Penang is an island of the Strait of Malacca that behaves like a small country, with its own food, language habits and pride. The British East India Company's Francis Light took possession of it in 1786 and founded George Town as a free port, and the city quickly filled with Chinese, Indian, Malay, Arab, Armenian and European traders. The grid of narrow streets with shophouses, clan houses, temples, churches and mosques, many within a few steps of one another, earned UNESCO listing together with Melaka in 2008.
The architecture is the pleasure, with pastel-painted shophouses and five-foot walkways, the sea-front clan jetties built on stilts over the water, and the ornate Khoo Kongsi clan house, with its carved roofs and courtyards. Street art by Lithuanian-born artist Ernest Zacharevic, painted on walls in 2012, gave the city a second fame. Kek Lok Si, a hillside Buddhist temple above Air Itam, has a pagoda and a huge statue of Kuan Yin, and Penang Hill, reached by funicular railway, is cool and misty.
Hawker food is the true attraction. Char kway teow, noodles stir-fried over fierce heat with prawns and egg, assam laksa in sour fish broth, and nasi kandar, rice with curries ladled over it, are among the dishes people cross oceans for. Eat at open-air hawker centres and kopitiams, coffee shops where aunties serve strong coffee with condensed milk.
On two wheels, the island is rewarding. A coastal road circuits it, passing Batu Ferringhi's beaches, fishing villages and the national park at Teluk Bahang, with rolling hills and views. Two long bridges link the island to the mainland, the older one opened in 1985 and a second, longer one in 2014, and the ride across the first gives a fine panorama. Traffic is heavy at rush hour, and the heat and humidity are constant, with rain showers from April to October. Fuel is easy. The Lenggong Valley, about a hundred and fifty kilometres to the south-east, is a world away in mood.