Malaysia - George Town

George Town is like a colourful film set. It's like a period drama, musical, cooking show and lifestyle documentary all in one. It’s known for its incredible food scene, street art, cultural diversity and heritage streets.

We really liked it, and because we stayed in four different places across the old town we got to know its different areas really well.

FOOD

Food is everywhere here: George Town has gained a reputation as Malaysia's gastronomical capital. People we met before coming here told us how good the food was and we noticed how proud the town is of its culinary scene.

Pride is caught up in identity. With such a mix of cultures - the result of waves of immigration - the food people eat, how they prepare it, utensils used (claypots, bamboo steamers, stone mortars, woks) carries traces of history and place. On the one street there will be several food vendors specialising in their own culture’s signature dishes - Nasi Kandar (spiced rice with curries), Char Kway Teow (stir-fried flat noodles), Hokkien Mee (prawn noodle soup), Assam Laksa (tangy fish-based soup), Roti Canai (Indian flatbread), and Dim Sum (Chinese dumplings). It was not unusual for us to pass long queues of people waiting to order food from well-known establishments. For instance there was always a long queue outside Hameediyah, recognised as Penang's oldest Nasi Kandar restaurant (it originally started under a tree in 1907). A Penang specialty, Nasi Kandar comes from a time when street vendors would go around carrying the rice (nasi) and curry in two buckets balanced (kandar) at the end of a pole carried across the shoulder.

Being vegetarian meant taking part in the gastronomic delights of George Town was pretty restrictive. We did manage to eat like kings at a handful of places we found: Woodlands Vegetarian Restaurant in Little India where the curries were amazing and the staff were dour, and Ee Beng’s, where we stuffed our bellies at a veggie all you can eat buffet for around a fiver for both our meals. And of course, we searched out the most wonderful of all, roti canai, for our breakfasts!

ART

George Town is also all about art - visitors come to seek out lifelike murals hidden in its narrow streets. For the more iconic ones I found it amusing to watch the crowds wait their turn to queue to be photographed alongside the piece. Many of the artists are now long gone and the sun and weather are slowly fading them into obscurity.

More permanent street pieces are a series of steel-rod caricatures installed on walls across the city as part of George Town’s bid to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2009. Each one captures local stories, often in a witty or humorous local voice. You see them everywhere - 52 in total! One of my favourites sits above a coffeeshop and celebrates the simple, straight-up way of talking that Penangites are known for. A customer's request in a slew of barista terms is quickly simplified to "Kopi-O-Kau” - black coffee - by the waitress.

We also came across three serendipitous artiness, each very different and the last utterly moving.

We came across ‘The Infinite-land’ by Hong Kong artist Sim Chan, by passing the venue ‘Blank Canvas in Malaysia’. An exhibition of miniature sculptures - little worlds or story boxes - often seeming to reflect on our use / mis-use of resources in our routine daily lives, but in a really playful way. I liked peering through narrow windows, immersing myself within the tiny fantastical realms.

By chance we also came across the Hin Bus Depot. Loved this place so much! A partially renovated art-deco bus depot, transformed a decade ago, is now a thriving community hub and contemporary art space. We found it on a Sunday so were lucky enough to also enjoy the weekend pop-up market. To the music of a local band we weaved through colourful stalls of art, crafts, clothes and food. The whole place had a wonderful, relaxed, family atmosphere. One stall had items made from bold bright fabrics. Talking to the owner I learned the material featured all her own printed designs. When I asked if I could buy a small piece, explaining I’m collecting fabric from each country to later make into patchwork, she generously gave me a piece insisting I needn’t pay. I now have a treasured unique piece of cloth with orchids on it.

The most moving piece of art we came across by luck was an exhibition called "Gaza Habibti: Hope and Loss (Part of Untold Palestine)" featuring photographs by 23 Palestinian photographers.

Unsure at first if it was an open exhibition we hovered outside looking hesitant until a friendly shout came from inside and we were warmly invited in. The photographs were beautiful - showcasing everyday life in Palestine. An old weathered man picking bright oranges, a female football team triumphantly throwing footballs into the air, a man exercising his horse in the blue sea, a boy zipping along the beach on his bicycle, a vendor enticing people to sample his food.

