The city of Georgetown, located on the island of Penang in Malaysia, marches to the beat of its own drum. As it relates to tourism, it sorta zigs where everyone else zags and has embraced a fairly alternative scene that makes it the Brooklyn of Asia (in our estimation). Since Malaysia was a former British colony, the city is full of old British architecture that has a quaint feel and has made it a UNESCO World Heritage site. The city is also comprised of almost an equal number of Malaysians, Indians and Chinese, which has caused a strong food scene with wholly new dishes that are a fusion of these different types. Finally, it has a funky personality in that it has a burgeoning street art scene, many chill coffee shops and some strange museums – all of these drew us to explore this city for a few days.
Colonial architecture in Penang
Our first day in the city we set out to wander around in the ridiculous heat (the temperature was only 96F, but the “feels like” was 107F due to the humidity) and attempted to stave off heat stroke while searching for street art. There are really three types of street art in Penang, all of which we enjoyed stumbling upon. First, there’s your traditional street art on the side of a building – always cool, but fairly standard. Second, there’s interactive street art where the artist has made some kind of feature made out of actual items that visitors can engage with for taking photographs of the art (e.g., a picture painted on the wall with an actual bicycle affixed to the wall so that you can sit on it and be a part of the art). Finally, there are molded wrought iron cartoon scenes that have been placed throughout the city (hard to describe, but see the pictures below). Combined, they made for a fairly varied street art scene, and we enjoyed stumbling upon new art pieces as we rounded corners in the city. [Editor’s note: It is a strange combination of elements – you have streets of aging yet vibrantly colored colonial architecture filled with Chinese or Malaysian restaurants, then you round a corner to see a beautiful mural or huge painting next to a quirky coffee shop. There’s a ton to look at, so many times I’d be distracted by the beautiful doors and arches lining the sidewalks when Rorie would point out a huge painting right above my head. I liked the vibe a lot! Though, I might prefer it at less than 107 degrees.]
Interactive street art!
And more interactive street art
The chair and the window are real, the child is not.
One of my favorites, I think.
We both love how this guy’s mouth is in the archway to the left
As mentioned, another funky feature of the city was its museums. Rather than having typical art or history museums, they tended to feature unusual items or concepts that were interactive for visitors. The first museum we visited was the Wonderfood Museum, which is where the artists made hyper realistic food out of wax and clay. Some of the items were typical food items on a massive scale, while others were artistic takes on food items or settings. Basically, it gave us the opportunity to wander through the museum and stage a bunch of photos with these food props, which was pretty fun once we got the hang of it.
A staged photo with food props at the Wonderfood museum
Seems about right.
With a giant bowl of soup
We also visited a Camera Museum, which is a private museum that was developed as a passion project by the owner. While it wasn’t set up in a very clear or coherent manner, the museum was cool in that had all types of cameras from the very first versions ever created to the recent models (90% of which were still functional!). The guide was super enthusiastic about the cameras and eager to tell us all about them, which was simultaneously cool and a bit disorienting after a while. In any event, we enjoyed learning about how cameras have progressed over time to the versions we’re familiar with today.
Playing with a functional (!) old camera at the Camera Museum
The final museum, which is arguably the most popular, is the Upside Down Museum. As you’d suspect from the name, the museum had furniture and other items affixed to the ceiling so that we could pose in ways to make it look like we were walking/standing on the ceiling or balancing upside down on certain items (this is the only way I could accomplish my life mission of doing a handstand!). We felt a bit “processed” as we were rushed through the museum, but the pictures turned out good and it was a fairly fun process. [Editor’s note: The “processed” feeling comes from the fact that there are staff members in every room who know the best way to pose and are the designated photo takers. As soon as you’d walk into a room, the staff person would grab your camera, show you how to pose, click a few pictures, and then shoo you on to the next room, so I didn’t really feel like we got to enjoy the props or settings. However, the photos do look pretty cool so it was a lot of fun anyway!]
At the Upside Down Museum!
