Georgetown Hotels
|
  | |  |
Georgetown, Penang
Entry 36 of 74 | show all | print this entry |
|
Our bus from Hat Yai took us through an easy peasy border crossing into Malaysia to Butterworth where we hopped on a ferry to the island of Penang. Georgetown is the biggest town on Penang and is diversely populated with Malay, Chinese, Indian, Baba Nonya - so many nationalities live here than it's hard to keep up! The town is a colourful bustling array of people where China Town and Little India sit side by side. Everyone is friendly and welcoming and you feel very comfortable wandering around exploring, despite the fact that there aren't that many other westerners around.
We stayed in China Town, at The Love Lane Inn on Love Lane (loved it!). Our landlady was really friendly and helpful and our room was cheap at 20 RM a night (about 4 quid).
When we'd settled in we headed out to explore and came across, totally by accident, a Pizza Hut. Somehow we ended up going in and eating lots of amazing cheesy goodness (don't know how that happened!) and after checking out the shopping centre next door, found a cinema on the top floor and ended up watching Definitely Maybe - a bit of a chick flick but it was nice to watch a movie - it's been so long! It was a very weird feeling, though, when the film ended and for a moment we forgot where we were! I was ready to leave Leisure World, jump into my Micra and head home via Waitrose for dinner! It was a bit of a shock when we remembered we were in Malaysia - reality hit when we walked out of the cinema into a wall of heat with the mosque bells ringing calling people to evening prayer. When we went back to the hostel we'd been locked out (it was only midnight!) and had to wake someone up to let us in - ooops!
The next morning we slept in (despite the fact that our mattress was made of springs), had some noodles for breakfast/lunch then went to visit the Cheong Fatt Txe Mansion - an awesome building built in the 1880's by Cheong Fatt Tze, a local merchant trader who left China as a penniless teenager and eventually established himself a vast financial empire, earning himself the name 'The Rockefeller of the East'. The mansion is supposed to promote good feng shui and our eccentric guide, a Chinese lady in her 80's wearing a Hawaiian orange shirt and lipstick on her teeth, was only to happy to tell us all about it! That evening we did our typical 'walk round for ages being hungry trying to find somewhere to eat' thing (in the rain) and stumbled across a local food court next to the river. We got a few stares and none of the menus were English but we managed to get ourselves sorted with some chicken and rice thanks to the friendly guys working there. On our way back we walked past a nice looking Indian restaurant with a huge selection of sweets and pastries outside which we (ok I) sampled a few of! No idea what they were but there certainly were not low fat!
The next morning we slept in (again!) then caught a bus and then a funicular train up to Penang Hill where the views over the island were fantastic. There were some cheeky monkeys waiting for food and some hilarious Asian tourists trying to have their photos taken next to them. As soon as they got close the male would bare his teeth and the tourists would run! There was a thunderstorm over some of the island which we got a view of from the hill, including some lightning which was awesome. Not so great when the rain hit us though so we ventured back to town. We went back to Little India to the Indian restaurant with the yummy cakes, for dinner this time and had a good meal (no idea what it was but it was tasty!) No room left in bellies for pudding tonight.
The next day we caught a bus to the nearby town of Batu Ferringhi to check out the beach. There wasn't much going on so we didn't stay too long. When we got back we checked out the Penang Museum and learnt about the history of the island. Had another awesome curry that night (although Will's was better than mine - yes he gloated) then wobbled our big bellies to the internet cafe for more catching up. Leaving Penang tomorrow - off to the capital - Kuala Lumpur. More thumbnails ...
|
|
If you like this entry, search for other entries from Pinang, Malaysia or try a new search. |
| |
Back to Entry - Back to Home
|
8 votes 
