JUST BACK FROM PENANG

[x-man]

If you appreciate garrish bad taste like I do, you're going to love this place (as described on a google gay Penang site:)

"Chulia Court Five27 at Chulia St, opposite the 7-11, is a gay-friendly club and restaurant (same owner as the old Bagan). Nice decoration, comfortable space, with live band at night and DJ playing funky music. Crowded on Fri and Sat night."

Let me put this bar into context. Jalan Chulia is the main backpacker street in George Town, Penang, Mayalsia. It has changed a bit since I first began going there, at first for visa runs when I worked in Thailand, then to use it as a jumping-off place on my way to Langkawi, and this February and March because I have grown to love the city.

Several days after I got to Penang, I went out to explore. One does this at 6 o'clock in the evening when the street springs to life suddenly after the afternoon slumber.I came upon this bar, the Chulia Court which I couldn't believe. I didn't know what to think. To say it didn't belong on Chulia hardly does it justice. It had pink walls, red velvet drapes, huge hideous paintings in heavy gilt frames, the walls not covered in paintings had carved crystal mirrors. At the bar stood three handsome barmen in uniform. It was so campy, so over-the-top, my mind groped for some explanation for why it would be here on backpacker street. I of course loved it and sat down at the bar. Was it a gay bar? I wondered. The barmen were handsome to the point where I knew it couldn't be by chance.

I was only going to have one drink, but then the tallest, handsomest of the barmen began chatting me up, and I had to stay. I asked my barman, who this bar could possibly be aimed at. He told me the owner was going for the middle income traveller. I suppose the result was that some old Chinese owner built his idea of chic. However the price of drinks was not noticeably higher than the rest of the street. I thought, this is my chance, so I asked him if there were any gay bars on Chulia now. He said no, but there was a section where there are several--Jalan Najor. He went back and brought out a tourist folder for me. "You mean they put that information in a tourist hand-out?" "No," he said, "It has a map." At this point I had to go to the washroom. When I got back, another barman--with chin beard and sweet broad smile walks by, waves to me and gives me The Look. So, my waiter had told him what I had said, but he did not disapprove, he was very helpful, and I saw him again the next night.

When I left the campy bar the first night I hailed a trishaw and told him to take me to a gay bar. I mentioned the street but he was unsure. He knew "gay bar"--the entire world knows "gay bar," but I explained in Pigin and in Malay that I wanted a bar for "man and man, not man and woman." "Ladyboy? he asked. "No, not ladyboy--just regular man." I regard trishaw drivers as knowing everything there is to know about getting around, but he, to be sure, discussed it with the trishaw driver just ahead of him. Then we were on our way. He took me to a classier bar on the high street, Penang Road. Are you sure this is a gay bar? Yes, yes, he insisted.

I was unsure when I went in. I saw men with men, women with women, but also a couple of men with women. A mixed bar. I usually don't like mixed bars. There were also a couple of women dressed like classic Thai prostitutes. I didn't look at them, because I don't usually notice women. Maybe I should have. Were they ladyboys? I can usually spot that instantly. Anyway, when the waiter came over I asked him if this was a gay bar. His eyes widened, he said he didn't know anything and got very nervous. Now I knew he knew what a gay bar was, so his reaction was strange. I had a beer and kept looking around, but couldn't figure the scene out. So I stopped a guy walking passed me on his way to the washroom if it was a gay bar. He said no, that he was there with his girlfriend. I left after one beer still unsure where I had been. The guy I asked may have been thinking, "If he has to ask if this is a gay bar, he deserves the stock, safe answer." I returned to Chulia St and did not look for a gay bar after that. I know there are posh gay bars, clubs, etc., but I prefer more working-class settings—well, actually I like sleaze.

