Penang. POV

The language that you read here might be a little formal because this is one of my assignment. Tapi rasa nak share jugak sebab pengalaman pertama berjalan di negeri orang lain sendiri-sendiri.

so. enjoicee

This is a long post, kalau malas baca baik berhenti se... ka... ra...ng.

1       POV

A point of view shot (also known as POV shot or a subjective camera) is a short film scene that shows what a character (the subject) is looking at (represented through the camera). It is usually established by being positioned between a shot of a character looking at something, and a shot showing the character's reaction (see shot reverse shot). The technique of POV is one of the foundations of film editing.

            

Wikipedia.

Intro.

Bismillah, the title of the journal may caused some confusion among the young generation. Let me explain the reason why I chose that title. POV stands for ‘Point of view’ which means that it has to do with us being the object (represented through the camera). In this case I’m talking about my camera that I brought throughout my journey in Penang. It captures a lot of images that in my opinion, represents Penang. People have different opinion, we are different.  We all have different point of view.

And this is my point of view.

Day 1. Saturday, 22^nd march 2014

12.30 am

“Your next assignment will be a journal”. From the moment I heard that sentence, I knew that this assignment will not be the same than others. A lot of places I thought of going to complete this task, Sabah, Sarawak, Thailand, Indonesia, Kelantan, you name it. A lot of places went through my mind, however the list are getting narrowed since budget is the main problem. Where is the place that is rich in culture and affordable to go to? Penang. That very night, Afiq Mazri, Syafwani and Najib, three of my friends and I packed all of our things. And ready to hit the road. With proper praying read, we left IIUM with a calm heart.  I chose to travel during the night time because the road won’t be full with cars and by the time we reached Penang, it will be in the morning and there will be no time wasted and we can proceed to our activity in Penang.

2 days and 1 night is the plan that we had agreed on, not more than that. The feeling during the road trip are indescribable, I chose to drive the car alone, I mean without changing the driver, because I don’t want to miss a single moment of this trip. The cool breeze air, the radio, and the little chit chat we had. It’s the perfect definition of road trip to me. For some reason, along the way I hummed the song ‘Hotel California’ by the Eagles, for me, the song portrays the situation and surrounding perfectly. 

5.32 am

I drove the car approximately for 5 hours, I admit it, it was a tiring experience, I did make a few stops before I reached Penang, surprisingly, the differences of attitude of people can be detected when I made the stop along the way. People are getting friendlier, the positive vibe are kicking in. I’m not saying that Selangor people are not friendly, but based on the people that I met along the way, they are friendlier. Maybe because they are in a good mood or whatnot. But it leaves a good impact to a newbie traveller like me. I really appreciated it, somehow it gave me a welcoming feeling. That morning, the view from Penang second bridge was magnificent, all of the fatigue that I felt disappears when I was enjoying the view. And the journey continues from the Penang second bridge to Georgetown.

6.24 am

Just like any other new traveller, I was lost in the middle of the Georgetown. Wandering with my car nowhere, however I was not disappointed with it, I know that there will be something good came out of it. Luckily enough, I stumbled upon Jalan Kapitan Keling, coincidently I was searching for a mosque to perform my fajr prayer. There was it, standing strong is the Kapitan Keling Mosque. Being the new people in town is really exciting and frustrating at the same time, exciting because I can see and experience new  thing, frustrating because I kept making mistakes especially with my driving there. The road in Georgetown is slightly different compared to Gombak, Selangor. There are mainly one way road in Georgetown. The confusion continues as I was searching for a parking spot near the Kapitan Keling Mosque, that’s the problem, there are no parking spot. It leaves me clueless as why the mosque was built without any proper parking spot. But my question will be answered soon enough as I live and experienced the culture in Penang itself. 

A little did I know, the fajr prayer time is getting closer, the azan can already be heard when I was done finding a parking spot. We get ourselves ready for praying, I was astonished with the architecture of the mosque, it is uniquely beautiful. The Mosque has a lot of open areas, so ventilation won’t be an issue. As I was walking towards ablution area, I could sense pair of eyes was following me. I look around and found out an old man was looking at me, it felt weird for a moment, but then I chose to greet him first. Immediately the friendly character of the Penang people was shown by the old man, as I was greeting him, he shoots me with loads of question. 

“Where are you from?”
“How did you come here?”
“Where did you study?”

