George Town, Penang: Malay Peninsula Part 6

An Introduction to Georgetown's Ethnic and Gastronomic Variety

Malaysia

Penang

The hotel’s restaurant was in an adjacent shophouse. While waiting for our roti, scrambled egg and spicy lentils I stepped through the open door into Love Lane. I have commented before how much I love the warm embrace of a fresh tropical morning but this one was particularly special; in the middle of a great city, the quiet street felt like a waking village.

Love Lane, George Town, at 8 o'clock on a Saturday morning

Fort Cornwallis

E, the guide for our walking tour arrived with a car and driver – it would not all be foot-slogging. He was a small energetic, slightly fussy Chinese Malaysian, a retired lecturer and a man on a mission; he had a programme, and we would fulfil it.

George Town's centre, a UNESCO World Heritage site is a dot on the island of Penang,

but the metropolitan area takes up a third of the island. The car was necessary

The short drive to Fort Cornwallis was lengthened by the one-way system which took us past the Protestant Cemetery. It was not on our programme, apparently, but we decided to return later.

Fort Cornwallis, George Town

Penang was part of Kedah until 1786, when the Sultan asked British adventurer Francis Light for assistance dealing with some bothersome Thais. Light made a deal with the East India Company and the Sultan soon discovered he had ceded Penang Island to them and it was now called Prince of Wales Island. In this noble way a great empire was built.

The island was undeveloped (‘we’re all immigrants here,’ as E said) so Light fired off a couple of cannons loaded with coins and the locals (ALL immigrants, E?) obligingly cleared the ground for his fort while searching for the loot. This story recurs in several different places, so is probably apocryphal.

From 1826 (by which time the Prince of Wales had become George IV, so the main town became George Town) Penang, Malacca, Singapore and the more obscure Dinding became The Strait Settlements, run at first by the East India Company but as British Crown Colonies from 1867. Occupied by the Japanese in World War II, Penang, Malacca and Dinding were merged with British Malaya in 1946 and achieved independence as part of Malaya in 1957. 

In 1936 a statue of Francis Light was erected to commemorate the 150th anniversary of his landing. There was no contemporary likeness so the sculptor worked from a portrait of his son William who, following in his father’s footsteps, had founded a city in Australia and named it after the queen (Adelaide was the Queen Consort of William IV).

Francis Light, Fort Cornwallis, George Town

There is little else to see in the fort, a small, bare chapel, …

Chapel, Fort Cornwallis, Penang

.. and a large, bare powder magazine did not detain us long.

Powder Magazine, Fort Cornwallis, Penang

The most interesting exhibit is the Sri Rambai cannon, the origin of several tall tales and superstitions. The cannon was cast in 1603 in the Netherlands for the Dutch East India Company by Jan Burgerhius - that information is helpfully cast into the bronze itself.

The logo of the Dutch East India Company on the Sri Rambai Cannon, Fort Cornwallis, Penang

Given to the Sultan of Johor for services rendered, it was nicked during a raid in 1613 by the Sultan of Aceh and carried off to Sumatra. In 1795 it re-crossed the strait to the Malay Peninsula as a gift to the Sultan of Selangor. In 1875, after Selangor pirates attacked a Penang junk and murdered its crew, the British burned Selangor and brought the cannon back to George Town. That much is generally agreed.

Also…it sank in George Town harbour and auto-surfaced at the command of a Holy Man, was used by the Japanese during the war and helps women become pregnant - flowers should be laid on the gun and prayers said. You may believe whatever you wish.

Sri Rambai Cannon

Now how could anybody imagine this could have any connection with fertility?

