Friday, February 27, 2015

Return to Batu Maung


This is a photo taken during my first holiday in Malaysia in December in 1970. This was just after I had completed my HSC Exams – the equivalent of today’s A-levels – and waiting to be enlisted into the army for my full-time National Service. All these years, I had assumed that this photo was taken in Malacca. It was not until relatively recently, when I shared this photo with members of a Facebook group in Malaysia called Down Memory Lane that I discovered this place was actually in Penang. Through some clever detective work, readers there managed to figure out that this place was Batu Maung, near the southern part of Penang.


In December last year, I visited Penang with my wife and some relatives and decided to revisit this place. Thankfully this stretch of the beach is still there as you can see from the photo above. It was just next to a Chinese temple known as the Sam Poh Footprint Temple.
 
 
Other places that I revisited in this trip down memory lane were the Snake Temple, Penang Hill, Kek Lok Si and a Thai temple at Burma Road which had 2 huge fearsome-looking idols in front of it. I was surprised to see that the temple has remained practically unchanged. Unfortunately, of the four persons in this photo, I am the only one still living.


 
On the trip back, we decided to take the ferry instead of the Penang Bridge even though the latter was faster. I was hoping to catch a glimpse of the beautiful sunset which I saw in December 1970, and which I blogged about here. Unfortunately the scenery I saw in December 2014 was quite disappointing.

10 comments:

lau-private said...

Thank you for sharing about your trips to Penang. I visited Penang for the first time a few year back and was impressed with Tek Lok Si. While I was there, I made a donation for a roof tile to be place on top of the Huge Kuan Im. I do not know of the other temples which you mentioned and will seek them out the next time. I am sorry to hear that you are the only one left of the four but I am glad you got a chance to tell your story to me.
Kai.

Lam Chun See said...

Actually, I did not actually enter those temples; just looked from outside.

Anonymous said...

Hi Mr Lam, I notice your kampung photo behind got a car with license plate,"2867". Was this your car? Has anyone bought 4D for it yet? :)

Lam Chun See said...

Haha ... knowing Sporeans love for 4D, what do you think? An old friend who first saw my blog emailed me to complain that the no. did not come up.

Anyway, I don't get involved in such things. Waste of time and money.

Lye Khuen Way said...

It is funny, but I and four of my Combat Engineers mates had our 7 days Tour up north just before our ROD back in 1975 ! So it was the other way round with National Serice and the Combat Engineers as the common ground for Chun and me .

Brian Mitchell said...

Penang is standing in for a hill station in India in a new tv programme about the British in India called Indian Summers. Watching it I saw that they had found some good old colonial looking buildings and that the vegetation looked very familiar. Of course the distant snow clad Himalayas have to be CGIed in!

Morning Dubai Desert Safari said...

wow the temple looks amazing. very nice information you share with us. thanks for sharing.

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Sean Parker said...

Such a good time, loved these clicks from your memories.
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