Bukit Mertajam

Bukit Mertajam, known as BM, sits at the foot of Mertajam Hill in central Seberang Perai. It is an old town, which can be seen in the colonial buildings along its streets. The town is home to a large multicultural population, with heritage shophouses lining the trading streets. Mosques, churches, Chinese and Hindu temples and a Thai Buddhist wat all stand within a few streets of each other.

A granite boulder in the grounds of St Anne’s carries an inscription cut in the fifth or sixth century. Colonel James Low recorded it in 1845. The script is pre-Pallava, and the language has been read as both Sanskrit and Pali. It is the southernmost trace of the Bujang Valley civilisation and the only ancient relic in Penang that has been gazetted. The Department of Museums built a shelter over it in 1973. The Minor Basilica of St Anne stands a few steps away, a parish since 1846 and a church since 1888. Its feast draws over 100,000 pilgrims across ten days each July.

The town took shape in the 19th century. After the British took Province Wellesley in 1800 they encouraged the cultivation of pepper, cinnamon and nutmeg, and Hakka settlers cleared the land at the foot of the hill. Sugar, rubber and granite quarrying followed. The railway to Perai was completed in 1899, carrying produce, granite, rubber and tin to Port Penang. The town gained schools, a magistrate’s court and a hospital and got its own town council in 1953.

BM is a trading town, and a hub for goods, produce and seafood. The public market is busiest on Sunday mornings. The local food is everyday Penang cooking: cendol, fruit rojak, warungs and kopitiam breakfasts. Taman Rimba Bukit Mertajam has trails and streams on the hill behind the town.