From the fort we drove round the clock tower (not on the programme, so we noted it for later) to the Penang Peranakan Mansion. Peranakans (called Baba-Nonyas in Malacca) are the descendants of the earliest Chinese settlers who semi-assimilated with Malay culture. The mansion was the town house of Chung Keng Quee (spellings vary) a man of humble origins who came to Malaya in 1841 aged 20. He became wealthy tin mining in Perak and at his death in 1901 he was Malaya’s richest man. His part in the Larut Wars (a decade long turf war between Chinese secret societies over mining rights) cost him dearly but in 1874 he was appointed as one of the two Chinese members of the Larut Pacification Committee (the other four were British). Thereafter he worked closely with the colonial power and in 1877 was made Kapitan China, the officially recognised leader of the Chinese community.

Penang Peranakan Mansion

A noted philanthropist, he donated money for Chinese education, temple building, the advancement of European engineering in Malaya and (wisely!) charitable causes close to the hearts of the British (Widows and Orphans of the Transvaal War, among others).

Penang Peranakan Mansion

As the pictures show he lived in some style.

Penang Peranakan Mansion

His ceramic collection was Chinese designed and made, but the colours are much brighter in accordance with Malayan taste – a typical Peranakan compromise.

Kapitan China's collection of China, Penang Peranakan Mansion

As a Staffordshire resident I, of course, regret he sourced his china elsewhere, but at least his floor tiles were imported from Stoke-on-Trent.

Floor tiles from Stoke-on-Trent, Penang Peranakan Mansion

Next door is his ancestral temple. The life-size bronze statue of Chung Keng Quee half hidden by the altar was sculpted by Benjamin Creswick, cast in Birmingham and presented by the Engineers Institute.

Ancestral Temple, Penang Peranakan Mansion

From the mansion we made our way to Little India, though this being Penang it looked considerably more scrubbed than ‘big’ India ever does.

Little India, Penang

E bought us a samosa each (elegantly spiced sweet potato) because it was on the programme while ignoring my suggestion of a cup of tea, because it wasn’t.

E buys samosas, Little India, Penang

Jalan Masjid Kapitan Keling used to be called Pitt Street, indeed it still often is, not out of nostalgia for the empire, but because of its admirable brevity.

Everybody knows it is Jalan Masjid Kapitan Keling, but Pitt Street is easier

Penang’s citizens of Indian descent (10% of the population) are mostly Hindus, but the Sri Mahariamman Hindu Temple is situated in the heart of the Muslim Indian quarter, just along Pitt Street from the Kuan Yin Taoist Temple. But this is Penang, so who cares?

Sri Mahamariamman Temple, Little India, Penang

Sri Mahamariamman is small, but the interior is unbelievably clean and shiny…

Inside the Sri Mahamariamman temple, Little India, Penang

…and the gods wonderfully garish.

Assorted gods, Sri Mahamariamman Temple, Penan

Further along the jalan (Street) is the masjid (mosque) of Kapitan Keling (the Indian equivalent of Kapitan China). Although of Chinese descent, E lived near here as a child. ‘The advantage of living near a mosque,’ he said, ‘is the dawn call to prayer means you are never late for school’. The disadvantage, he did not add, is that the call can also be heard at weekends and throughout the school holidays.

Masjid Kapitan Keling, Penang

From their earliest days, the Chinese community (now over 50% of Penang’s population) banded together in clan groups for mutual support and protection. Clan houses are easy to spot on the streets of Penang - and elsewhere, in 2012 we visited Chinese clan houses at Hoi An in Vietnam.

Small Chinese Clan House, Penang

The Khoo Kongsi clan house, at the end of Jalan Masjid etc, is the largest and wealthiest.

The Khoo Kongsi Clan House, Penang

The Khoos, who originated in the Xiangcheng district of southern Fujian province, built their first clan house in 1851. That burned down 50 years later and the present structure, dating from 1906, contains a temple, meeting rooms, a traditional theatre…

Inside the Khoo Kongsi Clan House, Penang

…and a space for reverence to ancestors.

