My Trip Report To Penang

[Dancali]

I just got back from Penang so I'd thought I'd share a little about what's up.

Others have just written trip reports so I will try not to bore you too much.

I have a 1 year non-b already so I didn't have to apply for anything, I just had to get a new stamp at the border. If you're interested, the one time I did have to get a non-b visa in Penang, it was possible but they wanted a lot of paperwork. I had a ton of paperwork, but apparently not enough, so I had to call my school agent (teacher pimp) to fax the rest of the information; I came back the next day and they processed my single entry non-b ok.

I've been to Penang a couple times before, and the last time I went there I went half crazy from boredom and loneliness. I corrected that problem by bringing my gf with me and only staying for a couple days this time.

We first stayed at the Oriental Hotel from someone's recommendation. It was 750 baht and ok, just ok. It was palatial compared to the guesthouses I used to stay at in Chinatown, but you could find a better value. The next day, we moved to Hotel Malaysia down the street about a block away for 880 baht. MUCH nicer, new everything, and 2 free (though shabby) breakfasts to boot. Hotel Malaysia is just fine for Georgetown, and the Continental next to it looks ok as well. The Oriental was junk compared to the Malaysia.

We got a motorbike and went around the island the best we could. We discovered that Penang is deceptively large. Looking from Georgetown far away, you see a bunch of resort type buildings in the distance and if you look at a map you might think that is "North White Sands Beach" or something like that. BUT NO, North Sands beach is way the heck past that. I just wanted to go to the <deleted> butterfly farm but we were driving for what seemed like all day.

Georgetown is a nice place, but I'm now quite bored of it. I've seen what there is to see and now the main activity is drinking. Drinking is fine but nothing to plan a vacation around. The best place I found to drink is "Soho Free" where they have draft beer for 60 baht a glass. It's across the street from Malaysia Hotel. This is by far the best deal for bars in that area. Everything around it charges like twice the price for the same drinks. It's packed and loud, so that kinda sucks; you could go to the ghost town next door if you like where at least it's not packed but the drinks will set you back 140 baht each.

Next time I go to Penang, maybe next year, I'm staying in the more upscale resort area at North Beach. The prices it turns out are about the same as the hotels I was looking at in Georgetown (800-1000 baht). And there's actually decent beaches and scenery out there.

My favorite thing about Penang, besides from taking a break from work, is the indian food. I love taking a break from my normal Thai food, fast food, pseudo-japanese food, etc.

On the street you can get a great meal of tandori chicken and indian garlic bread for about 110 baht. You can eat cheaper if you like.

I went to one Indian restaurant for a special meal. I saw that each item was like 130 baht. I thought I could order a few items and splurge on a 500 baht dinner. Turns out this place was a bit classier (rip off) than I had thought and each serving was really small. We had to fill up with a couple jasmine rices to top off our expensive meal.

I also got slightly ripped off in the Free Soho bar. They're great for cheap beer, but my waiter was a little too smart for me. In the dark, he brings me back my change, and I think I'm being proper by taking the bills and giving him the change. He quickly runs off. I look down and I don't have as much cash as I thought I should have. It turns out that he used some large 1 ringit coins (11 baht) in the change which I hadn't ever seen before and hadn't seen later. I think they've been out of print for about 10 years now. Getting ripped off for about 25 baht is not a big deal in terms of the money, but it sucked being scammed. I went back to the main cashier and used sign language to say what the problem was (too loud to talk) and he obviously was used to this scam and gave me all my change back quickly and with no questions asked.