Small towns but rich in history

 

BUKIT Tambun, Simpang Am-pat, Sungai Bakap and Val-dor in Seberang Prai may not be popular tourist destinations but they do have cheap good food, and a rich history harking back to the time before Captain Francis Light landed in Penang in 1786. 

Bukit Tambun is also now famed for its affordable fresh seafood. 

The town centres in these four places consist mainly of a single road with rows of shophouses where businesses thrive and townsfolk live and go about their daily activities, alongside visitors from the vicinity.  

One of the many seafood restaurants in Bukit Tambun

The four places are near each other, within a few minutes’ drive. 

While some city dwellers might turn up their noses and declare such places ‘dead’, these little towns’ origins go back as far as the 18th Century. 

And some of the most delicious local fare can be found in these places.  

“Back in the old days before Francis Light came to Penang, people from Pulau Aman would migrate to Batu Kawan and then to Bu-kit Tambun to earn a living. Bukit Tambun was considered a coastal town and people moved there to become fishermen.  

“Besides the fishing boats, ships and tong-kang would also dock there to trade. Stones from the quarries of Batu Kawan and Pulau Aman were shipped using tongkang to the Prince of Wales Island to build George Town,’’ said Bukit Tambun assemblyman Lai Chiew Hock.  

And when the George Town harbour opened, Bukit Tambun residents turned to sugarcane planting.  

“During the rule of Kapitan Khoo, there were thousands of hectares of sugarcane. The British encouraged the planting of sugarcane by gi-ving out tax exemptions on the commodity,” Lai said, adding that Khoo was the only kapitan who controlled the sugarcane plantations in Seberang Prai at that time. 

As for Valdor, the area was said to have come into ‘existence’ during the communist insu-rgency in Malaya. Chinese residents living near jungle areas in South Seberang Prai moved to a ‘new village’ and that village was Valdor.  

“The new village was called hua tu chun and under the Teochew slang, it was pronounced hua tor. The sound of hua tor slowly evolved to become Valdor,’’ said Lai.  

In another version, the name Valdor ori-ginated from a French word meaning ‘Valley of Gold’. The founder of Sungai Ba-kap town, Kee Lai Huat, a sugar manufacturer, had bought a 1,000-acre swamp in Sungai Bakap from a French businessman and cleared the land to be used as sugarcane plantation.  

It was said that when the sun set and shone on the plantation, the entire area looked golden and hence the name Valley of Gold.  

“Back in the old days, sugarcane was the mainstay of the economy in South Se-berang Prai but during the early 70s, co-conut plantations and poultry farms took over. Rubber was also planted but that was much earlier and in the 80s, oil palm was plan-ted, 

“If you categorise these areas economically, Bukit Tambun would be seafood business, Val-dor poultry farming, Sungai Bakap local food and Simpang Ampat, property development,’’ said Lai.