Ancestors commemorated, Khoo Kongsi Clan House, Penang

Although the importance of clans has declined, they remain active and lists of committee members past and present, are prominently displayed along with their credentials. Most Khoo leaders seem to have attended English universities (many of the current crop are alumni of Bristol University) and meetings are held in English rather than Hokkien, the language of southern Fujian and the most spoken language among the Chinese diaspora of south east Asia.

Penang’s famous street food definitely was on our programme, so we went to a laksa shop.  Laksa is a Peranakan fish based noodle soup popular throughout south east Asia. It has two main varieties - with coconut milk or with tamarind - and dozens of regional variations. Traditional Penang Laksa consists of flaked mackerel in a tamarind flavoured fish stock with lemongrass, galangal and chilli, plus various additions (pineapple, onion, prawn paste) depending on the maker.

Laksa shop, Penang

As we bagged the last table in the crowded little shop E asked if we wanted a dumbed down laksa for Europeans and whether we could ‘hold chopsticks’.  He seemed surprised that we wanted (and enjoyed) full-on laksa and proved familiar with the chopsticks-in-right-hand-spoon-in-left technique used for all noodle soups from Vietnamese pho south. I am not entirely sure what was in it, but a vivid procession of fiery flavours marched across the palate, freshened by tamarind sourness. Absolutely wonderful!

Lynne eats laksa, Penang

After our starter we crossed the alley for dessert. We had encountered cendol before and enjoyed the shaved ice with coconut milk, palm sugar syrup, red beans and green rice flour jelly.

Lynne eats cendol, Penang

The driver reappeared and he and E discussed whether we should go for the main course, or visit the reclining Buddha first. We would have told them we needed a break from eating had they not come to that conclusion themselves.

Very much in the Thai style, the Therevada Buddhist Temple was a short drive away.

Therevada Buddhist Temple, Penang

E informed us that the 33m reclining Buddha was the biggest and most beautiful in the world. We did not tell him the 100m Chaukhtatgyi Buddha in Yangon is far bigger, and the Wat Pho Buddha in Bangkok is bigger and more beautiful.

Reclining Buddha, Therevada Buddhist Temple, Penang

The statues of leading monks in front of the Buddha have been covered in gold leaf by devotees, a particularly common practice in Myanmar…

Gold leafed monk, Therevada Buddhist Monastery, Penang

…while behind are what look, at first glance, like rows of lockers. These actually contain the ashes of the deceased, along with photographs and a brief genealogy. A few remain empty, but what happens when they are all filled?

Ashes in glass fronted lockers, Therevada Buddhist Temple, Penang

Leaving the Buddhists, we resumed our lunch with the Muslims. Hussein’s Nasi Kandar stall provided us with a plate of rice with vegetables and curry sauce, all very pleasant without reaching the heights of laksa. Nasi means ‘rice’ and kandar is a ‘carry-pole’, so it was originally rice from a hawker carrying it through the streets; now, any rice with curry sauce poured directly onto it, with or without side dishes, is called Nasi Kandar.

Hussein's Nasi Kandar stall, Penang

Most of Penang’s Buddhists are Chinese, and most Chinese Buddhists belong to the Mahayana branch of Buddhism, but Kek Lok Si Temple, not only Penang’s but Malaysia’s largest Buddhist Temple, blends both traditions.

The temple was built in 1890 on a hill outside George Town and the drive to the top gave us a view of the surrounding hills. Channel 4's ‘Indian Summer’, E told us, was filmed in Penang, to avoid Indian red tape. One of the hillside villas became the Simla club and Armenian Street in George Town was heavily disguised as Simla’s Indian quarter.

The Hills Around George Town 

We started at the top of Kek Lok Si with the animals of the Chinese zodiac. Both being tigers, E photographed us with that less than fearsome beast.

Not the most frightening tiger, Kek Lok Si, Penang

Nearby is a massive statue of Guanyin, Goddess of Mercy.

Guanyin, Kek Lok Si, Penang

We passed more gods …

Many armed deity, Kek Lok Si, Penang

… and took the funicular….