Those are just a few examples of questions asked by him, the positive vibe is really great, I felt like I’ve know this man for years. Pak cik Zul, that’s his name, just before I wanted to ask pak cik Zul more questions, he stopped me and said that we can continue to chit chat after we prayed. A great guy indeed.

7.20 am

Peaceful mornings at Kapitan Keling mosque, all I can see in the mosque are only ‘mamak’ an indian muslim title given by the Malaysian. After observing them for a while, I started to notice. Most of them came here not by a car, but they came by public transport, bicycle, and even walking here. That’s kind of explaining why there are lacks of parking spots here, and I started to recognize the trend here, people like to walk in Penang. This include pak cik Zul himself, which I met him again after we had our prayer. It started off by only asking him a question on how to get to our hotel. Then suddenly he went to find a spot in the mosque for us to sit and chat. We sat there and had a discussion for a period of time. It was a meaningful one, pak cik Zul trusts us by sharing his personal life, all that I can conclude is that pak cik Zul’s life is full with tests given by Allah s.w.t.  He once had a great family, but because of the human greed, his life ruins. Now he is homeless, that’s what amazed me, usually, for me, a homeless person can easily be detected from far away, but pak cik Zul is different. He looks calm and more like a normal people. It really touches me to know that there are people who are tested by Allah yet they are pleased with it and continue to live their life praising Allah. 

8.26 am

After a memorable talk with pak cik Zul, we ask for his permission to go and explore Penang. We went for a little walk outside the mosque to observe the surrounding since that when we arrived there it was still dark. It is the traits of Penang, old shop lot, narrow road, and calm surrounding. While I was observing,  I saw a group of man were having their cup of coffee in the morning, while in their sarong, ‘kopiah’ in their head, it’s a perfect Image of ‘Malaysian’ breakfast style. However, when I look closer, I realized that the stall that they were having the coffee was actually the famous ‘Nasi Kandar Beratur’. I knew about the stall in the internet while I was browsing some info about Penang. Nasi Kandar Beratur was one of the must visit destination in Penang. I was surprised a bit because I never knew that both of the famous place was just nearby. After a while, empty stomach started to make their presence known. Yes, the Nasi Kandar Beratur stall was just in front of us, but we’ve decided to pass it because for typical Malaysian like us, a simple ‘roti canai’ and ‘the tarik’ would suffice, nasi kandar in the morning? I don’t think so, too much too handle in the morning.  So, our journey continues, in search for the best breakfast in town. Penang is the heaven for street food, we know we won’t go wrong.

9.03 am

I was still trying to make myself familiar with the street of Penang. However this one particular thing that made me kind of going into bad mood that moment. Honks everywhere, literally everywhere. I realized it was my fault for driving slow, but sometimes  even the smallest mistake they tend to honk their car. Despite all the things that happened, I tried to think positive. Maybe this is just another way of Penang people to say ‘be careful’ or ‘watch out’ or even ‘thank you’. We have different culture and we should not interpret it limited to only our view. The search for the best breakfast went on, and on. We are trying to avoid a big fancy restaurant because that kind of restaurant won’t show or maybe the culture shown diminishes. After a while, we managed to found  stall beside a small road. It was a perfect stall for us, ‘nasi lemak’,’nasi berlauk’, ‘Bihun goreng’ and lots more, you name it. As we were approaching the stall, the man that were sitting behind the stall started to say something out loud.

“Ha bang, mai mai nasi lemak ada, kuih ada”

“Yes brother, come here, we have nasi lemak, we also have dessert”

The translation would be something like that.

The surrounding of the stall somehow makes me proud of being Malaysian citizen, some other countries are unfortunate, the riot and the unbalance of their political situation, made it impossible to have this kind of surrounding that we’re having. And so we are heading to the stall, lots of food to be chosen, however to make it easier, being the typical Malay I chose ‘nasi lemak sambal ikan bilis’, two packets of those nasi lemak can make me full for the entire day. Just before we were heading to our table, another Penang people start to show their friendliness towards us. Our table got no enough chair to sit, the Chinese man voluntarily picked up chairs in front of him and put them around our table. The act of kindness even though  was small, but it gives us (traveller) an idea of how great people of Penang is. Vice versa if some people in Penang did  something bad, it would give a bad impression to us. Just like what Malay’s saying 

“Kerana nila setitik rosak susu sebelanga”.

The breakfast that we had was great, even though the place was not a fancy restaurant, no architectural features to be highlighted, but for me. This is the image of Malaysia, that’s what makes us unique, breakfast on the side of the road? Perfect.

