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Published: February 6th 2011
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There's a very useful bus in Georgetown, and bonus: it's free! It has
FREE CAT written where the destination would usually be. There's no furry animals on this bus though; CAT stands for 'Central Area Transit', and it travels a circuit all around the centre of the city (
map here). It was this bus that I hopped onto around 7 in the morning after arriving at the ferry terminal, and off we went to Komtar. I knew it was way too early to go to Hutton Lodge, my guesthouse, but figured there'd be a cafe or something there that would be open for me to have a cup of tea and wait for a more sensible hour. Doors were all closed, and the mall itself did not start business until 10. On the bus I met up with an Australian backpacker who didn't have any accommodation booked, so we walked around the 'hostel area' for a while asking different inns if they had any room - each time, no was the reply. After an hour or so of doing this I left him to it and headed over to Hutton Lane and dropped my pack off at the guesthouse - I hope
he found somewhere to stay!
First priority after checking in was to get the ball rolling on sorting out my 60-day Thai tourist visa, as otherwise I'd only get 15 days in Thailand on crossing into the country. There are lots of agents to help with this on Chulia Street, and after reading some forum posts I plumped for Jim's Place. RM20 and two passport photos, and he sorted out the form and gave three of us lifts to the consulate at 9am to submit the forms and passport and 3pm to pick up the passport with shiny new Thai visa stuck inside. Definitely recommended if you're in Penang and short of a visa for your journey north. He also does laundry and I've made use of this service a couple of times since I've been in Georgetown.
It was as well that I arranged the Thai visa when I did, because the consulate closed - as did many of the city's businesses - from 3 to 6 February for Chinese New Year holidays. The night of February 2 was Chinese New Year's Eve. As I sat in the lobby of the guesthouse chatting to one of the
other guys in my dorm, an American named Marcus who was also writing a
travel blog, fireworks began to be let off and we decided to go for a stroll to Chinatown to see them. We heard a lot more than we saw of these, but did see the impressive lit building shown in the photo above.
On Thursday I decided to head up to Batu Ferringhi, where I stayed (at the Holiday Inn resort) when I holidayed in Penang three years ago. Trouble was, half of the population of Georgetown was seemingly also headed that way, and every 101 bus was packed. In the end by going via Tanjung Bungah and picking up a different bus that came from the airport rather than the city I made it there. One thing I did there was to visit the tailors shop, Luvly Jubbly Tailors, where I had some suits made in the past. I haven't had need to wear the jackets very often, but the trousers on the other hand have been essential for work wear since I bought them as I find it impossible to buy trousers to fit me off the shelf. The tailor there recognised me from
3 years ago, and from experience the clothes I've bought from there have fit and lasted well, so I bought 2 pairs of trousers to be posted to the UK. Downside of this: I have to brave the Chinese New Year crowds again the next day to come back for the fitting.
I made it an early start and took the 101 to the end of the line - Teluk Bahang, a pleasant village far less commercialised (no big hulking hotels and tacky markets) than Tanjung and Batu. Instead there's a little beach, reached by going down a track, where I was the first visitor of the day - or at least the first to venture out from the charming little guesthouse overlooking it. The only thing that lets it down is the dirty-looking water; not at all inviting for swimming. I'm looking forward to being able to swim in the sea when I get to Thailand! I thought about going to the tropical fruit farm, but it is too far from Teluk to walk and the bus (501) was only running once every two hours. I saw one sail past when I was in a restaurant having lunch,
so not really wanting to hang around for that long I decided to go somewhere else. If the tropical fruit farm wants more visitors they should have a word with the bus company! I also found out that the butterfly farm (which I
visited three years ago) had according to some tourists I met in Teluk doubled its entry fee since then, so that too I gave a miss. The Tropical Spice Garden it was then. This is an interesting outdoor botanical display of all sorts of medicinal and commercial plants as well as the spices indicated by the name, as well as some small but fairly well-presented exhibits from Penang's history in the spice trade in a little museum. There are several little shelters dotted around the gardens which is just as well because walking around here in the heat is pretty tiring. After a while I moved on to Batu Ferringhi and returned to the tailors.
After two days in which I did a lot of walking around outside, I tried to stay out of the sun during the day on Saturday, and went to have a look around some of the shopping malls around Komtar. A lot of the
Thai Visa Application
At Jim's Place, Chulia Street shops were still closed for the Chinese New Year holidays but by no means all, including some fairly big shops that appear to be dedicated to selling copied DVDs and computer games. One thing I had been looking for was a cheap (no brand name) MP3 player as I left my iphone back in the UK and the headphone port on my laptop is kaput, and I managed to find one here in Prangin Mall. This will be invaluable on bus rides to come I'm sure. I took it fairly easy in the evening, but stayed up long enough to see the first half of Newcastle v Arsenal on the TV in the guesthouse. After less than half an hour Newcastle were 0-4 down and I wondered why I bothered waiting up for it, before retiring to bed at half time...
...I got up this morning wondering if the match finished 1-5 or 0-9. Newcastle's first half performance was so abject that surely a comeback was out of the question. The sports news channel that was playing on the TV at breakfast scrolled: 'Newcastle stage incredible comeback to draw 4-4 with Arsenal'. Astounding! Perhaps later on today I will
find a TV that is showing a replay of the second half - the sports channels quite often show recorded matches during the day.
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christine baty
non-member comment
following your footsteps
Hi Ian, what a great time you seem to be having. The chinese new year photos are great. Your days seem incredibly busy, hope you give yourself a good rest in Thailand. Weather here is not bad at all so we are able to actually do some gardening. Can't imagine your Dad is too happy about that. Will keep in touch. Love, Aunty Chrisxx