Blogs from George Town, Penang, Malaysia, Asia - page 5

We were woken at the ridiculous hour of 5:50am by chanting on a loudspeaker coming from the mosque down the road. Just as I was about to get back to sleep it started again at 6:20am. Eventually it stopped and we managed to get a little more sleep. We got up, got ready and headed across the road to get our included breakfast. I got baked beans on toast and a bowl of fruit to kick start the day. The buffet breakfast had an amazing spread though, which I would take advantage of tomorrow. From there we jumped on the hop-on/hop-off bus that stopped outside our hotel and headed in the direction of Georgetown. The trip down from Batu Ferringhi was about forty minutes and we got off at stop 9. We had a map and ... read more

Nick: Penang, the island located off the western coast of peninsular Malaysia, was to be the first stop of the last country on our itinerary. After the lazy days spent relaxing in docile Ko Phangan, we were both looking forward to being somewhere a bit busier once again, and following a short international flight from Ko Samui, and taxi ride across the island, by Thursday mid-afternoon we had arrived at our latest accommodation. We'd opted to stay in Georgetown, the neighbourhood located on the northeast of the island, and despite the abundance of guesthouses and hotels in the area, finding a room that ticked all of our boxes at a reasonable rate had proved trickier than expected. Checking into our hotel, we were given an enthusiastic and warm welcome by two guys that worked there, who ... read more

The slow boat from Koh Tao got us into Surat Thani at about 4.30 am, after taking 10hours to go almost nowhere down the coast. We waited for a minibus to take us to the tourist office to pick up another minibus that would take us part of the way down the coast, to a town I believe was called Hat Yai. However, it could have been any town along that coast as we were told nothing and expected to wait around for 3 hours for the next minibus. We finally arrived in Penang in early evening, just in time to get some Malaysian ringgit, get ripped off my a taxi driver and arrive at our hostel, the old Penang guesthouse. This hostel was in the perfect location to access chinatown or little India, both places ... read more

Georgetown is one of those places that oozes charm and character. We are not sure what it was for us; whether it was the laid back sleepy atmosphere, the quainter streets with beautifully intact buildings or more the more rustic, crumbling colonial shop houses; the fact that it had more food cuisines than you can shake a chopstick at (all of which had our taste buds working overtime), jaw dropping street art buried deep within its alleys or its beautiful mix of cultures and faiths all sitting beside each other in harmony. We just loved this town, it had us intrigued and we explored this place with such ease. George-town named after the British King Goerge III is situated on the island Penang and is well known for its UNESCO world heritage label due to its ... read more

Last full day on the island of Penang started again with a lovely breakfast and then heading to the closest bus station - seeing the bus I was after I squeezed myself on it - probably taking twice the amount of passengers it should - but hey, this isn't the UK! So today I was off to the north west of Penang to the national park to do some walking and see some wildlife. I registered at the front desk - just I case people don't return - and map in hand I headed in the direction of monkey island - about an hrs walk around the edge of the park keeping the sea on my right. The path started off very promising - paved, signposted, no litter - things changed - the path quickly becoming ... read more