Funicular Railway, Kek Lok Si, Penang

...down to the main temple building.

Kek Lok Si, Penang

From here we had a good view of the 10,000 Buddha Pagoda, also called the Rama VI Pagoda as the foundation stone was laid in 1930 by the King of Thailand. With Penang’s typical inclusiveness the bottom third is Chinese in style, the middle Thai and the top Burmese - though it looks less of a dog’s breakfast than that might suggest.

Rama VI Pagoda, Kek Lok Si, Penang

That was the end of E’s tour and we were driven back to our hotel in the heart of the UNSECO World Heritage Site of Old George Town.

After a refreshing cup of tea, we decided to check out the sights omitted from E’s programme.

The Jubilee Clock Tower, a few minute’s stroll away, is a Moorish style tower built in 1897 to mark Queen Victoria’s Jubilee. It has not quite been vertical since Japanese bombing in 1941 – and that is probably the most interesting thing about it, not that the Leaning Tower of Pisa should feel threatened.

Jubilee Clock Tower, George Town

Heading for the protestant cemetery we crossed the end of (inevitably) Jalan Masjid Kapitan Keling past the Church of St George. Completed in 1818 and modelled on St George’s Cathedral, Madras (now Chennai) it is the oldest Anglican Church in SE Asia and is busy preparing for its 200th anniversary celebrations. The rotunda in front is a memorial to Francis Light.

St George's Anglican Church, George Town

Light’s grave in the protestant cemetery is well marked. He stayed on in Penang as superintendent of the settlement, dying of Malaria in 1794 aged 53.

The grave of Francis Light, George Town protestant  cemetery

Reading the gravestones is sobering. So many men and women died young from tropical diseases not then understood, and the infant mortality rate among the British community was appalling.

We rather stumbled upon the grave of Thomas Leonowens. After a short but a chequered career that took him from India to Penang via Australia he died aged 31 of ‘apoplexy’ (probably a brain haemorrhage) in 1859 leaving a young widow. Anna Leonowens set about supporting herself by opening a school in Singapore and her resulting reputation persuaded the Thai consul to recommend her when King Mongkut came looking for a governess, thus spawning an unreliable memoir, a best-selling novel, an Oscar winning musical (the King and I is still banned in Thailand), two films and a television series. The 1999 film ‘Anna and the King’ starring Jodie Foster and Chow Yun-Fat also featured our guide E (as an extra).

The grave of Thomas Leonowens, George Town protestant cemetery

Reaching the cemetery had been a long hot walk but we had identified a beer stop on the way out and paused there for refreshment on the way back. At this latitude it is unusual to sit outside at 5.30 without being enveloped by the fast-falling tropical night. Countries to the north, and as far east as Vietnam, are 7 hours ahead of GMT (or UCT, if you prefer) while the Malay peninsula chooses to be 8 hours ahead, so daylight lingers until after 7pm.

Despite our sizeable lunch the evening found us back at the Red Garden Food Court – portions are small, little more than tapas size (well, that is my excuse), and we snacked happily on fried mantis prawn, chicken and Chinese dumplings (jiaozi).

The Red Garden Food Court, George Town, Penang

The Malaysian Peninsula

Part 1: Malacca (or Melaka), the First of the Straits Settlements

Part 2: Kuala Lumpur

Part 3: The Batu Caves and North to the Cameron Highlands

Part 4: The Cameron Highlands, BOH and Curry

Part 5: The Cameron Highlands to Kuala Kangsar and George Town

Part 6: George Town, Penang

Part 7: Turtles, Monkeys and the Penang National Park

Part 8: Langkawi, a Tropical PEradise (for now)

The End

From the Cameron Highlands to Kuala Kangsar and George Town: Malay Peninsula Part 5

From the Cool, Wet Highlands to the Heat of the Coast

Leaving the Cameron Highlands

Malaysia

Pahang

Despite yesterday’s fascinating walk, another night of wind and rain meant we were not desperately sorry to be leaving the Cameron Highlands.

