Instead of jumping straight back into the journey as I normally would, I have to admit that sometime in the past year or so since returning home I've lost some of my notes. Instead of trying to remember and ending up with a blog post made up of vague events and hindsights, I will instead briefly overview what we got up to before swiftly moving on.
After being dropped off at the bus station in KL we hopped on a coach and traveled the four hours to the Cameron highlands. The highlands are yet another example of Englands colonial past in Malaysia, as they were first developed as a hill station by the British in 1925 as somewhere for the fancy to go to escape the heat. We based ourselves in the town of Tanah Rata and from there we did a small amount of hiking, trying to enjoy the scenery.
What I remember the most about this part of our journey was mainly disappointment; I think that we were expecting to be transported to an area filled with natural beauty, one that had somehow managed to avoid the trappings of modern tourism and this simply isn't realistic - Especially as the area started off as a sort of tourist destination to begin with. Where ever we went the scenic overlooks shared space with electricity pylons and we never managed to get far enough into nature to leave behind the clash of construction or the hum of nearby roads. Of course, maybe we just hadn't researched this part of our trip well enough and maybe we shouldn't have been so concerned with finding the cheapest accommodation to stay at. Looking up a map of the area now shows so many more options than I remembered with other towns that could have had a less commercial vibe. I guess we'll never know.
Feeling let down we headed out of the hills and down to Ipoh. I honestly don't distinctly remember much about Ipoh except it's where we made the odd decision to spend Bens birthday exploring Buddhist temples. It's not exactly that we were uninterested in this part of Malaysia's history and culture, just that sedately wandering around temple complexes (many of which had detailed paintings of punishments met out to the unworthy in hell) doesn't scream celebration. On the other hand, it was very beautiful and on temple was filled with tiny turtles - so swings and roundabouts really. I also vaguely remember the hostel staff deciding to have a shouting match in the middle of the night too! How's that for an exciting birthday.
On the plus side, the "old town" area of Ipoh was filled with small winding streets to explore and interesting treats to indulge. It's worth popping by if you're in the area but I wouldn't suggest flying to Malaysia especially to visit here.
So after that fairly long aside, lets get to the subject of this post - Penang.
Our destination was Georgetown and the best way to get there was a bus, followed by a small ferry ride, with some walking thrown in there for good measure. So that's what we did, the journey went smoothly and before we knew it we were on the island, donning our backpacks and dragging ourselves through the mid afternoon heat to our hostel. No matter how long I had to get used the heat in Asia, it seemed any conditioning I had went out the window as soon as I had to pick up my12kg backpack.
Our hostel, Heritage Sixteen was (and still is) located in the heart of the UNESCO World Heritage site of Georgetown and although it was a in beautiful building in which we had our own room (and blessed air conditioning), we mainly chose it because it wasn't too expensive and the reviews mentioned there was cats. After the extremely low costs of accommodation in India and Sri Lanka, we were struggling to adapt to the local prices - I think in the future I'm going to look up average hotel prices for each country I visit so I can temper my expectations. Never the less, we pretty much lucked out here, a beautiful building in a bustling part of the town, enough to do in the hostel when hiding from the hottest part of the day, and yes there was indeed cats.
George Town, as you might have guessed from the name, was a former British settlement. Founded in 1786 it was in fact, the first British settlement in South East Asia. Before British involvement Penang was part of the Kedah Sultanate, an independent nation that covered parts of north west Malaysia plus the islands of Penang and Langkawi. When the British explorer Captain Francis Light arrived in Kedah, the sultanate was expecting attacks from Siam and Burma. A deal was struck, in exchange for their protection the Island of Penang would be leased to the East India trading company by Sultan Abdullah Mukarram Shah.
At first the Island was used as a shipping port to continue and expand their trade with the rest of Asia, but it quickly became a useful place to garrison troops for the colonisation, specifically for other non "Kedah" areas of Malaysia. Relations between Francis Light and the Sultan of Kedah went sour when it turned out Francis didn't actually have the authority to make any deals. When the Sultan asked for military assistance against Siam, Light wasn't able to provide any of the forces promised. Being somewhat angry that he'd practically given away a whole island and received a big fat nothing in return the Sultan rallied his troops against the British on Penang, which unfortunately didn't go well for them. The British then held the island until 1941 when the city fell to the Imperial Japanese Army during WW2.
