13/11/08 Our first full day in Georgetown. It's a UNESCO World Heritage City because of the amount of historical buildings which remain, and the inhabitants' unique culture has been more preserved here than in the other two Straits Settlements of Malacca and Singapore. The Straits Settlements was a British colony which existed from 1826 to 1946 - until 1867, when it became a Crown Colony, a Governor of the Straits Settlements was appointed by the British East India Company. However, Georgetown was actually founded in 1786 by Francis Light as a base for the East India Company in the Malay states; he had been given Penang by the Sultan of Kedah, who had ruled it until that point. The inhabitants of Penang were 'Peranakans' or the 'Straits Chinese' - descendants of the Chinese who first settled in the Malay states and adapted to local Malay customs - and the population of Georgetown is still mainly Chinese, including many Peranakans still. Lots of the architecturally distinctive colonial Peranakan shophouses still remain, with small Chinese businesses inside, and the street we were staying on (Lebuh Chulia) and the one opposite (Love Lane) had many examples of these! I took quite a few photos of them, firstly because they do look distinctive, and secondly because apparently Georgetown is one of the last places where people still live and work in buildings like these (ie., they haven't been roped off for tourism purposes and the original inhabitants forced to move out, like in some places.)

We first intended to go to Penang Museum, but when we arrived we found that it was closed on Fridays. We carried on to Fort Cornwallis, which was originally built in 1786 but was rebuilt in 1804. We had a look round the buildings which remain - including a small chapel and the gunpowder magazine - and the outer walls, which had cannons built into them. There were galleries set up too, with displays about the history of the fort and Georgetown and articles found in excavations. When we'd finished looking roiund, it started raining.

In the evening, we went out to a restaurant recommended by our guidebook. It had a tank of lobster and two others with fish in (it's mainly a Chinese seafood restaurant), but although I longed to try the lobster, we settled for the much cheaper 'Sizzling Venison' to share between us, with plain steamed rice as a side. Now we could both tell it had been beautifully cooked, but it was spoiled by being almost completely and utterly overpowered by black pepper! It was a real shame. After that, we had a drink at a Malaysian bar before going back home. 14/11/08 We had some lunch at an eco-cafe, and looked inside some second-hand bookshops before heading back to the museum we had tried yesterday. It was quite small, but fascinating - all about the history, customs and traditions of the Straits Chinese, the Malays and the Indians, and the way they made the cultural life of Penang nearly unique. We managed to take some photos on the sly, as we weren't really allowed. On the way back home we went into the grounds of St George's Church, where we saw the memorial to Francis Light. For dinner that evening we went to a night market we had discovered the night before. We had a different type of local noodles each - I liked mine, Dave didn't like his - and some Hong Kong fish dim sum. On the way to the market, we stopped at 'Hong Kong Bar', which dates back about 88 years and is famous for having been a favourite meeting place for military personnel (especially Australian) based in Butterworth. In fact, they still come now, and while we were there a large group of Australian servicemen came in. The walls are covered in a fascinating collection of photos of servicemen who have visited over the years, banknotes from around the world, military plaques and medals, ship buoys, and some other miscellaneous items. A lot of the photos and plaques only date back about 30 years or less, because a fire destroyed many of the old ones, but they're very interesting all the same.