The story so far… Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4

After a short break in our room and some coffee to fortify ourselves at the Planters Lounge, we left for Batu Ferringhi for some shopping. I had read the night market opens around 7 pm, but we were eager and left the hotel slightly after 4 pm which in hindsight was a mistake. The drive from the hotel to the Batu Ferringhi night market stretch was around 30 minutes and we got there well before 5! We parked at the basement of the Eden Parade, a smallish, slightly run-down mall.

A ‘Ship’ restaurant on the Batu Ferringhi strip

Batu Ferringhi is one of Penang’s most popular places, a nice long stretch of soft, white sandy beach along a winding road named Jalan Batu Feringghi, filled with a host of accommodation and dining options. Its night market is quite legendary, while its waters are popular spots for a range of water sports activities such as parasailing and windsurfing. The road which is called Jalan Batu Feringghi comes alive every night as vendors set up stalls along this stretch offering everything from fake designer bags and inexpensive pirated DVDs, to handmade local souvenirs and local artwork. One of Penang Island’s most noteworthy attractions, it is a not-to-be-missed feature not only for its sheer size (spanning all the way from Shangri-La’s Rasa Sayang Resort all the way down to Hard Rock Hotel and beyond), but also its cool, electrifying atmosphere. I would not say the prices are cheap, but if you are a good bargainer, then you may score a good deal. Don’t buy from the first stall you see an item, walk along and see others and if you feel a particular stall gives you the best deal, go back there. I’d say start at half the price quoted and work your way up. The market opens around 7 pm and goes on till late in the night.

Since we were early, we decided to do some foot reflexology at a Thai foot reflexology place opposite the Shangri-La. We paid RM 35 per person for 30 minutes and everyone with the exception of my helper R did it. It was not the best I’ve had, but was not too bad. While doing the massage, S suddenly remembered some Coconut Oil he had to purchase for a colleague. This was apparently only found in one place in Penang and this was some 20 minutes out of Batu Ferringhi. We went back and forth about going there, but since it was almost 6 pm then, decided against it as by the time we drove there, the place would have closed.

Around 6, we started walking the Batu Ferringhi Night Market Stretch. We walked the whole stretch till after the Hard Rock Café Hotel and it was only when we completed the walk and started turning back, we saw some stalls starting to open. We walked our way back, stopping to see stalls which were interesting and buying a few things. Then hungry, we decided to go an Indian & Arabic restaurant called Maroush which had caught S’ eye earlier on. The food was not too bad, but I found it to be more expensive than Georgetown and the portions smaller. This was the second most expensive of all our meals in Penang.

If you are staying in Georgetown, or even if you stay in Batu Ferringhi, before you hit the Night Market, take a stroll along the Komtar and Prangin malls. You may be surprised to see the same items going cheaper than Batu Ferringhi. For example we saw some canvas bags in the night market selling around RM 12 per piece, which was being sold in Prangin for RM 5. Another example was miniature planes (commercial airlines) which BB loves. We brought one from Batu Ferringhi at RM 28 (the stall was a fixed price one and didn’t allow me to bargain) while in Prangin I saw it for RM 20 in one shop and RM 19 in another, both on the same floor! So don’t make the mistake we did and see what available first before buying at Batu Ferringhi. Personally I found Batu Ferringhi very touristy and so more expensive compared to other places in Penang. It’s nice for the atmosphere and some cheap buys (we brought 6 DVDs for RM 20 which was a steal, but not sure of the quality).

We got back around 9 to the hotel and were fairly exhausted. Surprisingly the place where we had parked the car did not charge us for the parking at all! We must have parked there for more than three hours, but we paid zilch! So this was our cheapest car park payment in Penang…The next day was the last full day in Penang and we had planned a day of shopping.

• Part 1: The Planning and the Preparations
• Part 2: The Hotel                                                                                                         
• Part 3: Kek Lok Si Temple and Penang Hill                                                               
• Part 4: Armenian Street Art, Penang 3D Trick Art Museum and Penang Peranakan Mansion

The story so far… Part 1, Part 2 & Part 3

Day two started with a hearty and yummy breakfast at the Sarkies restaurant in the hotel. Once done, we started to plan the day. Since most of the attractions didn’t open till around 10ish, we went back to the room before heading out to the Blue Mansion. This was a 5 minute walk from our hotel and the books said it opened at 9 am. We reached there around 9:30, but found it closed. The guard explained that they only opened for the tours and the first one of the day was scheduled at 11 am which meant the mansion opened at 10:45 for tickets. We were disappointed but walked back to the hotel to get the car and get on with our day’s agenda, planning to come back here. Later in the day, I read up more about the Blue Mansion and found that it was actually a boutique hotel and that only guests had the run to the place. Others could only enter at the designated tour times of 11 am, 2 pm and 3:30 pm. The tour takes 45 minutes to complete and I read that photography was prohibited. After reading this, we ultimately decided to skip this.

