George Town
George town is a bustling, colourful and largely Chinese city, full of tumbledown shophouses, impressive colonial architecture and countless trishaws ferrying tourists and locals alike around the maze of broad streets and narrow lanes. Ancient trades such as rattan weaving, joss-stick making, woodcarving and fortune-telling still go on, in scenes which probably haven’t changed in a century, while the soaring skyscrapers of modern Georgetown gleam blankly overhead.
Chinese and Indian temples, neoclassical reminders of the Raj and a plethora of old fashioned little shops sprinkled across the city make Georgetown a fascinating place to wander. Most visitors to the island stay in the city, which has countless hotels, restaurants and all the usual urban facilities.
Those looking for the beach (such as it is) head to Batu Ferringhi or the less developed Teluk Bahang, a little further west.
Orientation
Georgetown is on the northeastern corner of the island, where the channel between island and mainland is narrowest.
A 16-hour vehicle- and passenger-ferry service operates across the 3km-wide channel between Georgetown and Butterworth on the mainland. South of the ferry crossing is the Penang Bridge, reputedly the longest in Southeast Asia, which links the island with Malaysia’s Lebuhraya (North–South Highway).
Georgetown is a compact city and most places can easily be reached on foot or by trishaw. The old colonial district centres on Fort Cornwallis. Lebuh Pantai is the main street of the ‘city’, a financial district crammed with banks and stately buildings that once housed the colonial administration. After dark, exercise caution as this area becomes eerily deserted.
You’ll find many of Georgetown’s budget hotels and hostels along Lebuh Chulia in Chinatown, where a cosmopolitan array of backpackers congregate in the cheap restaurants and bars. At the northern end of Lebuh Chulia, Jln Penang is a main thoroughfare and a popular shopping street. In this area are a number of midrange hotels and, at the waterfront end of the street, the venerable Eastern & Oriental (E&O) Hotel.
If you follow Jalan Penang south, you’ll pass the modern multipurpose Komtar shopping centre, and eventually leave town and continue towards the Bayan Lepas International Airport. If you turn west at the waterfront end of Jln Penang, you’ll follow the coastline and eventually come to the northern beaches, including Batu Ferringhi. This road runs right around the island back into town, via the airport.
Finding your way around Georgetown can be slightly complicated. Jln Penang may also be referred to as Jln Pinang or as Penang Rd – but there’s also a Penang St, which may also be called Lebuh Pinang! Similarly, Chulia St is Lebuh Chulia; Pitt St is sometimes Lebuh Pitt, but is shown on some maps and signposts as Jln Masjid Kapitan Keling. Many streets are still referred to locally by their English names; Lebuh Gereja, for example, is Church St, and Lebuh Pantai is Beach St.
Trishaws are the ideal way of getting around Georgetown, particularly at night when travelling this way takes on an almost magical quality.
Posted by admin on June 4, 2011 under George Town.
