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Published: March 19th 2007
The Perfect Sunset
Definately nothing to complain about with these views from our balcony on the 16th floor in Batu Ferringhi !On the Friday afternoon my Mum and Dad took us to the pier and we said our goodbyes, just a we had done in England a couple of months before.
It was due to be a long journey. The boat left at 4pm, arriving on the main land an hour or so later. From there we got a bus to Surat Thani, then another bus to Surat Thani train station. We arrived at the train station at about 730pm, where we had to then wait for the train which wasn't passing through until 130am, onward to Butterworth in Malaysia. We actually managed to kill time pretty well. Although there was hardly anything there, we did find one little place with Internet access. That lasted till 9pm when they closed and we had to leave, so then we only had 4 or so left hours to kill. We had some dinner, sitting with a few stray dogs at a street stall that had a couple of tables placed in the road. By playing cards at the table after we ate, we managed to make that last a lot longer than we thought we ever would.
In the end the train arrived
late, just after 2am. We boared and it was straight to bed. As the train had come from Bangkok it was quiet on there because everyone that was on board already was sleeping, therefore we felt compelled to keep noise to a minimum. I managed to sleep okay, but although the train was not due to get to into Butterworth untill midday, there was no chance of the lie in I would have liked.
At about 730am everyone was hauled off the train for passport checking at the boarder point between Thailand and Malaysia. Not only do you have to drag yourself off, to add to the effort, you have to take all your belongings with you and join the queue full of sleepy eyed passengers going through customs.
We arrived in Butterworth at about 2pm in the end. Unfortunately the train had broken down roughly 8km from our designation and we had spent over an hour at standstill on the track! I dare say it may have been just as quick to walk that last bit!
Butterworth is the main station in north west Malaysia and is the dropping of point for people going to the popular island of
A common mode of transport in Georgetown.
Had to give this a go, without the flowers I hasten to add. After realiasing the old guy was finding it such a sruggle to move the thing, we decided to give him a break by paying him his money and actually getting out to walk the last part of the journey! Penang. Our designation was Georgetown, the main city in Penang and also the second largest city in Malysia. (I'm fairly sure that's correct). There is a 13km suspension bridge that links Penang to the main land (which is the longest in Asia) and also regular boat crossings. We shared a taxi with a lad called David that we had met on the train. Dave had been travelling for a few months and had just come from Koh Pha Nagn.
We checked into our hotel, which was probably one of the best yet for the money, it was called the Bayview Georgetown. Fairly large and has a really good revolving restaurant up on the 16th floor. We went to it one night. You can eat as much as you like of some fine fine food up there all for about a fiver. It was pretty much like a eat off for me and Rob and I think we both totalled about 7 plates in the end. Anyway, I'm straying, so back to where we are.
After checking in on our first day we took a walk around Georgetown, the first thing we noticed was how much hotter it was to
Morning All!
Only five minutes after this early morning picture was taken, we were all turfed out of the train, luggage in hand, for passport control!! Thailand, and that's not to say that Thailand was cool by any means. From speaking to a few of the local taxi drivers they all seemed to think it had recently been reaching late thirty's each day for the past couple of weeks. Georgetown has a large population, apparently approaching nearly 2 million people. Malaysia was part of the British Colony until 50 years ago, and you can see evidence of British architecture all around. There are some really fantastic British buildings kept in great condition throughout the town, but having said that, there are also probably nearly as many that have been abandoned and left to decay over recent years.
We walked through the bustling streets under the hot sun and eventually came to Georgetown's main shopping centre, Pranging Mall. A five story centre, packed with people, loud music and many shops. In there we had some local cusine, costing a whole 1 pound, before taking the walk back.
That evening after a quick rest to catch up on what little sleep we had had the night before, we headed out to see Georgetown by night. We had agreed to meet up with Dave, who was staying in
a place just round the corner.
Just like all first nights in a new place, there was a fair amount of walking around, checking out the areas of where to be. After a while we found ourselves in the area of Little India, where we had a meal of Tandoori Chicken, costing about 1.50, including drinks. It was pretty dam good too, well I thought so, Robs not keen on Indian so hated it.
After we ate we walked for a bit and discovered that the main nightlife seemed to be around the area we were staying. Although when I say nightlife, it was no where on the same scale as Thailand. It was a Saturday night so as busy as it was going to get. After drinks in a couple of bars, we decided to get an early one and head back to the hotel. As we got there we noticed that there was a club in the basement, which was free to us a we were guests of the hotel. Thought it would be rude not to visit, so our early night was slightly extended from what we planned.