An example of Street Art in Armenian Street

Our next stop was the Street Art at Armenian Street. Penang is famous for its street art which the city commissioned Lithuanian artist Ernest Zacharevic to paint in and around Armenian Street in Georgetown. We saw around 4-5 of these, though I suspect some are not really painted by him. I think some have been painted by random people while some outside shops may have been commissioned by the shop owners to get into the action. Some of the famous ones had queues waiting to take photos with even around 10 am, so I think it will get a lot crowded as the day goes by. We also saw some iron structures across Georgetown which were commissioned by the Georgetown Tourism Board and are a fun and pictorial way to learn about the city’s history. While we were there, we saw only some, though I heard there are 52 of these across the city. Some are super cute and photoworthy! All hotels will have maps to show you where the Street Art is available and there are some tours also which take you around as I saw some tour groups when we were there.

Iron Structures commissioned by Penang Tourism Board dotted across Georgetown

After the street art, we decided to go next to the Penang 3D Trick Art Museum at Lebuh Penang. This was a short 3 minute drive from Armenian Street, but we spent more than 15 minutes trying to find parking space. The streets of Georgetown do not have much space for parking and everywhere we went, we found no space. We finally found space at the Union Street Carpark and paid around RM 4 for a couple of hours. We paid RM 25 for adults and RM 15 for the children as ticket prices at the 3D Trick Art Museum. This was the only place which offered the children’s rate for BB & GG even though we told them they were 12 years old.

One of the exhibits at the 3D Museum

The Museum features two dimensional exhibits with themes of ‘All about Penang Life’ and ‘Modern Classic’ as well as art exhibits with three-dimensional sculptures. There are around 30 odd artworks of optical illusion paintings and sculptures. Every artwork has a sticker on the floor to stand to capture the best shot. The staff is young and super friendly and always offer to help you take good pictures with both your camera as well as their own which they try to sell to you at the end. If you refuse, they leave it with a smile, so I liked that. I dislike pushy sales staff! At the end they also have a small souvenir shop with some tee shirts and other typical touristy things for sale. We enjoyed the place a lot, taking loads of pictures. I am guessing some of the pictures are fairly new as they didn’t seem to be the same as what you can see in blogs. It was interesting and my favourite was the room where when two people stand you have one towering over the other! We spent around an hour there before moving on to our next destination which was a short 5 minute walk away.

The entrance courtyard at the Peranakan Mansion

The Penang Peranakan Mansion was our last stop that morning. We reached there around 11:30ish and paid RM 20 per person. Children below six get in free. They also offer tours if you have five people or more and since we were five of us plus another lady waiting, we got the standard tour which took one hour and then we were free to wander around and take photographs. The ticket price includes the Straits Chinese Jewelry Museum which is located behind the mansion and is in the same compound.

The meeting room at the Peranakan Mansion

The Peranakans, also known as Babas (men) and Nyonyas (women), are unique to Southeast Asia and are descendants of Chinese immigrants who settled down in what was called the Straits Settlements (Singapore and Peninsular Malaysia, especially Penang and Malacca) between the 15th and 17th centuries. They married local Malay women and their culture and lifestyle is a mixture of Chinese and Malay customs and habits. While Peranakan mostly means the mixture of Chinese and Malay, you also have smaller Pernanakan communities like the Indian Peranakan called Chitty, the Arab Pernakan called Jawi and Eurasian Peranakan called Kristang. The community is very fascinating and material for a separate blog post.

The master bedroom at the Peranakan Mansion

The Penang Peranakan Mansion, is a typical home of a rich Baba of a century ago, recreated to offer a glimpse of their opulent lifestyle and of their many customs and traditions. There are over 1,000 pieces of antiques and collectibles of the era on display in a heritage mansion of eclectic design and architecture. Built at the end of the 19th century by one of local history’s famous personalities, the ‘Hai Kee Chan’ or Sea Remembrance Store had once served as the residence and office of Kapitan Cina Chung Keng Kwee. Though not a Baba himself, his Chinese courtyard house was much like a typical large Baba home of eclectic style, incorporating Chinese carved-wood panels and English floor tiles and Scottish ironworks. Kapitan Cina or Chung Keng Kwee was the richest man in Penang at that time, a merchant who arrived from China and who wed a local woman, thus starting his Peranakan dynasty. The house has been lovingly restored and the guides there are quite passionate about the history of the house.

