Sunday, March 19th, 2023 Queen Victoria, Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia
Updated: Jul 3, 2023
When the change to the world voyage itinerary was first announced, and I saw that it now included a stop in Penang, my first reaction was that I’d stay on the ship that day. We visited Penang many times over about a 10-year period; I would be working, and Sandra would see the sites. So I associated Penang with work and a little bit of site seeing, though even this was often work-related – after work dinners and functions etc. However as the date of our arrival in Penang approached, I found myself feeling more and more nostalgic for the place – it’s been about 5 years since we were last here. So as the ship docked early this morning, it sure felt strange to be in Penang and not thinking about work and I was quite looking forward to our planned visit. We had arranged for a van and driver, Mohammed, to take us to a few of the places we’d visited over the years and Ray and Christine joined us. I’d already sent an itinerary to the driver and so as we exited the cruise terminal, we were ready to go. The Pinang Peranakan Mansion was our first stop; the mansion dates to the late 1890s and once served as the residence and office of a Chinese tycoon, Chung Keng Quee who built it. The peranakans are a sub-culture of Chinese descended from Southern Chinese settlers and characterized by inter-racial mixing – the settlers married local indigenous Malays. Chung Keng Quee was a millionaire philanthropist and known as an innovator in the mining of tin. He was involved in many other industries including farming, pawnbroking and logging. He was respected by both Chinese and European communities in the early colonial settlement. His survival in the chaotic era owes much to his standing as leader of the Hai San, a Chinese secret society. The mansion comprises a central open, two story, atrium with large rooms off the right and left. The right side of the mansion connects to an additional jewelry museum and shop. The rought iron supporting the interior was brought from Glasgow, Scotland – there are also floor tiles from Stoke-on-Trent; these European features are incorporated with Chinese elements, such as the carved wooden panels and screen for the walls. The mansion is jam-packed with an amazing, eclectic, mix of furnishings and household items – it’s well worth a visit. On all of our previous visits to Penang we have always made time to go to the amazing Kek Lok Si Buddhist temple – the largest in Malaysia and a pilgrimage center for Buddhists from all over southeast Asia. Set on a hill overlooking Penang, the sprawling temple, built between 1890 and 1930, has multiple buildings leading up to an enormous statue of the Goddess of Mercy, Kuan Yin at the top. Another prominent feature is Pagoda of the late Thai king Rama VI, the structure is known as the pagoda of Ten Thousand Buddhas with 10,000 alabaster and bronze statues of Buddha. Our driver first took us all the way to the top of the hill to see the statue of Kuan Yin, this was great as on other visits we’d had to ride the small cog train up the hill – which sounds interesting, but the metal and glass cars are not air conditioned. Standing 120ft tall the statue is very impressive; it stands on large plinth that actually incorporates meeting rooms and is capped by an enormous dome. The views from the statue area are really great – you can see right down through Penang to the coast. Mohammed then drove us down to the lower part of the temple complex; here the largest temple sits over a shopping area (all profit go to the temple building fund) and a car park. The large temple walls are lined with hundreds of small Buddha statues and there are three massive shrines along the back wall. The strong smell of burning incense filled the air of the darkened temple and the heat was intense – a visit to Penang is always a sweaty experience. The pagoda was easily visible from the lower area of the complex, on one visit Sandra and I actually walked to the top of the pagoda - in the heat of today there was no way we’d be attempting this feat. A series of walkways and steps les up through the other buildings and gardens of the temple complex with amazing picture opportunities. The Dragon-I restaurant was a favorite eating spot for us during the latter years of our Penang visits – it’s located in the Queensbay Mall about 15 minutes from Kek Lok Si. I was worried that we’d have to wait a long time for a table, as we’d done in the past, but we were able to get straight in – which was great. Dragon-I serves Chinese food from the Shanghai region, noodles are made fresh in a viewing area at the front of the restaurant – we especially like the steamed Shanghai dumplings, served with malt vinegar and fresh ginger; I know it sounds weird, but they are amazing. The food was as good as it has ever been, though the service experience was a little degraded – ordering via a paper sheet and pencil to check boxes for the items we wanted, and the food delivery in a very rapid no-nonsense style was not in line with our previous visits. For a contrast we next visited the Komplex Bukit Jambul (KBJ) shopping mall; Mohammed questioned this choice of stop saying, “you know this is a mainly Malaysian locals’ mall?” – we assured him it would be OK as we’d been before. KBJ is located in a bustling working-class district of Bayan Baru, a policeman standing on the road by the entrance ensured that the traffic kept moving, many cars were stopping to drop off customers – some “creating their own