Street Art and a bit of history in George Town :) (Day 127 of the world tour)

01/09/2020

The first night in Penang was warm but bearable. After all, we have THREE fans :p

We woke up at 7:30 am as usual and had a small breakfast before heading into the city :)

George Town, the city where we are in Penang, is known for its street art. Years ago, an artist left his works in various locations in the city, and now it's like a treasure hunt for tourists :D

Since we knew that, we wanted to leave early, so we left the hostel at 8:00 am for the photo tour ;-)

As we saw yesterday (and probably mentioned...), the city is super cute with its colonial buildings, narrow streets, and all the street art <33

Our city map marked the most popular street art motifs, so we spent the first hour checking them out and posing with the images as intended^^

At the same time, we also explored the city in general and discovered not only mosques but also Chinese and Hindu temples, as well as quite a few churches - sometimes really right next to each other or opposite. Not bad ;-)

Oh yeah. Although you can easily walk around the city center, there are also trishaw drivers here. These are bicycles with a kind of "carriage" in front, but unlike the well-known rickshaw, this wagon has TWO wheels in front and a total of three. That's why it's called "tri" in the name :p

While walking through the town and going to two more remote motifs, we passed a small intersection where a policeman or soldier regulated the traffic (even though it was small and single lane^^). It was only when whole swarms of trishaws passed by, carrying their customers, that we realized it must be a tour and the traffic is being regulated for the tourists :D

After visiting all the main paintings, we made our way to Fort Cornwallis. As you can probably guess from the name, Penang belonged to the British East India Company during colonial times, and after the conquest of the island, the British built a fort here to protect themselves from a possible French attack (which never happened :D).

On the way to the fort, we passed more churches, convents, and a few administrative buildings, all of which were super chic again :) In front of the town hall, there was even a changing of the guard or something similar that we were lucky to witness^^

Oh. And during a little break on the promenade, we saw a monitor lizard and two otters!! <33 The otters are hard to see in the photo, but maybe you can make them out or just zoom in :D

Just before the fort, there is an old clock tower that was built in the 19th century in honor of Queen Victoria II's anniversary, and I thought it was really cool too!

But then we finally entered the fort itself. Unfortunately, a large part of it is currently under construction and there isn't much to see anyway, but hey, we made the most of it^^

When the British arrived here in Penang, they initially built their fort out of palm trees and flag material before it was finally "properly" built. In the middle, there is an amphitheater, and in the corners of the star-shaped wall, there are various buildings, but only one of them was accessible today.

The chapel and the prison, which amusingly were right next to each other, were closed/not accessible. Also, the lighthouse, which consists only of a scaffold and a dome on top, was not open to visitors :(

However, you could enter the former warehouse for the gunpowder, which was not very informative. The only thing I found interesting was the structure of this building. It was built with an arched roof - like a bunker - in case there was an unwanted explosion inside ;)

In the fort, you could also admire a few cannons, one of which has a funny story: it was made by the Dutch, then belonged to pirates, and was later "found" by the British floating on the water. It also belonged to the Japanese at some point. If you're interested, we have the story as a photo :)

After visiting the fort, we went to an old mansion - the Cheah Kongsi. From the outside, it looks like a Chinese temple, and today it is like a museum inside, where the rooms are arranged as they used to be (could have been).

The Cheah were an ethnic group from China who lived in a region surrounded by the sea and mountains. Since they could not/would not cross the mountains, they discovered maritime trade for themselves and eventually settled in Penang or brought their relatives. They became traders, merchants, and as a clan, they were among the rich people of the island :)

I actually found this visit quite interesting. Penang has a colonial history that is quite extensive. Now we just need a story about the Indians who came here :p But well - British East India Company: I have an idea :D Also, the main mosque here was built by the BEIC, for the Muslim Indians.

By 12:30 pm, we had finished exploring the city center and went back to the hostel for a lunch snack.

There, we discussed what we wanted to do in the afternoon. There are so many options here! You just have to be able to decide, and some things were ruled out because they are full-day trips ;)

We were a bit back and forth: Should we explore the less visited south or not? But in the end, we decided to go to the Floating Mosque.

To get there, we just had to walk to the mall 10 minutes away and take the bus from there. Since this bus connects the mall with the other places on the island, some of which seem to consist almost entirely of hotels, the bus was crowded right at the starting point, and we and some others didn't even get a seat :D

However, 3/4 of the passengers seemed to be locals, and many of them got off quickly. Eventually, we felt like we were the only white people left on the bus. We didn't know exactly how to recognize our stop (we only had the name, but there was no display of the next stop, and on Maps.me, the stops were marked, but you never know which bus lines they apply to :D).

But with Maps.me, we could guess it and pressed the stop request button in good faith. The bus obediently stopped at the next stop, we got off, started walking, but then the bus honked, and the driver called to us to get back on :D

He had remembered where we wanted to go when we bought the ticket and drove us the few hundred meters almost "to the doorstep" of the mosque :O :D

There was no bus stop there, so he probably just wanted to be nice. Really cool <33

As the name suggests, the Floating Mosque is built on stilts. It is also star-shaped like the fort, but you can only see that from the air :p We took a few photos but didn't feel like going inside (we weren't dressed appropriately again, and it was already so hot. We didn't feel like wearing the robes... ;-) ).

