After a few days apart we joyfully reunited with Ros at her hostel in George Town. After a long journey, and with me still feeling the after effects of sun stroke, we were in no rush to be active on the first day. We were more than happy to relax and have a little wander around the town, admiring the unique colonial/Chinese/Islamic influenced architecture and scoping out the best street food and drinking spots.
Street Art
Georgetown is famous for its ubiquitous street art that’s scattered around the city, with wall paintings and sculptures hidden behind just about every corner. One of our favourite things to do here was the self-guided street art tour; we took a little map from the hostel and went off exploring, finding all the suggested art pieces we could, and posing for pictures on the various interactive sculptures.
My favourites were the part sculpture, part paintings by Lithuanian artist Ernest Zacharevic, in particular ‘Brother and Sister on a Swing’ and ‘Little Children on Bicycle’.
Little India
Malaysia is the very definition of a melting pot of cultures, with it’s population primarily made up of Malay, Chinese and Indian citizens, among many others.
It was no accident that our hostel in Penang was located just outside Little India, Indian restaurants having been one of our go-to dining options throughout the trip. We were spoiled for choice here and ended up eating Indian food every day, sometimes twice a day, taking full advantage of the tasty treats available. From the delicious 0.60 ringgit veggie samosas from roadside stalls (that equates to about 10p), to the full on thali meals at lunch time – a selection of curries and sides all for around $2, we felt we’d successfully eaten our way around Little India.
Penang National Park
Penang National Park is renowned for its huge variety of wildlife and pretty jungle walks, and it was high on our list of sights to see. When visiting you have a few options for how to get around – we were hoping to take the picturesque walk all the way through to monkey beach, but unfortunately due to recent landslides parts of the route were blocked off and we had to go for option B. This included a walk part of the way, followed by a long boat. We met some Spanish girls at the entrance gate who became our travel buddies and fellow boat passengers for the day.
On the short hike that was still accessible we spotted many giant monitor lizards – pretty startling at first, but then amazing to watch them lumbering across the path or looking much more graceful as they swam along the shore.
When we reached the pier and got into the long boat we were in for yet another stomach churning journey thanks to reckless sailing – this guy seemed like he was in it for a race rather than a simple trip across the bay! But before long we landed on monkey beach, coming face to face with its namesake primates, looking like they were ready to steal our bags. We took a seat on some rope swings, chilling as far from the monkeys as possible, sunbathing and reading our books for the duration of our stay there.
Upside Down House
One tourist hotspot we knew we had to visit in Penang was the Upside Down House; a museum dedicated to novelty photos of guests hanging from the ‘ceiling’ was something we just couldn’t pass up. It was pretty busy when we arrived and we found it hilarious being chaotically herded through the rooms at top speed, shown exactly how to pose for the best effect and having our photos snapped by staff in each room. There was quite a queue and no time to be wasted as we were rushed through to the next room as soon as we were done.
It was a surreal hour and we were back outside before we knew it, but we were beyond pleased with the photos we got, which we think are pretty hilarious.
By this point in the trip we were running low on time before our flights to Australia, so it was a short but sweet visit to Penang, and we were soon on the move again ready to hop the border into Singapore for a few days, before returning to Malaysia for our flights from Kuala Lumpur.
Chloe x
Pint-Sized Adventurers 