Yes we are still on an island but it doesn’t really feel like it. Penang has 2 long bridges that connect it to the mainland and it is a big city. Over 1 million people depending on how you define the “metro area”. The tourist area is the old town of Georgetown and we stayed on the outskirts of the old town in a fancy newer high rise. 30th floor airbnb! – which was a change from all the bungalow cabins we had been staying on in the Thai islands. We got our feet wet on Malaysia in Langkawi but were left with an incomplete first impression on the culture and people. Langkawi was a lot of Malay Muslims and a lot of Islamic tourists. No pork on any menus and at times it seemed that everyone was wearing a hijab except for us. Penang was a little more Chinese. The country of Malaysia is a mix of Malay, Indian and Chinese people and Penang has been primarily run by the Chinese over the past 140 years. We were only here for 4 nights so we were in full tourist “gotta see it all” mode. First priority was a walk to see the famous street art in old town Georgetown.
We took a tour of an old mansion of wealthy Chinese guy that was one of the business leaders involved in trade of everything including opium in the first part of the 1900’s. Very cool to get a little more info to what life was like in Malaysia for the rich folks back then.
We still had a lot of questions on Malaysia in current times, so we decided to take a food tour. We have learned in the past that food tours are not just for learning about food, they usually teach you about tons of cultural stuff. And we had a lot of questions on how Malaysia can be so different from Thailand even though it shares a border. Food, religion and the people are all soooo different. Luckily our tour turned out to be just our guide and 1 other British woman so we had lots of chance to ask our questions. The food was excellent. I had been worried about the century egg he wanted us to try, but turned out it is an egg that has been aged for weeks or months in clay, salt, ash, and lime. The yoke turns black, and white turns translucent. That was one of the first things on the tour – we both tried it and it wasn’t that bad (but we don’t plan to seek out more).
Our guide grew up in Penang and grew up in the Chinese community, and showed us through some of the Buddhist and Taoist temples and explained a lot of their way of looking at the world.
We also did some exploring of the town ourselves and checked out the old huts on stilts over the water (the clan jetties) and we toured an old Chinese clan building which reminded a bit of the family benevolence clubs we have in Seattle’s Chinatown. Walking in Georgetown is difficult because of the missing sidewalks. Many places don’t have anywhere to walk, some places have a sidewalk covering a drainage ditch, and many places, just have a drainage ditch missing the covers. We tried to pay close attention when we walked, to avoid falling and breaking something.
In Langkawi (our first Malaysian island), we struck out on going to the top of the island for the great views. We had another chance here on this island. There is a funicular that takes you to a tourist area on the top of the mountain. From the top, we took a hiking trail through the jungle with some tree canopy bridges. We saw a few new birds and also had some pretty good views down to Georgetown. Nothing that impressive because it was a bit cloudy over the city but we were glad we made the trip to the top of the island.
Next stop is the capital of Malaysia- Kuala Lumpur.