Clan jetties

One thing I didn’t do in Penang five years ago was visit the clan jetties. These are stilted homes built over the water with a jetty serving as the main access way. We took the CAT (free bus) from near our hotel to the ferry station, from which it was a short walk to the jetties.

Chew jetty was the most touristy and receives mainland Chinese tour groups. The homes have been set up as trinket and snack stalls. We checked out a few other nearby jetties and the others were more unspoilt.

From there, Kim wanted to visit Fort Cornwallis which we reached by CAT again. It was mildly interesting but we couldn’t work out how a fort can be effective with such low walls.

The heat was getting to the both of us. We took the CAT and got dropped off somewhat near the New World hawker centre. It was a short walk in the sun to the Nyonya restaurant I had seen five years ago in Jalan Nagore. I ordered the Achar Fish and Sweet potato vine fried in sambal. Kim was disappointed as the portions were small and also expensive.

We found a beautiful cake shop called Brix & Baume for dessert before taking a taxi back to the hotel. It wouldn’t have been that far to walk and much of it would have been undercover or air-conditioned. But I could sense Kim getting crabby from the heat, so a taxi was the wise choice. Even if the one way system necessitated us going round and round.

We had dinner at the hotel restaurant which proved to be a good choice. All the frontline staff are Filipino. Not sure about the chef but the Malaysian meals were pretty good but not overly punchy in flavour, to appeal to an international palate.