10.07 am

The sun started to release the heat as we were walking alongside Persiaran Gurney. The view of the beach was fantastic however, what disappoints me is that the smell of the beach was somehow terrible. A careful observation was made, and I found out that the drains from the nearest restaurant are heading towards the beach. I was shocked at first, trying to think of the reason why does the authority made the drain flow towards the sea. Trying to get my mind out of it, I try to enjoy what nature has offered to me, while sketching the view of the beach, I could see few people were having their routine jog. Some busses stop alongside the road to drop off their passenger, mainly tourists from other countries. Most of them are heading towards the nearest restaurant, to have their breakfast maybe. Thinking of nothing else to do after finishing my sketches, we’ve decided to go and check in on our hotel.

11.00 am

As what normal people would felt, we are exhausted. Especially me, since I was driving nonstop yesterday. My body needs to be recharge, We checked in on Tune Hotel and decided to take a rest for few hours. I feel glade for choosing this place to stay, because it is situated in the middle of Georgetown and it is near to any facilities that we possibly required. The factor of safety and lack of experience in travelling made us chose this hotel. As of now, good night world.

4.00 pm

A long rest, yes I admit it. For the time being, time taken for the resting would be sufficed. We’ve prepared ourselves for a long journey. We’ve planned to explore the old Georgetown by walking. For me, walking is better than any other transportation when it comes to trying to embrace the culture, because we explore the place slowly, and along the way, we could witness many people doing different things. We start off our journey by walking alongside Jalan Burmah and heading towards Jalan Transfer. Our main goal that evening was to go to Padang Kota, which in my opinion was the heart of Georgetown. The first turn that we made and we can already see the trademark of Penang. Their ‘Street art’, street art in Penang are everywhere. It really does shows the identity of Penang, where the street art are considered an ‘art’ by most of the citizen there. While other state in Malaysia, street art is not that recognized. The first thing that caught my eyes was the material they used for the art. In this art, they used steel. Aesthetic value in the art is screaming for attention, it is really beautiful. The art will be more stands out when there’s a sunlight shining to it, a shadow will be created at the back of it.

5.00 pm

Penang is known for their various and delicious food, especially street food. We won’t miss the opportunity to try them all. The famous Nasi Kandar Beratur that we passed on earlier in the morning, we tried it. It surely is delicious. 

6.18 pm

We’re at the centre of Padang Kota, I did say about Padang Kota of being the heart of Georgetown, and I stand by it. The moment I got here, I can already sense the positive energy of this place. People gather around, kids running across the field, people exercising, family picnic, the place was so alive. Coincidently during our trip here, there were a concert and also a carnival to promote Penang tourism.  It’s like you’re watching the whole Georgetown when you’re viewing Padang Kota alone. The amount of visitor doubled because there’s a numerous tourist attraction here. Fort Cornwallis is one of them. To complete the  greatness of the Padang Kota, there’s also food stalls near to it where they sells foods that represents Penang. Foods like mee sotong, pasembur, even ais kacang. The temperature of Penang is high, even higher than Kuala Lumpur, so all the stalls are equipped with a sheltering device, the space was open. This also applied to most of the building in Penang, the openings are larger and lots of sheltering devices at a building to overcome the heat.

7.40 pm

Azan can be heard across Padang Kota, the sun slowly disappear from the skyline. People are getting ready to go back to their homes or proceed to their other work. I was sitting in the middle of Padang Kota, watching everyone. It’s a magical moment, just to sit on that very place. Then a decision was made, we wanted to see the night side of Georgetown. Just when we thought Georgetown had shown all of its traits, then the night life came. Padang Kota especially, people are gathering in the food court to find a good food for the night.

9.58 pm

As we walking towards our hotel, we chose another route so that we could explore more. We stumbled upon love lane. Love lane is a narrow road, however it is full with tourist from all over the world, love lane are packed with hostel or motel specially made for the backpackers. We could see them hanging around outside the motel, maybe because it was hot inside the building. As we continue walking, there’s a shop lot that manage to grab my attention. Two people were playing guitar and ukulele outside the shop, interesting. As I walk in into the shop, there are full of painting and artworks. It was a gallery, ‘Unique Penang Art Gallery’. Lot of artworks which I believe came from the underground artist. The shopkeeper entertained us by explaining some of the artworks there. They also made a business based on the artwork.