Yafa Atef Abualrob - a smiling Palestinian woman - welcomed us to sit with her and her two friends, a Muslim and Chinese lady. Together we listened to Yafa share her stories and experiences of living in Palestine. A student she had managed to reach Malaysia by catching a last minute flight, urgently urged by her father to snatch the rare window of an open checkpoint and flight being available. Leaving at 4am with no time to properly pack or say goodbye she found herself in a new land, knowing nobody. It was hard at first for her to comprehend Malaysia. She had freedom to move. To go anywhere she liked, whenever she liked. At home her movement had been constricted by checkpoints that open and close at random. Fireworks at Diwali had her running in fear, the sound evoking the memory of gunshots from home. She still doesn’t like it when airplanes fly overhead as this always meant bombs in Palestine. When she is able to return home she says it takes her two months to recover from the sadness of the visit. Many of her friends and family have lost their jobs as private businesses have moved out and civil jobs no longer exist. They now cannot afford anything because prices are so high (Israel is a developed country, but within Palestine they do not have the salaries to match Israeli prices). Everyone has lost someone to the war and/or knows someone who has lost a home. Overcrowding is common and no one has any personal space. People are sad. They live in constant fear. She said her family no longer socialises as they have no food to share and do not feel like it. Her home is eroded of hope.

She took us to see some more photos - Polaroids and selfies of people smiling at the camera. All looking out at us - rows and rows of them along a corridor - and I smiled as I looked at them, people I could identify with: everyday people doing everyday things. Until at the end of the corridor Yafa explained that all these people - many who she had known - were no longer with us. Dead. Killed by the conflict. I burst into tears. Yafa - who had experienced all this - gave ME a hug.

The power of the exhibition was so humanly raw. The showcasing of real people, just like me, just like everybody, doing and feeling things we all do and feel. Speaking to Yafa was such an intensely moving experience, her openness and friendliness so genuine. Instead of the news pictures of horror and victims, she had shown us a reality that honoured her people’s resilience, reflected on their loss, and invited us to show solidarity.

HERITAGE

We wanted to visit George Town as we’d heard about how beautiful it was. Established as a trading post in 1786, George Town was the first British settlement in Southeast Asia.
Its prominent position in the Straits of Malacca drew merchants and laborers of all descents: Chinese, Indian, Burmese, Arab, European. They all left their mark - on the food, on the architecture and on the language. We weren’t great at understanding all this, we just enjoyed ducking in and out of the pastel-hued shophouses and admiring the faded buildings and restored heritage hotels.

However what was evident everywhere - and which we’d marvelled at throughout Malaysia - was the everyday recognition that difference is the baseline. There is often little that is ‘common’ between people beyond the label "Malaysian". For instance signage is written in several languages - Malay, Chinese, English, Tamil - all stacked evenly. No one pauses to wonder at this: the signs simply accommodate the polyglot crowd. I found this so striking precisely because of its ordinariness. Multilingualism here is banal, differences coexist as a normal texture of daily life.

A very different part of George Town are the Clan Jetties. A historic waterfront settlement of stilt houses built by Chinese immigrants in the 19th century. We enjoyed walking the creaking wooden boards a meter above the sea, the air warm and salty. Little gardens of succulents and spiky plants soften the long wooden walkways. Seabirds with pointy beaks, long legs and beady eyes place one foot carefully in front of another as they walk on beams between homes. A loud plop as a monitor lizard enters the water below a stilted building. The homes are small, with windows overlooking a briny world of boats, rope, and fish.

In a paradox to all this heritage, I learnt Penang’s present is all about being a tech hub and creating an Al ecosystem to attract talent and digital infrastructure investment.

2026

We liked Hin Bus Depot so much we decided we’d return for the ‘New Year Countdown’. We very much enjoyed celebrating the bells in much of the same arty relaxed vibe we’d experienced on Sunday. Drinking a (very strong, £5) margarita we watched the fireworks launch from atop the nearby Komtar Tower alongside a sober happy crowd. Lilz and I danced a little Auld Lang Syne jig together to confused onlookers. George Town saw in a new year - our first few days of 2026 will see us exploring a bit more of the island, before we finally head north again.Leggi altro