “driver” announced that that was the price each. So we coughed up double and felt as though we had been conned, but at only 4 GBP we didn't grouse too much. The Penang museum is a great place to start as it gives a good background (in English) of the history of the island and Georgetown, and at just 2RM entry fee is good value. Unfortunately you are not allowed to take photographs.

From here it was a 15 minute walk to Fort Cornwallis, passing by the the grand architecture of St. Georges Church, the City Hall and Town Hall which, built in 1800, is one of the oldest buildings in Georgetown. We walked along the sea front and through the Pedang park to the Fort.

This is the site of the first stockade built by Captain Light when he started to establish the British presence on Pulau Penang. It was later replaced by a brick built fortification in the shape of a four pointed star with large cannon pointing out to sea. Much conservation work has been undertaken to restore the fort walls, but other than this there is really little left of the original.

 Our walk took us through the banking area of the city to the Penang Peranakan Mansion. Just as we were crossing the road to the Mansion, Karen found a wallet on the road. We did the right thing and walked back to the nearest police station to hand it in.

The Peranakan Mansion has been lovingly preserved as a private museum depicting the life of a rich Chinese merchant living in Penang at that time. From the outside the building is in the Colonial style, whilst internally the rooms are sumptuously decorated in the oriental style, with dark wood floors and columns, gilded fret work and carvings. Next door is the old, private Buddhist shrine still largely in its original state.

As we exited the Mansion, some locals were chopping up Durian fruit. We had been daring ourselves to try this olfactorially offensive fruit since we had been in Malaysia. Steve took the initiative and tried 'un petit morceau'. Once past the pungent aroma, it was sweet and strongly tasting. Karen declined. Probably a wise decision as Steve said it kept repeating on him all afternoon.

We wound our way through Little India with its incense, colour and noise passing by one of simplest and oldest Mosques to reach Khoo Kongsi. This is the old Chinese Assembly Hall for the Chinese community in the city.

As well as being a benevolent organisation for the members of the Khoo clan it symbolises the strong links between the generations of the clan and the reverence given to their ancestors. This particular kongsi (clan-house) can trace its linage back through 45 generations to the original founder of the dynasty. Again, oriental architecture and Buddhist symbology abound, and there is a serenity about the place providing an oasis in the middle of the turmoil of the city.

Just along the street we came to the Acheen Street Mosque. In its plainness, a complete contrast to the Kongsi that we had just left. This particular mosque is unusual for its Egyptian style minaret.

By now we were just about dead on our feet, so we retired to the sanctuary of our hotel for a couple of hours before venturing out once more for our evening repast.

Day 2

Cannonball Tree

Having “done” the City, we decided today to visit some more of the island and rented a scooter. Having fuelled up the scooter on petrol and us on roti canai, we headed off to the Botanical Gardens, some 6 or 7 kilometres to the north west of the city. We went with great expectation. Most of the botanical gardens that we have visited in the past had been worth the time and effort. As we parked up, the gardens held great promise. There was no entry fee and we planned a route through the paths up to the “waterfall”, (the gardens are also known as The Waterfall Gardens).

There were lots of monkeys on route, many with babies, but we kept our distance.

 The peace of the gardens was shattered by the repeated sounds of automatic gunfire coming from, we assumed, a military firing range nearby.

Reaching the path to the waterfall we were told it was closed and in fact was only open for one day each year! This seemed to set the theme. The cactus house was closed. The fern house was closed for maintenance and the formal gardens? You guessed it, they were closed too.




So after an hour traipsing around what was in fact no more than a peaceful park (apart from the gunfire) we hopped back on our trusty Honda and sped off towards the Kek Lok Si Temple. This was easy to find as it was so prominent even from a long way off.

Translated as the “Temple of Supreme Bliss” it is quite startling, if not in scale of ornamentation then in its commercialisation. We were reminded of the excessive commercialisation that we observed at Lourdes.

Throughout our tour there were opportunities to buy souvenirs. Statues of the smiling Buddha, wishing ribbons, joss sticks, and other memorabilia. However architecture of the temples and statues is impressive.

Overlooking the whole site is the massive 36.5meter bronze statue of Kuan Yin, Goddess of Mercy. At the moment a new temple dome is being built over the statue and is near to completion. Unfortunately the scaffolding and building works spoiled the view of the statue and it is impossible to appreciate the scale of this statue in a mere photograph.

