We were really excited to enter Malesia and leave Indonesia behind. Mainly because we had heard that Malesia is much cleaner and wealthier than Indonesia. At this point, after a month of streets filled with rubbish, toilets that are really just a squatting place and a hole in the floor as well as the never-ending "mister misterrrrr" yelling we were hoping to upgrade a bit. And we sure did since we landed to Georgetown first. The paradise of food! So many different cuisines represented; Indian, Chinese, Malay, Thai, Western, you name it.
We stayed in a heritage hostel, which was situated conveniently close to Chinatown and Little India. Before reserving our accomodation we had read from the internet and our lonely planet that the cheapest hostels should be avoided since they might actually be running a bordel as a side business. So we were happy to see no peepholes in our walls! They actually do warn about those in the guidebooks, which felt really crazy to us.
But anyway, Georgetown and the whole island of Penang felt safe to us. Luckily there was also a mixture of religions which meant that Rosanna was able to wear what she wanted outside.
Penang has plenty of things to do and to explore, so we decided to stay in Georgetown for three nights and in Batu Feringhi for two nights. The first day we headed straight to the weirdest coffee shop ever, the Purrfect Cat Cafe. Drinking coffee with a lazy group of weird looking cats was an unexpectedly funny experience :D
As already said, the streets in Malesia are normally quite clean and this was the situation in Penang too. Many tourist items and small snacks were sold in stalls. Georgetown had some really nice street art which we tried to spot whilst walking along the streets. Also modern and quite western cafes and bars seemed to be starting to dominate the streets of Georgetown. It was surprisingly easy to find a western kind of breakfast with either yoghurt, bagels or croissants. A welcome change to the mee and nasi dishes we had mainly been served at breaksfast.
From Georgetown it was easy to take the public bus to Penang Hill and to the Botanical Gardens. The Botanical Gardens were home to some cheeky monkeys, which were not happy at all to have their photo taken. Slow as hell those public buses though. It took us the whole day to visit the two places, but still we felt like they were both worth seeing.
What we really enjoyed the best in Georgetown was the food. We ate dinner at the nightmarkets a couple of times and enjoyed also Indian food in Little India. The nightmarkets are such a fun way to have dinner! One can choose almost what ever kind food to eat and everything is so cheap. After choosing what you would like eat and ordering it from one of the stalls, the food is delivered into your table and money exchanged. So convenient.
We were very lucky to be in town for the Heritage Anniversary celebration. The locals celebrating the aniversary of Georgetown being listed as a UNESCO world heritage site. Both of the days were filled with different happenings. Some streets were closed off from traffic and filled with free shows and snacks. In Little India we came across a lorry covered with decorations giving out food. The atmosphere was great at the party and we enjoyed it a lot.
After some days in Georgetown we took the public bus to the Batu Feringhi beach. This place used to be the only reason why tourists came to Penang before the bloom of Georgetown. What we saw when arriving to Batu Feringhi was a tired and worn out turist town. Big hotels on the beach dominated the scenery. The beach itself was okay, nothing special though. To our big disappointment the water was grey and had some jelly fish :(
Our hostel was located in partly deserted shopping mall building. The reception was located outside the building and to get into the rooms we had to enter the building and ride with a shady elevator to the top floor. Our room didn't have a window but with the price we paid for it we hadn't expected there to be one. Still it was really clean and comfy. The only thing bothering us at night were German football fans...
The same afternoon we arrived to Batu Ferringhi we headed to the Butterfly Farm not far from the beach, again with the local bus. The Butterfly Farm was a beautiful place with tens of different butterflies and some creepy crawleys to see. We were lucky enough to get a couple of butterflies to land on us :)
After returning to our hostel we watched the sunset at a beach bar while enjoying some drinks. Batu Feringhi had a couple of nightmarkets also where we chose to eat after such good experiences in Georgetown. We were not let down!
We decided to save money and spent the whole second day at Batu Feringhi on the beach. Of course on that day it rained once in a while. But all in all it was nice to have a beach day between the cities we had visited and would be visiting in the future.
In the evening we went to massage place which also had a tank of fish for the famous feet fish treatment. It was such a funny experience, we recommend it to all :D And our feet felt so soft afterwards!
Later we watched the sunset on the beach and ate dinner again at the nightmarket.
Next morning we hopped on a local bus and after a two hour ride arrived to the bus terminal, where our bus to the Cameron Highlands left from.
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