George Town (Penang)

Day 261 (March 16, 2019) – George Town, Penang, Malaysia

George Town was such a pleasant surprise. We didn’t have many expectations going in, only knowing that the tour books recommended a visit, yet it ended up being one of my favorite cities of our trip. George Town, also called Penang (in reference to the state in which is resides, almost suggesting that the only reason one would go to Penang would be to go to George Town), is Malaysia’s second largest city and located off Malaysia’s northwest coast on Penang Island. The city is soaked in history, being the first British settlement in Southeast Asia. George Town became a critically important port city and a magnet for people and goods coming in from all over the region. This gave George Town a unique and eclectic clash of Colonial and Asian styles and a vibrant multiculturalism. Perhaps the greatest gift to come from the diverse mix of people and cultures is the food. We soon realized that our goal was to eat our way through George Town to try and get a taste of the various cuisines and combinations of flavor that are unlikely to be found anywhere else.

The waterfront at the north end of George Town.

The view from our hotel at sunset.

One of the most enjoyable parts of George Town was simply walking around the city. The historic area of downtown George Town has been declared an UNESCO World Heritage Site so many of the historic buildings are still intact. We walked around the city almost every day. By the water there is a stone walled fort and huge colonial buildings. The rest of town is a street grid home to countless shops and restaurants. There is a thriving Little India section that even comes with its own soundtrack. One of the shops selling CDs and DVDs in the very center of Little India blasts Bollywood music at deafening levels from huge elevated speakers down either side of the street. We also walked through Chinatown, home to multiple architecturally elaborate historic clan houses. There is also a section of town that has been physically built out over the water. There are a series of jetties reaching out into the ocean with houses and shops situated on stilts, all connected with narrow wooden alleys. Throughout all of town we walked pasted numerous Buddhist temples, Hindu temples, Muslim mosques, and Christian churches. It seemed like everyone called George Town home.

The Colonial architecture of Town Hall.

Street art on the side of a home built out on a jetty. A bit frightening to think it's being held up by concrete-filled buckets.

One of the larger mosques in George Town.

Walking around town wasn’t always easy. There is a noticeable lack of sidewalks anywhere. The sidewalks are physically there but it seems that the homes and businesses claim the sidewalks as their own property. They are not really considered a public space. This means that the sidewalks are used for storage, scooter parking, or for restaurant tables, making them impossible to walk down continuously. Most times we found ourselves with everyone else walking in the street between the parked cars and traffic. We got used to it after a while. However, what we never got used to was the heat. It was insanely hot during the day. We were used to heat. We had been sweating profusely ever since we landed in Bali two months ago, but this was a whole new level of inferno. The problem was that while George Town was probably the same temperature as everywhere else, the city buildings and sidewalks were something we hadn't experienced in a while and they radiated all that sun’s heat right back at us from the sides and below. You could feel the heat emanating from the sidewalks, which combined with the usual blinding sunshine from above, made the middle of the day almost unbearable.

One of the street in Chinatown.

You can't tell in the picture, but we're baking in the heat as we're walking down a street through Little India.

An interactive work of street art we found down a small alley.

One of my favorite activities when walking around town was trying to take pictures of all the street art. There must be hundreds of murals and public works of art affixed to buildings scattered throughout the historic town center. They are not always easy to find, which makes finding them all the more rewarding. Looking down small alleys and up partially hidden sides of buildings revealed colorful and often humorous works of art. It was a bit like a scavenger hunt that added color and vibrancy to the city and made me want to keep walking to find out what was around the next corner.

There were a lot of these metal art installations across the city that provided some insight into the history of various locations and buildings around town.

Other works were just plain fun and comical.

The best part of George Town, hands down, was the food. Our hotel was only steps away from Little India. As soon as we turned down the street we could smell fried samosas and Indian spices. We sampled a few different restaurants in Little India and found some thoroughly delicious food. We knew we were getting something authentic when we realized that we were the only people in the restaurant given utensils. Everyone around us was eating more traditionally with their hands. One of our more memorable meals was a lunch of Thali, a huge round platter with a dozen or so little bowls of various Indian dishes. It was just enough to get a taste of each one yet left us plenty full by the end.

Our Indian Thali lunch, after already consuming half of it. We forgot to take a picture before we started...

A curry mee station in a hawker center.

An outdoor hawker center and street art all in the same place. I like the squirrel on top of the kid's head.

The classic way to sample George Town’s unique cuisine is not in a restaurant but at a hawker center. Across the city is a smattering of food centers where dozens or more individual food vendors are housed (in a similar fashion to Singapore, which had similarly excellent food). Armed with not much more than a small food cart and a wok, cooks whip up every kind of creation imaginable. Each vender tends to specialize in a dish, like a particular type of noodle soup, curry, or fried rice. We would walk around the perimeter of a hawker center, browsing the options, decide on a meal, and place our order with the vendor. We’d grab one of the communal tables in the middle of the building, occasionally sitting with other people if it was really crowded, and the cook or assistant would bring your food to you when ready. It only ever cost a few dollars each to eat. We didn’t always know exactly what we were eating but it was always good. We had some mouthwatering meals at these hawker centers, particularly the curry mee (noodles in a curry broth), for which we made return trips to the same vendor so we could enjoy it again.

Enjoying a bowl of curry mee at one of the hawker centers.

A hawker center set up in the street.

A meal of char koay kak (fried rice cake with egg, vegetables, and shrimp) and nutmeg juice. 

On a topic related to food, the drinking scene is also worth mentioning, simply for the fact that there was very little of one. Most stores don’t sell alcoholic beverages, but those that do all have signs up as a reminder that alcohol is not to be sold to Muslims. While we commonly saw this in Langkawi, it was somewhat surprising to see this in the more diversified George Town, home to more people of Chinese origin than Malaysian. Nonetheless, bars could be found around town, but they’re pretty much exclusively for the tourists and expats. We visited a few of them, which were cute and eclectic, but it was sort of unfortunate because we’d end up spending more money on a couple rounds of beer than we did on our entire dinner. Compared to food, which was incredibly cheap, beer seemed quite pricy.

Hokkien mee (shrimp noodle soup) for breakfast. If we could have stomached four meals a day we would have. There were just too many things to try, each looking as tasty as the last.

George Town really made our 10-day Malaysian trip worthwhile. When we left to return to Thailand, I still felt like there was more food I wanted to try and more hidden street art I wanted to uncover. It was a chance to stay in a single city but experience a multitude of different cultures and influences from all around the world. Although George Town attracts many tourists it still manages to hold onto its authenticity, which combined with its many cultural influences, makes it a unique place unlike anywhere else we’d been.