Penang - an island as a metropolis

After several weeks in Hua Hin, I flew to Penang at the end of January 2025. A travel-savvy colleague warned me: “I was in Penang twenty years ago; it’s quite densely populated.” That has changed: The island of Penang in the eponymous state in the northwest of Malaysia spans just under 300 square kilometers, which is three-quarters the size of the city-state of Bremen (or for Swiss: about the size of the canton of Schaffhausen), but it has 800,000 inhabitants, which is more than Bremen and nearly ten times that of Schaffhausen. In other words, the island is now extremely densely populated.

I arrived later in the evening from Bangkok with Thai Airways. Shame on me! The ecological sin was due to my laziness. I could have taken ground buses or the train. The route from Bangkok through southern Thailand and the Malaysian peninsula via Kuala Lumpur down to Singapore is serviced by state railway tourist trains as well as the private Eastern & Oriental Express. However, this would have wiped out my travel budget for an entire month for a three-day ride indulging in luxury.

If I hadn’t flown, I would have missed a spectacle: Before the nighttime approach to the airport in the south of Penang Island, a brightly lit metropolis sprawls beneath us. We land practically among high-rises, reminiscent of Hong Kong before its airport was moved from the city center to Chek Lap Kok Island in the late 1990s.

The next day, on January 24, 2025, I ride the funicular, built by the Swiss company Garaventa, through dense rainforest to the highest point of the island, the 833-meter-high Penang Hill. Below me stretches an uninterrupted development across the entire south, east, and north coast; the forested interior of the island and the west coast remain untouched.

240-Year-Old British Settlement

The fact that George Town, the capital of Penang, along with the city of Malacca, which lies about 500 km to the south, has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 2008 is attributed by the UN organization for education, culture, and science as follows: “With its residential and commercial buildings, George Town represents the British era of the late 18th century. The two cities form a unique architectural and cultural cityscape that is unmatched in Eastern and Southeast Asia.”

George Town was founded in 1786 as the first British settlement in Southeast Asia by the private British East India Company as a base on the trade routes between Asia and Britain. It was named in honor of the long-reigning British King George III, who ruled from 1760 to 1820.

As Europeans, we often make the mistake of equating the beginning of the history of a distant region with the beginning of its colonization. However, Penang was by no means a no man’s land in 1786 when the British arrived. It belonged to the Sultanate of Kedah, which has been ruled for almost 900 years and to this day by the same Muslim family from the city of Alor Setar, and was quite prosperous thanks to agriculture and its strategic location between China and India.

King for a Time

As a former political journalist, I can’t resist a political digression: The Kingdom of Malaysia consists of 13 states, nine of which are ruled by sultans, i.e., Muslim rulers, and four by governors.

The Malaysian Federation gained independence in 1957 after the peninsula had been dominated for 450 years by European powers: the Portuguese, the Dutch, and lastly the British. In 1963, Sarawak and Sabah on the island of Borneo and Singapore joined the federation, which took on the name Malaysia. However, Singapore separated again in 1965 after ethnic and political conflicts and became an independent city-state.

The King of Malaysia, officially titled Yang di-Pertuan Agong, is elected every five years according to a rotational principle from among the nine reigning sultans. The 17th King of Malaysia since early 2024 is Ibrahim Iskandar, who is simultaneously the Sultan of the state of Johor at the border with Singapore. The Yang di-Pertuan Agong resides in the royal palace in Kuala Lumpur; when he is present, his yellow flag flutters over the central dome.

Incense Sticks and Durian Fruits

Back to Penang: While the rest of the developed island is an endless concrete desert, the city center of George Town and the old town still have entire streets that showcase colonial or old-fashioned Chinese styles. In such a street, I found my simple but comfortable hotel named “iStay.”

In George Town, multiculturalism reigns; many shops and businesses are labeled in Malay, Sanskrit, Mandarin, and Arabic. Whether I’m moving in a Chinese, Indian, or Muslim neighborhood can be read from the clothing of the people, the headscarves of the Muslim women, or the long, colorful robes of the Indian women. Even the smells vary: curry and incense sticks among the Indians, garlic and fried meat among the Chinese.

Only the passion for durian is shared by all, and hotel rooms have signs prohibiting smoking, pets, and durian. The fruit, offered at street stalls and in shops at proud prices of 15 to 16 Swiss francs per kilo, is not without reason called “stink fruit.” Its smell is rotten, while the flesh is delicate with a sinful aftertaste.