Penang, Malaysia Travel Blogs

Away from Thailand we sprint!
May 27, 2006 (16 photos)

... e-mail them to get there secret spicy secret sauce, which the name deserts me on, simple creature, big tummy. Malaysia, good, good first impressions, really multicultural, majority Muslim country, but many Chinese, Hindu, Buddhist and Christian, we really ...

Cultural (con)fusion
Jul 2, 2005 (4 photos)

... of near disillusionment with the religious text of the backpacker- the South-East Asia Lonely Planet guidebook. Its exultant descriptions of Penang had left me breathless with anticipation: The 'party town' (where beers cost the same as Sydney and spirits ...

And so on to Penang
Apr 22, 2006 (6 photos)

So on we go We got a bus from KL to Penang (5hrs) and across the bridge to the island. We decided against staying in Georgetown which is the capital, so we got a taxi up to a place called Batu Ferringghi and tonight for about 3 quid each we are ...

Day 63: A Taste of Penang
Jul 23, 2008 (3 photos)

... by now. I arrived in Penang just after dark and found my desired guesthouse without much navigation trouble. Penang is an island in North Malaysia famous for its cheap and amazing cuisine and colonial architecture, and was in fact being awarded UNESCO ...

Penang - Part 2
Sep 14, 2004 (3 photos)

On Sunday 12th September 2004 I went to Palace Payar Marine park, this is near Langkawi Island. From Georgetown we took a ferry to the park, it took about 1 ½ hours to get there, but sitting on the top deck of the ferry in the sun made it a very nice trip ...

happy birthday to me!!
Jul 2, 2008 (92 photos)

July 1 As I write this we are on the 'high speed ferry' (and that's debatable) heading to Penang, Malaysia.  Our Indonesian visas expire tomorrow...US citizens get one month to be here...which is hardly enough to fully explore this extensive chain of ...

Borneo bound!
Jun 4, 2003 (1 photos)

Having decided to stay in Malaysia for more than my original month long tour, I am now going to make the jump from Peninsular Malaysia to Borneo Malaysia this Sunday. This is possibly going to be the most memorable part of the Malaysian leg of this trip ...

Leaving Malaysia...in a minivan
Oct 6, 2003 (5 photos)

... 's sandals smelling like burnt popcorn). So, we started walking the 3 miles back to Ipoh; it got dark and the sidewalks in Malaysia are...inconsistent, which made walking on them a guessing game of "is that a piece of cement or a hole through which I will ...

Back in Penang... and we can't leave!!
Apr 23, 2008 (16 photos)

... Glen Campbell and bizarrely 'Imagine' by John Lennon which was THE worst cover of any song I've ever heard. Ever. Our time in Penang also afforded us the luxury of a stay in the 75 Traveller's Lodge: a very strange little place which seemed to serve as ...

High Tea High Up!
Jun 22, 2004 (10 photos)

... gunpowder rooms. The Fort was on the top Northern corner of Penang so we could see for miles across to mainland Malaysia and up the Andaman Sea. Although Penang is an island it is only 2km from the mainland and is joined by a bridge so doesn't feel like ...

Penang - my first Malaysian island
May 30, 2003 (5 photos)

... have heard of people in Thailand paying double for tours/tickets when not buying from the company/station directly. Penang is the first island that I have visited in Malaysia, and it is vast. Here in the middle of Chinatown there is no way of telling ...

Malaysia - Penang
Mar 2, 2007 (52 photos)

... accommodation just north of Georgetown, the islands capital. You may wonder why we took this route as any map of Malaysia will show that Kota Bharu and Penang are both in the very north of the country, whereas KL is towards the south. The simple answer is ...

Funicular Fun
Oct 17, 2006 (4 photos)

... more listening, to a Moroccan guy who had been here a few years ago and seemed to know a heck of a lot about Penang and Malaysia. For all I knew though he could have been making most of it up, spewing endless tales of imaginative waffle but at least it ...

Finally in Malaysia
Jul 21, 2005

... that we had booked a ferry and busses through one company to take us all the way to a place called Khota Bahru, in the north of Malaysia, right next to the most southerly part of Thailand. It was to be a boat, a bus to a town in Thailand called Hat Yai, ...

