Penang
Pulled up
on the ferry from Langkawi on time and were treated to a view of the older
Northern bridge to mainland Malaysia (last time I was here, 10 years ago, there
was only 1 bridge connecting Penang to the mainland, now there are 2, a much
longer bridge further south).
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| The older, northern Penang bridge (great photo right?) This is 13.5Km long and its the shorter of the 2! |
Having
consulted google maps, our place was a short hike from the ferry terminal so we
loaded up and took a stroll through the thickening traffic past a public park
and into the Chinatown portion of Georgetown. This part of Penang has loads of
character from its well-worn (and a few very well preserved) shop-houses with
wooden shutters and covered walkway to protect potential clients from the worst
of the rain and more often, the midday sun. Many of which have been given a new
lease of life as guest houses.
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| An authentic Penang Trishaw, a common sight. Often packed with a few Chinese tourists or one fat Westerner! |
We wandered
past one of Georgetown’s landmarks, the old clock tower dedicated to Queen
Victoria. and through the old Chinatown area of Georgetown, centred around a road called love lane. We found Guesthouse Muntri (one of the converted shop houses) without
too much hassle and checked in. Basic but very clean accommodation with shared
bathroom facilities (imagine my horror) coffee on tap 24/7 though so I soon got
over it!
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| Queen Victoria Clock Tower |
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| Ana hanging' out on love lane. |
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| Some new looking traditional style shop houses |
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| And some more |
We settled
in and got chatting with a local guy who worked at a bar just down the road.
Sadly, I think a product of too much interaction with tourists, his topics of
discussion were beer, being bought beer by tourists and his amazing
girlfriend…who bought him beer!
We headed
out for food and just round the corner is a huge food covered court with about
25 stalls selling everything from local fayre to BBQ to sushi. A bewildering
array of choice for the travel weary so we essentially ended up with a few
plates of noodles and a shocking discovery….beer is actually quite pricey here,
noooooo!
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| It's about to get pretty packed in here. I guess we were hungry early today! |
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| Cheers! Note - thats not a beer in front of me. It's a Longan juice :( |
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| Oodles of noodles (I have been waiting to write that for months) |
We had a
bit of an explore around the local area and as we were heading back to our
place Ana got her chance to try a local delicacy, the famed ‘King of
Fruits’ - the durian. A little hesitant
at first, Ana was persuaded by the lure of a free sample. Having tried durian
10 years ago (and I think I can still taste it) I politely declined my sample
and got ready to take a snap of this first experience. I am no David Bailey as
you will be able to tell by now but I really think this picture captures the
essence of the moment. The excitement and eagerness of the stall holder to
share this local taste and hopefully sell some of his wares and Ana’s genuine
immediate reaction as the brain starts to interpret what the taste buds start
to tell it, despite wanting to reject the idea entirely……
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| Hmmm. Durian! Not even if it's free, thanks! |
.
Ana
actually had the nerve to call me a wimp after I declined to eat it again. I invite
you to examine the above picture more closely. Is this the face of someone who
will be chowing down on another durian any time soon? I rest my case!
Back to the
guesthouse as we were both pretty bushed and crashed for the evening. That
evening Karma came knocking and decided to punish me for revelling in Ana’s
suffering at the flesh of the durian by visiting a plague of either mosquitos
or bed bugs on me. Not sure which but I have not had anything like this attack
before in the rest of our travels so who knows….
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| Bite me Penang... |
These
lasted longer than the bad taste of the fruit – although probably not by much!
The next
morning we headed out after a hearty breakfast and headed back to the coast
facing the mainland and explored the clan jetties. Each of these jetties
extends far out into the harbour and people live and work here, either selling
souvenirs to visitors, selling food to anyone or fishing out at sea. These
jetties are living places and despite being built out over water they seem to
still be growing and become quite sprawling as you head along them. Each of
these jetties historically belongs to a different Chinatown clan and were the
centre of their business activities and homes – hence the name.