Our next port of call was the Snake Temple at Beyan Lepas. We followed our sat nav and found ourselves in the midst of an enormous industrial complex, mostly occupied by the huge Braun factory, but also housing other western names like Fairchild Semiconductor. This was the Silicon Valley of the East that we had read about. After chasing our tails for thirty minutes we did find the temple. Negotiating the usual souvenir shops we entered the temple and were underwhelmed by the Wagler's pit vipers lazing, dormant on various tree branches around the alter. These venomous snakes are nocturnal and thus sleep during the day.

Our furthest visit out of the town was to the Penang War Museum. The museum is housed in an old fort on the top of the steep Bukit Batu Maung (hill). Built by the British in the 1930's, it was used as an internment camp by the Japanese during the Second World War. Again this is a private museum and the most expensive we had visited at 35RM each. Was it worth the money? Probably not, but it was interesting nonetheless. There were the remains of the 6” and 15” naval gun emplacements, barracks, stores, etc as well as reconstructions of the gallows used to hang General Yoshimita of the Japanese Imperial Army. The photographs and narratives (in English) told us a lot about a history that we knew nothing of previously.

However, driving around on a scooter in the busy city is exhausting and we now headed back to comfort. That night we ate like kings at the Chinese food stalls down the road from our hotel.

This was our last day in Penang and we had to be up early to catch the ferry to Langkawi, our last destination in Malaysia.

Georgetown to Pantai Cenang, Langkawi - 26km

Tickets for passengers for the Langkawi ferry are sold at various agencies around Georgetown. The tickets for freight (ie bicycles) are sold at a different office. Luckily we chose an agent close to the freight office and managed to arrange both tickets at the same time.

We arrived at the terminal in good time for our 8.15 departure. It began to fill with passengers for the two ferries. A very officious lady was in charge of directing the customers. She treated everyone like naughty, stupid schoolchildren but in fact that's how they all behaved. Her attempts to separated the passengers for the two ferries, one departing at 8.15, the other at 8.30, were thwarted by impatient travellers who kept trying to get in the wrong queue. We were told that although we had 8.15 ferry tickets we must travel on the 8.30 ferry because of our bikes. This involved a quick run back to the agent to get them to put an official rubber stamp on the ticket which magically allowed us to use it on the other one.

The ferry was full to capacity with a diverse group of passengers. A lot of Malay families, a large group of middle eastern Muslims and a few Europeans.

From the ferry port at Kuah we had a 20km ride to the main beach on the island, Pantai Cenang. This is the busiest resort on the island, popular with backpackers but at least it has 'budget' accommodation even though this is 30% more expensive than on the mainland. As it is officially the rainy season there was plenty of availability but it took a long search on Trip Advisor and Agoda to find anywhere with reasonable customer reviews.

The 'White Lodge' lived up to its good reviews. Set back from the main road it was peaceful and the chalets were well equipped with a fridge, TV and kettle. That evening as we lay on the bed watching TV we discovered an unadvertised amenity, toads under the bed. Over a period of about an hour four of them appeared, hopping for the door which had a large gap under it.

On Saturday we had a day off and sat on the beach, swam and rested. We found the resort was too commercialised for our tastes. The beach was noisy with speed boats, jet skis, banana boat rides and parascending. The resort had a lot of unfinished buildings and lots of rubbish lying around. The only thing that was cheap was alcohol, because there is no tax, but food was much more expensive. It was nice to be able to go into a proper restaurant with a menu and to have food served at the table.

Pantai Cenang to Satun (Thailand) - 30km

Sunday morning we were woken by torrential rain at 7am. By the time the bags were packed it wasn't quite as heavy. Steve tried to put his bike shoes on and found there was no room for his foot. He shook it and out popped another toad. After cycling the 20km to the jetty in the heavy rain we were soaked and had to change into dry things. We brought the tickets, changed some money into Baht then pigged out on cakes and latte coffee at Starbucks.

The border formalities seemed very low key and relaxed. A couple of porters hauled the bikes onto the front of the boat and lashed them on with rope. It was a sixty minute ride to Tammalang Pier then a quick 10km ride into Satun still with some drizzle and cloudy skies.

We had been advised to head straight to On's Bar, with English speaking staff and good local knowledge. The Sinkiat Thani Hotel next door is reputably the best in town and our top floor room was pretty basic but had good views over the town to the forested hills beyond. For our evening meal we went next door-but-one to On's restaurant and tried a traditional Thai curry. As it was election day the sale of alcohol had been prohibited but we were allowed to have some amber brew as long as it was disguised in a mug.