I went to Penang Island in Malaysia for two nights with my friend from Sri Lanka. We bought a deal (includes Tiger Airline flight ticket, accommodation (Hard Rock Cafe Hotel with 4 stars) + breakfast, travel insurance, & pick up from and to the airport in Penang) from groupon and paid S$275 (S$115 + surcharge&taxes) which I think it's pretty reasonable. One difficultly we had was we had to leave at 5am in the morning and had a hard time booking a taxi... In Singapore, it is really bad. I ended up calling several taxi companies more than ten times to book one... Especially when it's raining or late at night, it's even worse.. If you need to book a taxi, I really recommend you to call them in advance!!
Anyways, when we got to the Penang International Airport, a Malaysian guy picked us up and took us to the hotel. We weren't the only one being picked up so that was pretty good. We could've gone on a tour but decided to go to places by ourselves. We saw some traditional sights like temples and mosques as well as the nature sights. We went to Penang Hill and Georgetown on the first day. We took a taxi from the hotel to Penang Hill and had to pay RM50 which is ridiculously expensive!!!! I knew that the driver was going to charge us a high price but I didn't expect to be this expensive.
Cable car
We were supposed to be seeing the great view of the island but since the weather condition was pretty bad, I couldn't got to see much... Then we moved Kek Lok Si temple using a public bus. I only had to pay RM1.40 by the way.
Kek Lok Si Temple
I don't have any pictures of Georgetown but this place has a lot of new shopping centers as well as the traditional buildings.
Kapitan Keling Mosque
On the second day, we went to the Floating Mosque and the National Park!
Floating Mosque
The national park had a really great beach!! We went on 30-40 minutes cruising which was pretty nice!! But I actually miss the one in Hawaii.... lol We saw some wild animals, too!!
National Park
A huge Eagle nest
Baby Turtle
Monkey
Looks like a crocodile head
Iguana
All the food we ate were from the restaurants. I heard that we cannot drink tap water in Malaysia so I wasn't sure whether the food on the streets were safe enough... But I saw some tourists eating so it might be safe. These food were really delicious by the way!!
So, most of the time, we took a bus to travel around Penang. At the maximum, I only paid RM2.70 for a ride. But the demerit is the wild drivers!! On the way to the hotel, roads are narrow and winding but the drivers never speed down!! I wasn't scared but I was shaking all the time! My friend from Sri Lanka told me she didn't have any problem since that kind of thing is pretty common in Sri Lanka!! lol
Aside from the bus ride, I had a great time in Penang. I hope you'll consider Penang as your next travel destination after seeing this posting!!
That's all for today!!
