Trip to Penang : Day 3

We did nothing much in 3rd day. Our feet had no compromise, they seemed too tired to walk 😢

So we decided to strolling around KOMTAR by CAT Free Bus. There are 3 malls in KOMTAR complex. The one that we visited on first day is The TOP. It is the highest building in KOMTAR complex. Beside Observatory Desk and Rainbow Skywalk, it also has Jurassic Research Center, Underwater Museum and Indoor Theme Park. If you bring your children, you can spend a whole day in here, but for us..let’s just skip it..haha.

The TOP is connected to Komtar Walk. This mall mostly consist of restaurant and food stalls. From Japanese cuisine, Western food till Penang’s signature White Coffee.

Komtar Walk

We move to Prangin Mall to have lunch, glad that we found Nasi Lemak, Malaysia’s famous rice cuisine to fill our stomach. Then continued to strolling around Prangin Mall. It such an old mall and has not-so-good items. We didn’t interested to buy anything.

But suddenly we found a sign to go to Penang House of Music inside the mall.

This museum shows various kind of music instruments that Penang’s people use to play from time to time. But it requires entry fee, so we skip it.

Next stop is Asia Comic Cultural Museum and it is a super cute museum!! For comic maniac, this must be a heaven. There are many comic characters shown here. But again, in the name of budget traveling, we skip it.😀

Can't miss cute spot to pose! 😍

Chowrasta Market

We just came back to hotel after finish visiting all building in KOMTAR and visit the famous Chowrasta Market near our hotel to buy more gifts for friends and family. It is actually a modern market that sell daily necessities from vegetables to meats, on Sunday there are food hawkers beside the market that sell traditional foods.

Inside Chowrasta Market

Food hawker outside the market

Snacks hunting at Chowrasta Market 😍😍

On the 4th day we had to flight back home. We spent the morning packing our bags and directly went to airport. It was a fun visit, Penang! Hope to come back here someday.. 😘

At Penang International Airport

Trip to Penang : Day 2, City Tour by HOHO Bus

We used to wake up at 5 AM for morning prayer and then preparing to start activities. But in Penang, activities begin at 9 AM (except students going to school and Indian restaurant in front of our hotel 😄). So it’s a bit sucks for us waiting till 9 AM doing nothing..haha.

We were planning to visit Penang Hill (also known as Bukit Bendera) on 2nd day in Penang. The funicular train that will bring us up to hill is something attractive. The location of Penang Hill is quite far from our hotel in Georgetown. We had check on RapidPenang website about how to go there, but it seems a bit complicated.

So we decided to take Hop On Hop Off Bus (HOHO), because it will make our trip more simple. We can visit many tourism sites in less time.  This bus has two route, City Route and Beach Route. Each route has some tourism attractions that the bus could visit on demands or on it’s standard stop.

Where to catch this HOHO Bus? You should go to Gurney Plaza first because it’s the interchange counter and final HOHO bus stop. You can learn about HOHO Bus here.

We ride CAT Bus to Komtar and change to RapidPenang 101 to reach Gurney Plaza. The RapidPenang will stop at the back side of the plaza, and HOHO Bus counter is at the front side.

Back side of Gurney Plaza

Both route of HOHO Bus were available when we arrived at the counter. We choose City Route Bus and paid RM 45 for 24 hours ticket. We arrived on 11 AM and able to use the ticket till the next day on the same time. Wohooo let’s start the city tour!

Penang Hill

The first stop of HOHO City Route Bus is Penang Hill, it took about 30 minutes to reach there. It was Saturday so we got much traffics on the road, seems like many people would spend their time in Penang Hill as well. Arrived at Penang Hill, we got a long queue and wait about 1 hour before the train arrived.

Penang Hill tickets

While waiting for the train we are able to see the history of Penang Hill and the train. This mini museum shows the development of Penang Hill’s train from time to time.

