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Published: March 14th 2006
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Sunrise
An awesome sunrise the morning of the hike. February 13th - 19th 2006
This week we started preparing for our trip home at the end of the month. Over the weekend we did two really cool outings.
Saturday we went on a hike to Monkey Beach on the north end of Penang Island. We had no idea that there was a national park on the island! The park encompasses the northwest corner of the island. Some people say Penang Island looks like a swimming turtle, I personally think it looks like a cowhide. In any case the park is the front left flipper/leg of the island. Friends of ours who are leaving at the end of March arranged the trip and invited many of their coworkers; there were at least 25 adults and kids that did the hike. Since there were so many of us we started in staggered groups. We ended up near the back with another woman I know from IWA and her husband, Gricelis and Frank. The funny thing is we bumped into them last weekend at the Thaipusam festival. The trail wasn't too difficult, at first. It followed the coast of the island past many small beaches and inlets, but it also went
Docks
Fishing docks out over the mud flats. over all the boulders and cliff too. We had been told it was a lot of up and down, but they didn't say it was this bad, and the trail had even been improved in some areas so you didn't truly have to scramble over the rocks. We stopped occasionally for water, even at 10:30am it was damn hot! About an hour and a half later we finally reached Monkey Beach, and yes there were monkeys. They were jumping around so I didn't get many good shots. We stopped and talked for a while with some people who were from Portland and then continued down the beach. What a perfect setting!!! It was a beautiful day, nice breeze AND we had lunch waiting for us! Rhonda and Denny, the people who arranged the hike, hired a boat driver to come out and fix lunch for the group and then give us a ride back to where we parked our cars. For $20US I can't believe the awesome service we received. The lunch spread was delicious and after lunch the boat took some people out to go fishing. Others went up to the light house, but we stayed on the beach
Fishing Huts
Floating on the water, I think they had some sort of fish farm out there. In the background you can see Mt. Kedah, the one we would be driving up the next day. and relaxed. It was fabulous. After the fishing expedition came back the boat was ready to take a group back to the cars early. We jumped on and in 5 minutes we were back! So much better than an hour+ hike back! The "dock" was really sketchy, I was terrified that one of the planks would break under me and I would fall into the nasty water. We made it back to dry land and headed home. We had a great time. The only thing I didn't like about the beach was the lack of facilities. It's communing with nature all the way! If anyone reading this is interested in the same package go to the ranger station in Telok Bahang and ask for Raymond. They should be able to hook you up.
Sunday we had an adventure on our own. From Gurney Drive, on the north end of the island, we can sometimes see a mountain (if the smog isn't too bad) and I finally asked around as to what it was. An IWA lady told me it was Mt. Kedah (or Gunung Jerai in Malay). Kedah is the state north of Penang. She told me there was
Dry Dock
See the guy laying under the right side of the boat? No thanks!!! a road leading up to the top. That sounded pretty interesting to us, we did some research on how to get there, and set out Sunday morning. The mountain is about 60km north on the mainland. The drive was very nice and the directions were pretty good, though once we got off the toll highway it became a little more confusing. We were looking for the sign to the park that the mountain is in and missed it the first time, so I turned around and tried it again, but the small driveway was completely taken up by the cars waiting to turn out. Argh! Again I turned around and was able to make the turn, no oncoming cars this time. The little complex at the base was equally frustrating. I'm glad we had been told to drive around the back of the convenience store to get to the road that goes up the mountain. If we hadn’t known that we would have been thoroughly confused. You see, nothing here is simple and straight forward. It has to be confusing or it wouldn't be any fun, right? Finally we were on our way up the mountain. It was forested so
Docks II
Another look at the docks. I can't believe what a great day it was! the drive was nice, though the road was very, VERY narrow in places. After about 30 minutes we reached the top where a little cottage/inn is located. It's very local! We tried asking if this was the highest point we could drive to, and I don't think they really understood. The view was nice. It looked north to a valley below and two little islands off the coast. We were hoping for a view of Penang, but we were on the wrong side of the mountain. We walked around the complex a bit and decided to go. Other than the view there wasn't much to see or do. We were about to leave when we noticed some people coming up from the back of the parking lot. We decided to explore, found a trail and started down it. At first it was nice, the trail was paved, and then it became really steep and turned into dirt and tree roots. Mostly tree roots! We were not at all prepared for a real hike so we went back to the car. Maybe another time we will come up prepared.
We headed home and decided to take the ferry across instead
ANTZ!!!
We carefully stepped over a thick line of ants making their way from one tree to another. of the bridge. I have wanted to take the ferry since we've been here, but have never done it until now, five months into our stay! We found our way through Butterworth (that's the town on the mainland across from Penang island) after taking the wrong exit. Fortunately signage is pretty good here so as long as you know the name of where you are going you should be able to get there. We found the ferry terminal, paid the toll fee and drove straight on to a waiting ferry. The process was so simple and organized, I can't believe it's Malaysian! Soon the ferry filled up and we were off. We climbed up to the upper deck to get a good look at the island. It was a sunny day so it looked quite nice. The ferry moved quickly and in less than 15 minutes we were across and on the island. What we didn't realize is that our car alarm had been going off the entire time we were on the upper deck. Something about the rocking kept setting it off! Even when the ferry bumped into the dock it went off. Very strange.
So that was
Campout
I think you could rent these at one time. Looks like it could have been nice. our little weekend adventure. This coming week we will be getting ready to come home for a visit! Yippie!!!!
Selina & Phil
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triplexpresso
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nice, thanks for the info..
was looking aroud the web for info on monkey beach. nothing useful turned up till i stumbled on this post.. beach looks much better than those along the batu ferringhi stretch of hotels. would definitely try it. thanks for the info!