First day in George Town, there was really only one thing to do: go up Penang Hill, and get a view of the whole board.
V sorted the bus, and two RM apiece took us on the half hour drive out through the increasingly scrappy suburbs to within a few minutes walk of the funicular that whisks you up to the summit. And it really is a summit – something like 700m high, the views from the top were stunning, despite a hazy day.
George Town is on a different scale than I’d imagined. I’d envisaged a cosy little post-colonial town, all fans and verandahs. Not a bit of it. It’s vast. We’re in the old section, between Little India and Chinatown, where humanity gets a look in, and it has at least something of the scraggy, frenetic, bustling-with-life vigour we loved in Hanoi and Saigon. But for the most part – and the most part, as I say, is huge – it’s a modern metropolis on the grand scale, from the slick glass skyscrapers of the business section to the vast, 30 story public housing estates on the outskirts: ugly, charmless, and delapidating gently before your eyes.
But the top of the hill is kind of wonderful. Albeit the main section where you leave the funicular is a charmless array of tourist traps, swarming with punters from parts near and far, you soon stumble across the gaudy wonders of a hindu temple, alongside tumbledown buildings, and elegant large mansions where nabobs once went about their business of lording it over the natives.
After a few false starts (as often, the signage is surprisingly poor, and the maps all but useless) we managed to find Trail D. For the first few hundred metres it was ok, tho’ blighted by incessant streams of BIBs (Bone Idle Buggies, mostly occupied by people who appeared to have functional legs). Billed as botanical, it proved as good as its word, flanked by flowers exotic and beautiful.
We even saw monkeys! Except – curses! – they turned out to be not monkeys at all, but a brace of wee beasties almost as good, looking something like oversize squirrels, emerging from the trees onto, and then scrambling along, a cable above our heads.
After following trail D back to our starting point, we decided to call it a day, and took the funicular back down to the bottom. Where, for the first time I can remember, for anything, anywhere, we had to show our tickets to be allowed to leave. To leave! Have to say, Malaysia seems to have turned mindless bureaucracy into an art form. (They just love blowing whistles too – everywhere you go you run into people who clearly love bossing other people around.) Have to say also, I find it infuriating – the maddening officiousness and sheer pointless stupidity of it all. Virle had to quieten me down, as I muttered my way through the gates. “What do they do if you’ve lost your ticket? Deny you exit? Nah – they probably throw you in jail and fine you a thousand ringit for good measure.” (“Ssssh…calm down!”)
Then a half k walk down the main drag till we found an excellent food court offering a wide choice of foods, all of which looked excellent. I had a noodley thing with chicken and prawns, V, broth with dumplings. All delicious, and a bill just shy of £3 all in.
Now we’re taking an hour out before heading off to amble around the district that’s supposed to be full of street art, before hopefully ending up down at (a different part of) the sea front, where we’re sure we’ll be able to find another wonderful dinner for next to nothing.