George Town. Penang, Malaysia

Today I travelled to Kuala Lumpur having spent 4 nights in George town, on the island of Penang, in north west of peninsula Malaysia.

George Town is a mix of squalid old Chinese streets and modern apartment blocks and hotels. In this part of SE Asia it is the wet season and the change from the beach in thailand to the humidity of Penang caused me to change guest houses after one night to get some air conditioning. When it has fallen the rain has been heavy but of short duration.

Penang, and probably most of Malaysia, is heavily influenced by the British Colonial period, which ended in 1957 and looking at these tourist sites has been a change from temple viewing. The first site of interst is Fort Cornwallis, the site of the first English arrivals. The Penang island is about 30km long by 20kms across.

On the second day I hired a motor bike to have look around and after travelling west from George town along the north coast, visitng the seaside resort of Batu Ferringhi, to be seen in many holiday brochures, I had a quick look at a nearby fishing village. I then turned south which took me on a winding road over hills and through lush forest and tropical fruit farms with a few views over the eastern coastal plain. Further south the forest gave way to towns, villages and road works, where they are improving the road network.

I then travlleed to the south east tip of the island to the War Museum. This is a miltary fort built in the 1930's by the British in anticipation of the war with japan. Its built right into the hill side with ammuniton dumps, offices and bomb shelters in tunnels and barrack rooms built on the landside of the hill. At the top of the hill were two major guns (16" I think) with a range of 15kms to guard the coast betwen the Penang and the mainland, in anticiation of a sea invasion from the south. As it turned out the Japaneses invaded from the north by landing in Southern thailand and riding on bicycles. For whatever reasons the British retreated south to Singapoe destroying the guns and ammunition before they left but leaving the fort largely in tact which the Japanese then used as an interrogation centre and prison of war camp, some aspects of which was also exhibited at the museum.

The next day I went up Penang Hill which is a steep hill (approx 900 metres above sea level) in the centre of the island close and to George Town. The British built a funicular to the top of the hill to create a hill station to escape the intense heat and humidity of George Town. At the top there are is a buddhist temple and mosque but if you walk on a bit further you find a number of homes which, with the exception of the tropical plants, you could almost be in Surrey. There is also a old convalescent home alleged to have been used first in the Crimean war, but what's there now looks a lot more recent than that, albeit delapidated.