With A, the same driver who had brought us from Kuala Lumpur, a friendly young man with a good command of English, we headed north along the highland ridge, through some pleasant scenery…

The Cameron Highlands looking good

…and some rather less attractive. Fresh flowers and strawberries are the highland’s main crops and the growers have blanketed the once green hillsides with polytunnels. It is ugly and looks uncontrolled, but apparently regulations exist; we passed tunnels smashed by the authorities for being unlicensed.

The Cameron Highlands despoiled by plastic

Turning west we gently wound our way down to the coastal plain, leaving the state of Pahang and entered Perak. Cocooned within an air-conditioned car we failed to notice the steadily rising temperature.

On the plain we passed a marble quarry, an ugly gash in a mountainside, and a line of workshops. Buildings and vegetation were sprinkled with white specks of marble and dust hung in the air.

We stopped at a service station for fuel and a comfort break. Stepping from the car the heat was momentarily overwhelming. The maximum daily temperature in the Cameron Highlands is 22 or 23°, on the coastal plain the overnight low is higher than that and day time temperatures hover in the mid-30s 365 days a year.

We reached the E2, Malaysia’s north-south Expressway in the outskirts of Ipoh, Perak’s capital and largest city. Founded during the tin-mining boom of the 1880s, Ipoh grew to become Malaysia’s third largest city with a current population of around 650,000, though the city has struggled since tin mining collapsed at the end of the last century.

Today's journey from the Cameron Highlands down to Ipoh, Kuala Kangsar and over the bridge to Georgetown

Kuala Kangsar: Posh Schools and Rubber

Progress along the motorway was swift. Some 40km north of Ipoh A asked if we would like to see a rubber tree. We wondered what he meant, Malaysia is the world’s biggest rubber producer and although straight, slender rubber trees are now outnumbered by palm oil trees, plantations remain widespread. ‘In Kuala Kangsar,’ he added as though that was important. We quickly said ‘yes’ as apparently light needed shedding on an area of ignorance.

Kuala Kangsar is only a couple miles east of the E2. It is a neat little town with several buildings painted to look like something they are not, but the town centre is dominated by the buildings and playing fields of Malay College, which likes to refer to itself as the Eton of the East, and its rival, Clifford College.

Kuala Kangsar and interestingly painted buildings

The rubber tree we had come to see stands beside a road between the two schools. Rubber is a native of Brazil which at first had a virtual monopoly on production. In 1876 British explorer and adventurer Sir Henry Wickham acquired (or stole) 70,000 rubber seeds in Santarém and took them to the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew. Seedlings were cultivated and dispatched to likely parts of the Empire. According to A (and The Rubber Economist) 9 seedlings were brought to Malaya (as it was then) by Henry Ridley, first Director of the Singapore Botanical Gardens, who planted them in 1877, and we were looking at the last survivor.

The Old rubber Tree in Kuala Kangsar

Unfortunately, according to The Singapore Botanic Gardens (from whom I have ‘borrowed’ the photo below – thank you SBG) Ridley was not appointed until 1888.

Henry Ridley, the father of the Malayan rubber industry
Enthusiastic and eccentric, but not actually 'mad' Ridley married for the first time at the age of 83
and died in 1956 just before his 101st birthday

He is celebrated as the father of the Malay rubber industry and was so fervent an advocate of rubber he became known as ‘Mad’ Ridley, but either he did not plant this tree, or it was planted later than 1877 and is not an original ‘Kew seedling’. Either way, it is undoubtedly a very old tree and very different from the young specimens from which rubber is tapped. I should now make that point with a photo of a Malaysian rubber plantation, but I have none, instead here is a picture I took in India in 2010.

Tapping rubber, Kerala, Southern India, 2010

Driving to the edge of town, A paused by the bridge over the Perak River.