A few nights later I was at a beer bar just down the street from the Chulia Court. Usually I left after 3 or 4 beers, but this night I got into an intense conversation with a German student, and we ended up closing up the place at midnight. So we walked up the street a little to find some place still open. Then I blacked out. I came to sometime later. The student was gone, and I was being helped to my feet by 2 waiters from the bar who were going to help me to my guest house a couple of blocks away. They had to hold me up. I looked at the one on my right—it was the waiter from the Chulia Court, the one who gave me The Look and smiled. As they walked and I stumbled towards my guest house, I looked at the guy on my right, recognized him, and said, “You are really hot! I haven't seen anything like you for a long time. If I were a lot younger I would capture you and take you to my lair, and we would fuck and fuck our brains out, and then do some poppers and fuck some more.” The guy on my left looked startled, but the guy on the right who I was talking to was smiling broadly. This got up halfway to my guest house. I then launched into an extremely graphic description of exactly what I wanted to do with him. They delivered me safely. Guy on the left was still startled, the guy on the right was still smiling and obviously delighted. I bet I was the most interesting customer he had had all evening, and had a great story to tell his boyfriend. The next morning I woke up horrified, thinking I could never leave the guest house until I was ready to fly home. By 6 o'clock when Chulia Street suddenly comes alive, I had decided that I had not offended him at all, I was playing it for laughs no matter how drunk I was, and I am at a stage in my life when I don't get embarrassed by much any more.

[christianpfc]

Interesting story. I was in Penang in January for visa run and did some limited search for gay venues (on my mobile phone, when wifi was available), but then I thought that I haven't seen many people I would like to have sex with during day, so it wouldn't get better when I enter a gay venue, and gave up.

[xiandarkthorne]

This is the first I have heard about a gay bar of any kind in Penang and I live here. Anyway, I think your problem is you pronounced "Nagore" with a "j" sound. It should be pronounced with a hard "g" - as in "blood and gore". So if you'd told the taximan " Jar-larn Nar-gore" he might have been able to find the street for you.

One of these days, when I'm less busy, I really will have to check out what you said about a gay bar in Penang. As far as I know, most Penang gay men do their cruising on-line.

Before I forget, Jalan Nagore has mainly restaurants and there wasn't a bar of any description that I knew of the last time I was there after dark, but that was more than three years ago so I could be very wrong about that.

[x-man]

This is the first I have heard about a gay bar of any kind in Penang and I live here. Anyway, I think your problem is you pronounced "Nagore" with a "j" sound. It should be pronounced with a hard "g" - as in "blood and gore". So if you'd told the taximan " Jar-larn Nar-gore" he might have been able to find the street for you.

One of these days, when I'm less busy, I really will have to check out what you said about a gay bar in Penang. As far as I know, most Penang gay men do their cruising on-line.

Thanks for the info, Xiandar. Actually it was the 188 cm hunky Bangladeshi barman at the Chulia Court who was pronouncing it Najor, rather than Nagor. I still remember a bit of the Bahasa I spoke while I was teaching in Indonesia, and would be sensitive to this distinction.

The reason I was looking for a gaybar in particular was not that I wanted sex, but to relax in gay surroundings and have some good conversation. Except for the rather curious ambiance in the Chulia Court in my 5 weeks in Penang I saw only 2 incidents when my gaydar went off--an example: standing in line in the 7/11 watching two young gorgeous Australian guys who obviously had just recently fallen in love, staring into each other's eyes and unsuccessfully trying not to touch each other, so sweet, my grizzled old heart beat a little faster--and one where I saw an older Dutchman walking with a much younger local guy in a situation you see a lot in Thailand. My feeling about the entire Jalan Chulia-Love Lane area is that it is incredibly straight. I absolutely knew that statistically some 5% of the people I watched walk by HAD to be LGBT--but where were they? In Europe and North America my gaydar is rather good, but in Asia and North Africa I sometimes get false alarms since, I suspect, personal distance and direct eye contact rules are different there.

[Rogie]

Usually I left after 3 or 4 beers, but this night I got into an intense conversation with a German student, and we ended up closing up the place at midnight. So we walked up the street a little to find some place still open. Then I blacked out. I came to sometime later. . .

The reason I was looking for a gaybar in particular was not that I wanted sex, but to relax in gay surroundings and have some good conversation. . .

... and a few beers!

Sorry, couldn't resist. Although Penang sounds a fairly safe place, I'm sure there are places where doing what you seem to like doing carries a significant risk.

