Penang

August 2005, noon, we departed from Langkawi to Penang, Pearl of the East, and reached the airport 30 minutes later. As a matter of fact, both islands just 1 hours and 45 minutes away by speed boat (made in Sibu, my hometown, yeah!). Of course, you can follow us by air as well.

Anyway, Penang is easier to reach, compared to Langkawi. You can take a bus from any part of West Malaysia to Penang, or you can take a flight either.

Photo taken at Kit Lok Sik, Temple of the Sleeping Buddha, and Botanical Garden.

Penang is a multi-cultural land, thanks to her complicated history. Burmist, Thai, British, Chinese, Indian, etc. Just look at the temples, the cable car at Bukit Bendera (Flag Mountain), The Kit Lok Sik (The Temple of Ultimate Happiness), and Fort Cornwallis, you can name all the founders of the building without much hesitation (of course you might need a little bit of common knowledge as well).

Butterfly farm, Botanical Garden, and Batu Ferringhi complemented with Shopping malls, Penang Bridge (longest in Asian), Toy Museum, and above the rest-food, food and a lot of nice delicacies, make Penang a wonderful island.

The design of Burmist Buddhist and Thai Chayamangkalaram Temple (Both countries occupied the Island once upon a time).

We took a 3 days 3 nights trip(we departed from Penang Airport back to KL at 9 pm), with a stay at The Gurney Hotel, at the Gurney Street. The hotel, 5-star, was not as good as it sounded. RM200++ for studio suite, not a very competitive price. Failing safety box, partial functioning jacuzzi, and impolite receptionists, flawed the beautiful lanscapes, water park, swimming pool. However, the location is good- not far away from everywhere! Well, a 15 minutes walk to the Thai, Burmist, and the Sleeping Buddha Temples (at Burma Road), 10 minutes taxi ride to Comtar, shopping centers, and Botanical Garden. However, it will be a 20-45 minutes away from Kit Lok Sik, Feringgi Beach, Toy Museum, and butterfly farm.

If you have the chance to visit Penang, don't you ever miss their Char Kuey Tiaw (somewhere around Burma Street and Gurney Street), Asam Laksa (Ayer Hitam), Lok-lok and many-many other nice food (sorry, we cannot remember the location anymore). Don't forget, now, Penang is a World Herritage town! We have a very old but effective method to search for nice food around Penang- jump onto a taxi with a middle aged driver, ask him to bring you to the food stall. How about the Malay and Indian or Thai Food? You can try the same method as well (we got a lot of the info about the food from the taxi driver).

We really enjoy the food, multi-cultural herritage buildings, kind and helpful locals there, while dislike the Traffic, lowly maintained Bukit Bendera and Botanical Garden (2005).

For more information about Penang, log on to the Official Penang Website and about Penang site.

Water park at the Gurney Hotel.

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