Penang

Penang is a place full of spectacular beauty, colour, great opulence and extreme poverty. Though I think that this is a purely western view and the local people would not agree. The Malays are a many and varied race partly Indian, Chinese and English with a smattering of other Asian races.  They are a very proud people working hard to maintain their families and lifestyle, made even harder in the current economic climate with tourist numbers dropping. Many traders, particularly those who rent premises for their business have to sell items at cost just to put food on the table a bonus for the traveler not so though for the locals, especially when most places are open twelve hours a day just to support the family. The night traders were somewhat better off they did not pay rent, however, they paid for their power, though we could not work out how, every stall was regaled with fluorescent and coloured lights plugged in to power boards piggy backed onto power boards which were plugged into dodgy points hidden under bushes, these had many cords leading to them and supported several stalls, we were very surprised no one was killed or stalls had not burned down. Most traders were always in the same place, this is probably how the authorities kept an eye on them, the local council is cleaning up and traders now need licenses which many cannot afford however a few Ringgit from one hand to another will keep them on the streets, it would probably be cheaper to buy a license than to pay a bribe every week. For many years the whole culture has thrived on bribery, these days backs of police cars herald this message, “ Please don’t try and bribe me” this change will take many years to overcome the ingrained and age old way of bribery.