After exploring Melaka, Kuala Lumpur and the Cameron Highlands I decided to head towards the West Coast of the Malaysian peninsular as it was supposed to be drier there. And they have beaches :-) Lots of beaches. My first stop was Pangkor island where I arrived after taking two buses, a ferry and then a motorbike ride to my guesthouse. OH YES! Three Malay-Chinese guys who spoke to me on the second bus helped me to get me and my 20 kg suitcase to my guesthouse in Teluk Nipah on two motorbikes. How nice! After checking in and refreshing I went for a first walk along the beach.
Free hammocks and swings!!! Fantastic idea! There was nobody to take my picture in one of them but heyho, I enjoyed it :-)
On my second day? I was a total beachbum.
I did nothing exciting for two days. I slept in, went to the beach, had lunch and dinner, read a book and watched movies in my room. Just these craps in different sizes were hushing up and down the beach all around me.
I had to try these puddings. They sound better than they taste, trust me.
After two days of doing nothing it was time to move on. I took the ferry to Lumut and then a bus to Butterworth where I boarded another ferry to Georgetown on Penang island.
Georgetown is another World Heritage listed city of Malaysia and widely known for its fantastic street food. So after I checked into my guesthouse I went out to have some spicy Penang Laksa.
I wandered around the street of Georgetown.
Then I had Ice Kacang for dessert. Yes, a dessert which includes sweet corn and beans...
And guess who was in the same dorm as me? Nienke and Caroline who I met on my last night in the Cameron Highlands! I spent the the evening with them having some more street food and then we spent the rest of the night in a bar. They invited me to join them the next morning for their daytour around the Northern part of Penang island.
Our first stop was Penang Hill where we had to pay some ridiculous 30 Ringgits each to get on the train up the hill where we didn't had a great view due to construction work going on. And it was totally crowded with school classes.
At the Hindu tempel we reassembled one of the statues. We totally got it right? :-)
If you want you can put up a Lovelock there.
This is where the train goes up. Quite steep, huh?
Our next stop was the famous Kok Lek Si Sing tempel - the Buddhist tempel of 10,000 Buddha statues
This long-burning candles were being put up by prayers.
Or they put up Wishing Ribbons. There are different coloured-ribbons for different wishes.
We walked around a small part of the huge complex and took lots of pictures.
Then we got to the big copper statue at the top and to be honest: we had a much better view over the city from here then from Penang Hill.
They have this cute little statues of bears, ducks, dogs, cats, monkeys and pandas all around the place. I couldn't resist ;-)
At the foot of the tempel we had some amazing street food: this is Hokkien Mee!
After lunch we drove West on the island to the famous beach Batu Ferringhi.
And this is the crew! Nienke, Caroline, Chris, Johan and another guy whose name I forgot, uups. I jumped up too early :-(
Actually, our plan was to go into the Tropical Spice Garden but at 26 Ringgits per person it was too expansive for us. We drove to the National Park where the boat trip turned out to be 40 Ringgits per person, so we dropped that as well. After spending some time on the beach we got back to our guesthouse. In the evening we went for Dim Sum as starters. Yummy!
For the main meal I got some Wan Tan Mee soup, so delicious!
The next morning my companions went on the ferry to Langkawi islands whereas I stayed in Georgetown to discover some more of this city, especially the street art.
People were lining up in front of the street art to get their picture taken while vehicles were trying to get by. It was total photography madness.
So I decided to just take plain pictures of the most famous ones. This one is apparently the first one that started the sport of street art in Georgetown.
In front of this motorcycle one I asked a German to take my picture (not the best job...) but I followed him and his Malaysian colleague around finding more street art and tempels.
This is at the Chaw fishing jetty.
And this is my favorite street art piece.
After 1.5 hours of hunting street art the three of us retreated into Little India for some food.
At the Fort Cornwallis we separated again and I wandered around the fort and along the sealine.
This is the clocktower of Georgetown next to a big roundabout next to the Shettenham Pier.
In the afternoon I took the bus to Batu Ferringhi. Why again? Well, I had booked accommodation there before I ran into Nienke and the others. I couldn't cancel the booking for free and anyway, two more days at a beautiful beach were in order :-)
After two days of sleeping in, lying at the beach and eating nice food I went back to Georgetown to sort out the journey to Langkawi island. In the dorm I met a Chinese guy named Tong and we went for lunch together. This is Keow Char Teoy.
Over lunch we agreed that renting a motorbike and cruising around the island would be something you had to do. So one hour after lunch we had rented this scooter for the day.
And this is Tong and me at Batu Ferringhi. Yepp, I went there for the third time. Here I tried to ride the bike and let's just say a small brick wall, the scooter and I got away with just a few scratches each... So I let Tong drive all the way.
After Batu Ferringhi we did a small walk in the national park.
Where we met this snake. AHHH!
It took us about another hour to get to the Southwest corner of the island and passed beautiful spots and nice views. Near Belong island we watched the sunset.
Then it was time to head back into Georgetown, in the dark and in the starting rain... And I thought I would die, several times. Although Tong has driven a motorbike before he wasn't the most confident driver and the traffic in Malaysia can be quite dangerous. We nearly drove into several cars and other motorbikes, once after a fuel-stop Tong forgot to drive on the left side of the road and he also crossed two red lights for no good reason. I was SO happy when we got back to the bike rental place after 5 hours of driving around. After changing into dry clothes I invited Tong to some Indian dinner in Little India for getting us safely back.
I got some Dim Sum as well because I love that stuff.
The next morning Tong left to get to Kuala Lumpur and I had a lazy day, sleeping a lot, eating some more street food like this Dry Pan Mee, Cendol and more Dim Sum with Red Dragon Fruit juice.
My next stop: Langkawi island!
Yours island-exploring-and-nearly-dying Stefanie
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