Penang
19th to 22nd April
It is impossible to travel onwards from India through Myanmar (war), or by sea (no ferries with added pirates). We had to take a plane to go east – a four hour flight to Kuala Lumpur, and a seamless transfer to a domestic flight to Penang.
No queues, no fingerprinting, no paperwork at passport control. This contrasted with our departure at the end of our stay, where there was a long queue to leave the country, and then we were fingerprinted.
We arrived in Penang at just gone 10pm, 2.5 hour time zone ahead of Bengaluru. Just as we were beginning to get anxious at the baggage carousel, our rucksacks arrived. We were met by our booked driver and sped off to our hotel on the beach in the outskirts of George Town, about 45 minutes away. We arrived just in time to cajole the bartender to pour us a glass of wine each – that was our dinner!
Whilst we knew that Eid fell on Friday, we arrived on Wednesday evening just before a four day holiday weekend, so the flight, hotel and roads were very busy.
Lynne thinks that it’s probably over thirty years since she last visited Penang on a business trip, and it was unrecognisable with all its high-rise buildings. Our hotel had 31 floors, with an infinity pool on the tenth floor. We had a room on the 21st floor with a double aspect looking up and down the coast, across to the Penang peninsular and across to the Penang Hills.
We decided to do some sightseeing in George Town one day and visit Penang Hills the next.
George Town
Our taxi dropped us off at the George Town Esplanade, a twenty minute journey. The roads were now pretty empty, due to the holiday.
A fresh wind blew from the sea, flags flapping and the sun glinting in the waves. It was empty of people and cars, as we found our way to Fort Cornwallis. This is a previously stockaded, but now stone-walled fortress with a number of now peaceful rusting cannons (one Dutch one dated 1603) and a lighthouse.
I spy no enemy …on the warpath…
We wandered about taking a few photographs. We admired the statue of Penang’s founder, Francis Light, modelled after his eldest son, as there are no records of what Francis looked like.
The old colonial buildings were really lovely – well maintained, as most of them seemed to be owned by banks! We wandered the empty streets until we turned into the smaller side streets in the ‘little India’ and ‘Chinatown’ quarters.
Here we found a pharmacy to buy some extra sun lotion and anti-mosquito spray. Popping into an Indian food shop yielded some dates, and, brilliantly, Lynne spotted a sewing shop, which provided a paper tape measure. This turned out to be essential, as we needed to know the total linear length (width, length and height) of our luggage, in order to be able to book trains in Japan!
The empty streets that day in George Town was a lovely contrast to our Indian experiences, but we had just one little problem…. Having found, on our city map, that there was a taxi rank by the bus station, near the ferry terminal, we thought our return journey to the hotel was secured.
However, when we needed to leave, not only were there no taxis, but the taxi booking office was empty. We briefly considered taking a public bus, but there were no route maps, no timetables and nobody to give any advice.
Hailing a taxi was also an unfruitful solution – none of the taxis we had seen look like an actual taxi! They all look just like any normal car. And the roads were desolate!
Desperate measures were called for, as Lynne had a video appointment booked. We found a nearby hotel and fell upon the mercy of the receptionist, who took pity on us, and called for a taxi, to take us back, just in time for Lynne’s appointment!
We decided to find somewhere local for dinner. This proved quite challenging on two counts. There was a famous street food market right next to the hotel, but our pharmacist was quite strict in telling us to avoid street food. Secondly, crossing the highway in front of the hotel, would need us to walk quite far in the wrong direction to find a pedestrian bridge.
So we went to a nearby shopping mall, which had a food court – crowded. We plumped for Hans’ deli and cafe where the food comprised what the locals would eat and was very cheap!
Back at the hotel, it was apparent that they were not accustomed to serving wine as we struggled to order a glass of white wine. However when we finally got what we wanted, it was much better that the red wine they brought us in error! The hotel seemed mainly frequented by Chinese; the breakfasts were fantastic, but their knowledge of wine less so…
Penang Hills
We left relatively early to catch the funicular mountain train to Penang Hills, and managed to get ahead of the queues. We bought a one-way ticket to the top, planning to walk down all the way, to the Botanical Gardens. Last time we were on a funicular was in Tignes in February. Here it was much warmer and greener than in the snow.
On a less hazy day, the views would no doubt be really spectacular, but at least there were breaks in the clouds and mist when we could see George Town and Penang! We noticed how much more well- tendered the Hindu temple was here at the top. We enjoyed a coffee in a magnificent restaurant, high up, but at a steep price.
We walked down the hill through the rainforest, away from the crowds. We were mostly on the steep jeep track, but found a narrow bypath which was most enjoyable. It was so quiet that that we nearly had a very unpleasant encounter with a scorpion. We did’t take any photos, as that wasn’t uppermost in our avoidance strategy!
We stopped for a small picnic, but even that seemed fraught with danger. We’d taken some “half-boiled” eggs at breakfast – they would have been easier to eat with an egg cup and spoon, so we left an enticing trail for any large insects to find us!
It was a tough, steep 2-hour walk down, in the heat and humidity, with a 30 degree descent, but we felt we needed the exercise and practice for our planned hikes in Indonesia. And we did enjoy it.
Once at the bottom, we thoroughly ravished a couple of cans of cold soda drink at the Waterfall Cafe, for one-sixth of the price of two coffees at the summit!
We walked around the Botanic gardens, where there were monkeys and a couple posing for their wedding photos, she in her long white wedding dress and he in a light pink jacket. We were a picture of sweat – how did they look so cool?
Our next challenge was arranging a taxi to take us back to our hotel. The driver who had taken us to the funicular had given us his card, but we couldn’t reach him, despite the kind help of the lovely lady in the gift shop allowing us to access her hotspot.
Lynne felt obliged to buy a t-shirt to show her gratitude – Peter stuck to buying a cappuccino ice cream….
So back to the Waterfall Cafe, where we knew the wifi didn’t work, they organised a cab for us immediately.
This evening we chose to eat in the hotel tapas bar, on a terrace overlooking the beach, amongst palm trees and with a live band. The food was very good; we especially liked the chef’s chips served with his own sauce drizzled over them. Peter raved about his lovely deeply round and hot ink squid noodles.
Our final morning in Penang saw us walk along the lovely clean beach before breakfast, and having a delightful discussion with the manager. He described us as inspiration for his future travel dreams and insisted on taking his photo with us!
On the way to the airport, we had an interesting discussion with our taxi driver, a seventh-generation Indian, who was full of praise for the development of the country, in terms of trade, infrastructure and education by the British. His opinions were coloured, no doubt, by his great, great, great, great grandfather earning his liberty from an Indian prison, on account of coming to Malaysia to work for the British.
With the airport chaos and queues at check-in and passport control, we agreed that it was wise to leave plenty of time, especially at an unfamiliar airport with unfamiliar destinations, to ensure the travel was as stress-free as possible.
The Lion Air flight to Sumatra took all of 35 minutes, arriving at a local time before we took off! The Malacca Strait, which we flew over, is a very busy shipping lane, one of the three busiest in the world. When the clouds parted, we could see just how busy it was. Famous also for its piracy; so safer in the air than on a ship!
We were the only Westerners on the packed plane, which was just as well, as we had to show our Covid vaccination passes, buy our Visas on Arrival (in cash) and negotiate completing an on-line Customs form to generate a QR code to enter Indonesia. Without local currency (the ATM was land side) and internet, we were glad to have the space, time and help from the officials, to complete the necessary formalities to enter the country.
