Penang

I left Tanah Rata and the Cameron Highlands relatively early on the Sunday morning to head towards my next destination in Penang. Penang is a state and is essentially an island but also includes some of the adjacent mainland which it's linked to by bridges over the sea. I was aiming to get to Georgetown which is the principal city of Penang in the north eastern corner of the island. The journey from the Cameron Highlands was nice and smooth, although being at altitude meant the road was incredibly windy as we descended back down to sea level! En route we stopped in Ipoh where I was considering spending a couple of nights but it would have essentially just been more temples and mosques.

I arrived in Penang around about lunchtime in the end, the bus dropping me off at the main bus station on Penang island about 15km south of Georgetown. This meant I had to catch another local bus to get to Georgetown. In hindsight I should have got off my original bus at Butterworth on the mainland where I could have caught a ferry across straight to Georgetown, a far quicker way of doing things apparently, although I didn't know that. By the time I got to Georgetown and checked into my hostel I just relaxed for the rest of the day, ready to go out and explore properly the following day.

Georgetown is the 2nd largest city in Malaysia, and has an array of things to see and do in the city itself and surrounding area. The historical core where I was staying was designated as a unesco world heritage site in 2008, and that's what I decided to go and explore on the Monday. There were several temples, mosques, and other historical buildings spread over the city, with over 1700 listed buildings. Whilst exploring I passed several interesting buildings, from many different cultures. One stop I particularly enjoyed were the clan jetties which were these old wooden jetties housing some of the poorer members of the city. Penang is perhaps most famous for its food, and is consistently ranked as one of the best food places in the world by lonely planet, and I stopped at the clan jetties for lunch which was really nice.

Aside from all the temples and mosques, another highlight was the street art which was absolutely littered all over the city. Penang is often renowned as one of the street art capitals of the world, and many of the pieces were interactive, having components in which the art interacts with real elements. There were some really interesting pieces. In the end it took me pretty much all day to explore the historical core, and there was probably still lots I didn't see but it was a really good day. Come evening I went down to one of the street food markets where I got some more great food, the food a lot cheaper in Penang than elsewhere in Malaysia for some reason.

On Tuesday I headed out to the Penang National Park for the day. The national park has the distinction of being the smallest in the world, but despite this still has lots to see. From the park entrance where I had to get a permit, there were meant to be two walks, one through the jungle to Turtle Beach, and another coastal based walk to this lighthouse via Monkey Beach. Unfortunately the walk to Monkey Beach was closed due to a landslip, although they you could still pay to get a boat taxi there. I heard Turtle Beach was nicer though anyway so I headed out to there, the walk through the jungle actually really pleasant along an undulating and well maintained path, even seeing a few monkeys en route.

When arriving at Turtle Beach it was a really nice and clean beach and being only accessible by boat or foot meant it wasn't very busy. You couldn't swim in the sea though because of the turtles, although there was this turtle sanctuary on the beach where they had a few baby and adult turtles they were looking after which you could see. I returned to the park entrance an alternative way round this meromictic lake, which describes a lake which consists of both salt water and fresh water, separated because they have different temperatures. The lake was dried out though so there wasn't really much to see.

When arriving back at the park entrance, the fact the path to Monkey Beach was closed meant I still had much of the afternoon to play with. I decided instead of catching a boat taxi out there, I would instead go to Batu Ferringhi for the afternoon, via the Floating Mosque. Batu Ferringhi is a popular area for its sandy beaches, and is home to all the big holiday resort accommodations like Hilton and Holiday Inn. This meant I was able to find a nice place in the shade on the beach and a deck chair and just relax. There were a lot of annoying locals though trying to get you to ride their jet skis though! I stayed until sunset which was good one. I then checked out the night market in Batu Ferringhi, although the market sellers were all very in your face if you even looked at something for a second so it was difficult to look round!

On Wednesday morning I headed out to Gurney Drive which is basically the cbd of Penang, but also home to a couple of temples I wanted to visit. I first visited the Wat Chayamangkalaram which was home to one of the largest reclining Buddha statues in the world. I then visited the Dharmikarama Burmese Temple. After having a good look round the temples I headed out to the Botanic Gardens which had an access point to climb to the 830m summit of Penang Hill. There was a funicular railway to get up there too but I thought I'd walk up to save money. It was just a road going up but I saw loads of monkeys and it was actually quite a good workout!

When reaching the top there were load of random little attractions like an owl museum, love lock fence, and several market stalls. I just went and checked out the sky walk which gave views over Georgetown, although it was a little hazy. I went back down a different way so I could check out the Kek Lok Si Temple, the largest Buddhist temple in Southeast Asia. I ended up spending ages looking round the large complex as there were so many areas to explore, the highlight perhaps this 7 storey pagoda which you could climb giving some fantastic views up top.