Another city we visited in Malaysia was Penang. George Town is the capital of Penang. The flight from Kuala Lumpur to Penang is only an hour long flight. Which isn’t long at all when you’ve done a 16hr flight. 16hrs isn’t that bad, since it means that you catch up on a LOT of sleep. Then it was an hour long drive for the car service to take us to our hotel, Vouk Hotel. Penang temperature is 38C (100.4F). Same temperature in Kuala Lumpur it was also super hot. Penang is an island, and it’s really nice! We stayed in a hotel by the water, but we didn’t really go to the beach. The beach isn’t really good for swimming, but there was a nice rooftop pool in he hotel, and we swam in it everyday. We also had some pretty nice views from our room. We stayed in Penang for a week, and a week was plenty to see all of the attractions that Penang has to offer. Usually we do cities in 2-3 days, so a week was actually more than enough for us to get a good look at everything.

One of the attractions in Penang is the funicular train, first opened in 1923, and 712m above sea level, it’s a great way to explore nature while getting that bird’s eye view of the city. The Penang Hill Railway is what it’s called, and I believe it was originally constructed for the British colonial community to enjoy the cooler air of the Penang Hill. Just saying, it would’ve been wayyy more fun if the ride down was a little bit faster, you know, more like a roller coaster. Hehehe. There’s a great photo opportunity on the top, and it’s a bit like a nature park on the top of the mountain. A great way to see the plants and creatures native to the area. When I say “creatures” I mostly mean mosquitoes. Lol. We didn’t want to get dengue, so we got out of there. Plus it was extra to enter the whole nature park part.

Tip: Buy the fast pass so you don’t have to wait too long.

From our hotel, we took a Grab ride and drove downtown and walked to the Clan Jetties, that were started by eight clans that settled down by the water together so that they could help each other. Basically it’s a village on stilts. The stilts are made of buckets filled with concrete stacked on top of each other. In the 19th century many Chinese immigrants came to Malaysia. The clans used to live mainly of fishing, but most of the villagers work in town now. There are eight jetties, and the most lively and the largest clan is the Chew Jetty. The people who live on them also have shops and run a restaurants on the jetty. Most of them sells souvenirs. I’m not trying to discourage you from going there to support the locals, but… there’s actually nothing much to see. I guess I saw how the people in the village live. I didn’t even know what jetties were until I went there. There’s also a lot of water pollution at the jetties. Which is sad to see. However, I do recommend the street art tour that we did take after out visit to the jetty.

If you are not afraid of heights, you have to visit The TOP located at Komtar Tower. It is the tallest skyscraper in Penang, and it’s quite the tourist attraction. There is an obstacle course on the very top of the building, and it goes over the edge of the building. You’ve got a harness similar to a zip line or a high ropes course, and it’s a lot like one of those. Just fifty (50) stories high. There’s also a glass skywalk that goes over the edge as well. My dad was too scared to go on the glass floor. I have a great video of him being too scared to step on the glass. But I did it! It was really cool. I like glass floors. I’ve been to CN Tower in Toronto, Canada and The Tilt in Chicago, USA. Besides the glass floor attraction, there’s a cafe also where you can relax atop the tallest building in Penang. Chill out with an ice cream or cold drink. Oh, and it was SUPER hot on the top of that building.

One of the things that Penang is famous for is it’s street art. Penang’s street art is very cool, and as an artist, I like to see what other’s have created and draw inspiration from them. Street art in Penang began when the Penang Tourist Board commissioned then unknown artist Ernest Zacharevic to create murals on six walls in places of historical importance in George Town for the George Town Festival. And then people started to hop on this fun trend, and now street art is a tourist attraction!

We took a trishaw from the jetties (like a rickshaw, but the bike part is behind the passengers) and they took us on a street art tour. It’s better to hire a local to take you around because they know where to go. Even though we took the trishaw directly from the jetties, the main station is not there, but it’s pretty close by. If you walk around a bit you’ll probably find it. We didn’t actually find the location the Jetties is one of the stops and we got a ride called in from there by another driver.

First Stop – Fire Station

Cat cafe where EVERYTHING they sell is cat themed

I think my faves are the interactive ones

❤️

Yeah, so that’s really all we did in Penang. Street art, funicular, jetties, and The TOP. Also the views. Penang is really an island where you just chill, Kuala Lumpur is like that too. I found Malaysia to be a very clean country, it’s very calm and modern, they speak English there, and it’s overall really nice. It’s not overly tourist-y though, I think people would rather go to Bali or Thailand. It’s kind of just forgotten about. Which is sad because it’s nice. But, our visit to Malaysia came to an end, and we hopped back on a plane to go to…

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Well, you’re going to find that out in my next post. Ehehe. Bye!

Tip: Even though Penang is an Island, it’s not really for swimming. We mostly swam at out hotel pool overlooking the water. THAT was nice. I got a tan (as if I’m not already tan enough).