21 FEB THURS: (PM) - Brief exploration of George Town, Penang

I'd read that the Clan Jetties in George Town provided good photo opportunities, particularly at sunset.    There used to be seven jetties until one was demolished by fire   .Each jetty is named after a Chinese clan – the Chew Jetty is the most tourist-friendly with the largest number of stilt-houses, the longest walkway and a temple. 

Billed as ''one of the last bastions of old Chinese settlements on the island, this waterfront society is home to houses on stilts of various Chinese clans.   (they are over a century old).   I read that to this day none of the families pay any tax as they are not living on land.

The Jetties are a 15 minutes walk from our hotel and there were some things I wanted to see/do en route without taxing us too much as the 35deg heat/humidity was affecting us badly.   

The area is famous for its street graffiti but I'd read reports that the artwork is getting very tatty and faded  so I didn't want to make a special pilgrimage and just snapped photos of those we passed on our travels.   They are well documented and popular with tourists who like to photograph themselves/friends interacting with the pictures.     We noticed several of the 'tourist tat' shops selling T shirts and cotton bags featuring some of the better artworks/graffiti ... I guess its a little like Banksy.

These are a few we passed.

I liked this one ... metal framework and hanging swings with the kids painted onto the wall behind.   

 

This one has seen better days.   We watched a Chinese lady photograph her boyfriend leaping/holding the same pose in front of the graffiti and he did really well .... good shot!

  Well someone had to do it ....

 

 There were a few cat themed drawings - this was poignant.   Skippy, the subject, passed away on 26 January according to the message written alongside his (faded) image:

Loved the cat's expression watching the rodents hanging' from the balcony:

close up of the rodent(s)

On our way to see the Clan Jetties we popped into the coffee shop called  Kopi Loewak.   Kopi is the Indonesian word for coffee. Luwak is a local name of the Asian palm civet.

Kopi luwak is made from coffee beans excreted by Indonesian palm civets - small, mongoose-like creatures and is one of the most expensive coffees in the world.    Coffee berries are eaten by civets for their fruit pulp. After spending about a day and a half in the civet's digestive tract the beans are excreted

Sadly there is some controversy about the conditions some of the animals are kept in.  In the early days civet coffee beans were collected from wild civet excrement found around coffee plantations. This painstaking process contributed to its rarity and subsequently its high price which led to the animals being captured and farmed intensively.

David was determined to try some.  It was prepared with a bit of pomp (to justify the price I guess) using a vaccuum filter.   Water was heated/boiled in the bottom section and rose into to the top section with the coffee.  It was studied and stirred by the boss and then allowed to filter back down into the bottom section.   

I'm not a fan of 'real' coffee generally and certainly wouldn't want to drink something  brewed from beans that had been pooed (if that's the spelling) by an animal.      David said it was really good though!

The guy working in the coffee shop was really nice and we chatted to him for a while.   I said we were off to photograph the sunset at the Jetties and he told me it wouldn't be possible - you can get sunrise shots but not sunset.    That will teach me never to believe things I read on the internet and travel sites.   

Unusually, for David, he sat for a street artist and had a very simple caracature done.  I think its quite cute!    I reckon the thing that appealed to David was the price - around £2 for the A4 drawing.    Just a bit of fun.

We did walk down to the Jetties but only saw a small area and wasn't very impressed.   Either we've missed the best bit (and it is a heritage site) or its been allowed to run down since all the reviews were written.    If we're up before sunrise tomorrow (possible as we'll be jet lagged) I might wander down to see if I can get any decent photos but I/we were a bit underwhelmed by the bit we saw.

 

More graffiti/street art:

 To be fair, it was almost sunset and so the light was going ... 

 

We were incredibly hot and tired so walked back towards our hotel which is in Little India area and cl
 ose to Chulia Street which is full of Chinese/Malay/Indonese food outlets.     We decided on the first place that boasted aircon and ended up having a fab curry with 3 vegetarian dishes, a naan each, a mango Lassi and an iced tea for around £8.   Got to love 'street food' - even slightly upmarket ones with aircon.

 

21 FEB THURS: George Town, - Ren i Tang Heritage Inn, Pulau Pinang.

I try to steer clear of glossy business hotels in favour of more interesting boutique or heritage type places.    Sometimes I make mistakes (!) but we've stayed in some interesting places on our Indian tours and I hope our accommodation in Malaysia will live up to expectations.

Our first 2 nights will be spent at the Ren i Tang Inn in George Town on the island of Penang.   The Inn is the result of a 2 year long restoration project.   Ren i Tang is the phonetic spelling in Mandarin of S. East Asia's oldest Chinese Medical Hall wholesaler, Yin Oi tong which translates to "The Hall of Benevolence".

Yin Oi Tong Chinese Medical Hall was established in 1796 by Koo Suk Chuan (who arrived in Penang 10 years after Captain Francis Light founded the British Colony) and established his business as a herbalist in a small shop.  The business thrived and had to move to these larger premises in 1885 and continued trading there till 2009 - 124 years in total.

Now the Inn has 17 rooms occupying the first and second floors.   Keeping the concept of a shophouse, the restorers have retained the working quarters on the ground floor and living quarters on floors above.     The downstairs working quarters  houses  Tang (Bistro) and The Yin Oi Tong Chinese Medical Hall museum.

The main characteristics of a S. East Asian shophouse have been restored and reinstated to keep it as authentic as possible including original wood staircases and Chinese roof tiles etc.

The building has open air wells and a central courtyard which allows natural light into the middle section of the building.    The air wells create convection, ie hot air accumulated within the building rises up and at the same time cool air from the sea breeze is brought into the building to ensure maximum air flow throughout.  We're told this negates the need for air conditioning - I sincerely hope that is correct as the temperatures will be in the mid 30s.

Actually, after brilliant flights with Qatar (the subject of another post) we picked up our hire car at Penang Airport and with the aid of Sat Nav got to our hotel around 3.30pm and drove round and round the one way systems trying to find a parking spot.   On the 5th circle round David got a parking spot almost directly outside the hotel doors so the car will stay put now till we leave on Saturday morning.  

This is our home for a couple of nights - the Ren i Tang Heritage Inn.  (from their website - and without too much traffic in the streets)

As expected our room is quite basic but very comfortable and roomy with a small kitchenette area and large shower room (and it does have aircon - its just the central areas that don't).  

We checked in, freshened up a little then went for a beer in the Bistro downstairs.    Just the one beer - we have two flights of very steep wooden stairs to negotiate and the treads are very shallow - obviously made for smaller feet than ours so we need to keep our wits about us.    Our cases were hauled up by a pulley housed in the central atrium area.

We haven't really looked at the medical hall museum or taken photos inside this hotel as we were keen to get out and explore a little before exhaustion/heat overcame us.