PENANG - BATU FERRINGHI

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14.12.08

Km travelled 20854

Our stay in Penang is close to its end. I'll be very honest, it's a place I definitely won't recommend.
The journey from Koh Samui has not been the most pleasant. It's been actually fine up to Hat Yai, then we got on a mini bus with an horrible driver, on an endless struggle to reach Penang.
It was already past nine at night when, after long queues and continuous changes on the way to drop off people here and there, he left us in an unknown street of Georgetown and went away without even a word.
Fortunately a Buddhist taxi driver came across and accepted to take us to Batu Firringhi. We're staying at Baba's Guesthouse, the cheapest place we found, but still expensive for what it is.
We choose Penang for a very simple reason. It was the only affordable place we could find on the West coast of Malaysia, and being the East coast under the rain of the monsoon, there wasn't much choice.
I can't say that we had a bad time here, because really, it's hard when you're doing nothing. But there's a number of reasons why we didn't like it, therefore we wouldn't recommend it.
Let's start with the beach. The beach itself is nothing special, a narrow stripe of sand with a big step running in the middle dividing a top part where tables and deckchairs sit, from the lower one where you can lay on the sand. It's crowded, mostly with Malaysian people on holiday. They're a mixture of ethnic groups, but easy to recognize, they're all dressed. I've hardly seen any wearing a swimsuit or similar. Even when swimming in the sea, they're dressed like to go out for dinner.
The sea is quite dirty and dotted with boats and jet-skis anchored by the beach. The whole atmosphere is of an amusement park. It's hard to just lay down and relax. Horses and quad bikes are going up and down the beach all the time, while jet-skis and boats, pulling people paraponting, run around in the water, sometimes a bit to close to the swimmers.
If you want more, everything is quite expensive, there's a bad smell everywhere, and we noticed a decrease in friendly people. Needless to add that the place is, over and horribly, developed.
Georgetown has nothing more than this, plus we made an excursion to what they call 'botanical garden' because Mike was anxious to see all the monkeys, and we found them being fed in a field of rubbish.
I forgot to mention the mosque, from whose speakers clearly comes the prayer three times a day, including one at six in the morning.
Now we're sitting in our room while the heaviest rain I've ever seen is pouring on the tin roof. Sunny days are gone!

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