Penang Accomodation and Food

Penang is a beautiful island. For those who wish to enjoy the beautiful beach in Penang, we would recommend you all to stay at the hotels at Feringghi Beach. Feringghi Beach is approximately 14 km from George Town. If we take a taxi from the town, it will take around 15 - 20 minutes to reach the beach, and it takes longer by bus.

There are several hotels along Feringghi Beach- Shangri-La Rasa Sayang Resort, Holiday Inn, Parkroyal Hotel, Hard Rock Hotel, and Bayview Beach Hotel. We have stayed in Bayview Beach Hotel. As compared to other major hotels, Bayview has the economic advantage, flat screen, bath tub, room with a lot of space to move around (we stayed in Hillview Deluxe), balcony, etc. Location wise, it is a little bit at the western corner of the tourism belt (which Shangri-La Rasa Sayang located at the eastern corner). Bayview is definitely in our recommendation list for those who wish to enjoy a stay by the beach. You can read more about our experience in Batu Feringghi here.

This is how Bayview Beach Hotel looks like from Feringghi Beach.

We had the opportunity to take a look on the room at Parkroyal. 42' flatscreen, mini bar, well decorated with romantic atmosphere, but it is approximately twice the price of Bayview Beach. Parkroyal is located closer to the tourism hot spot of Feringghi Beach, compared to Bayview Beach. Both hotels are 10 minutes apart, by foot.

Both Parkroyal and Bayview Beach have nice pools. Upper left shows the pool at Parkroyal. There are plenty of space to enjoy sun bath (upper right). Room (lower right) and balcony at Parkroyal look nice.

The website of the hotels at Feringghi Beach are available at:

• Shangri-La Rasa Sayang Beach Resort, starting from RM800++
• Holiday Inn Penang, starting from RM290++ (strange, we couldn't find the official website of this hotel, pls. call to confirm the rate, if you wish at +604-8811601)
• Bayview Beach Hotel, starting from RM190++
• Parkroyal Penang, starting from RM400++
• Hard Rock Hotel, starting from RM370+

We stayed at Batu Feringghi for one night, and moved to Chulia Heritage Hotel at George Town. The hotel is small (formerly a mansion). We stayed in a deluxe queen with attached bathroom. The room at the hotel is uncomfortably small, with very limited space to move around. However, it's clean, tidy, with just enough amenity to get a night sleep. Location wise, unbeatable, right in the middle of the heritage site. We came over with some other hotels, which, who knows, might be a good choice as well:

• Chulia Heritage Hotel, starting from RM120++ , rooms without attached bathroom are cheaper.
• Oriental Hotel Penang, starting from RM120++, located at a far end of Chulia Street. It is an old hotel.
• Yeng Keng Hotel, starting from RM300++ (very near to Chulia Heritage)
• Banana Guest House, starting from RM20++ (very near to Chulia Heritage)
• Take a look how Chulia Street looks like on this blog. You can see many guest houses available at Chulia Street, starting from RM20++
• Bayview Hotel George Town,  starting from RM190++, located at Farquhar Street.
• There are many budget hotels available in George Town, starting as low as RM20++. Take a look on the list now!

Penang is famous with it's Char Kuey Tiow, fried oyster, rojak, Nasi Kandar (Kandar Rice), and many more, which made our program at night basically, eating all the way down the street.

Penang Char Kuey Teow (upper row) is one of the most favourite food, for both visitors and the locals. It is offered in many food courts. We favoured the char kuey teow at the outdoor food court at Gurney Drive the most. The food court offers nice Penang Rojak (lower right), tau fu fah, fried oyster, and Penang Assam Laksa. For Nasi Kandar (lower left), or the steamed rice with curry and other side dishes,  Restoran Kassim Mustafa at Chulia Street is a good one.

An experienced veteran is one of the guarantees of good taste. The cook told us that they always run out of oyster after 9 pm. So, if you wish to try the fried oyster at Gurney Drive, you better be early.

Crowdy, crowdy, crowdy, are the three words that we would use to describe the food court at Gurney Street. Do you believe that this photo was taken in a midst of downpour?

Wanton (or wonton) noodle (upper left), wanton noodle with soup and beef (upper right), chendol (lower right), and popiah were some other delicacies that we tried in Penang.

We bought food from the hawkers beside the road once in a while. We ordered Penang Char Kuey Teow from this stall at Chulia Street, when we were on our way back to our hotel.

Fresh fruit juice for sale at Chulia Street! We really like the ambra juice from this stall.

Penang is really an excellent island for a break. Beautiful beach, well preserved heritage, friendly locals, and delighting food. We heard a lot about food around Penang, but well, our stomach do have a limit. We would like to save the rest for our next trip. If you wish to share something about food and accomodation in Penang, you are most welcomed to share them in your comments.

All our sharing on Penang are available at:

[Penang Batu Feringghi Beach] [Penang Butterfly Farm and War Museum]
[Penang World Heritage Site Part 1] [Penang World Heritage Site Part 2]

[Penang Accomodation and Food] [All Our Destinations]

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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