Penang

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Penang

Getting there
After the trip to Bali, I did 2 whole full days of classes before I took off to travel again. It was very last minute, but roundtrip tickets only cost 20 SGD (approx 63 USD). I was invited by 6 other gentlemen, and I was running out of time in Singapore. So once again classes came second and away I went. Penang is an island on the top northwest of Malaysia. It is considered the food capital of Malaysia and it also features the longest bridge in SE Asia at 13.2 km.

I booked my flight later than the rest of my party, so consequently my flight times were slightly different in order to get a cheaper price. So on the flight to Penang, I was with one other person (who also booked a little later than most). We left NTU about 2 to 2.5 hours before our flight, and usually this is plenty enough time to get there. This time however, it ended up being about 3 minutes short of being enough; we missed our flight. It was very frustrating, especially because we got there 3 minutes after they closed check in; furthermore, they hadn’t even started boarding yet and they wouldn’t give us our boarding passes. Anyways, we were still going to go, so we bounced back and forth between airlines to get the best price for tickets which ended up being 68 SGD (not too bad).

Alright, I’m in the middle of finals, 6 of them, and I have a lot to catch up on for these blogs…so this entry is going to be in a less descriptive, choppy format. I’m afraid it won’t be very smooth to read, but I have so much to catch up on because of my traveling. I’ll try and add details where it’s important.
We got there, walked around, waited for the others, had some great Indian food for dinner. Got two rooms at the Blue Diamond hotel, which was filthy. Slept 5 guys between 2.5 beds, pretty funny. Had a few drinks and went to bed.

Day 1
Gave ourselves walk around tour of Georgetown using Lonely planet guide book, they rule! Georgetown has a city hall and a town hall, and they’re less than 15 ft away from each other. ??? Climbed up a lighthouse, I realized I still hate heights. Saw Chinese temple, bat was dying on the floor, poor little guy.
Rented scooters, I was cheap (along w/ two others) and just asked to hitchhike with someone else. I have motorcycle at home, so I paired up with the kid that had never driven a scooter, motorbike, or self-propelled-2-wheeled vehicle. My job was to help him along and teach him a few things. Drove to Penang Hill: British used it to build relaxation houses because between top and bottom there was about a 5-8 C difference in temperature change. Really great view from top, could see the whole city of Georgetown, and the bridge. Saw a guy selling pictures with snakes. He was holding a large cobra and he then pretended to throw it at us. Not cool, he then left the cobra unattended so he could go get a python, and then the cobra started coming towards us, and then we left…at a very brisk pace. Also saw a killer spider, an old cannon, and a “flamboyant temple.”

Went down, used these cars on cable btw, pretty cool. Drove to a huge Buddhist temple: Temple of 10,000 Buddhas. The walls had small tiles with Buddha on each of them. Made it up to a Peace Pagoda, not everyone did because they left too quickly from the temple and got locked out.
Left, rode across the bridge. Really long, stopped in the middle, very illegal! That’s alright, it’s only Malaysia (SARCASM). Two people didn’t stop (we still don’t know why) and we didn’t see them again till we made it back to the hotel. Got ourselves lost on the mainland, during which we stopped for some great dinner. All headed back together, all got separated, and all made it back around the same time. I almost ran out of gas on the highway. Oh yeah, I started driving half way through the day because my pupil was having a tough time maneuvering and I was scared for my life. At hostel we had a few drinks, went to go find a club, got nothing, came back and slept.

Day 2
One of the guys took a bus to the beach, the scooters were scaring him. My pupil was more determined to drive, so I let him, he started to make me nervous so I told him I would ride with someone else because it would be easier by himself, and thank God I did, you’ll learn more later.

We dedicated day 2 to nature. We took the scooters and went waterfall hunting. First 1 required an hour of uphill climbing-BRUTAL AND HUMID, an dit wasn’t a very impressive waterfall. It was a park and one of my buds got chased by monkeys, sounds funny but it was pretty terrifying. Also, we thought it would be cool to take pictures in a tree, but when about 4 of us got up there, we were attacked by flying stinging demons (I think flying ants) and they swarmed us….so I jumped out of the tree 😊.

Second waterfall, made it there after lunch by beach, water looked nice. Went to waterfall, about 20 min. away from the first one. Much better, crawled around and walked in water. Very slippery, good time.
Third water took some getting to. Drove through mountains, gorgeous winding roads. Stopped at fruit farm, I FINALLY found dried pineapple, my favorite. About 45 min total of driving and we arrived at the third waterfall. Best one by far. Bunch of local boys were there swimming and jumping. There were diving into what looked like shallow rocks, but there was about an 8.10 ft. area that went down about 8 ft. I was the first one to try it in our group. Finally convinced 4 others to join me. Amazing. My friend almost died when he was walking across a rock face and slipped, fell down backwards into a pool and miraculously didn’t hit his head. Tore up his foot instead, lucky dummy.

Left, drove through and out of the mountains.. My pupil would have run off the side of the mountain, but he hit a guardrail instead (thank God I wasn’t with him). He banged up his leg but nothing serious; I drove from that point on. Drove through the mountains at night to get back, took about an hour, absolutely amazing experience. There was lightning at 1 point, such a great ride.
That night we successfully went out. Went to a Hookah bar. I tried it for the first time ever, choked bit time my first couple attempts. After I got it going, it was a good time. Hookah, by the way, is just flavored tobacco, it does not get you high (OK MOM?). Met a couple traveling together from…Somerville, MA. I jumped up and yelled with excitement when I heard this. I talke dot them for the rest of the night. Great time to be had by all.

Leaving Day
Going to give this a little more detail because it deserves it. I woke up the next morning thinking that my flight was 11:00, but after checking my confirmation paper I realized it was at 9:30. It was 8:00 when I realized this, so I ran outside and caught a cab. I told the cab where I wanted to go, and he told me the fair, and we took off. 5 minutes down the road he said, “Alright, we just need to take a 5 min. detour to pick up my wife.” This startled me a little because obviously that is not typical behavior for a cabbie. I was in a foreghn country, by myself in this cab. So my imagination started to take over, for all I knew, he was going to drive up a back ally, stop, his friends would come out, hit me over the head, take all my belongings (maybe some organs), look in my wallet and see that I have a huge family and therefore probably not worth much ransom money, then just kill me and leave me in the gutter, and nobody would know because I was by myself.

Obviously this didn’t happen. We picked up his wife, who was a nurse, and then we also switched cars (which was weird) from the taxi to their personal car that they had bought last week. It still had plastic over the seats and floor. I started to think, “they could just kill me right in here and my blood wouldn’t stain the seats because of this plastic…” Terrible thoughts, but I was by myself, so I was kind of freaking out. Instead of that happening though, we had a great conversation, their English was impressive, and it was such an enjoyable ride that I gave him a little extra in the fare (I was also just happy to be alive). That concluded my trip to Penang. I must say the people of Malaysia are very friendly. Probably the trip where I got the most immersed in the culture and people. Ate lots of street food and saw lots of the countryside. It was a very successful trip.

For non-facebook people, pictures are up at:
http://s867.photobucket.com/albums/ab231/gonyaj/Penang/

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