Penang, Malaysia

The Pearl of the Orient

Penang is the city I was born in. When growing up as a child, Penang was the site for our annual family vacation during the Christmas school holidays. We always looked forward to our annual trip to Penang with excitement and anticipation. Today, Penang is still a favorite and nostalgic place to visit.

In July 2019 my wife and I took the fast electric train from Kuala Lumpur to Penang and then ferried across to the island. The train left KL Sentral at noon and took a very comfortable four hours to get to Butterworth. Riding the ferry from Butterworth to Penang brought back childhood memories of my dad driving the family car onto the ferry and all of us inside watching Penang loom larger as we approached the end of our long car journey from Singapore.

Our base in Penang is always a beach hotel. As a child I remember the family stayed at the Spring Tide hotel, now demolished, and replaced by the high rise condominium complex Springtide Residences. When Rhonda and I were first married, we stayed at quaint and affordable hotels like the Lone Pine, Casuarina and Palm Beach. These have all since been upgraded into either expensive boutique hotels or rebuilt into 5 star hotels. For the past three visits to Penang we stayed at the Rainbow Paradise Resort in Tanjong Tokong. It is closer to the city of Georgetown than the hotels in Batu Ferringhi and has quite a few local restaurants around it, including an Indian restaurant right across the street that serves curry on a banana leaf.

Rhonda and I were married in 1974 at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Penang. We had our wedding reception and stayed at the E&O Hotel in Georgetown. Today, the church is still there and accessible, but the E&O has been completely refurbished and no longer the affordable hotel it used to be. On this visit we went into the bar for a beer and the bar captain was kind enough to take us to the old ballroom where our wedding reception was held.

Penang has a lot to offer the tourist besides its beaches. There is the Botanical Garden, Penang Hill, fruit and spice farms along Ferringhi and Balik Pulau, places of worship, as well as the very impressive Entopia Butterfly Farm. There are also a number of durian and fruit farms where one can feast on this king of fruit. On our last trip I met some former classmates at the Bao Sheng Durian farm for a feast.

In Georgetown, one can truly get a feel for the history of the island. There are beautifully preserved heritage homes, restaurants, hotels and museums to view. One can see some beautiful mural art and visit the 3-D Art museum as well as the Food museum.

A visit to Penang is also never without reunions with friends and relatives, many of whom return from where they currently live in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand to visit and keep in touch with their roots and relatives. Of course these reunions all involve local food dishes for which Penang is so well known.

Finally, Penang is the place where both my parents are buried. A visit to Penang always includes prayers at their gravesite at the Catholic cemetery in Pulau Tikus.