Day 92: George Town
Trip Start
Sep 21, 2006
1
87
228
Trip End
Jun 01, 2007
George Town,
Malaysia
Friday, December 22, 2006
I'm set for a full day on the George Town historic trail and head first to the north east where it modern Penang began with the landing of Briton Francis Light in 1786. Persuading the local sultan to give up the barely inhabited and forested island, Light established a successful trading port for the British East India Company. Fort Cornwallis, erected near the sight of Light's landing, never had to fire its cannons in anger but acted as an administrative base for the passing trade, from India and China, in tea, spices and silk. Only the walls of the brick fort remain, with several cannons pointing ineffectually towards the Strait of Melaka; Working guns are at the navy base across the road. For a small charge you can hire a British colonial uniform and pose with a rifle by the barracks
01 Cat amongst cannonballs, Fort Cornwallis
.Within the fort, but accessed through a different entrance is a more recent flagstaff and lighthouse. I'm not sure that the lighthouse is open to the public, but with the security guard snoozing with his cat on his lap, I slipped up the steps to gain a view of George Town from the height of the lamp.
A 60-foot clocktower, marking Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee in 1897, is now a busy traffic roundabout. Across the esplanade are the town and city halls (Which is it, then, a town or city?) The Town Hall is another rather grand Victorian edifice.
South of here, in Chinatown, the thriving 200-year-old Goddess of Mercy Temple proves an eye-watering experience, choked as it is with the smoke of many many incense sticks and the waving of flaming offerings of fake money (meant to pass luck and wealth to the deceased). Devotees put their palms together and leave fruit and bottles of vegetable oil on various altars. Stalls outside do a roaring trade in giant pink joss sticks decorated with dragons, to be set alight and planted in a metal frame in the courtyard.
A more elaborate Chinese building can be found west of here in the Khoo Kongsi clan temple. So magnificent was this building on completion in 1898, 44 years after work began, that when the roof was set alight in mysterious circumstances, jealous ancestors were blamed. It is indeed a remarkable building, full of mythic reliefs, fine frescoes of immortals and serpent-entwined carving. The ceramic-mosaics that perch on the roof demand close-up inspection.
Two side rooms are devoted to Khoo clan graduates. I note several who attended UK universities, such as Coventry and London. Secret societies of rival Chinese families caused havoc in Penang and Singapore a century ago
02 Seri Rambai
. Now they seem bent on charitable work, such as building schools.Twice a day tours are offered around the marvellously eccentric Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion. Cheong Fatt Tze was a penniless yet smart lad from Guandong Province in China who married and worked his way up to become a merchant millionaire and government minister. His renovated family home in George Town contains 38 rooms, five courtyards, seven staircases and 220 windows, many filled with art-nouveau stained glass. The mansion was used in part as a set for the Catherine Deneuve film, 'Indochine'. For 14 times what I'm paying for the Travellers' Lodge, I could be spending a night in one of this hotel's themed rooms (still a bargain by London standards).
The tour is led by a stern and critical Chinese woman who explains some of the principles of feng shui that instructed the plan of the house. The tour group is not allowed to wander or take photos inside. We get just a glimpse of the house but it is still most interesting.
Just up the road in a neglected field overgrown with greying frang-y-pani, but so much more evocative for it, is my last stop, the Christian cemetery. In a somewhat humble grave lies George Town founder Francis Light. A Malaysian bride and groom are using the wild flora as a backdrop for their wedding photos.
