All these activities remain as memories. Today's youth probably will not know what I'm talking about. Fine sandy beach? I was at Gurney Drive about a week ago for a function and being early, I took a walk towards the roundabout end of the road. These are the only two remnants of the place's once renowned sandy beach.
What about the rest of the way? Yes, mud flaps at low tide. Wet, smelly, dirty and full of rubbish - non-biodegradable plastics and wrappers, by the way - thrown by who else but irresponsible people!
Apart from the mud flaps where at low tide you'll see mudskippers by the hundreds crawling around and scavenging birds looking for easy prey (a new tourist attraction, perhaps?), here's what you will see:
Yes, rocks. The once pristine beach has been dumped with rocks in an effort to hold back the erosion. What a ghastly site. Fine sandy beach? Building sand castles? Picking sea shells. Digging for clams? Gone, all gone, since the mid-1980's. Now, only memories remain. Sad, isn't it?
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I believe the rot started during the BN government's rule. The public voted them in for the past 20 years in Penang and look what we got in return. I think the blame game should stop here. We as penangnites should hide ourselves under a brown bag instead of highlighting this now. Instead, we should see what the new government can do. I am sure they can compared to KTK who continue to brown nose UMNO for such a long time. Hello...A dream was destroyed ... but greedy politicians such as UMNO, MCA and Gerakan. I hold all of them accountable.
ReplyDeleteI doubt there's anything anybody can do to rehabilitate the beach. It's long been polluted. It's dead.
ReplyDeleteheya i also have had good memories of that place as well. and when i came back years later, i too was rather surprised. the focus is now the other side and this place seems quiet... which is good, but like u said, its no more the same.
ReplyDeleteYou have confused two phenomena here - when I was growing up in the late 80s, there was no beach, and the sea came up to the wall, where there were rocks to stop the road from being eroded away. The hawker stalls were along the sea wall and the rocks were covered in rubbish - you could see the occasional rats and cockroaches scuttling among the rocks.
ReplyDeleteThe hawker stalls were moved away from the seawall in the early 90s, I think. Now the opposite is happening - due to the reclamation in Tg Tokong the erosion has stopped and there is now natural accretion of land: fertile silt that will eventually turn into a mangrove swamp.