The British influence on architecture can be seen throughout the city, such as the large Georgian buildings on Beach Street (which are similar in appearance to many banks found in cities in the UK) and the squat Cornwallis Fort which sits overlooking the small gap between Penang and the mainland. We intended to visit Fort Cornwallis but it was unfortunately under repair during our time on Penang, and the online reviews suggested we wouldn't be able to access half of it. There was of course other influences on the city, as a bustling trade port, merchants from all over the world made it their home and different districts ended up with their own unique styles.
One truly unique building is the Pinang Peranakan Mansion, formerly the home of Chung Keng Quee an extremely rich 19th century Chinese merchant. Built in the1890's to Chung's specifications, it blends together European and Chinese architecture. This follows into the interior with an eclectic mix of Peranakan antiques and European furnishings. I found the effect somewhat jarring, or it could have been how rammed the place was of different artefacts and antiques (although I'm sure many of these were brought to the building when it was later made into a museum celebrating Peranakan culture). The one place that had stuck to tradition was the family temple by the side of the house, a wooden building surrounding an open aired courtyard with intricate carvings and wall murals.
While on the subject of wall murals, George Town is an artists paradise with street art to be found all over the city. Most of the world famous portraits are the work of Ernest Zacharevic, a Lithuanian Artist who was commissioned in 2012 to create large-scale murals for the George Town Arts & Culture Festival. His work blends painting with real life objects, giving the art an interactive and 3D effect and the art itself reflects the life of those living on Penang. All of this really gives George Town a fun and vibrant atmosphere and you could easily spend hours wandering around the city trying to find both the obvious and hidden artworks (which we did).
After 3 days in George Town, admiring the city and eating lots of delicious food we decided to move on to a more rural part of Penang, Teluk Behang. For some reason, we decided against lugging our bags on the bus for the 15 mile distance and splashed out on a taxi instead. We picked a guesthouse in the less developed area just outside of the town, and if you've ever wanted to be handed a cockatiel by your host while eating breakfast - boy have I found the place for you. Tony's guesthouse is a lovely little place set amongst coconut trees, we had a shared kitchen area and even free use of the washing machines - let me tell you this last feature felt like a luxury after the weeks of hand washing our clothes in a sink. Plus, the guesthouse was also home to about a dozen friendly dogs which is always a positive in my opinion.
Teluk Behang itself wasn't much to write home about, but we were there for two things; the cat sanctuary cafe and Penang National Park. Since doing some research for this blog I have learned that Penang National Park is in fact the worlds smallest national park and is home to 143 different species of animals. At the time all we knew was that the trek to monkey beach was inaccessible due to a landslide and to avoid touching the trees, as some of the sap could make you insane with pain. We could have taken a boat to monkey beach but instead chose to go to Pantai Keracut, a beach that sits next to a meromictic lake - one of only thirty six in the world. As meromicitic lakes are special ecosystems in which the layers of salt and fresh water do not mix, swimming in this lake was forbidden and as this small part of the sea seemed to attract hoards of jelly fish we couldn't swim in there either. After our two hour trek through the muggy jungle we were somewhat sticky and sweaty, so the lack of swimming areas wasn't an ideal situation!
We cooled off in the shade for an hour and just as we were about to head back a boat turned up. Quickly debating whether we should do the long walk back or cheat by jumping on the much more convenient boat option, the boat soon won. Pleasantly surprised by the reasonable cost (much lower than what was advertised at the parks entrance) we hopped on and found out the Captain was a maniac. I know its better to drive into the waves and going a bit faster can help break through, but the boats nose was so far up in the air I'm surprised he could see where he was going and I'm pretty sure he was trying his hardest to catapult us off the boat altogether.
The cafe part of the cat sanctuary was unfortunately gone, a storm had wrecked havoc and had knocked over quite a large portion of the site. With at least a hundred little demanding mouths to feed both looking after the ever increasing number of cats and rebuilding wasn't happening quickly. Despite this, they happily invited us in and showed us around. It wasn't perfect; with some of the more poorly cats stuck in fairly small cages but it was clear they were doing all they could and the cats certainly weren't complaining. After being shown around we sat on the beach nearby and was bombarded with cats looking for attention, which we of course was happy to provide.
We would have been happy to spend more time in this little corner of Penang, but after a little booking mishap Ben accidentally got us boat tickets a day too early. So the next day we had to pack up our stuff and head back to Georgetown to grab our transport to our next island destination, Langkawi.
Trip date : Feb 2020
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