jarno’s / trul’s page

Pulau Pinang (where Pulau means island) is an island off the northwestern coast of Peninsular Malaysia. It was listed by UNESCO in 2008 as a World Heritage Site. Most inhabitants of the island live in Georgetown, the biggest – and capital – city on the north-west of the island. Founded in 1786 by British trader Francis Light, Georgetown was one of the three Straits Settlements along with Malacca and Singapore. Modern-day Georgetown is one of Malaysia’s largest cities with 600,000 inhabitants.

Penang is known for its cuisine, reflecting the Chinese, Nyonya (descendants of late 15th and 16th-century Chinese immigrants), Malay and Indian ethnic mix of Malaysia. In addition to this, it is also influenced by the cuisine of Thailand to the north. On the left its me eating a local desert speciality: Ice Kachang.

I checked out of Blue Diamond the next morning – on my way to search a better place. I found a place called Red Inn. It is a fairly new guest house on “Love Lane”, one of the two backpacker streets in Georgetown. Here I booked a bed in their air-conditioned 4-bed dorm for RM28 (a bit less than 7 euro). This included breakfast, and free water, coffee, tea during the day. Francesco checked out too and moved to another guest house because RM28 was too expensive for him he said.

During that day I explored the city together with Francesco, seeing most of the tourist sights in town. This was the first time in a while that I had a tourist map of a town again. When walking through little India we came across a street food vendor where we tried lots of different Indian snacks: Samosa, which is a puffed fried pastry snack which can be filled with e.g. Chicken, Veggies, or Tuna. I tried all of them and liked the Tuna one the most. He was selling green bean and union balls too but they tasted a bit too dry.

In the evening I met up with Stephanie, she lives on Penang and I met her ages ago on a travel website. She took me around the north side of the island by car and we grabbed a white coffee at Old Town Coffee. I had one white coffee before. I really had to get used to its (weak) taste, especially after being used to the coffee in Vietnam, famous for its strength. The hazelnut white coffee I had was quite good though.

The morning afterwards I met two new guys in my dorm: Jan, a Dutch guy and Emrys from Australia. I showed them around, seeing all the tourist sights again, including a few new ones like the Jetty village (not really worth seeing, skip it if you do not have a lot of time).

In the evening Stephanie picked me up from the guesthouse and we went for dinner at some hawker stalls. Hawker stalls are the cheapest and easiest way to eat in Penang. There is loads of them, mostly on walking distance no matter where you are. We ate: koay teow, chee cheong fun, wan Tan Mee, and fried oyster. I liked the koay teow the most: it is a noodle dish, made up from flat rice noodles, whole prawns (and lots of other things..).

Jan left the next day, he was heading to the Perhentian Islands on the east side of the peninsular: a popular scuba diving destination. He will be in Kuala Lumpur around the same time as me so we will meet up again there. Emrys was checking out too: he was going to go couchsurfing (sleeping at a locals’ place) for his remaining stay in Penang. So that meant I had the whole dorm for myself.

That day was quite a lazy day at the guest house, sorted some pictures of Vietnam since I was still not finished with that. Here I met a girl from Germany, Laura, who was looking for a new place to stay. Spend the evening with her, drinking a few beers and walking around: there is not that much to do in Penang by night (just eat, as Stephanie said too :-p). I wanted to go to the national park for some light trekking and to see the turtles which were supposed to be there too. Laura decided to join me the next day.

We took local bus 101 for RM4 (1 euro) early in the morning, which dropped us off at the national park entrance after 1.5 hours. We registered as visitors at the office and we went in to the park without having to pay anything. I was a bit amazed that it was free because I expected to a pay admission free. After a sanitary stop at the office we set off in to the park. It took us a bit more than an hour to get to the west side of the park, where there is a meromictic lake: a lake with multiple layers of water which do not mix. The salty sea water, being more dense, remains at the lower level, while the less dense, fresh water will remain on top. The sea water remains warm while the fresh water remains cool. Pretty cool. It was low tide when we arrived which made the lake small.. and I wonder if there were still two layers of water, really.

