Penang evokes nostalgia, memories and emotions.

I remember travelling with my parents and siblings from Alor Setar on single lane roads. Past kampung houses, paddy fields, Sungai Petani, Pantai Merdeka, and arriving at the ferry terminal in Butterworth. The excitement and sometimes discomfort of waiting in long queues under the sun to get on the ferry to be ferried to Georgetown. Long before we had bridges, not one but two, connecting the mainland to the island.

Thinking, talking and eagerly scoffing varieties of ‘Penang Food.’ The usual suspects were, and probably still are, keow teow, asam laksa, curry mee, nasi kandar and for dessert, ice-kacang. What was special about the ice-kacang, at least the one at Kek Seng Café along Penang Road, was it came with two scoops of chocolate and vanilla ice-cream, one wobbly colourful jelly and generous helpings of red bean and sweet corn. Yum.

That café also had a jukebox. A gleaming silver machine with a turntable that picked up and spun records when fed with coins. Although money was scarce, invariably one of us had enough to play ‘Mony Mony’ and ‘Hey Jude.’ Our other favourite foods were cendol and pasembor at Gurney Drive. Eating was a ritual whenever we were in Penang. It was like a must-do. A tick box that had to be ticked off. The perception of ‘Penang Food’ rather than the actual reality has fortunately/unfortunately stuck with me to this day.

My family also enjoyed hanging out in Gurney Drive, when there was a beach/shore before the land reclamation exercise. Other stuff we did was drop in on my dad’s sisters’ homes and shopped for Deepavali clothes at Chowrasta market. We visited Gama, the oldest department store in Penang, as well as the cylindrical-shaped 68-storey Tun Abdul Razak Complex or Komtar, an iconic building back in the day.

And, of course, we lined the streets to watch the Thaipusam procession in Penang, which is an almost all-island celebration. It was my dad’s favourite time of year and thing to do. We watched the kavadis, prayed at temples, and followed the chariot as it made its way through the island-city. He used to comment to my mum how Thaipusam was in the air based on the hot and crispy weather in January/February.

I like going back to Penang, after a few years of not. In fact, my husband and I were on the island in early December. Tuesday to Thursday to avoid the weekend traffic jams. We still encountered heavy traffic and too many red-amber-green lights. Never mind. I cannot remember when our last visit was but it was the first since my mum and brother number 1 passed.

On the drive to Penang, my head was filled with thoughts about the trip my mum and I took to Butterworth. To her maternal home, which by the way, was still standing then, and onward to Penang. Along the way, she impressed me with names of towns like Taiping, Jawi, Simpang Empat, Sungai Bakap, and Batu Kawan.  She knew them because her family had owned land in the area. Her mum, Tulasi, lugged, by bus, various fruits from their private orchards for her daughters. Sometime back, when I had an assignment in Batu Kawan, it was my mum who gave me a blow-by-blow description of the town, and surroundings.

Brother number 1 popped up, as always, when we approached the Slim River and Trolak signboards. These are towns in Perak, some 100km from KL. And, as always, my husband and I, marvelled at how brother number 1 drove to a particular temple in Trolak almost every weekend for a decade or so.

We chose the second bridge or the Sultan Abdul Halim Muadzam Shah Bridge, which took us from Batu Kawan on the mainland to Batu Maung on the Island. Several years ago, my husband worked on this construction project, and drove to Batu Kawan every fortnight. So, it was nice to see his handiwork, not literally. I didn’t know this. The total length of this stunning bridge is 24 km, making it the longest bridge in Malaysia and the second longest in Southeast Asia.  It also has several S-shaped curves. Why? To help reduce traffic accidents by discouraging speeding.

After three days on the island, we returned to the mainland via the first bridge. I’ve driven on his 13.5 km bridge many times before. With my husband, my mum and sister number 3. This time, the sight of the bridge took me back to one memory in 1985. Travelling on the bridge from Alor Setar with brother number 1, our mum, sister number 2 and nephew number 2. We were headed to Bayan Lepas airport to send off sister number 2 and nephew number 2, who was six-months old, to India. I have photos of the very much younger us. Hmm.

Nostalgia, memories, emotions.