Blogs from Penang, Malaysia, Asia - page 8

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

Hello Everyone, We slept in today, as there are no windows in the dorm. When we woke up we has breakfast, which was free with the hostel-unlimited toast, watermelon, and tea and coffee, definitely makes the £5.60 each/night worth it! They also have a cold-water dispenser, which means we don’t have to buy water for a few days J always thinking about saving a few pennies! So we decided to walk around Georgetown today to find the famous landmarks with the map we had from the hostel. These included mosques, temples, the famous public artwork, street markets, little india, china town, and then ending up in the Fort Cornwallis. Fort Cornwallis was interesting (but probably not really worth the money to see it tbh) as it had many of the original structures and features to when ... read more

1/2-15: Got up early and took the ferry to Penang, 3 hours very bumpy ride but it was over fast. We arrived and walked to our guesthouse Cintra Siam which is in a very old colonial building that looks really cool inside and filled with old antique furniture. 60 RM per night (shared bathroom) Went out for lunch, ended up at subway - we will make up for it at dinner. Then we went for a walk around the city, loads of cool houses and areas! Found a guesthouse where we could get rooms for 35 RM because it wasn't completely ready for customers yet - moving tomorrow! After that we went to a cat cafe but it wasn't that good, almost ended paying twice because the cashier was confused and the cats didn't have enough ... read more