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| The clan jettie are pretty long flanked by houses on stilts and shops and cafes out over the water. |
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| Chinese lanterns galore |
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| The jetty over there even has a temple built on the end and they are currently still expanding! |
As we were
wandering around the red, lantern filled jetties, we spied another, larger
monitor lizard wandering towards the water with some different markings.
Apparently these are quite common but it will be a while before I get used to
these creatures just wandering around town!
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| Monitor lizard keeping an eye on things |
After the
jetties we headed out to the tallest building in Penang – the Komtar, both the
travel hub for the Georgetown buses and home to a shopping mall and a coffee
for me. Komtar is not such an exciting place but all roads lead here if you are
using public transport. Grabbed some food for a quick lunch and headed out on a
self guided tour of the street art sights that can be found around downtown
Georgetown. Some quirky ironwork cartoons, some aging works of art some of
which have been recently comically altered and some interesting 3D works too.
These are scattered around the place and so many new works have been added next
to the established ones, sometimes it’s hard to know if you have found the
right one or not – but they all look pretty cool. See below:
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| Some cool 3D art on the way to Komtar... |
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| and some more |
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| And just some funky murals |
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| Describing the best of Georgetown |
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| These little wrought iron cartoons were all over georgetown explaining the origin of street names or marking historical spots. |
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| Some of the street art is part of a self guided tour around town |
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| Some of it is quite good |
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| There seems to be a real cat theme going on in Penang too - cafe's bars and artwork. Not really sure why. |
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| The art on the tour map is all quite old and classic style |
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| Some is newer and then some have been added to complement existing art, just round the corner form this huge cat mural is.... |
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| This little guy hiding out! |
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| Sometimes it can be difficult to identify the original art from the newer additions close by. Not so here, this is a 'despicable me' minion pulling a rickshaw! |
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| Definitely original |
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| This is a really cool painting of Bruce Lee, I suspect the cat is a later addition unless this if from a lesser known film? (enter the feline?) |
Back to the
local food courts again this evening for some more food – this time feeling a
little more adventurous and I plumped for the frog porridge. It was really
nice, if a little bony and it tasted like – you guessed it – chicken although
with a subtle earthy froginess in there which I may have just wanted to taste!
A trio of desserts later (I was responsible for buying pudding today and
couldn’t decide) we rolled back to Muntri and I set up my mosquito net and
crossed my fingers that tonight would bring some respite.
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| Hoppy, no happy with a Claypot of Frog porridge |
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| Hmmm...frog...it tastes good! |
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| And a trio of desserts because one is never enough :) |
The next
morning with some additional fresh bites from my entirely ineffective defences
to add to my misery, we hopped on to a local bus to Penang hill, a great place
to look out over Georgetown and the surrounding area.
Full of
enthusiasm and energy we confidently strolled up to the entrance to the hill
and were told we were in the wrong place. This stop is for the funicular
railway only and the route to climb was 2 hours away by public transport
because you have to go back to Komtar and wait for another bus to take you to
the other side of the hill. Argh!
To make the
most of being here we headed across to the giant hillside Kek Lok Si temple instead
to explore and climb many, many stairs. The temple itself is huge and accessed
through a stairway-cum-tourist harassment market that leads up to the quite
impressive structures which include a huge statue over 35m tall of Kuan Yin,
the goddess of mercy (alright – I looked this up). The temple complex itself
consists of a multi tiered pagoda that you can climb to the very top of to get
a great view out over the city and a large Buddhist worship hall. Oh and a
turtle pond. Turtles symbolise long life and wisdom (I think) but they may have
overdone it a little with this small pond of hundreds of turtles being
generally grumpy with each other as there is not enough space and in some
places they are towering on top of one another literally stacked up, I think
that they achieved this themselves. But it is a bizarre sight a little like a
circus stunt. Still, the temple itself was beautiful, well maintained and
offers great views. Well worth a side visit.