Ferringhi Beach
Jun 6, 2003 (3 photos)

... was full of tourists, I saw more here in one afternoon than all week in the whole of Georgetown. Tomorrow is a holiday in Malaysia because it's the King's birthday. "Again?" I hear you say - well with so many Sultans in Malaysia each state seems to be ...

Penang Part 1-11sep 2004
Sep 14, 2004 (5 photos)

I arrived in Penang or "the pearl of the Orient" on the 10th September 2004. Penang lies off of the northwest cost of Peninsual Malaysia and it is beautiful. I arrived in the afternoon at my hotel the casuarina which is in Batu Ferringhi, I have stayed ...

Penang
Mar 4, 2009 (14 photos)

... and places of worship. We visited the House of Dr. Sun Yat Sen. He organised the Chinese revolution from that very house in Penang. Our tour guide produced a movie about him a few years ago and sat us down to watch 15 minute snippets from it. She was a ...

Still in Penang
Apr 23, 2006

... of Georgetown for RM30 per hour so we went for it. Very cool trip - we stopped off at Chinatown, Little India, The Penang Temple and Museum and a few other quaint loking places. Today we decided to be lazy and sit on the beach - temporarily being ...

Another Time Another Place
Sep 7, 2004 (3 photos)

... 9.30 - Bus to Surat Thani 12.00 - Board minivan to Hat Yai 4.00 - New minivan, to Malaysia 10.00 - Ferry to Penang 10.15 - Minivan to Georgetown Just to help things along, in both Surat Thani, and Hat Yai ...

Day 120
Jan 12, 2007 (9 photos)

... in to Georgetown and tried some Roti Canai - like a miniature curry and naan bread. Then I found the night market and had some noodle soup from a Chinese vendor. I'm beginning to enjoy Malaysia's ethnic simply for the food options!    

bamboo needles and Malaysian breakfasts
Oct 7, 2006 (14 photos)

... was quite memorable and I am not going to forget it quickly with a permanent reminder of it on my body. The journey to Malaysia was long and tiring although the border crossing was quick and painless. Penang is an amalgam of Malay, Indian, Muslim, and ...

Temples and Funiculars
Jun 4, 2003 (9 photos)

... itself was very impressive, especially with the green hills as a back drop. Following a lengthy tour of the grounds it was onto Penang Hill for a view of Georgetown. To ascend this hill we had to ride a funicular (a first for me) which was quite novel ...

Food Heaven
Mar 4, 2007 (7 photos)

... clean everything is and how polite the people are. And no one has tried to sell us a single thing since we arrived in Malaysia. Anyway, tomorrow we are off to the beach via a two-hour ferry ride to Langkawi. We are looking forward seeing Malaysia's " ...

city by city
Apr 14, 2005 (3 photos)

... although famed for its cuisine we didnt find anything spectacular, infact most of what we ate was very average and bloody expensive. Penang is not for the backpackers budget, but i'm sure if you were here with a fat wallet then things would be different. ...

Transitioning through Georgetown
Feb 2, 2009 (5 photos)

Pictures from our travels through here...

Farewell Thailand
Oct 15, 2006 (2 photos)

... on a large but dingy room for 15 Ringgit a night I stepped out into the melting pot of cultures that is Penang and Malaysia as a whole with Little India being a stones throw from Chinatown with plenty of Malay in between including a large mosque replacing ...

Backpacking with a flowery suitcase
Jun 2, 2003 (5 photos)

... waited on hand and foot. I could really get used to this sort of treatment! I would love to stay at this hotel sometime, but at RM450+ it was probably not going to be the best way to spend my money considering I want to stay in Malaysia for longer now.

Penang to Thailand
Apr 1, 2008 (3 photos)

We didn't get to see much of the famed beauty of Penang as I seemed to leave KL with a unpleasant stomach bug. The bug as they do in this area killed any appetite I had left for Asian food and left me with a terrible stomach and headache. Ofcourse we were ...

Another taste of colonial Britain and the Chinese
Oct 1, 2005 (13 photos)

After an invigorating stay in the highlands, I left for Penang on the west coast of Malaysia on a wet and dreary day. It must have been a sign of things to come because since then I've had my first real taste of the monsoon. The road to Ipoh was ...

Snakes and expensive drinks
Jan 18, 2006 (4 photos)

Thinking that we had pretty much exhausted all the options in the local area we headed to Kompleks again and got the local bus to the snake temple. Paid over the odds but we had no idea when to get off so it couldn't be helped. You just have to get used ...