Day 97 – Hello George Town

After a last breakfast and swim in the Perhentian Islands, we got on the speedboat back to the mainland across the perfect turquoise ocean. From there we met our very friendly van drivers who were taking a bunch of us to our next stop: George Town, Penang. We arrived late afternoon, adjusting back to being in a city after sleepy island life. George Town is Malaysia’s second largest city and sits on Penang Island which is attached to the west coast via a bridge. It is another UNESCO World Heritage Site (we seem to have ticked a lot of these off!) due to its colonial history with Portuguese, Dutch and Chinese links influencing the architecture.

After walking up and down the street a few times we finally found our guesthouse, selected due to its central location and for having NINE cats who lived there. The guesthouse was self-check-in with a complicated number of passwords to get into the building and when we finally made it through the door, we were met by five of the resident cats who were all very up for a cuddle. We did wonder whether they ran the guesthouse themselves…

After a freshen up we were keen to get out into the streets for a wander and to sample some of the delicious street food that George Town is famous for. The early evening light was beautiful, and I think George Town may be one of the most picturesque places we have been to! There are three China Towns in Georgetown as there has been lots of migration from Chinese shores. There is an abundance of great Chinese food places and most of the signage is in Chinese. We had noodles in one night market and coconut pancakes in another, it really is a food paradise! Afterwards we headed back to the guest house to play with the cats.

Day 98 – George Town Walking Tour

In the morning, we headed off for a self-guided walking tour to see more of the town, stopping off for brekkie at the bottom of our road. After delicious coffees we continued along to see the Clan Jetties. Built by Chinese migrants in the 19^th century, the jetties formed a floating village where clan members could settle. As they were on the water rather than land, they were exempt from property tax. There are seven jetties remaining and many families still live in the houses built along them. Some were destroyed due to town development, but the UNESCO listing of George Town has protected the remaining ones. Chew Jetty has become a tourist attraction and is lined with gift shops and food stalls, it reminded us a bit of Brighton pier but the others are mainly residential.

The next part of the walking tour focused on going to see all of the street art that George Town is famous for. The local government commissioned artists to create murals based on the daily lives of people in Penang and they pop up around every corner. Here are some of our favourites:

Our tour also took us to a colourful Chinese Temple built by one of the clans who settled on the jetties, as well the esplanade with a British Colonial fort and cannons, views of flats and tall buildings in the distance and eventually the Town Hall.

We were seriously shattered and sweaty after the long walking tour which ended with a masala chai tea in Little India where we planned to return for dosas one evening. We went back to the cat house to cool off and relax.

Day 99 – Penang Botanical Garden

Never ones who like to be away from nature for too long, we got up early and headed to the Botanical Garden / Forest which is on the outskirts of George Town. It was a Sunday morning so there were big groups of locals meeting up to go running or to walk with their families which was lovely to see. We were on a mission to see birds, but had also read that the Dusky Leaf monkey could be spotted here! We spoke to the man in the visitor centre to get some tips about where to look for them but he only said we had to be lucky for them to have decided to descend from the hills.

We walked round the main path for a while, necks stretched to the high branches and eventually decided to take a small offshoot path deeper into the trees, very quickly after we saw the top branches moving and then a large group of dusky leaf monkeys moving about. They are seriously cute and look like they are wearing glasses. They are pretty timid unlike the very tame and cheeky macaques that surrounded the main paths. We spent some time watching them jumping from tree to tree, including one particularly big jump where they all did a nervy pee before they undertook it. We made sure we weren’t underneath for that bit.

After some bird watching and a fresh coconut at the café we called it a day. We hung out with cats until it was dinner time, heading back out to little india for dosas and India sweets for dessert – delicious!

Day 100! – Penang Hill

It was another early start, this time to Penang Hill, a forest reached by cable car 2733ft above sea level. The cable car took us above the clouds and we were greeted by spectacular views across Penang.

