Day 5 - Johor to Penang

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Our day started early with our alarm set for 5:35am to have quick showers and check-out for our drive to JB Senai International Airport for our Air Asia flight to Penang.
We made good time on the drive there and had organised to meet the Europcar representative there at 7:00am. Finally after a few laps of the airport we found him, handed over the keys and he did his standard check. There were no dints or scratches at all caused by us which was pretty impressive all things considered. We checked the mileage before getting out and noted we'd driven a total of 564kms.
We had already checked-in online, just had to print our boarding passes and bag tags and drop our bags off which was all a very smooth and easy process.
Then we went to the screen to see our departure time and gate and noticed that it wasn't on the screen. We got a tad concerned we were at the wrong airport or something so made our way back to the Air Asia girl and she called through to check the gate number for us; gate 2, phew, right airport.
We went briefly out the front so Bec could have a smoke then made our way to our gate. We had about 30mins before boarding but happy we were early instead of late.
The flight to Penang is pretty short, only about 55mins. The captain advised as we were about make our decent that Penang was very hazy and had a visibility of about 1km so we would land if we could see the runway.. Mmm comforting.
We collected our bags pretty quickly and made our way to the taxi rank. It was only 74MR (approx $23AUD) for the one hour taxi ride north to the Holiday Inn Resort Penang.
Even though we were early, we were still able to check-in, which was great. So we dropped our bags, changed into other clothes and made our way to check out the rest of our hotel. We found they had a cute little gym, a nice, big restaurant next to the pool and our very own Boost Juice bar in the lobby of the hotel. I got myself a juice and we made our way on foot down the main road to explore the local area.
We very quickly came across a massage place where they had half hour foot reflexology and 10mins shoulder massage for 25MR ($10AUD).
We made our way back to the hotel restaurant for some lunch, where I was able to get a very nice and authentic Beef Rendang dish for lunch, Bec got vegetarian spring rolls. From there we took a walk down the beach, and eventually cut back to the main road through another of the big resorts where the lifeguard there invited us to come back to use their pool whenever we wanted.
We slowly made our way back to our hotel where we put on our ‘active wear’ and made our way down to the gym. I did 12mins on treadmill covering 1.2kms, and then did 2kms on the bike at an incline, as well as some sit ups before I called it quits. While we were in there, a person dressed in a Panda suit came up to the window waving like a crazy person; so random.
After that we made our way down to the pool where we got a few drinks from the bar and had a little bit of R&R. Next we made our way back to the room, where we freshened up and had some pre-drinks while doing some washing in the bathtub. Then eventually we made our way in search of some dinner.
We walked down the street, in the other direction this time, where we came across a little place doing Malaysian Cuisine called Boatman Restaurant.
It was such a cute little restaurant, family run and set a little bit back off the main road. The food was crazy cheap and the service was pretty quick. I got a dish of char kuey teow which I’d been in search of since arriving in Malaysia, but hadn’t been able to find anywhere. Bec got a plate of fries and we also got some giant vegetarian spring rolls to try, as well as a can of coke each. All up this only cost us 25MR (so about $8AUD).
After we’d made ourselves sick on the delicious food we walked all the way down the main street toward the night markets. I’ve always known that I’m not made for bargaining with market people, but I think I did pretty well this time. I bargained a little portable bluetooth speaker down from 110MR to only 60MR. That was really the only thing we purchased for the night. We walked all the way to the end of the markets before turning around and making our way back to a little place called The Wooden Bar for a nightcap.
It’s a cute little bar and the staff are very friendly but the bar itself was empty. We made it back to the hotel around 10:00pm and we were back in time to watch the movie The Best of Me. That finished at about 11:45pm and that was when we crashed.

Total Steps: 23,179
Total Kms: 18.07

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