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| Breakfast eggs at Toh Soon |
But this was toast with a difference. Sandwiched between two buildings, in an alleyway immediately behind Ban Heang on Campbell Street, is Toh Soon. Occupying an unprepossessing lean-to, this café is an institution serving roti bakar (toast) with kaya (coconut jam), half-boiled eggs, and coffee. While the set-up is simple, the quality is excellent, and the handful of tables are rightly full at breakfast time and for the majority of the day. The staff even have their own orange livery.
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| Toh Soon cafe |
Since arriving in Penang, we have intended to ascend the local hill in one manner or another. A funicular railway runs up Bukit Bendera (Flagstaff Hill), but it is also possible to walk to the 735m peak. Today we chose to make the climb and so would be needing calories for the journey.
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| Loading up at Luk Yea Yang |
We have been guilty of neglecting probably the nearest vegetarian restaurant to where we are staying. Luk Yea Yang on Lorong Madras offers both buffet and à la carte dining. We chose the 'pile things on rice' approach and were not disappointed.
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| Vegetarian otak otak |
Alongside the usual array of soya meats were daikon radish in a light yellow curry sauce, tofu dumplings, and otak-otak. This version of the steamed fish cake was more authentic, but less palatable, than the one I ate in The Leaf. It had a distinctly fishy flavour, owing to judicious use of seaweed, but lacked in spices.
Botanical Garden
We started our journey at the botanical garden (taman botani), where a pleasant walk around the park revealed cannonball trees, dozens of macaque monkeys, and a mountain horned lizard.
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| Mountain horned lizard |
The park was full of people exercising, so we set off on our own exertions up a set of steps we were assured would lead us to the top of Flagstaff Hill to join the funicular for the journey down.
Penang Hill is a collection of peaks, the highest of which is Western Hill (833m). I believe the term 'hill' is underselling this natural feature, as, at well over 600m, it easily falls within the UK's definition of 'mountain'. Starting from under 100m above sea level at the botanical gardens, our climb to the summit would take us the top of a mountain.
The climb started with a near-vertical set of steps, up and down which local Malays were merrily jogging. At the top of this, we joined the so-called "jeep track", presumably named owing to its steep gradient that requires four-wheeled drive. Our faces scraped the tarmac, which seemingly rose like a wall in front of us, as we twisted and turned our way up.
On the route, we saw both macaques and, higher in the trees, timid dusky leaf monkeys, large, lumbering monitor Iizards, and flighty racket-tailed drongos.
The climb was a leisurely two hours and eventually reaching the summit was anticlimactic. No fanfare greeted us, only the bemused stares from the amassed tourists who had let the train take the strain.
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| A cloudy outlook |
Mercifully, the weather was cloudy for the walk - it would have been almost unbearable in the full force of the tropical sun - but the haze lay like a pall over the surrounding land, impeding our view. We could barely make out the imposing Komtar tower, signposting the centre of George Town, or the megastructures that are the dual bridges to the mainland.
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| Lights of Air Itam |
However, as dusk fell and the lights came on, the shape of the city, and of Butterworth across the water, revealed itself. We took the funicular down to the base at Air Itam. At night the route is lit in coloured lights. Half-way down, just after the passing point where two trains execute a coordinated dance around one another, the gradient of the track increased sharply. However, the train proceeds at a stately pace, so the effect was like the least thrilling rollercoaster ever.
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