Penang Gone

Sumatra was a lost world in 1990. Tigers prowled the western jungles of Indonesia's largest island, active volcanoes glowed in the night, and I drank Bintang beer with the ancestors of headhunters on the shore of Lake Toba 1500 meters above the sea and the night air was chilly after months along the equator .

Inside the traditional long houses skulls adorned the main beam of the roof.

Cutting off heads for the Bataks was an ancient tradition, until forbidden by the Dutch government in Java.

Sitting with several men around a fire I realized Jakarta was over a thousand miles away from the highlands. A hundred years ago I might have been a hapless victim of their deadly tradition, but they swore I was safe and the Bataks were renown for being true to their word.

After two weeks on Lake Toba I descended down the slopes to Medan, a Muslim city a little north of equator on the simmering Malacca Straits. The temperature and humidity were both in the 90s. Neither seemed to bother the residents.

That afternoon I booked a flight across the Malacca Straits to Penang in Malaysia.

I arrived there before sunset. I was back in the modern world.

Skyscrapers, telephones, air-conditioning and smooth roads.

I stayed at an old Chinese mansion off Chulia Street. The main travelers' drag offered good food and old navy bars.

Drinks were cheap.

The women were ugly.

.They liked a good laugh.

The architecture revealed a melting pot of culture.

I loved the call for evening prayers from the mosque.

I drank tuak or palm wine next to the Chinese temple.

The British had left their mark.

Beaches lay the the west.

Durians grew in the jungles.

The city was sleep-walking toward the 21st Century.

But that was then.

Chinese money had woken Penang from the past.

Construction was booming along the coast, as land was reclaimed from the sea.

Only the rich have rights to this dream.

And old Penang will never be old again.

Neither will I.

What a shame.