A diaroma of what the family goldsmith’s workshop would have looked like

The Straits Chinese Jewelry Museum is a part of the Peranakan Mansion and there are real exquisite pieces on display which marry Chinese, Malay and Indo-European form, design and motif. The pieces do not belong to the Chung family, but also contain pieces contributed by the various Penang Peranakan families. Pieces displayed include stunning headdresses, earrings, bangles and cuffs and the other ornaments used by a Nyonya woman made out of diamonds, rubies, sapphires, pearls, jade and other precious and semi-precious stones. We also saw beautiful beadwork which is a Peranakan specialty, especially made in the form of shoes and bags. The exhibits will gladden any woman’s heart. I took photos here also though the mirrors at the back of each exhibit plus the glare from the spotlights made photo taking a tad difficult. I did hear photography was not encouraged in this part of the mansion, but neither our guide nor the guards at the jewelry museum forbade us from taking photos.

By the time we finished the Peranakan Mansion, we were famished and so we headed to the Woodlands again for our meal. The hotel was less than five minutes from the mansion and so after a scrumptious meal, we returned back to the hotel for some rest before we went to Batu Ferringhi in the afternoon.

Part 1: The Planning and the Preparations                                                                         Part 2: The Hotel                                                                                                                Part 3: Kek Lok Si Temple and Penang Hill

The story so far… Part 1 & Part 2

We mapped our route to Penang Hill and when we reached a spot where we had to move forward, we realized we were at the Botanical Gardens and the map had brought us to a part, which technically was the route to Penang Hill, but was the walking path. After wondering what to do, I met a friendly park staff who showed me on the map where to actually go. We had to reach the Lower Station at Bukit Bendera and which was actually close to the Kok Lok Si Temple. One blooper we made was not to carry any water with us
which made life a bit difficult till we found a 7-11 and brought some.

Kek Lok Si Temple

The route from the Botanical gardens to the temple seemed fairly easy, but we missed the entrance to the temple! The day was not getting better for us. We missed not one, but two entrances and had to make a big round around the hill till we came down. This was because the temple name was in Thai and we thought it was some Thai temple. We first went to the top entrance and when we realized it was the wrong one, got into the car to drive down again. The temple is serene and calming and we took some photos and walked around. There were some good luck charms we could tie to the wishing tree there and we did tie some for the children and us – things like Success in Exams, Success in Everything….

Inside the main temple

After spending an hour there, the kids started getting restless, plus the temple was nearing its closing time of 6 pm, so we decided to head to the funicular tram station to get to the top of Penang Hill. The drive from the hotel to the temple was approximately 25 minutes and from the temple to the tram station was approximately 10 minutes. On the way, we stopped at 7-11 and brought water and some drinks.

The funicular tram which took us up Penang Hill – see the angle!

The tram station is at the end of the road and there is a building right next to it where you can park your vehicle. Once we parked the car, we headed into the complex to buy the tickets. In Malaysia, it is usual to have two sets of tickets – one for locals who have to show their Malaysian ID and the other for foreigners. The foreigner ticket is usually twice that what locals pay. The foreigner price for a return trip by the Funicular tram was RM 30 per adult. Since GG & BB turned 12 this year, we had to pay adult prices for them almost everywhere.

Views from the top

Penang Hill is the oldest British hill station in Southeast Asia dating to the late 1700s and the highest peak there stands at 833 meters (2,732 ft) above sea level. The funicular railway to the top of the hill started in October 1923, making it a cool 92 years of running it. The train we went up is the fourth generation one and started operations in 2011. The track stretches almost 2 km with a steepness gradient of about 28 degrees. There are some bungalows in the hill, most privately owned, but some owned by the state government.

Hazy Cityscapes

The haze obscured most things when we were at the top, so we could not see the stunning cityscapes which were promised at the viewing deck. There’s a café at the top along with a food court plus an owl museum. On the top, a bit of a distance away, there is a Muslim mosque as well as a Hindu temple. We spent about an hour there before taking the train down and thinking about dinner. Car park rates were around RM 8 for the almost two hours we spent there.

While driving back to Georgetown and Little India, we spied a Ananda Bahwan restaurant. This was seemingly nowhere! We literally saw it and decided to eat there rather than braving Little India on a Sunday evening. Parking in Georgetown is a real pain and especially in the narrow streets which have little or no parking spaces. Also lots of roads in Georgetown are one-way streets and you can go round and round trying to find a free parking lot.

