Cuti-cuti di Pulau Pinang & Ipoh

Day 1: Arrived in Penang

I only took out RM2 to pay at the Penang bridge toll, thinking it would be more than enough, but found out it was RM7! ^$!% 7 bucks for a short distance. Only after paying did I realise there was a notice saying there is a 20% off if I had used TouchnGo. Kek sei me.

Ate a super small plate of char kuey tiao for RM4 at a coffee shop and then went to P.Ramlee’s house.

Some annoying people wanted to check in to the hotel to baring, so we planned to send them to the hotel and continue our journey but we ourselves tergolek til dinner.

For dinner, we went to the famed Gurney Drive. Congested all along the 1-way lane, it was messy but nice. Lots of food places brightly lighted up along the nice sea view. The fish head place that I vaguely remember was no longer there, so we ate at the only fish head curry place we could find. From there, we walked to Gurney Plaza. Nice mall! Topshop, Padini Concept, Nichii, heck they even have a Rolex boutique there!

Day 2: Intensive tour of Penang

The hotel cafe is on the rooftop

Botanical Gardens

The GPS brought me here although I had selected Penang Hill. I thought I must have accidentally selected it until later when I chose Penang Hill and it brought me here again. Then only I found out by asking some people that the GPS had brought me to the hiking trail up the hill instead. Hmrph..

Monkey with its baby clutching to its underside. So cute

Me and the cannonball plant

Somehow this reminds me of the nice parks in London

Greedy monkey who not only is greedy but action, for it threw away those cones once it realised that they were lemau

Wat Chayamangkalaram

I remember this place and the Botanical Gardens from my trip many years ago. The image of Buddha has always brought a sense of tranquility to me, I can’t explain why. It just feels peaceful.

Both sides are ‘adorned’ with urns. On the right is a padlocked room containing urns, urns and urns. Eerie.

This man was selling sea coconuts outside the temple, so we bought 1 to try. I’ve only eaten them from the can, turns out that the flesh is actually tasteless and each fruit has only 3 small portions.

Camwhoring at Gurney again after lunch

We endured stupid jam to Penang Hill, only to have only tickets for the 7.30pm tram up. Being only 3pm, we decided not to wait. And then I found my car infested with ants moving homes. Freaked me out to see tonnes of ants and some crawling up my arms and legs. Flung out all the car mats and waited some time til they were gone.. haih..

Since Penang Hill is off, we head to Kek Lok Si just nearby. It wasn’t in the plan as we have no intention climbing all the steps to the temple. We went there more to check out the stalls selling stuff all along the way. Things were super cheap: fedoras at RM5, football jerseys at RM5 too. I though the fedoras in Melaka were already cheap at 8 bucks. Similar to Petaling Street, the further you walk off, the lower the prices drop. The opening price for a fedora is RM12, walk away RM10, walk further RM5. A set of opera masks deco is RM12, walk off and the price drops to RM6 immediately. Gosh!

Batu Feringghi
This wasn’t on the plan, so we didn’t have any extra clothes with us.

I’m a sucker for these kinda boulders

Nice roots!

On the walk back to the car, we saw this black little animal running. I thought it was a dog and then I saw it’s got a snout. It’s a wild boar! It was a little one. It ran off before I took out my camera. It was cute, nice to be kept as a pet and then later made into char siew bwahaha.

Toy Museum
Just a short distance from Feringghi in Tanjung Bungah is this museum. We didn’t have any intention to go until we got the brochure at the reclining Buddha temple.

A very real-looking Jack Sparrow

"My precious.."

Oot oot oot...

I think that’s someone from The Kiss

Silver Surfer is so cool..

The Lost figurines are so real

Day 3: Going home

We walked to Chinatown from the hotel. Actually I’m not sure if it is Chinatown but there was Campbell Street and the famous Chowrasta market. There’s just a typical pasar pagi outside the market and inside it were some stalls selling preserved fruits. Not even one struck my fancy; I’m one who go for things totally sweet.

Sun Yat Sen Memorial

Bro wanted to go to this place; he loves anything historical. I’ve forgotten who this man is, maybe I don't even know what he did, who cares. The museum was closed though cos it was a Sunday, how stupid.

Then, we drove to Fort Cornwallis but it was closed as there was some Petronas Cub Prix going on that weekend. We didn’t manage to go to both historical sites and I got pretty frustrated for it was traffic jam all along the way.

Left Penang and made a detour for Ipoh to buy pomelos. I found out there isn't a toll on the way out. The same goes for the ferry: Entering the island is charged at 60 sen and no charges to exit the island. Guess they want to discourage people from congesting the island. 60 sen vs RM7, hmm..

I remembered the pomelo stalls were near to Sam Poh Tong but upon stopping, I discovered that it was Ling Sen Tong instead. There were many other Tongs from the GPS but I vowed never to go into one anymore, so that shall be it. Super smoky from all the joss sticks, cannot breathe.

I took a pic of an old lady when there were many leng luis manning the other shops, aduh..

Kellie’s Castle

I’d say that this is the favourite of my trip. I think I am one for English-y stuff; it reminded me of buildings in London. As soon as I saw it, I was in awe.

Wow..

There were reported sightings of William Kellie Smith along this corridor

This is the unfinished part of the castle. I like this more than the finished sections

This space was meant to be used to hold parties

I like those pillars so typical of castles always seen in fairytales

I feel as though I am standing on a site of some heritage ruins. I am, actually :D

There is a ‘bear’ on the tree trunk

I think Penang is a pretty bastoot place. Inching traffic everywhere in town. Don't know if it was due to it being a long weekend and the holiday season, but it was a pretty stressful holiday. The GPS helped a lot but having to find places to go, find places that everyone would be happy to eat at, lead the way, making sure every few minutes that the other car behind is still following, parking, making sure that the car behind has parking, sometimes have to park the other car as well.. aduh.. the pre-holiday stress (booking hotel, hotels fully booked, settling work from the office) and the during-holiday stress. I don't wanna be the leader anymore; I’ll just be a follower next time, sit back and enjoy the ride.

Overall verdict: Stressful trip but still good fun with family especially since we haven’t been to Penang since I was 11 or 12.