Pulau Pinang
Friday the 12th was a public holiday in Singapore, so Romina and I jetted off to Penang for the 3 days.
We managed to combine sightseeing, eating, shopping and relaxing to our own personal recipes for a fun weekend.
Friday was spent relaxing around the pool at the hotel and being rather disappointed with the beaches in Penang! We had expected them to be a little cleaner! We enjoyed just chilling out and then catching up on some sleep in the afternoon. We then headed out to the night markets at Batu Ferringhi and enjoyed cheap hawker food and browsing around the knock-off clothes and cheap souvineir shops. The rest of the evening was spent drinking and dancing in Georgetown.
Saturday was our Buddist day. The public holiday on Friday was for Vesaak day - Buddha's birthday, so we celebrated a day late by visiting a sleeping buddha at Wat Chayamangkalaram and the huge Kek Lok Si temple. We had fun exploring the different rooms and areas of these two temples and Kek Lok Si offered a great view of Georgetown city.
Sunday morning had Romina yawning and me itching to find a good beach on the island. So we parted ways after breakfast and I started my adventure to Monkey Beach. The first challenge was getting the information on how to get there. You see there are two ways to get to Monkey Beach from the hotel. The frist way is to part with 200 MR (about $80) and get a boat to the beach. The other is to walk through the National Park. The Hotel staff pretended like option 2 didn't exist:
"No, the walk takes 3 hours - you do not have enough time"
"No, the bus will not run to the national park because it is a Sunday"
"No, you are on your own, it is too dangerous".
Luckily I worked it out, caught the bus, walked through the jungle and arrived!
The benefit of being alone was that I was adopted into a picnic being had by two different groups. I first met Fong (65), E Ming (64) and John (68) who were sprightly chinese malaysians. They told me stories of coming to Monkey beach when they were younger. They also warned me about the jelly fish so I didn't swim out too far!
The second group were local fisherman who BBQ'd a feast - I was treated to Malaysian hospitality and enjoyed mackerel, iku assam and chicken. The group consisted of several middle aged men and a couple of younger boys. I discovered that the youngest boy, not helping with the BBQ or clearing up and looked like he enjoyed more food and less work than the others was the boss - his father owned their fishing boats. Made for an interesting group dynamic as he bossed them around!
After eating two lunches (the one I brought and the BBQ), watching the tourist boats come and go and laughing at the monkeys try to streal everyone's food, I walked with my new friends back to the National Park Gate and got a lift pack to the hotel.
After enjoying a few Pina Coladas at the pool with Romina we headed back to Singapore. I was exhausted!
Selected photos are below:
We managed to combine sightseeing, eating, shopping and relaxing to our own personal recipes for a fun weekend.
Friday was spent relaxing around the pool at the hotel and being rather disappointed with the beaches in Penang! We had expected them to be a little cleaner! We enjoyed just chilling out and then catching up on some sleep in the afternoon. We then headed out to the night markets at Batu Ferringhi and enjoyed cheap hawker food and browsing around the knock-off clothes and cheap souvineir shops. The rest of the evening was spent drinking and dancing in Georgetown.
Saturday was our Buddist day. The public holiday on Friday was for Vesaak day - Buddha's birthday, so we celebrated a day late by visiting a sleeping buddha at Wat Chayamangkalaram and the huge Kek Lok Si temple. We had fun exploring the different rooms and areas of these two temples and Kek Lok Si offered a great view of Georgetown city.
Sunday morning had Romina yawning and me itching to find a good beach on the island. So we parted ways after breakfast and I started my adventure to Monkey Beach. The first challenge was getting the information on how to get there. You see there are two ways to get to Monkey Beach from the hotel. The frist way is to part with 200 MR (about $80) and get a boat to the beach. The other is to walk through the National Park. The Hotel staff pretended like option 2 didn't exist:
"No, the walk takes 3 hours - you do not have enough time"
"No, the bus will not run to the national park because it is a Sunday"
"No, you are on your own, it is too dangerous".
Luckily I worked it out, caught the bus, walked through the jungle and arrived!
The benefit of being alone was that I was adopted into a picnic being had by two different groups. I first met Fong (65), E Ming (64) and John (68) who were sprightly chinese malaysians. They told me stories of coming to Monkey beach when they were younger. They also warned me about the jelly fish so I didn't swim out too far!
The second group were local fisherman who BBQ'd a feast - I was treated to Malaysian hospitality and enjoyed mackerel, iku assam and chicken. The group consisted of several middle aged men and a couple of younger boys. I discovered that the youngest boy, not helping with the BBQ or clearing up and looked like he enjoyed more food and less work than the others was the boss - his father owned their fishing boats. Made for an interesting group dynamic as he bossed them around!
After eating two lunches (the one I brought and the BBQ), watching the tourist boats come and go and laughing at the monkeys try to streal everyone's food, I walked with my new friends back to the National Park Gate and got a lift pack to the hotel.
After enjoying a few Pina Coladas at the pool with Romina we headed back to Singapore. I was exhausted!
Selected photos are below:
posted by Clare at 9:23 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home