This site hasn’t been reviewed in 10 years, so it can use a refreshment. Not that I think that it has changed much over the past years. I visited Melaka already in 2009 but left it til 2023 to add George Town. After having just arrived from bustling Thailand, George Town seemed to be in a post-Covid tourism dip and there wasn’t a lot going on (it also was a Malaysian school holiday period). Still, it grew on me and it is worth a day or two.

I stayed in the heart of Little India – it might as well be called ‘Very India’, for the numerous shabby-looking (but excellently tasting) Indian restaurants, the sari- and gold bangle shops. My hotel – the Ren I Tang Heritage Inn – was a wonderful 19th-century townhouse in the “Early Straits Eclectic Style”, and a former Chinese Medical Hall.

My explorations (all done on foot) brought me first to the monuments from the British colonial period. This still seems to be the business and political center of the city. Several historic buildings remain, most of them stark white in colour. ‘Around the corner’ there are the remains of the British East India Company’s Fort Cornwallis; I didn’t go in as I found the entrance fee of 40 ringgit too high.

I then followed the coastline, with good views of the Penang Strait and the city of Butterworth, at which I had arrived by train on my way down from Thailand. At the waterfront, there is also a block of monumental offices of European trading firms from the 19th century.

An explicit part of the WHS are the Chinese ‘Jetties’ – settlements of stilt houses, built along a pier. The Chew Jetty welcomes visitors during specific daytime opening hours. It dates from 1888 and is controlled by the Chew Clan, still a close-knit community with its own Taoist temple.

George Town’s Chinese community has done well in turning its heritage into tourist income. The very ornate Cheah Kongsi Temple for example. ‘Kongsi’ were clans of people from the same place of origin who helped each other out after immigration (it still is a word used (mostly negatively) in Dutch by the way, as a ‘community of interest’!). The Pinang Perakan Mansion also lies in the city center and maybe is its most popular attraction. It’s a very eclectic, luxury villa “incorporating Chinese carved-wood panels and English floor tiles and Scottish ironworks”.

There are dozens more small monuments and temples, mostly from the Chinese and Indian communities, that you will encounter while just walking around.