21. The sun never sets on the (old) British Empire.

We had a couple of nice days cycling through quiet lanes and tracks on our route south before emerging into Butterworth – a very odd name for a town in Malaysia. The ex RAF Butterworth is on the opposite side of the water to George Town, the old heart of the British Empire here and we cycled through the old RAF base, now with a RAAF contingent stationed here alongside the Malaysian Airforce, to catch the ferry to Penang Island.

The ferry used to take cars and there’s a dual carriageway on ramps looping out over the water to get you to the loading point but the toll booths are now abandoned and only the high tech new auto pay toll gate for mopeds and bikes was open. It was so high tech that the staff had to come out and reset it 3 times before they could get our  payment card to work. But the ferry was new and like a Dutch ferry with a passenger hall alongside the motorbike parking. Excellent… And it was a lot better than our first ferry of the day earlier that morning.

We had done our homework and checked with our hotel the previous night, that the local ferry was running and was told yes and of course when we rolled up to a deserted jetty told “Ramadan” it’s closed. Bugger… That’s a 63km detour and we’d arrived at the ferry at 10am it’s scheduled start time and of course it was already Regulo 2 and we were sautéing nicely.

I found an Indian guy who was happily munching away on snacks outside a shop in full view of all the fasting Muslims and he phoned a friend and 10 minutes later the ferry turned up. It’s amazing how quickly a ferry arrives when you can rip off a tourist. We didn’t even negotiate! We take the attitude that if the price seems reasonable for the task then we just accept it as it’s always cheap by comparison with Europe.

So a very happy ferry man and our Indian friend loaded us on and shuttled us over the water even carrying Tilly ashore as the ferry couldn’t get to the dock as the tide was out and we all had to wade ashore. Tilly didn’t even get wet tires!

She did later though when we saw a car wash and pulled in and asked if they could give Tilly a wash as she was filthy. We chatted to the Indian lad about the cricket – India are going to win- and he took about 30 minutes hand washing Tilly for £1,  we gave him £2 which seemed to make his day and Tilly positively sparkled in the sun and was smart enough for our posh hotel in George Town.

We cycled off the ferry and around what looked like a street from London with government style buildings lining the road and tourists all gawping at our sparkling Tilly and the two idiots cycling in the heat of the day through the heart of the city.

Our hotel found Tilly her own spot complete with security and we found our lovely room, with seperate lounge all for half the price of a Premier Inn.

This was our first nice hotel in Malaysia. Everywhere we’d stayed so far had been grubby, poorly furnished, uncomfortable beds and basically not nice. It’s hard to believe Malaysia is richer than Thailand.  All the bathrooms have been almost like a prison washroom. A small square box with everything in it getting wet when you shower. Ants everywhere, no toilet roll and even the obligatory big bucket that we’ve seen in Islamic countries before.

They’re a far cry from Thailand. In fact the whole country is a far cry from Thailand. We met a man on the ferry who said Malaysian people are like this – and he dragged his hands down his face to scowl, then said Thai people are like this, and dragged his hands up his face to beam. He said Malaysia not happy, Thai always happy.

Whilst this is certainly exaggerating and generalising things the crux of his point we think is true. People are nice and pleasant here but just not as outwardly happy, chatty or interactive with you as Thailand and everything is duller. Now I know we’ve turned up during Ramadan so most things are closed, but the mosques are drab dull affairs where as the temples were bright beautiful gorgeous affairs. The lanes in Thailand had almost every house selling something outside from fruit, through to drinks whereas here there are very very few stalls….And the roads and drivers aren’t as good either.

Having said all that the countryside that we’ve cycled in so far is gorgeous and we’ve managed to stick to small lanes and tracks and away from all the traffic so have had some lovely rides.

And then there’s George Town. This ex East India Company island is so different to the rest of Malaysia that we’ve seen so far,  it’s incredible.

It has it’s own distinct architectural style of two storey stone house with porticoes recessed under the top floor to keep the sun off pedestrians whilst walking past the shops. There are rows and rows of these interspersed with giant skyrise buildings which are mainly, as the King would say, carbuncles!

It’s full of Chinese temples and a whole Indian area that immediately made us feel like we were back there.. all very colourful, loud and full of smells of food from the street markets.  There are bars and restaurants everywhere and the evidence of former British ownership is everywhere too, from the Queen Victoria memorial to Fort Cornwallis – a good old Suffolk man.

It’s also famous for it’s street art which can be seen all around the city with items embedded in the painting like bicycles. It’s really effective and clever.

Any visit  to George Town wouldn’t be complete without a trip up Penang Hill. It’s the steepest funicular in the world and given Linda doesn’t like heights obviously a must do!  There’s not a lot at the top of the ride if you’re not fancying a walk in the jungle – which we didn’t – but it’s worth the trip for the view and to marvel at the engineering that built this a century a go.

There’s a lovely Indian temple at the top where families were doing the rounds kissing things, lighting incense and getting blessed by a monk, whislt other people bustled about moving furniture and cleaning. It was a hive  of activity and we loved it.  Next door was the Mosque all closed up.

Back at ground level The Blue Mansion is one of only 2 proper Chinese mansions outside China which is tucked away in a quiet part of the city and with it’s 5 courtyards, is a posh hotel now .. you either have to stay or buy a ticket on a very limited basis to see inside which we did. We even splashed out and had a drink in the bar, as you do.

In the old Chinese area, the Clan Jetties were another interesting area to wander around with stilted homes, that used to be owned by the rich clans, still lived in and in places held up by plastic buckets filled with concrete..

We loved George Town and ended up adding a few days on to our stay and it’s actually made us feel a bit reluctant to go back to mainland Malaysia which all seems very closed during Ramadan… or maybe the Britishness of it all has made us start to feel a bit homesick….