Penang : 'The Pearl of the Orient'
So my first full day in Penang. ‘Pulan Penang’ - island of the Betel Nut. The Betel Nut being what is extracted from the Areca Nut when whole. The Areca Nut being the fruit of the ‘Pinang’ tree, the Malay name for the Areca Palms indigenous in large numbers to the island, and from where Penang’s current and most lasting title has been derived. Penang has had many names. Bequeathed throughout history. Many layers of history. Situated with perfect strategic positioning at the entrance to the Straights of Malacca, as with many naval-port towns within modern day Malaysia its fate has been bound through the centuries to the oceanic movements of trade and the colonial conflicts so often born there from. It remains affectionately known also as ‘The Pearl of the Orient’.
I’ve been getting a little lazy and not fully engaging with some of the history and culture of my destinations of late and I can sense that this is cheapening the travel experience a little. Just a little. I am missing out on cultural and historical context. Penang is rich in both. Not least the colonial relationship with my own nation, Britain. Following on from my visit to the rather bland Fort Cornwallis yesterday afternoon, I am heading at opening time (9.00am) to the Penang Museum to try to immerse myself in all that lovely info.
Before I get there though, as I am up early and being inquisitive, Kenny, the temporary Malay co-manager of ‘100 Cintra Street’, the fabulously idiosyncratic hostel-building I am staying at, invites me to accompany him to the early morning Chinese Market just around the corner.
And having been boning up on my facts at the Penang Museum I can tell you where Malay ‘kopi’ gets its distinctive taste.
Penang, is an intense ethnic microcosm of Malaysia as a whole. Settled by so many peoples who brought their goods, cultures and families over the seas from the four corners of the world to trade first with the historic, indigenous Malay monarchical rulers and then later their various colonial collaborators and conquerors.
For the part played by us Brits, effectively Penang was nabbed through various treaties and (false) assurances of military support to the Malay provincial rulers by Captain Francis Light, a maverick emissary of the notorious British East India Company.
Anyway, stocked to the gills on history and all that stimulating stuff, I depart and grab a local bus from the seafront inland towards the hills and the village of Air Itam (‘Black Water’). This is the base point for two of Penang’s most impressive scenic activities.
Kek Lok Si is a curious site in many respects. Not least in the approach to the temple grounds itself. This is so obscured from view that I couldn’t for the life of me find the stairway in what was clearly the ‘correct’ direction and ended up strolling inadvertently into and around a kids primary school. “Ooops!” Finally the path to Kek Lok Si is located; indicated for me. A long, shallow corridor-stairway leads up and towards the temple grounds, but this space is entirely suffocated by an endless retail cobweb of infinite cheap tackiness.
This theme of retail outlets fusing with religion continues all the way throughout the various temple grounds and spaces. Even right within the heart of Kek Lok Si, T-shirts, towels, Chinese-lanterns, votive images and calendars and candles and cakes and crisps and rubber ducks and dinosaurs and ‘croaking’ wooden frogs and wooden buddhas and cards and plastic guns and buns and sweets and other shiny treats are hawked right within the gaze of the faithful and the architecturally grand.
The Temple pagoda towers, and beautifully coloured tile roofs are a feast for the eyes on this sunny blue-sky day. It looks like a controlled explosion of a child’s wax crayon and paint collection. Primary colours forged into shapes of all descriptions and architectural swerves and lines blaze onto your retinas from all directions. Red, gold, green, orange and blue. In the distance, now already far below the city spread and the waters of the Malacca Straights stretch out in a hazy, distant panorama. An ‘incline lift’ can be taken up and back to the Temple summit for 4 Ringgit (80p).
Leaving Kek Lok Si (and its thousand and one shops) behind I head on over to the Penang Hill funicular train station. Established by the British in colonial times, this train now reaches practically all the way to the top of the renowned Penang Hill. A funicular train in two stages takes a good 45 minutes to get you up there.
I attempt to get a little entwined in the Malaysian tropical undergrowth by deciding to walk down along a signposted path to the Middle Station. This though turns out to be a disappointing, nasty trek. It’s clear that the path, though clearly signed has been left to go to wrack and ruin - neglected by both custodians and tourists alike for many, many a long month.
Back at Cintra Street. A stomach-bloatingly large and delicious bowl of street soup splendor, unknown and unidentifiable ingredients abounding. I have had some cracking street food in my time here. An island whose culinary reputation precedes it. The New York Times just recently hailed it as the World’s Number 2 destination for diversity, richness and quality of its cuisine, behind Number One Spot… you guessed it, New York! Hey I’ve been to both and can testify to their mutual flavoursome magnificence.
Then FMFs (Five Minute Friends) Britton (from LA) and Mike (UK) and I get some beers and a bottle of Malay-distilled ‘Night Heat’ whiskey in to sit with, chew the fat over and imbibe whilst waiting for the fun and fanfare of the U.
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