Exploring the unmissable George Town Cultural Festival, Penang

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Penang is a place I fell in love with. Jess and I didn’t even intend to go there when we were travelling but I’m so glad we stumbled our way to it! What was even better was that we found ourselves there during the month long annual George Town Festival; a huge cultural festival which showcases and celebrates the diversity this little island has. For 2 of the days we were there, they were holding the heritage festival on the streets of George Town where they specialise in showcasing traditional arts, food and crafts.

The festival first started in 2010 to commemorate George Town becoming a UNESCO heritage site. I was there during the 2013 festival and it was honestly amazing. It has more art, music, theatre performances than you can shake a stick at, it was hard to know where to be each day! And what makes this festival even better is that many of the shows and experiences are completely free! It’s a fantastic place to walk around and you’re never going to be far away from something amazing.

The local population of Penang is a fabulous and vibrant mix of Malay, Chinese and Indian. I love this. I think the world needs to take a leaf out of little Penang’s book and see how amazingly harmonious things can be! But performers come from all over the world to do their stuff so make sure you pick up a free guide on your wanderings so you can pick out anything you fancy in particular.

It gets seriously busy and as we hadn’t booked any accommodation, we did struggle to find places to stay. In fact, we ended up moving 2 or 3 times during out stay in George Town. I would recommend doing your research a ~~bit~~ lot better than us and booking in advance to save traipsing around in the heat. Then chill out and indulge yourself!