We followed the longest route round the forest area, spotting more dusky leaf monkeys as well as birds and a giant squirrel. We enjoyed the ever so slightly cooler climate high up from the town.

After making our way back down in the cable car, we headed off to Kek Lok Si temple, the biggest Buddhist temple in Malaysia built in the early 20^th century. I won’t lie, it was a pretty weird experience! We were funnelled through multiple paid-for cable cars and huge gift shops to reach the temple which was on top of a multi storey carpark for visitors. When you finally make it, you are greeted by a 120ft tall statue of Guanyin, the goddess of mercy. The size of the statue is a true spectacle but otherwise it did all feel quite commercial with each prayer room and pagoda full of tables of candles, incense etc to buy.

We couldn’t resist buying a couple of the wishing ribbons to put on the wish tree – we opted for “constant happiness” and “being together forever” – pretty fail safe! However, when putting them on the tree, I dropped “being together forever” and it fell to the floor and blew away until a fellow tourist put his foot on it…. Not the best omen!!

Day 101 – Western Penang

After breakfast, we said goodbye to beautiful George Town – I think it is my favourite city we have visited so far on our trip – and bid farewell to our nine feline hosts! We got a taxi an hour away to the other side of Penang Island to spend a few days by the beach and to visit the National Park there.

We arrived at Tony’s guesthouse to be greeted by Tony and, thankfully, two resident cats to ease our withdrawal symptoms. Check out our cool bedding, very appropriate for So Long London!

In the afternoon we jumped on some very rusty bikes and cycled round the neighbourhood and eventually to the beach to watch sunset with a beer and to do a mini beach clean up.

Day 102 – Penang National Park

Fuelled by some roti canai and sugary tea from a local stall, we headed to the National Park entrance.

Full of lush tropical rainforest, we paid the entrance fee and set off on the 5k trek to Turtle Beach. It had poured the whole night so the paths were pretty slippery and it was a very tough and sweaty climb to get to the beach.

We arrived drenched with sweat but very sadly you can’t swim here due to the currents and jelly fish, it looked seriously inviting but we didn’t risk it! We hung out on the beach, spotting monkeys and visiting the turtle centre which is protecting local turtle populations.

We headed the 5km back to the village for well needed coconuts to hydrate and lunch.

Day 103 – Water Park!

Apart from the national park, the one other main site to visit was the water park so we found ourselves at the gates just before opening time. It was a Wednesday and we were in the handful of people through the doors as it opened! The park is split into a dry theme park and the water park so we decided, of course, to start with the Zip Coaster which is the longest in the world. We went off in ski lift to the top, pretty excited, first ones of the day to ride it. We HATED it, we were flung through the trees on a metal chair attached to the wire by chains, it was seriously jolty and there were many occasions we almost slammed into a tree we honestly thought the ride was broken.

Not the best start to the day! We went on to do more of the dry rides including tubing and a go ape like zip wire course which we enjoyed much more. But the water park was where we really enjoyed ourselves, sitting in big double donut tubes going down huge long water slides over and over again without ever having to queue was seriously fun. There were some particularly scary ones we avoided after our earlier zip coaster brush with death. We decided to end the day on the longest tube waterslide in the world; 1.1km long and open top winding round the tree canopy. Half-way along in our double tube, we saw a monkey on the slide… My life flashed before my eyes, there wasn’t room for a third passenger on the tube, and something told me he wouldn’t take being swept away by us with calm grace. Thankfully, he jumped off at the last minute and we continued on the journey in a more calm fashion until we slammed into a boy and his dad in the final 100m and we all finished the ride together. After our monkey escape we didn’t want to push our luck any further so we rode home back to our guest house to compare the bruises we had collected from our day of slides. It was a great day.

We’re off to the Cameron Highlands after this, where we go on some fab walks and see some great wildlife. We also make friends with a beautiful dog who adopts us for a day.

Pics that didn’t make it