Penang Island

posted in: Blog | 0

Welcome to Penang Island

After Cameron Highanads we made our way on another long bus journey to Penang, destination Georgetown.

Georgetown is an old city, it was actually one of the first British settlements in Southeast Asia, filled with old British buildings, the area is a mix of cultures and architecture.

When taking the bus you have two options you get off at Butterworth and take the ferry across or you stay on the bus and get off at the main bus terminal for Penang which is about 20 minutes from the city. We chose to get off at the bus terminal and take an uber to the city centre.

We stayed just outside the centre in a hotel, when booking a place in Georgetown we found that the properties available were quite expensive, plus many had bad reviews for wifi, the hotel we stayed in had really bad wifi luckily we have our wifi device to use as a backup. Georgetown is known as one of the best places for street food, and who ever said that wasn’t lying, street food is everywhere and tastes so good. Our hotel was right next to a street market, but in most areas you will find cheap food. The hard part is deciding what you want to eat.

What did we do in Penang:

Penang Hill

 

Which was about 15 minutes drive from the city. The hill is made accessible by taking the funicular train up to the top, the price is 40RM each for non Malaysians. Low season means we hardly had to queue, which is a plus, so after a short wait we made our way on to the train up to the top. The view from the top is great, something we enjoy is going up mountains to take in the scenery.

At the top there are lots of tourist things to do, most seem to cater for families the only thing we decided to do was the golf buggy tour around the hill, as this would take off the pressure on Sassi’s knee a little and allow us to see more of the area. The tour was 30RM and only lasted about 20 minutes, they claim 2km journey, but the route is 1km long then you just drive back the same way, they explain it in a way that sounds like you go in a circle but this is not the case. There area few view points along the way and some cafes you can drop into. At one of the viewpoints there was a group of deaf people who wanted to take photos with us, well they actually wanted photos with Sassi I just happened to be tagging along…

 

Batu Ferringhi

This beach is situated around 20 minutes from the city, we were able to get there with an uber, it cost around 13RM (£2.25) you can also take a bus. The beach is nice, it makes for a good break from the city, most websites don’t give very much credit to beaches on Penang island so we went with low expectations but it was better than most of the reviews said it would be. There are nice views of the mountains, sandy beach which was mostly clean, it seemed to be mainly locals around, again low season means it was quiet. The only downside was the heavy rain, but that is expected considering October is rainy season. We ended up eating in one of the restaurants while it rained and then had a little walk before leaving the beach.

 

Street Markets

Georgetown is famous for food and quite rightly so, the street food is delicious and spread all over the city. We were able to wander round the different stalls picking up lots of different treats and even had a go at cooking them ourselves in the pot of boiling water next to the food. We never went anywhere with an empty stomach as there was always something tempting us on the side of the street, or clustered in one of the hawker areas.

 

Georgetown was only a short stop for us we didn’t stay long but made the most of our time in the city, there are many more things that can be done and there is a whole island to explore but we didn’t have time for that as we had plans in Langkawi.

 

Penang Hill Video

[kad_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9Trakma4io&t=1s” ]

Check out the Malaysia video FULL

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *