Sunday 8 August Georgetown, Penang

Beyond the necessary boat jobs there was time to Georgetown, a cultural gem; not too big, colonial history, thriving business community, gourmet heaven and a coffee shop on every corner and between every corner.

From Straits Quay we'd hop on one of the frequent buses which would drop us down town in the centre of Chulia Street which is to say in the middle of the tourist centre. A mere twenty five years ago when I first visited as a backpacker Chulia Street was a mix of backpacker hotels and cheap eateries. The backpacker hotels are still there as are the cheap restaurants except the area is in the process of being gentrified. The Eng Aun hotel where I stayed is now The Chulia Heritage Hotel with fancy entrance and a courtyard. Back then I remember the courtyard as the place where the old men coughed up phlegm to mark the start of each day. Other buildings have been turned into boutique hotels with bijou restaurants with bigou prices, but between them all the original merchants still have their local shops. We bought ducting pipe for the engine air intake and sockets and stopped for swanky coffee at the Italian coffee shop.

Government House

Step off Chulia street to the east and you pass through Little India on the way to the seafront; the 19^th century Government building still overlook the park where one might imagine Capt. Light foot bowling to First Lieutenant Urquhart in a game of cricket.

In two hours you can walk the around the core area and with another couple of hours visit the small, but excellent Penang museum to learn the history of the island (a Pinang is a

inner courtyard

Pernakan Mansion

 


Temple in the mansion

species of palm tree found on the island) and the Perankan Mansion which embodies the history of the Chinese community in the island through the family who lived there. Crossing to the west side of Chulia Street is what I feel is becoming the Covent Garden of Penang, Armenia Street. It gets it's name from the migrants who came here from Armenia. Two brothers, the Sarkies where so successful as hoteliers they have left their legacy to today; the E&O hotel in Penang and Raffles in Singapore where started by them. Armenia Street now is the old Chinese houses refurbished into art galleries, coffee shops (0f course), small hotels and restaurants, craft shops, bike rental shops and a brightly decorated temple with a thick coating of street performers to keep us tourists happy.

Chinese temple Armenia St

Heritage houses, Armenia St




Where Lebuh Pantai, Beach Street crosses Chulia you find more mosques and curry shops (an excellent meal at El Capitan), more heritage sites, restaurants and the ubiquitous coffee shops. And then you are back where you started and a bus ride back to the marina.

tourist rickshaw

Clouds over Penang Hill

When we'd ticked off the sights of Georgetown I suggested to David trip to Penang Hill. The local name is Bukit Bendera, Flagstaff Hill, because when the mail ship sailed in to port the flag on the hill was raised to announce it's arrival. This was a two bus journey, one in to town and a connection to take us up into the hills overlooking the Straits between Georgetown and Butterworth on the mainland. We'd started early to avoid the rush, bought our tickets and walked straight on to the funicular train to take us up to 804m and a cool breeze. It also took us into the clouds on this particular day. I managed to take a couple of photos and walk around the summit to see an Indian temple, past the owl museum (!) and to the old hotel with it's commanding views across the hills. We could just see Straits Quay through the murk. Hopefully I suggested the sun would burn off the clouds as the day progressed. No it didn't. The clouds thickened, the rain came and it poured down for the rest of the morning until we gave up and caught the train back to sea level. It had been raining heavily there too. Bad timing on my part to choose the first day in a week when it rained all day.

Naturally Penang has it's modern retail outlets; glitzy international Gurney Plaza between Georgetown and Straits Quay. We stopped off and I looked in the windows of Marks & Spencer, Topshop, Mango; all familiar names from my days in Oxford Street except then I had a wage to spend. Our favourite retail opportunity close to the marina, a mere 3 minutes on our bikes, was Tesco supermarket; a perfect place to restock on the essentials and the non essentials.

Straits Quay marina from the sea

In the end we stayed two weeks in the marina. The marina is run efficiently, you sit in the midst of a shopping mall and as we were on the centre pontoon, we enjoyed nightly visits of the resident family of sea otters. Five or six of them would come and play on our pontoon. We were the only one of five boats on this pontoon which was a liveaboard. The others were long term either with a polishing crew during the day or shut up. The otters were fantastic to watch, seemingly unafraid of humans though we did keep Polly cat locked in at night. On the day before we left, a Sunday, there were so confident they were playing around the boats in the afternoon and one brave one did come onto the pontoon.

That afternoon we had our last boat bit delivered; a new two man kayak to replace the one we lost in the Philippines earlier in the year. It's a Malibu Duo in mango and came from a supplier in Kuala Lumpur. I'd contacted the supplier when we were in Labuan and had planned to collect from Port Klang (the closest port to KL) as we sailed up the coast but Murphy's Law intervened and we passed Port Klang while the shop was closed for two week end of Ramadan holiday. While we were in Penang the shop re-opened and we were able to arrange a delivery to here. 
If you ever pass a ketch with a bright orange kayak on the rear port side that's us. Mango turned out to be a lot more orange in real life than in the brochure but at least we'll be easy to spot when we're paddling or in an anchorage.