My Personal Sailing Adventures - with land trips on the side: I Heart Georgetown

It was just a two day visa run to Penang. But it was sublime, totally reaffirming my love of Georgetown. We stayed at the Chulia Heritage on (duh!) Chulia Street. And yes we ate at the Red Garden Food Paradise But shock horror tears the Famous Crispy Duck stall was shut! For Ramadan? No doubt it was the quietest we had ever seen Georgetown. It was kinda weird the way the chaos level of the traffic was so subdued…

I decided we would take a look at the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion after walking past it so many times on our visits to the Red Garden. I’d heard you have to get tickets early in advance so headed off on our first morning to organise them while Rod did some serious TV time in the room. As it happened no tickets were required and I ended up with some time up my sleeve before our lunch date so wandered around Muntri Street and Love Lane checking out some of the cool art galleries and old buildings. I also snuck in a temple visit, spending some velvet devotional time in the Hainan Temple. It just looked so exquisite from the outside I had to go in. I lit a candle for my beautiful lost wild child – a Catholic ritual in a Chinese temple. (I definitely have catholic tastes when it comes to spirituality and religion.) Later I read in the Lonely Planet the temple is dedicated to the patron saint of seafarers. No wonder I was drawn to it.

Anyway for the first time in our travelling careers, we took a guided tour. Well, it is the only way to see inside the Cheong Fatt Tze AKA the Blue Mansion. Our tour guide was excellent, an expert at engaging her audience of some 37 people. She told great stories about the family who built and lived in the mansion, including the original owner’s (favourite) wife number seven. Her depth of understanding of Chinese culture as well as the architecture, intrinsically linked with Feng Shui, was fascinating.

I was inspired to continue the theme with a visit to the Cheah Kongsi Clan Temple, the next morning. Rod was out buying electrical wire for Yana de Lys God bless him. I was amazed at how the stuff I learnt in the Blue Mansion tour helped me understand and interpret what was going on with the design and history of this gorgeous building. Without a tour guide heh heh.

By the time we left I had almost been able to dredge up and appropriately use the Malaysian language I’d learned in my on and off two years in Langkawi. It’s all about the menus. Roti Canai. Yes! Mango Lassi. Yes! (Haven’t found my Malaysian breakfast favourites in Phuket yet. Well not in the English alphabet anyway.)