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| The Kek Lok Si Temple complex with the towering 35m tall Kuan Yim in its own canopy at the back. It's huge! |
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| Ah, the turtle, symbol of wisdom and long life - very apt |
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| Double parking - is this wise? |
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| Hang on a minute, I think there is an overcrowding problem here - maybe a little over the top! |
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| Impressive temple |
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| Lotta Buddha |
Templed out, we retraced our steps back to Komtar to wait an hour for the next bus to the
correct side of Penang hill. On the right track now we set off at quite a pace
up the 5Km winding road that takes you to the summit, this lasted for maybe 20 minutes as we were now climbing
in the sweltering heat and amongst thick forest greenery making the going very
humid and tough. Drenched at about the 500m mark we trudged up the remainder of
the hill stopping often to take in the view of woodland clearings or a troupe
of monkeys sat by the roadside, waiting to pounce on any unattended food,
cameras, unattended children etc. The trek up the road was hard work but quite
good fun and we managed it in about an hour and 25 mins, just a little under
the 2-3 hour suggested time!
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| These guys were just hanging out by the road. Don't be fooled, they want your food. |
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| Even this one. He might look cute but he's eyeing up my rucksack right now... |
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| Another orb weaver. (I can now recognise these and Oak trees with no problems - thanks Luke) |
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| Lovely views walking through dense forest even though its a tarmaced road all the way up. |
Once at the
top we got to take in the views of the town and see the tremendously long
bridges connecting Penang to the mainland. They really are impressive
structures. The top of Penang hill is quite a large area and is very developed,
there is a mosque, Hindu and a Buddhist temple at the top, as well as an aviary and
plenty of places to eat. There is also a rather random owl museum which as far
as I can tell, despite plaguing the crowds of visitors with leaflets and
pestering. Not a single person seemed to be interested in. Perhaps not the
ideal location for this exhibit….a bit weird. We went for a wander around,
grabbed some local Nasi Goreng and Laksa at the restaurant and as the sun
began to set we hopped on the funicular railway back down and headed into town
for dinner.
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| Right at the top - A Hindu temple, just away from the mosque. |
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| It was a hard climb n the heat of the day! |
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| Ana saw a british flag - she does this every time....weird. |
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| Great view across Georgetown and to mainland Malaysia |
Tonight
dinner was a street stall affair, assorted beige goodies (spring rolls, fried
tofu and Curry pasties) along with 2 plates of Wanton noodles served at light
speed by guys struggling to keep up with the huge demand! Tasty though.
Next day we
had a relaxed start and needed to set some time aside to keep feeding you lucky
folks with the details of our voyage and all of the fun stuff we had been
eating (and do some travel planning)! So we found a local café with WiFi and
settled in for the morning and slogged away over the laptop and phones with
only cake and coffee to keep us going.
Exhausted from our blogging we packed up
a few hours later and caught a night bus into Batu Ferrenghi, the Beach town on
the north of Penang, well known for its night markets and food. We watched the sun
setting on the beach and threw ourselves into the night market, me haggling
(unsuccessfully) for a replacement watch and Ana browsing the tourist tat!
After a fruitless (well, watchless) search we grabbed a seat in a local hawker
market and feasted on assorted Satay sticks, Char Kuay Teow for Ana and a huge Dosa for me
(Ana still won’t touch dosas after the Indian ‘experience’) with assorted
curries on the side. Sat(ay)ed (get it?) we hopped on the bus back to Muntri
for our last night’s insect attack, I mean sleep.
Next
morning we boarded the minibus to take us to our big bus onto the Cameron
Highlands at Komtar station. Boarded the Luxury AC bus and was surprised and
relived – a brand new, sparkling bus with only 3 seats across its width. Brilliant! Comfy onward journey for us then, happy times. Goodbye Penang.
We will be back I am sure, this place is quirky and traditional with plenty of
contemporary amenities to keep you happy. A great mix of people, cultures,
foods and things to do. Miss Baker has a soft spot for this place and I really
enjoyed it too!
