6/09/10 – 6/11/10 (cameron highlands)
Annie LinCameron Highlands – Penang
When we woke up on Wednesday it started to rain, which to us is always a sign to leave a place. We took a 4-hour bus ride to Butterworth and then a 15-minute ferry to Georgetown, the capital of Penang. The owner of the guesthouse in Cameron Highlands recommended a guesthouse for us to stay in Penang called Hutton Lodge. It turned out to be a really clean and convenient place to stay. It had one of the cleanest shared bathrooms that I had ever seen and they even had air-conditioning in the room! Such luxury.
When we finally got settled into our room it was around 3pm and we were pretty hungry since we hadn’t had lunch. We walked around looking for a restaurant and soon learned of siesta time in Penang. It seemed almost every restaurant is closed between 3-5pm. It was extremely humid that day and by the time we had lunch we had just enough energy to go back to our air-conditioned room for a nap. Since we had such a late lunch we weren’t hungry till about 9pm and I was afraid that everything would be closed. A staff at Hutton Lodge recommended a vegetarian restaurant around the corner of the hotel. I had spicy noodle soup and Jon had fried shrimp bento box but of course the shrimp was made from soybeans. We were happy to get some good food since our lunch was very mediocre.
The next day we explored the city on foot rather than our usual mode of transportation…on a motorbike. We visited Chinatown and it was as if we were in China around the 60’s. Penang is a World Heritage Site and they have done a great job in preserving the old architecture. I felt like we had walked back in time. We also had to stop by the chocolate factory for a sampling. Jon was a bit surprised that they had coffee but not hot chocolate. For dinner we checked out Gurney Drive night market, which is supposed to have a great selection of food. The market was divided into two sections, one part Malayan food and the other Indian food. We got there just as it was starting so it wasn’t as busy but as the night went on it became very crowded. Since we arrived in Penang we have been on a search for boba tea, also known as tapioca or pearl tea. It’s one of Jon’s favorite Asian drinks. We saw people at the night market with them but couldn’t figure out where they got them. As we were leaving we finally spotted the stall selling them.
One of the main attractions was Penang Hill but the train was under construction so the only way to get there was to hire a jeep. We decided to skip it since it was pretty expensive and part of the attraction for us was taking the train up to the hill. Instead we went back to our routine of renting a motorbike to drive around. Jon was in desperate need of more shirts since he was only left with four after a laundry services didn’t return his fifth shirt. We decided to go to the mall to buy him some clothes. It was a pretty big mall and we ended up spending a few hours there. As we were leaving the mall it started to rain really hard and we didn’t want to drive in the rain. We waited a little bit but then the rain hadn’t lightened up so we decided to go back into the mall to catch a movie. The only movie playing at that time was A-Team. We didn’t realize how cheap it was to see a movie…only $10 for two tickets, one box of caramel popcorn (they don’t sell butter popcorn…strange), and two drinks. What a bargain!! We felt a little bad spending our last day in Penang at the mall but sometimes that’s what happens.
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