Penang

Day 1 – Mikka Hakinen Part II

Up and out again early to get our Minibus to Penang at 7am, getting into the van we were joined by a French girl who was going our way too so not the usual packed bus we are used to.  It all started off fine through town and then we were coming down the mountain through windie S-Bends all the way which our driver thought was OK to take at 120kpm and overtake where ever he fancied.  Once again we were hanging on to our seats, closing our eyes and wishing we weren’t atheists!!

This carried on for around an hour or so until thankfully we got out of the mountains and ½ hour later we had stopped for a breakfast break, over a coffee we spoke to the French girl who was equally shaken up and worried about our driver.

Fortunately the rest of the journey was on nice straight motorways and was not so hairy and after another 3 hours or so we found ourselves arriving in Georgetown, Penang.

We got dropped off at our hostel, pleased to be in one piece and checked in.  The hostel wasn’t the best we had stayed in, the room did not have any windows and did not look that secure so we did our best to lock up our luggage and valuables before heading out.

Again it was boiling hot, but we did quickly stumble across a second hand bookshop where we managed to get a Malaysian travel guide AT LAST!.  Celebrating this fact we found a nearby bar where we stopped to cool off and have a couple of cold beers.

Next we decided to go and check out all the local, temples, mosques and churches which amazingly were all clustered in and around one or two streets.  So we wandered around for a bit taking photos before trying to get a bus (one route is free, luckily Shell had been here before so knew some tips) to another area.

The bus we caught took us to the bus station (not where we envisaged it ending up), so had to jump on another one to take us to an area known as little India.

We wandered through Little India hoping to spot somewhere to eat, but as it was the middle of the afternoon there did not seem to be anything really open, so once again we dived into a bar to escape the heat and had a couple of drinks there.

When looking at once of our town maps we could see there was plenty of street art in the area so we thought we would go and check it out and have a play with it.  We visited about a dozen streets and alleyways to find these Banksy style artworks and did our best to improve on it by adding ourselves to the compositions.

When we reached the last piece of art we ducked into a bar right next to it and sat down and got a beer whilst we watched other tourists playing with the artwork too (not nearly as imaginative as us).  Whilst we sat there we got talking to a group of English girls that were also travelling, some had just started some had been going for some time and one had just finished working in Hong Kong.  We spoke to them for an hour or so before heading off.

Returning to the area close to our hotel we found a Reggae bar where we spent the early part of the evening having a couple of beers whilst doing some people watching.

A while later with our bellies rumbling we decided to go and check out the hawker stalls (Penang is famous for these) so we walked down the street and found a number of these stalls.  We seated ourselves in some plastic seating next to these and were immediately descended on by someone insisting we had to buy a drink to sit there so we bought a couple of soft drinks. Once the drinks order was put in I headed to various food stalls and ordered some stuff, what it was I wasn’t entirely sure.  However what turned up was pretty tasty and I had not complaints from Shell.

After food, we left but after a few yards down the road we came across another stall where you could buy stuff on a skewer and cook it for yourself in some boiling water at the front of the stall (Fondue Style), so we grabbed a couple of dumplings on sticks and a bit of sauce and got stuck in.

It was now getting a bit late so we thought we would have one last drink in a place called love lane, which got its name as the local rich people used to house their mistresses in this area.  So we stopped for one quick drink before going home for the night.

Day 2 – Beach Day?

No breakfast at our hotel so we took a short walk round the corner where we found a bar that did a reasonable fried eggs on toast.

We had decided to travel up the coast a bit to find a beach, as Shell had been here before on business so we wanted to explore somewhere she hadn’t been.

After breakfast we caught a local bus which after around an hour dropped us in Batu Ferrenghi which is apparently one of the best beaches in Penang.

Arriving in Batu Ferrenghi we found our way to the beach, which was average but was scorching hot and pretty deserted.   As it was so hot we made our way to a nearby café where we had a soft drink (no beers on offer).  Whilst we sat there we watched a few tourist do a bit of paragliding the first of which came down with a hard landing.

As we were at the beach we thought we should make the most of it so we hired some deckchairs and umbrella’s and spent a couple of hours relaxing and reading.  We didn’t fancy a dip as the water looked a bit murky and there were netted area’s for swimming that suggested jellyfish.

Feeling in need of a cold beer we left the beach and walked into the town, briefly bumping into the English girls that we had met the day before.  After looking around for a bit we found a hotel that served buckets of beers so we stayed there for a couple of hours whilst we discussed our future travel plans.

Later in the afternoon we caught the bus back to Georgetown and returned to our hotel where we had a bit of a relax and sleep before going out later in the evening.

In the evening we headed to another area that was famed for its street food and once again we sat on some stools and ordered a number of dishes from the stalls around us.  We enjoyed the lamb Skewers and satay sauce so much we went back for seconds.

Having our fill we headed back to the Reggae bar for a couple of beers before going home to bed.