In the upside down “bathroom”
Perched on the sign for Love Lane (a real street in Penang) – this one was Rorie’s idea, not one of the standard poses 🙂
Given that the city has a reputation worldwide for its stellar and varied street food, we couldn’t leave without diving into it a bit for some strange and delicious treats. We tried to schedule a street food tour (similar to what we did in Hanoi, Vietnam), but it ended up being way too expensive so we did what any good backpackers would do – we made our own! After googling around for articles on street food tours, we found several blogs where people constructed their own and provided detailed maps to the best street food stalls for various food types in the city. With that in hand, we set out to invent our own afternoon of gluttony. It ended up being a fun activity! Some of the dishes were really strange and we didn’t love them all, but it was super cool to be exposed to totally different food types than the same old rice and noodles that we’ve been stuck with throughout Asia. All in all, it was a success…even if we can’t remember the names (or identify the ingredients) in any of the dishes that we sampled. [Editor’s note: I am so grateful for the travel bloggers who have come before us and taken the time to write up these detailed posts. We wandered the streets with our maps and articles loaded onto our phones, and ate about 7 items, making sure to just get one dish at every spot and share it so we wouldn’t be too stuffed. Some spots were regular shops, but most were some version of a cart on the side of the road with plastic or metal tables set out on the street or in an alleyway. We got a great variety of tastes and the best part was, I kept track of the prices for everything. The total for both of us combined for the entire day of eating came to 29 Malaysian ringgit, which is $7.48 in all. Less than $8 USD for two of us to be completely stuffed on 7 different things! This place rocks.]
Rorie enjoying a dish at one of our street food stops – the cart making the dish is on the right. I had to dodge traffic to take the photo since the table is on the street.
The cook at another of our food tour stops. Yum!
Beautiful, multicolored rice on banana leaves. This dish is a local staple.
This street stand sells chendul, a cold dessert soup thing, right underneath a giant mural of a boy eating chendul. Easy to find!
On our final night in the city we took advantage of an event that somewhat coincidentally overlapped with our time there: the Penang International Food Festival! [Editor’s note: “PIFF” is my new favorite acronym.] We learned about it in an airline magazine a few months ago and were fortunate when our travels to Malaysia aligned with the festival, so we made sure to be there for it. The specific event taking place on the weekend that we were in town was the Street Food Festival, which we decided to attack with gusto. It was really well set up with a ton of stalls serving food types (akin to a more local, authentic Smorgasburg in Brooklyn, NY), so we indulged by sampling various dishes until we were stuffed. We then finished the night by eating a strange gelatin/bean/noodle/ice/coconut milk dessert thingy while watching a local comedic troupe perform a routine similar to Stomp and the Blue Man Group which we really enjoyed! [Editor’s note: Both the dessert and the performance were exactly as weird as they sound.] It ended up being an awesome (filling and exhausting!) evening.
A stand at PIFF, the street food festival. How great does that look?
The mass of people and stalls at the festival – it was packed!
With the shaved ice dessert (ok but mostly just weird).
Ultimately, we kind of fell in love with Penang! It was super cute and “real” in its own unique way, which we really enjoyed. Not that we would ever do so (don’t worry, parents!), but it was one of the cities that we would be most interested in living in within Asia. [Editor’s note: As we go to different places, we like to talk about how we feel in a place in terms of comfort level – would we ever want to live in a place like this, hypothetically. Most places are a no – even if we really like a place, we could never see ourselves there long term because it’s too loud or busy, or too quiet and not enough to do, or it has a one-note culture, etc. Penang was quiet but not boring, quaint but modernizing, and has those funky cultural undercurrents like street art and coffee shops that we really enjoy. It’s also a very tolerant place, created by the healthy mix of cultures, religions, and backgrounds present. It was not uncommon to see a woman walk down the street in a full hijab, followed by another woman in shorts and a tank top, and neither of them was out of place nor inappropriate. There were other westerners there without it feeling touristy, and everyone just went about their business is a really nice, non-pushy way. A great find in Asia, and definitely a city I’ll recommend to others!] Anyway, the show must go on, so from Penang we caught a flight to the Malaysian city of Sandakan on the island of Borneo for a two week wildlife tour with Jess’s parents!
Bonus street art photos:
