Malaysia - Penang - where we was robbed!

It's not a case of work & no play for us during our time in Malaysia - we had a long weekend off, mainly due to local celebrations for the end of the month of Ramadan (Aidil Fitri). We set off for the island of Pulau Penang on a Friday morning & returned to Taiping on a Monday evening. We stayed in the main town of Georgetown & found plenty to do.

Our 1st visit was to the Cheong Fatt Tze mansion, built in the 19th C by a Chinese merchant who was originally from Guandong & known as the Rockefeller of the East. It has 38 rooms, 5 courtyards, 7 staircases & 220 windows. It's truly a work of art & a fine example of Straits Settlement architecture, incorporating features of European & Chinese style such as Art Nouveau stained glass, Chinese cut-and paste porcelain, Stoke on Trent floor tiles & cast iron work manufactured by MacFarlanes of Glasgow. The serene & elegant atmosphere was no small testament to the success of the principles of Fen Shui which had been applied at every stage of its construction.

During the rest of our weekend, we managed to visit Little India, the Botanic Gardens (where a water treatment works had been established in 1804 by some far-sighted British engineer), the beach town of Batu Ferengi, the State Museum, Fort Cornwallis (begun in 1786 by Francis Light, the 1st British settler whose son went on to found Adelaide) & the Eastern & Oriental Hotel (built by the Sarkie brothers who were responsible for Raffles Hotel in Singapore which we hope to patronise in a couple of weeks time).

We travelled along Scotland Street, MacAllister Street, downing Street & Farquar Street, witnessed a Chinese lantern parade & ate at a fantastic vegetarian restaurant in Dickens Street where our plates were piled high with a fantastic selection of fresh food for the amazing sum of a pound each.

Penang is well known for its cosmopolitan ethnic mix of residents & we were impressed with the harmony that seemed to exist between the races - Indians, Chinese & Malays are the majority cultures but there have been historical communities, Achinese, Arabs, Armenians, Buginese, Burmese, Japanese, Javanese, Minangkabaus, Siamese, Singhalese, Europeans, Eurasians & also Jews. There is no longer a functioning synagogue but there is a Jewish cemetery & Jewish plots in other cemeteries. Most of the Jewish community was evacuated to Singapore at the time of the Japanese invasion of Malaysia in WWII & the few Jews that still live in Pulau Penang have to travel to Singapore nowadays for all their festival & life event celebrations.

We really loved Penang, enjoying our few days there immensely but we did experience 1 or 2 problems! Due to the public holidays, our attempts to get to the top of Penang Hill aboard its historical funicular railway, were thwarted by the huge crowds. We didn't fancy waiting 4 hours. Another major problem was being robbed!! Howard's rucksack was snatched from his lap by a passing motor cyclist while we travelled on a trishaw. We lost some jewellery, our IPod (& all its precious store of music which took so many hours to download......), Fiona's spare glasses, our Lonely Planet Guide, Fiona's hat & much, much more! The items lost which caused the most immediate problem were the keys to our apartment in Taiping. All in all, it was a complete pain compounded by the 2 hours which we had to spend in a police station. Just another taste of local culture, we suppose!