Georgetown was established by the British as an important and strategic port, but was abandoned fairly quickly in favour of Singapore. Still, the colonial influence is visible across the whole of the city, with British-style mansions competing with mosques and Chinese temples. Apart from this, Georgetown was for us the place where we met up with Tammy and Ian, who took a small break from their housebuilding on Koh Samui to accompany us for a few days. For those of you who know Tammy - everything is well (a year off obviously agrees with them!), the house is coming along (see their blog) and the preparations for the wedding are in full swing (see their other blog). Still, even for people at leisure a break is every now and again in order, so there they were, waiting for us in the hotel.
The hotel we stayed at was called the Cathay hotel, an old colonial mansion that has been made into a guesthouse with several rooms and dorms. For those wondering - we had our own rooms, which were extremely spacious, although they could do with a lick of paint here and there. The hotel is run by three old Chinese guys, who together must have a full set of teeth! Also, we believe they were already alive at the time of building the mansion, but they were still friendly and helpful enough.
The hotel is located in the centre of Georgetown, so after freshening up we set out to explore the town and find somewhere to drink and eat. Given that it was the beginning of Chinese New year (which is mainly celebrated at home with the family, apart from the noisy dragon dances that take place all across town to bring good luck) all Chinese and Chinese-owned restaurants were closed. As this is a sizeable chunk of the restaurants on offer, our choice was limited to mainly Indian. Which was no punishment at all! Over the next few days, we had Indian for breakfast, Indian for brunch and Indian for dinner. Highlights were roti and dosias, all eaten with the hands. This seems messy, but is remarkably easy to master - the only damage being a cup of tea which was spilled over Nicola, but this was because the waiter was too busy chatting to her!
To stay on the food theme - as the Chinese New Year progressed (it lasts a whole week or longer!), more and more restaurants re-opened, so we also had the chance to try the hawker-food for which Penang is famous. Plus, as we are in Malyasia now, we had our first introduction to Malay food in the form of barbecued stingray with sambal - very tasty!
Other than eating, we spent our days with our 'Thai' friends working off the calories by sightseeing and walking. The walks in particular became epic - one down Penang Hill (which we went up by funicular railway) for about 2 hours, descending from 800 meters to sea level - kicked into gear by spiders as big as a hand and accompanied all the way down by monkeys. The second one, following a brief speedboat-ride, along the north coast of Penang, surrounded by jungle and sea.
After two days together, Tammy and Ian went back to Koh Samui, while we stayed a final day, before we set off to the Cameron Highlands by car (hurray!!). The fact that we had troubles finding our way on a small island didn't bode well for the 300 km+ trip ahead of us......
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