Hello Malaysia

Written on July 19, 2021

COVID-19: February 21 and 22, 2020, South Korea reported a second death. Cases were still slowly rising around the globe. Singapore had 86 cases but Malaysia still seemed relatively safe to us. [Wikipedia]

It was Friday, February 21, 2020. We arrived in Penang, Malaysia extremely excited to visit George Town, the UNESCO World Heritage site and former British colony. Penang is the state and George Town is the capital. Penang state consists of Pinang Island and a strip of mainland. It’s a little confusing to say the least. We checked into our hotel/home-for-a-week in George Town hungry and tired. We quickly went to a vegan restaurant. The place is called Wholey Wonder and just a couple of blocks away from the hotel. The hotel was near many restaurants and that was one of the reasons we picked it. The restaurant was well reviewed and didn’t disappoint us, we were also starving from our long trip from Bali. Our server was interesting and a little crazy. He claimed he didn’t work there and was just helping out. He said he ran another restaurant nearby and all of a sudden we had another place to go check out for a meal. This was a great introduction to Penang. 

The next day we were ready to explore our new temporary hometown. A couple of our friends had visited Penang the year before on a vacation and they gave us many tidbits of information about places to see. Penang was colonized by the British East India Company as a counter weight to the Portuguese trading colony of Malacca further down the coast of Malaysia. It also commanded a strategic position on the shipping route from China on to India and Europe. Many people came from China to profit from the goods passing through the area. The first place we went was the mildly-famous Blue Mansion. This museum/hotel was the home of one of the richest traders in George Town. After falling almost to ruin it has been restored to grandeur for tourists and used as a setting in several movies. 

The mansion was a long walk from our hotel in the bright equatorial sun. We passed through a large part of the city and glimpsed it’s characteristic architecture. Most of the buildings in the business district were two storeys With a storefront on the street and an apartment or storage room above it. Some were falling apart, some were under restoration, and some were beautifully restored. The city felt a little deserted though maybe that was because it was the hot part of the day. Jill and I had our trusty parasols to keep the sun off. After we passed one of the canopied food court the country is known for the Blue Mansion rose up in front of us. It was painted the deepest sky blue and took up a large chunk of an oversized city block. The windows, doors, and eaves were accented with carvings which were intricately painted themselves. Inside we waited with a small group for our tour guide. I started snapping pictures of the walls, floors, and ceiling. Jill and I began wondering if we should stay at this hotel if we needed to book another week in Malaysia. After an informative tour we spent a long day wandering the streets looking at street art, animals, and eating some of the famous street food.