We had four days in Georgetown, which
I would say was about right to see everything, realistically three would have done the job too. Over looking Georgetown is Penang Hill. A mountain that reaches roughly 800 metres at the highest point. This a very popular tourist attraction to the visitors of Penang, and once your up there you can see why. With view reminding us of Hong Kong, (obviously with a slightly less dramatic skyline) this is an awesome sight to see. A tram takes you up to the top, with a total journey time of half and hour preciously. It changes half way up to another train, and at the time I thought we had reached the top as you can't really see the mountain behind you due to the thick growth of trees on the hill. Once your up there are a few walks you can do, and looking over the over side of the mountain gives you an excellent view of the rest of Penang Island.
On our last day in Georgetown, we had to spend a certain amount of time sourcing further accommodation. We were planning to move over to the world famous beach ares of the Island, Batu Ferringhi. This is
The Penang Hill Tram
Taken on our decent, this tram climbs around 800 metres, and takes half an hour to reach the peak. about 20km away along the North coast road. Our plan was to take a taxi over there, look around for somewhere to stay and then come back later that day. On the way over we were taking to the taxi driver about this and he said he knew just the place for us. Just as you enter the town there is a massive building on the left hand sign called Sri Sayang Serviced Apartment's. Taxi guy took us to reception and we went in to check it out while he waitied outside. They had a couple of rooms avaliable up on the 16th floor, so we took a look. Won't lie to you, the rooms weren't the best in terms of decor of comfort, but they were certainly big enough. With two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, lounge and balcony with awesome views overlooking the sea, we had bags of room and all for about tenner a night! Now that's good value! They also had a nice pool on the ground floor which pleased me immensely. We booked up for our stay there which was to be about 6 nights then headed back to Georgetown, happy that all was sorted
Komptar Views
Being the tallest building around, sure has its plus's when taking in the views for the next day.
Later in the day we took a trip to the Komtar Building in the centre of town. Standing at 230 metres/ 65 floors tall, it dominates the skyline of Georgetown. For about 10 ringgits, that's roughly about 1 pound fifty, you can go up to the viewing platform on the 60th floor. Now the Komtar isn't a particularly attractive building. Built, in, im guessing probably around the late 60's early 70's it's in a overdue need of a revamp. Unlike other tall buildings ive been up before with their flashy elevators and a certain level of organisation about them, going up the Komtar was a slightly different affair. As the building also serves as a dated shopping centre at ground level it took a while to actually find the lifts and the main entrance point to the top. In the end we kinda stumbled across what looked to be some old service lift, sign posted "viewing platform". On calling the lift it finally arrived and some poor old guy whose job it was to sit in the dingy lift on a stool all day welcomed us aboard. Well I say welcomed, he sort of looked
Back streets in Georgetown
Just one of the many small local streets Georgetown has offer at us and pointed up, we got the drift and forgave him for his lack of conversation. I dout I'd feel that chatty if I had to spend all day couped up in there either!
When we got to the top we were the only people there, except for a couple of staff members, and a guy doing some maintenance work! Up there the views are really quite special. Although it's by no means the tallest building in the world, it's still pretty high. It also has the added bonus that, unlike many other larger cities, there are no other tall building that close by to block the outlook, so the views are unspoilt the whole 360 degrees.
Batu Ferringhi
The next day we set off for Batu Ferringhi in the morning. We took the same taxi guy as the day before. He had made a point of saying he would be available to take us. There are so many Taxis in Penang so it didn't matter to us, but sure enough he was waiting outside when we checked out ready to take us.
We chilled out the first day by the pool, which is what most people
in Batu tend to do. Later in the afternoon we took a walk through the town, but is very quiet during the day. Many of the shops and resturants don't open till later on because it's simply too hot and dry during the day time. Night is when it really comes to life with the various restaurants and a huge night market, that stretches about 2kms down both sides of the road. Here you can get pretty much buy what ever you require in terms of fake goods. Watches, jewelry, Cd's, clothes, perfume, and various souvenir stores to name a few, all trying to out do each other in terms of sales, knowing that if they don't make the deal with the customer there and then, the next store will do!
We spent a couple of nights after dinner up and down these street, before being all Marketed out a day or two later.
With a couple days left in Penang we hired a car for the day to enable us to drive round and see the other parts of the island. There's no Avis or Hertz renta car here. You get what your given, from some small place,
Island touring in style
Well okay, maybe not style, but the touring parts true! that problably has about two cars on fleet. We were given a battered up old Proton with a couple of hundred km on the clock. It had air con though, and trust me that's the first thing we checked worked when getting in! Protons are manufactured in Malaysia and probably account for about 80% of cars on the roads here, and I think ive now seem enough of them to last me a lifetime! We drove the island over the course of a day stopping at various sights and taking photos before looping round to through Georgetown for dinner, and then back into Batu.
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