lane” in classic Penang style, horns were honking, and prospective shoppers weaved in and out of the cars to make their way to the entrance. The usual blast furnace greeted us as we stepped from the van and ascended the small staircase to the mall entrance, and the cool of air-conditioning. We immediately sensed that the mall had been upgraded a bit since or last visit about 5 years ago, some of the stores close to the entrance had proper storefronts and flashy signage. However as we progressed further into the warren that is KBJ we started to see some of the older type stores; metal shutter doors and a more disheveled state of organization – somehow this was comforting. The mall has 9 stories with hundreds of “shoplets” catering to local Malaysians and run by locals; fabrics, haircuts, food court, and clothing – many of the small stores with a few sewing machines and garments appear to be being made right in the store. Sandra loved the Kamdar fabric store in KBJ on previous visits, it’s one of the larger anchor stores in the mall, and so she was relieved to find that it was still in business. Ray and I dropped Christine and Sandra at Kamdar - their eyes were sparkling, and they hopped from foot to foot like kids in a candy store. I had to text Mohammed a couple of times and extend the pickup time as the ladies hit a rich seam of bargain-priced quality fabric – I’ve learned over the years to not interrupt this important ritual. Finally extricated from KBJ I asked Mohammed to proceed to out next stop, the Batik Factory of Penang. I had selected the factory based on a web search and it was located on the far side of the island, about 50 minutes away. However after about 15 minutes Mohammed pulled into a different Batik store, I had not actually showed him my location and so he assumed that I’d want to go to the much closer location. As we pulled in, I remembered that many years ago, in fact on our first car and driver tour of the island, we had visited this location before – there is also a coffee / chocolate shop next door. Batik is an Indonesian technique of wax-resist dyeing applied to the whole cloth. This technique originated from the island of Java, Indonesia. Batik is made either by drawing dots and lines of the resist with a spouted tool called a canting, or by printing the resist with a copper stamp called a cap. The applied wax resists dyes and therefore allows the artisan to color selectively by soaking the cloth in one color, removing the wax with boiling water, and repeating if multiple colors are desired. Christine is a keen crafter and often works with Batik materials – she was very pleased with this shop, in fact she found the exact pattern she was looking for, leading to squeals of delight! Realizing we were going to run past our 8-hour allotted time, I asked Mohammed if we could extend our trip by an hour, and he was more than happy to oblige at the same agreed rate of RM 60 per hour (about 14 USD). We headed up to the north side of Penang Island, this is where most of the resort style hotels are located – attracted by the nice beaches. The main town on the north coast is called Batu Ferringhi, it also famous for its night market where you can get a “Rolex” for a few dollars. The Shangri-La Hotel in Batu Ferringhi is 5-star resort that we visited in the past, I remembered it had a beach-side bar with a great location. The hotel and its grounds are really beautiful, it’s a very peaceful and tranquil spot; passing through the lobby and around the pool, we found the beach bar – complete with thatched roof and grabbed one of the many oceanside empty tables. This was a great place to round out our excellent day; we were all hot, sweaty and tired – sitting with a refreshing cocktail was exactly what we needed. A light breeze was blowing, music was playing, and we could hear the sound of kids playing in the pool while parasailers flew past in front of us. Finally we drove back to Georgetown where we made our last stop, the Eastern and Oriental Hotel. The E&O is a British Colonial style hotel established in 1885 by the Sarkie brothers who went on to establish the famous Raffles Hotel in Singapore. We’d been to the E&O on many of our previous visits and always enjoyed the ambiance, service and quality of its offerings. Entering the lobby things looked very familiar, but then when we tried to find our favorite bar, we discovered that the place had undergone a bit of a transformation – the bar was in a completely new location. Undaunted we trouped on into the bar, feeling a bit under dressed in our wrinkled sweaty clothes, reassuring ourselves that our money was as good as any others. We need not have worried, there were many in the bar dressed like us – including many whom we recognized from the ship. There is a nice patio outside the bar, adjacent to the esplanade style walkway along the coast, and venturing out we immediately turned around as it was still very hot – even though it was now about 6PM. We opted for a nice table with a view of the esplanade and ordered cocktails and a few snacks. The service was slow and inattentive, the drinks were OK, but the food was not good – Sandra had a grilled cheese sandwich that appeared to come without cheese, she complained vociferously, and the offending “sandwich” was removed from the bill. It was past 10:30PM before Queen Victoria slipped her lines and slowly steamed out of Penang; we turning to starboard, and headed around the north coast of the island, before turning south to head for Singapore.
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