I had been looking forward to a return to Chulia St and Georgetown for ten years or more. One of the main aims of this trip was to share a few memories with my children of the good times I had in Georgetown in the late 70's and early 80's. It was in the Tye Ann Hotel and the numerous bars around town that I met many good friends whom remain that to the present.
While I found that Penang hadn't changed a great deal (probably due to its heritage status) many of the sites had changed ownership or were in a derelict state. Still I found it to be the usual friendly city it had always been and for us, of course, the variety of food was still amazing. We walked through Chinatown late at night and though the clack of Mahjong tiles was missing there was still the sight of families socialising at the front of their shophouses and business going on well into the night.
As we found in Taiping the yum cha houses had disappeared but we eventually found one on Lebuh Kimberley (see photo gallery). The old wet market was still in action one block over from Chulia and I managed a beer or two in the Hong Kong Bar. We ventured out to the night food market on Gurney Drive but it was overwhelmingly busy and difficult to get transport back into town. The food was good though and we sampled Assam Laksa and Cendol which were both up to standard. The Indian restaurants were still the most economical and tasty with the naan and sotong(squid)curry at Mustafa's, down the ferry end of Chulia, a good choice.
Due to some misinformation re. the ferry to Medan we decided to take advantage of the cheap flights now available and flew to Medan ($400 MR Return each). We were able to organise transport on arrival at Medan and were in our rooms at Lake Toba by 5.00pm that afternoon. This modern travel certainly beats the old slow boats and public buses we were once forced to use due to the exorbitant costs of flights.