We were done with the whole thing in five minutes :D Unfortunately, during our "research" at noon, we didn't consider looking at what else we could do in the area. The mosque is right on the beach, and Jonas had his swimwear with him, so we hoped we could just sit on the beach and do something...

But that wasn't the case :D

The beach seemed to belong to some hotels or there was simply no way down to the water from the road, so we stood there awkwardly for a moment^^ There was neither a sidewalk nor anything else except huge skyscrapers and well...

Since it was annoying to just wait for the next bus in the opposite direction without a bus stop, we walked along the road, past a hidden resort, and confused drivers who apparently didn't expect pedestrians like us on the sidewalk :p

Eventually, we passed a house that had access to the water and a lawn with a swing. It looked super peaceful and idyllic (even though it was right by the road), and I joked that it could be our house. After a short thought, Jonas agreed, but we would probably have to do a lot of renovation.

Just as he said that, we saw someone sitting on the terrace :O :D :D So someone still lives there! I didn't expect that^^ So it probably won't work out with our vacation home overseas :p

But shortly after the house, there was actually a public access path to the beach!!! Up on the road, there were a few stalls, and the path down to the beach was a bit uneven and worn, but there was no one below except two men sleeping in the shade ;-)

I liked the small stretch of beach because it was half in the shade due to the trees. There was also a swing on a tree that looked super romantic with a view of the water <33

We spent some time there on the beach, and Jonas even put his feet in the water. Since we are in a Muslim country, I didn't even bring my bikini. At the hotel beach or in the resort where we will probably spend a day at the beach, it doesn't matter, but here, on a small local beach, I just thought it wasn't appropriate :p And well. Jonas didn't want to go into the water alone either, so we just chilled in the shade <33

Eventually, a family with young children came to the beach, spread out blankets, and started cooking - a barbecue/picnic on the beach :)

Overall, we were there for only an hour, then we went up to the road, where there happened to be a bus stop for our line!!

The first bus drove past us at full speed before we reached the top, so as a precaution, we stood directly by the road to make ourselves as noticeable as possible so that the bus can brake in time :D

While we were waiting, I noticed a big black squirrel with a yellow belly on a power line. Wow! Today seemed to be the day of random animal encounters^^

When the bus arrived, it actually had to brake hard. It probably rarely picks up any people at this bus stop in the middle of nowhere :p :D

Back in the city, the odyssey of finding food began...

Well, I don't want to be one of those people who boast about being vegan/vegetarian and how great that is, but I have to say, it's not easy here when you want to eat vegetarian when eating out, and Jonas and I have been very consistent with that for a few weeks now ;)

Since there are a few malls here, we tried our luck in a food court, but finding it was a tedious task! The malls are all connected, but the tunnels over the road are on different floors. Moreover, everything feels completely confusing and arbitrarily arranged.

There are corridors on one floor that are not the same one floor up or down, so the whole thing becomes a real maze... -.-

We probably aren't fans of malls in Malaysia :p It took us nearly half an hour to find the food court, and then the food there was expensive, and there were no vegetarian options!! :( You might think you can just leave out the meat, but it's not that easy :p

Garlic chicken, chicken in xy gravy, each with rice as a side dish, without the chicken, it's just plain rice :D

We were a bit disappointed but still half-heartedly searched for affordable alternatives within the target mall, but then we just went back to the Jetty Food Court, where we also didn't eat yesterday :D :D

There had been exactly two dishes there that interested me, but when we arrived, THAT stall was closed :O

Well, a bit clueless, we wandered around, and my mood was somewhat okay^^ Eventually, a saleswoman at a seafood and pork stand approached us. We asked her about vegetarian options, and she offered us rice or noodles with vegetables and eggs.

Well, we had eaten that almost every day for the past few weeks :D :D But it was okay, as long as we had a warm meal ;-) And for a total of 3€, it was unbeatable :)

For dessert, I treated myself to a banana milkshake, and Jonas wanted to go to 7-Eleven because he wasn't full at all... In the store, he found chips and buns with coconut filling, although only one of the two bags of chips was even touched :D :D

We're really not good with food here :D :D If we had a kitchen and could cook ourselves, it would be so much easier :O :p

Well. Back at the hostel, we just showered, and since then, we've been hanging out here. The photos are currently uploading because the Wi-Fi is not as good as expected. Yesterday, uploading took over an hour :D

There's also a sign in the corridor asking not to download anything because otherwise, the internet crashes for everyone (that actually happened multiple times yesterday while we were uploading. Oops! :O)

Now I found a way around that, and so far, the internet is stable. Yay! :D

Tomorrow we'll probably go on our first "hike" in a long time :O Let's see how our condition is after the break :D