The Perak River, Kuala Kangsar

Kuala Kangsar: Two Palaces and a Mosque designed by an Englishman

We drove through prosperous riverside suburbs expecting to return to the motorway but there was more to see. Not content with having two elite schools and a venerable rubber tree, Kuala Kangsar is also the royal capital of Perak. Nazrin Shah, the 35th Sultan, (educated at Malay College Kuala Kangsar and Worcester College, Oxford) has occupied the throne since 2014. Istana Iskandariah has been the Sultan’s official residence since it was completed in 1933 but the sultan does not welcome unannounced visitors, so we left him in peace….

The entrance to Istana Iskandariah, Kuala Kangsar

….and went to see the nearby Istana Kenangan instead. The floods of 1926 persuaded Iskandar Shah (the 30th Sultan) that he needed a new palace slightly further from the river. The remarkable little Istana Kenangan was constructed as a temporary royal residence while Istana Iskandariah was being completed. It was built of wood without using nails and the carvings and woven decorations were added later. It is now the Royal Museum of Perak, inconveniently, closes on Fridays.

Istana Kenangan, Kuala Kangsur

Our wanderings had taken us right round the Ubudiah Mosque, so we went for a closer look. In 1911, when Idris Shah I, the 28th Sultan, was taken ill, he vowed that should he recover he would build a mosque and this is the result. Building started in 1913 and took four years, a significant delay being caused by two fighting elephants destroying much of the stockpiled Italian marble.

The Ubudiah Mosque, Kuala Kangsar

The design was by AB Hubback who was also responsible for the Sultan Abdul Samad Building and the Jamek Mosque in Kuala Lumpur. It is surprising enough that this Liverpudlian brother of an Anglican bishop was entrusted with two of Malaysia’s foremost mosques, even before considering the design. Ubudiah is all right, maybe a bit fussy, from close to, but from a distance the proportions are strange and like the Sultan Abdul Samad Building, it seems to present a version of ‘the orient’ that only ever existed in the minds of Europeans. No matter, Idris liked it, so that was good enough.

From a distance the Ubudiah Mosque just looks wrong to me

Pausing only for a picture of botanical interest – this was in the flowerbed outside the mosque, I believe it is a member of the ginger family - we made our way back to the motorway.

A member of the ginger family, I think, cultivated at the Ubudiah mosque

Malayan Postage Stamps and the Malaysian Constitution

We soon left Perak and entered the State of Penang, bringing on a couple of digressions.

I have probably not looked at my stamp collection for over 50 years, but it is, it seems, deeply embedded in my memory. In 1957, as the Federation of Malaya gained independence the youthful Queen Elizabeth disappeared from the stamps and the standardised designs, customised for each individual state, showe the head of the local ruler. I was fascinated by ‘faraway places with strange sounding names’ (actually, I still am), so re-encountering the states of Malaya; Selangor, Johor, Negri Sembilan and the rest was like meeting old friends. Today's journey had taken us from Pahang to Penang via Perak, names I remembered well.

9 of Malaya’s 11 states had hereditary rulers (7 Sultans, 1 Raja and a Yamtuan Besar) who appeared on the stamps, the other two, the former Straits Settlements of Penang and Malacca used a heraldic device.

I liked the headgear of some of the rulers - particularly this one from Perak.

Now THAT is a turban

‘Perak’ is written at the bottom in Jawi script, Arabic heavily modified to suit Malay and related languages, though Rumi (Latin script) is now used almost universally in Malaysia.