Pantai Kerachut (also known as turtle beach) is a less than 10 minute walk away from the lake. It is a great place to see and relax at. There is practically no one. We saw a few local fishers and that is about it. There is a few little buildings near the beach. The one on the far end of the beach is used as a little museum. The gate was locked but the back entrance was opened so we walked in. In front of the building – behind the gate – there was a big box with a netted cover. Inside there were loads of little turtles trying to find their way out. I have got no idea how old they were, though they were really small. We read the documentation in the little museum which told that the mother turtles come at night to lay eggs on this beach. There is a possibility to stay overnight here but I did not have anything with me, just water and my camera, so we decided to go back to civilization: Georgetown. We hiked back, this time me chasing Laura, which made our pace way faster because I did not need to wait every time (:-p). Arriving back in the city we went to Little India to get some Samosa from the same stall since Laura never tried them before. In the evening I had Koay Teow soup, which is a very basic – but nice –  noodle soup served with fish balls in it.

Another day passed, being quite lazy, skyping home to my parents to see how my grandma was doing. She fell down and broke her arm and was being moved from hospital to elderly home to another place again. The moving was a bit too much for her. She had no appetite and was not eating, which made her even more weak. She turned 90 last January. Good to hear through Skype that she was doing a bit better now.

I walked around through the city and had a very nice Wan Tan Mee soup. The soup was much better than the dry version I had from the hawker stall the other day. Being a bit tired and lazy I was sitting on the sidewalk having a coke and looking at the map, trying to find a spot which I did not visit yet. A random old guy stopped to offer me help: he thought that I was lost. The people are so nice here and his English was so good.

Finding a spot on the map which I did not capture on a picture yet, made me take the bus to the east of the island where Penang Island is connected to Butterworth by a  13.5 kilometer long bridge. Here I chilled some with a cold drink in a tiny park next to the sea. After taking the pictures from the bridge I wanted – some including airplanes heading to the airport on the south of the island – I headed to Queensmall located just next to the tiny park where I was sitting. Stephanie is working close to that mall and I met her here for a coffee in her break. At 7pm she had to go back to work: welcome to the mess of working for a company operating in multiple time zones. I walked through the mall in the need for a few new shirts. I bought 3 shirts for RM50 (12 euro). A obviously gay guy was more than happy to help me in his shop.

Now I was already 5 full days in Penang and I saw everything interesting on the north side of the island. This made me decide to take a bus to the south of the island where the War Museum is located. The trip by bus took about 1.5 hours, starting from the bus station at Komtar. It started raining half way. When the driver dropped me off near the war museum it was pouring like crazy. I searched shelter at a house where I waited for the rain to stop.

While waiting for the rain to stop a lady from Hawaii came by. She was supposed to fly from Penang to Langkawi – an island close to the Thai border – but her airplane was not able to land here due to bad weather. They decided to fly back to Penang since it is close. I joined her for the museum. I can be short about it. It is quite a useless museum with too much literal descriptions (like the one on the picture). For this you have to pay RM30 which is so much more than the rest of the “attractions” on the island. I suppose they think that if you travelled all the way to the south of the island and walked up a little hill to get to the entrance, you will not decide to leave without visiting the museum, no matter what the price will be. On the way back I waited 45 minutes for the bus back. I was starving and there were no food stalls close by.

In the evening I joined a British guy –  Keith – currently living in Indonesia with his wife and kids for dinner. He was in the same dorm as me: a entertaining guy. He is living close to Lake Toba. With its length of 100 kilometers and width of 30 kilomethers, it is the largest volcanic lake in the world. and I will go and visit him in November when I am in Indonesia!

The next morning I booked my bus ticket (RM40, 10 euro) from Penang to Malacca, located in the south of Malaysia. My bus left a bit after 10pm on its 8 hour journey to Malacca.

Do:
Get some food flyers and try everything on there :p
Visit Penang National Park (and the turtle beach, Pantai Kerachut)

Don’t:
Go to the Penang War Museum
Stay at Blue Diamond Guest house (unless you really want to do it on a budget)

Ps. thanks for showing me around for a bit and nice to meet you Stephanie and see you again somewhere on this world. :p