Kek Lok Si Temple

Penang from the top of the temple

Inside the temple

The various Penang landmarks that you could see from the top of the hill

Dinner over, we went back to the hotel, tired. The kids decided to have some fun in the humongous tub and that ended our first day in Penang!

Part 1: The Planning and the Preparations                                                                         Part 2: The Hotel

While deciding on a hotel to stay, we went back and forth between Georgetown which is the administrative capital of the island and Batu Ferringhi, which is the beach stretch of the island. I used Google Maps and Trip Advisor a lot to check for restaurants in both areas. Since we are vegetarians and can’t eat anywhere, this is a step I take every time we travel, so that we have meal options which are a short walk or drive away. Georgetown offered the most in terms of food options since the city’s Little India district was a short 10 minute walk away. Also we are not big beach and sun worshippers and the beach stretch of Batu Ferringhi didn’t really have much going for it other than the beach. Georgetown is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site and had lots of interesting places to sightsee within it, so eventually it became a no brainer to choose to stay in Gorgetown rather than Batu Ferringhi.

Image from booking.com

We stayed at the Eastern & Oriental Hotel, which is an old-school luxury hotel, and one of the oldest in Penang. This hotel harks back to a time when travel was a luxury and people lived a gentler, slower life. We booked the hotel through Agoda and got it for a decent price. We stayed in the Victory Annexe, the cheaper part I guess, which is fairly new, having opened only in 2013. All rooms were huge with balconies which had sea views of the Andaman Sea. Every room had a double ensuite bathroom which was probably as big as the room itself. The bathroom was divided into two with the dry and wet areas. The dry areas had his and her sinks on two sides with the gigantic tub, shower in the wet area which was inside.

The room type we stayed in. Image from Asiahotelscheap.com

Both BB & GG loved the hotel, so much that BB at one point commented that he’d love to come back to this hotel again when he is older! Being the usual Asian/Indian parent that I am, I quickly retorted that if he studies hard and does well in life, he will be able to afford to come here and stay at the Heritage Wing, which is more posh one and he can also bring his parents with him the next time he comes here! Both GG & BB had sheepish smiles at this comment.

The rooms were sectioned into two facing rooms, which had a smaller corridor with a door which led to the bigger corridor and the lifts. We thus got very private rooms and we would close the door leading to our rooms at night, which gave us more privacy and we could let the doors between the rooms open while getting ready for the day. GG, BB and my helper shared one room while S and I shared the other. The rate included breakfast daily as well as all day coffee in the lounge. We didn’t visit the pool this time, even though we had our swimming costumes because for some reason both BB & GG ‘didn’t feel like it’. We did visit the pool and it had the same sea views as our rooms and is something I’d love to cuddle up with a book and some hot coffee!

I was quite eager for the sea views but the haze played spoil sport! The views were quite bad due to the haze and we could hardly see a few meters. I love the sea and was looking forward to sitting in the balcony with a book, but didn’t spend much time there! Though the haze was there, we didn’t really feel it as we were either in the room, in the car or at an attraction. Guess if we were in the road more, it would have hit us harder!

Planters Lounge. Image from Hotel’s website

We reached the hotel around 12 noon, after taking a longer route from the airport (we missed a turn and had to take the longer route) and entered from the Heritage wing. We mistakenly thought that was the entrance, but the receptionist there corrected our misconception and took us to the right reception. We checked in, but the room was not yet ready, so we decided to head out for lunch. This was our first look at Penang. I used Google maps again and took a bit of wrong walking plus a long walk plus asking people before we reached our lunch destination. The kids were tired and cranky by the time we reached Woodlands, where we planned to eat. What I didn’t really realise was that I took a long and convoluted route to get there. The return was half the distance and time. I guess we didn’t feel that tired because we were hydrated and had full bellies when we came back. Back at the hotel, our rooms were ready and we quickly went up to the hotel. The time was around 1:30 by then and once settled in our rooms, everyone wanted to nap for a while as we had woken up early that day (think 5 am on a Sunday morning!) to get ready and catch the 9 am flight!

After a good nap, we decided to go to the Planters Lounge which was free for guests to have some coffee and hot chocolate for the kids. There, we decided on where to go next. My initial plan of going to the museums nearby was shot down and we decided to drive to Penang Hill and the Kok Lok Si Temple.

Other posts in this series:

Part 1: The Planning and the Preparations