Running has added a whole new dimension to my travelling experiences. In 40 minutes I can now explore places that I probably would never get to on foot. Its strange, but walking five miles around a town still feels exhausting, but running the same course just fun, especially if the particular road you go down is devoid of interest.
Away from Georgetown there has been a tremendous amount of building in the last ten years - mainly apartment blocks. Some of these developments - those on Guerney Drive for example, look quite desirable. Many others look more like the type of 1960s developments that have been abandoned and demolished in many English towns.
In Georgetown a good deal of much needed redevelopment has taken place. The E & O, Eastern and Oriental Hotel, used to be stranded in a dilapidated area of town, an abandoned garage showroom peeling into oblivion across the road and old, once splendid, mansions rotting - abandoned as their Chinese owners enjoyed modern apartments in KL or the United States. This area has now been rescued, to some extent at least; it has become the night quarter, the entertainment district
In other countries it may have become a red light district, but in conservative Malaysia that wasn’t likely. It is not that the seedier side of life doesn’t exist here, it is just hidden from view. Having said that though, the bored girls (?) near Hotel Malaysia are very friendly. Eponymously inappropriate perhaps.
The E & O Hotel Penang is one of those old, classic colonial hotels, old fashioned but with a special romance. The last time I visited it was sadly run down, looking as though no money had been spent on it since independence. The only modern touch was a couple of hotel shops that had been build in the entrance … but they were an afterthought, their prefabricated nature suggesting that the management had given up. The E & O is now owned by the same people that renovated Raffles in Singapore and they have brought the place back from the brink of irrelevance. The restoration has been very well executed, just doing enough to make the place viable in the 21st century, but in no way losing the atmosphere, the history of the place. You can still feel the presence of Somerset Maughn in dining room, his Sikh manservant struggling with his duffle of books in the foyer.
The dining room, ceiling fans turning slowly, feels like the set of a movie about the 1930s, only the new air conditioning, set to arctic, reminding you otherwise. The food is local, delicious and with a surprise or too. The salad, of local leaves, looking for all the world like a mixed green salad to be found in any European restaurant, hides extraordinary flavours of shocking intensity. No dressing required, just the confidence that something this green, this strong, is in fact edible.
Penang’s hawker food, if you are prepared to eat on the street, is second to none, and the E & O’s chefs only just compete. Their black forest gâteaux though, is quite without parallel.
Away from Georgetown there has been a tremendous amount of building in the last ten years - mainly apartment blocks. Some of these developments - those on Guerney Drive for example, look quite desirable. Many others look more like the type of 1960s developments that have been abandoned and demolished in many English towns.
In Georgetown a good deal of much needed redevelopment has taken place. The E & O, Eastern and Oriental Hotel, used to be stranded in a dilapidated area of town, an abandoned garage showroom peeling into oblivion across the road and old, once splendid, mansions rotting - abandoned as their Chinese owners enjoyed modern apartments in KL or the United States. This area has now been rescued, to some extent at least; it has become the night quarter, the entertainment district
In other countries it may have become a red light district, but in conservative Malaysia that wasn’t likely. It is not that the seedier side of life doesn’t exist here, it is just hidden from view. Having said that though, the bored girls (?) near Hotel Malaysia are very friendly. Eponymously inappropriate perhaps.
The E & O Hotel Penang is one of those old, classic colonial hotels, old fashioned but with a special romance. The last time I visited it was sadly run down, looking as though no money had been spent on it since independence. The only modern touch was a couple of hotel shops that had been build in the entrance … but they were an afterthought, their prefabricated nature suggesting that the management had given up. The E & O is now owned by the same people that renovated Raffles in Singapore and they have brought the place back from the brink of irrelevance. The restoration has been very well executed, just doing enough to make the place viable in the 21st century, but in no way losing the atmosphere, the history of the place. You can still feel the presence of Somerset Maughn in dining room, his Sikh manservant struggling with his duffle of books in the foyer.
The dining room, ceiling fans turning slowly, feels like the set of a movie about the 1930s, only the new air conditioning, set to arctic, reminding you otherwise. The food is local, delicious and with a surprise or too. The salad, of local leaves, looking for all the world like a mixed green salad to be found in any European restaurant, hides extraordinary flavours of shocking intensity. No dressing required, just the confidence that something this green, this strong, is in fact edible.
Penang’s hawker food, if you are prepared to eat on the street, is second to none, and the E & O’s chefs only just compete. Their black forest gâteaux though, is quite without parallel.
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