Malaysia is unique in being a ‘federal parliamentary elective constitutional monarchy’. When Malaya gained independence in 1957, the 7 Sultans, 1 Raja and the Yamtuan Besar (who are constitutional monarchs within their own states) met to elect one of their number to be Yang di-Pertuan Agong, the head of state and constitutional monarch of Malaya, for 5 years. They have met every five years since (or earlier if the grim reaper intervenes – they are not generally young men) to repeat the process. In 1963 Singapore, Sarawak and North Borneo joined Malaya to form the Federation of Malaysia (Singapore left again in 1965) and although none of them had hereditary heads of state, the system survived. In practice, this small and very exclusive electorate has avoided disputes by electing the monarch in strict rotation of the states. It is a pretty safe bet that in 2021 the successor to Muhammed V, Sultan of Kelantan, will be the Sultan of Pahang (though it may not be the current Sultan as he is already 86.) [Update: In Jnuary 2019, Muhammed V of Kelantan became the first ever Yang di-Pertuan Agong to step down - over an entanglement/marriage/divorce with/from a Russian model. The Sultan of Pahang who duly succeeded him is the son of the Sultan when this was first posted].

Here endeth the digressions.

Across the Bridge to Penang Island

Penang is Malaysia’s second smallest but most densely populated state. It consists of a coastal strip on the mainland and Penang Island, with George Town, the state capital and Malaysia’s second largest city at its north-east corner.

We crossed to the island over the 24km long Sultan Abdul Halim Muadzam Shah Bridge, Penang’s second link to the mainland, opened in 2014.

The Sultan Abdul Halim Muadzam Shah Bridge to Penang Island

And swung right up the coast to George Town.

Nearing Penang Island on the Sultan Abdul Halim Muadzam Shah Bridge

The Georgetown World Heritage Site

Central George Town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and our hotel, 23 Love Lane, was right in the heart of it.

23 Love Lane, George Town, Penang

Inside was an atrium where complementary tea and coffee was always available, as were snacks in the late afternoon. We said goodbye to A, who had served us well for the last three days, enjoyed a welcome drink and inspected our characterful room on the first floor overlooking the courtyard.

The entrance 23 Love Lane, George Town, Penang

Our Kuala Kangsar detour meant it was now 3 o’clock and we had missed lunch (oh the horror!). Love Lane acquired its name when it was George Town’s red-light district, but apart from our chic boutique hotel it is now mainly occupied by back packer hostels. We repaired to one for soup and a beer.

The rest of the afternoon we spent wandering George Town’s characterful narrow streets. Street art is much in evidence. Some is for its own sake….

Street art, George Town, Penang

…and some is informative. Before it was a restaurant the premises below are where Jimmy Choo (born, George Town 1948) served his apprenticeship. I am at a loss to understand how anyone can become famous by designing shoes, but I have to admit even I have heard of Jimmy Choo.

Jimmy Choo first made shoes here, George Town, Penang

Dinner at the Red Garden Food Court, Georgetown

As we arrived A had pointed out and recommended the Red Garden food court, so in the evening we took a short walk and entered the large court lined with food stalls. As we looked around a beer man approached to explain the procedure - and sell us some beer. Having bagged a numbered table, you wander round the stalls seeing what catches your eye, you order a bit here and a bit there, give the stallholders your number and in due course the food is delivered and payment made. Then you go round again - if the fancy takes you.

Red Garden food court, George Town, Penang

Kuey Teow (fried flat noodles with egg and prawn), crispy duck with vegetables and rice and a handful of fiery satay sticks made an excellent meal. Our only regret was that we had missed Selina the lady-boy, who performs only on Thursdays.

Strolling happily back to the hotel through the warm night air under a shining half moon, I could not help but think that already I preferred Penang to the decidedly parky Cameron Highlands.

The Malay Peninsula

Part 1: Malacca (or Melaka), the First of the Straits Settlements
Part 2: Kuala Lumpur
Part 3: The Batu Caves and North to the Cameron Highlands
Part 4: The Cameron Highlands, BOH and Curry
Part 5: The Cameron Highlands to Kuala Kangsar and George Town
Part 6: George Town, Penang
Part 7: Turtles, Monkeys and the Penang National Park
Part 8: Langkawi, a Tropical Paradise (for now)

The End