Despite my nanny-ish comment, I enjoyed reading your report, please post more often.

Rog

[x-man]

Usually I left after 3 or 4 beers, but this night I got into an intense conversation with a German student, and we ended up closing up the place at midnight. So we walked up the street a little to find some place still open. Then I blacked out. I came to sometime later. . .

The reason I was looking for a gaybar in particular was not that I wanted sex, but to relax in gay surroundings and have some good conversation. . .

... and a few beers!

Sorry, couldn't resist. Although Penang sounds a fairly safe place, I'm sure there are places where doing what you seem to like doing carries a significant risk.

Despite my nanny-ish comment, I enjoyed reading your report, please post more often.

Rog

Thanks, Rog, for your words of encouragement, AND for your concern at my potentially risky behaviour.

My comments here will have more to do with Thailand, but it IS in response to your posting here, so I will post it here. (My last topic, “Songkhla Gay Bar—NOT” is on the Thailand site. You might want to check it out when you have a chance. Someday soon I want to post another matter to the Thailand site, “Muscle Bears on Khao San Road” which might amuse you.) Back to Penang:

It is indeed a safe place in my experience, but you have to realize that before I got on the plane in Toronto in February to return to Penang after a span of 20 years, I had not had alcohol at all—not a drop of beer, wine or liquor. I was really looking forward to it. I have flown a lot, but still I regard every flight as a party in the sky, although I have never been fortunate enough to join the Mile High Club. I am telling you all this because my doctor advised me that my alcohol capacity was going to be greatly reduced. He was certainly right (it's a lot cheaper that way) even regarding relatively mild Malaysian beer, including my favourite Royal Stout. I even wondered if I could actually get drunk on it. I was to find out that I definitely could--it did sneak up on me, as it did the night I blacked out.

That whole incident reminded me of a time in Bangkok many years ago when your words of caution would have been quite appropriate. One night I was out on the prowl on Silom Road and Patpong, (at least then) the real centre of gay and straight “entertainment. I was having a good, if Dante-esque, time, but interrupted my frolicking to have supper in a Japanese restaurant at the foot of Patpong Rd. While eating I noticed a row of small banners hanging from one wall. The waiter told me they were a list of scores from a sake-drinking contest that the restaurant was having. Well, I wasn't about to let this chance slip by. I instructed the waiter to bring me glasses of sake, one more than the highest score listed on the wall. He did and put them all on the table before me. In retrospect this may have been a mistake. I DID win the competition, but then the hazy memory of being back on Silom Road in some gay bars, and then waking up in my hotel room. I screamed when I awoke, seeing myself staring down at me. I had forgotten they had put me temporarily in a room with a mirror in the ceiling, the room usually reserved for the hookers who worked out of the hotel. I lay there remembering the hazy, patchy dream I had had during the night—me with several other naked men in an orgy. I am basically rather vanilla in my sexual tastes, I don't even like 3-ways, so this was pretty unusual for me. Gradually it dawned on me that it was NOT a dream. I checked, my money was gone, but my passport and traveller's cheques were still there. I knew I had been very lucky, and could easily have ended up floating face-down in a canal. Still, these misgivings only detained me for a moment. Actually I was most regretful that I didn't have a clearer memory of the evening's merriment.

I suppose the scene in Penang and Silom Road make me sound like an alcoholic, sex-obsessed slut. But it just seems that way—that is, I haven't been like that for a long time. I guess my performance in Penang was a momentary reversion to type. It certainly beats memories of a trip to Disney Land. The only unpleasant part of the Thailand business was that I was just then coming down with Hepititis B, which given the onset time I must have caught in Afghanistan or India. Hep B and alcohol do not mix, and I was lucky my liver didn't drop out my ass. I caught a flight back to Holland, and spent a month in hospital in isolation. Laying in my hospital bed I decided to rethink my hard living, especially since the year before I had spent a month in isolation in hospital in London after catching typhoid in Casablanca under remarkably similar circumstances. Maybe it was time to lighten up a bit. But, you win a few, you lose a few.

[xiandarkthorne]

My apologies, X-man. I didn't know that you were misinformed.