11.57 pm

After a quick snap with the owner of the shop, we make our way to our hotel, however, in some part of the journey. We got lost, it is in the middle of the night and we don’t where are we heading. Acting normally we’re trying to refer to the map and we found out we had go to a wrong road. Out of the blue, we heard someone saying

“are you lost?”
“come here let me help you”

We were grateful by just hearing that, another citizen of Penang were kind enough to offer their help. When we’re just about to look at the owner of the voice, we realized something. Something’s not right. Voice of a man, body of a woman.

Yeah, PONDAN LAH SIAL

It turns out that, the road that we had taken was an active place for a prostitution activity. I was not surprised about it, but somehow disappointed because the beauty of Penang is tainted with this kind of filthy activity. Without wasting any time, we’re quickly run away from them, and call it a night.

Day 2. Sunday, 23^rd march 2014

8.00 am

Sunday morning in Penang, what could go wrong? We kick start our morning with a breakfast at mamak restaurant. ‘Roti canai’ and ‘teh tarik’ is enough to energize me all day. The destination that morning was the modern side of Georgetown, we walk along Persiaran Gurney and a lot of shopping malls can be seen. It’s something that we always see somewhere else than Penang. I look around, and from what I saw, the shopping malls were made especially for the tourist. The local are not that interested in going there.

11.16 am

The heat is killing us, fortunately stumbled upon a stall to have some drinks to cool us off. Since Penang is a tourism country, and the temperature here is quite high, a lot of stall can be seen around Penang. People won’t miss the chance to turn something bad into a good use. Even though it’s just a stall, the profit they gain is not that bad. 

12.09 pm

When someone say ‘Penang’ to me, my mind won’t stop from thinking the iconic building situated at the middle of the Georgetown. Komtar, an old building yet still got his place in most of the Penang citizen’s heart. Once I got there, the feeling is the same as I went to Pertama Complex in Kuala Lumpur, old building and small shop lot. Unfortunately, some part inside the building was not fully utilised. It is kind of sad to look at such iconic building to be like that. Outside of the Komtar, a Chinese temple can be seen, all around Penang, there’s a lot of Chinese temple. I even tried to go into one of these temples. Hesitation surrounded me when I’m about to take my first step into the temple, there are monks and normal citizen were praying when I walked in. They just smiled, smile that trying to tell me that “it’s okay to come in”. I explore more inside the temple, the smell of a burning paper went straight into my nose, the temple surrounding and vibe are full with spiritual feeling. 

4.51 pm

What could be more effective and faster way to travel in Georgetown? A bicycle. I’ve decide to rent a bicycle and explore Georgetown and to learn more about street art. The idea of renting a bike came when I saw a numerous amount of people riding a bicycle around Georgetown,  most of them are tourists like me. So it has become a thing in Penang, a lot of shop offers a service of renting a bike. So I rent I bike, and went for a quick lunch at the famous ‘Nasi Kandar Line Clear’, it surely is famous because the restaurant is always packed with people. What amazed me was, the place was not that proper for a restaurant, but still, people are coming into the restaurant nonstop.

5.30 pm

Ernest Zacharevic is the name of the artist that responsible for the most of the street art here in Georgetown. After a quick research on the artist, Ernest Zacharevic not only make himself know through street art in Penang, but he also did it across the world. For me, it is somehow a privileged to receive a masterpiece from a known artist in Malaysia. The street art and Penang is a brilliant combination. With my bike, I explore around Georgetown to search for the street art. It was no surprised when I reached the destination to one of those arts, a massive crowd of people were lining up just to get a picture with the art. In my mind, I was trying to imagined, what if, what if the art doesn’t exist? Does Penang will be this much fun? It’s a thing to ponder about.

8.00 pm

The search for the art went on until day turns to dark, I know Penang has a lot more to offer, but my body is denying it. Cycling through the heat of the sun is something you won’t do everyday, but why not today huh? I went back to the hotel, exhausted, but still there’s a room for  Penang famous ‘char kuey teow’. It was a perfect day. We’re heading back to Kuala Lumpur the next morning, even though our body is no longer in Penang, but our heart and soul has been kept well in Georgetown and ready to take it back whenever we had the chance.

2 days and 1 night was not enough for us to explore the richness of the culture in Penang. Surprisingly, in the short amount of time. We managed to gained a lot of things. It surely is a great experience and to see it from my point of view is priceless. Will I ever go back to Penang just to feel that again?

You bet I would.

Dah habis dah, tunggu lah lagi berapa bulan. 

HAHAHAHA