I bet my self won't be brave enough to ride this old-days train 😆

The train had arrived! Fortunately we got a chance to sit in the back of the train and captured the best adrenaline moments of riding the Penang Hill Funicular Train. The train is designed to follow hilly road condition. The train’s floor is such staircases with almost 90 degree tilt. For me it’s quite scary just like riding a roller coaster! 😂

Yeayyy we queuing on the front line when it arrives

Dare to see landscape below?😱

Penang hill offers an observatory to see Penang’s beautiful landscape from top. It is surrounded by tropical forest that gives fresh air. There are also cafe, fish spa, foot massage and Mini Park that you can enjoy with your family. We didn’t take much time in here, because we weren’t interested to see park or eating in café. Just had sightseeing and inhale some fresh air, then we went back to train station and continue our trip.

The Observatory

Cafe and Museum

Love locks photobooth

Our next stop is Kek Lok Si Temple!

This temple is really famous because of its location on the top of mountain and very spacious. It has a 30.2 meters (99 ft) tall bronze statue of Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy. Known as the biggest Buddhist temple in Malaysia.

But unfortunately this temple is out of our expectation!

We took off from HOHO Bus at the parking lot and should walk about 1 km to reach entry gate. We were welcomed by hundreds of turtles swimming in the pound. After feeding a bunch of spinach to the turtles we continue walking to the stairs towards the temple. But hey, there are about thousand stairs waiting us! It was a mistake to choose walking to reach the temple, because we don’t have any marathon skill that could help us. We gave up without stepping on one of those thousand stairs! Haha..

Warm welcome from the turtles!

We ended up here..still long way to reach the top..😅

If you are planning to explore Kek Lok Si Temple, you better catch a taxi to bring you up to the entry gate at the top, instead of walking that might spend your time.

Clan Jetties

HOHO Bus stop at some tourism sites near Penang Road that we had visited yesterday, so we directly went to Clan Jetties. Clan Jetties is a floating Chinese village. The village is really quite and there is a small temple in each house. Its location is next to Jetty Bus Station that also becomes RapidPenang bus interchange. Clan jetties are small village, so we only spent 10 minutes exploring and back to HOHO bus stop.

We skipped two sites after Clan Jetties, they are Cruise and Fort Cornwallis. The famous Blue Mansion has attracted us, but unfortunately we came right after the gate has closed. Actually Blue Mansion is a traditional Chinese house built by Cheong Fatt Tze. He desired to preserve a beautiful and sophisticated  China heritage architecture, that’s why he did the best to build this mansion. UNESCO has acknowledged Blue Mansion as one of Georgetown Heritage Site, many people come to experience this traditional Chinese house. But to preserve this site, committee has set visiting hour, the last hour is at 3 PM, and we missed it..huhu.

Chocolate & Coffee Museum

To ease the disappointment, we finally went to Chocolate & Coffee Museum that only 5 minutes walk from Blue Mansion. Here you will be able to learn about the chocolate making process in modern technology. They also show the coffee blending process of Penang’s famous white coffee. For chocolate lovers, you can find various chocolate products in the shop. From dark chocolate, milk chocolate, coffee chocolate till fruits chocolate. But the price is a bit expensive, it starts from RM 25 to hundreds Ringgit. We prefer to buy chocolate and white coffee in Chowrasta Market for lower price. (As expected from budget traveler mindset..LOL!)

Finally we came back at HOHO counter Gurney Plaza. Gurney also well known for its delicious foodcourt called Pusat Penjaja Anjung Gurney, just next to HOHO Bus counter.

What foods did we find here? Will completely tell you later..😊

Trip to Penang : Day 1

I will start this travel diary from my latest trip, Penang Island - Malaysia! 😄

Actually this was an unexpected trip, I never plan it. My cousin was googling for promo airplane tickets and found that the flight from Surabaya to Penang return  by Air Asia was only IDR 500.000. What a lucky day!

We directly booked the ticket and surprisingly there was only next-two-weeks-ticket available. Yeah we need an extra effort to learn about Penang Island and all matters inside. But it was fun to spend time googling about Penang in the mid of busy working schedule (I’m sure boss will kill me if he knew it! Haha..)

Being budget traveler means to learn all about the place that will be visited. From nice budget hotel to stay till public transportation that we will ride during the trip. One thing that I never miss when visiting other country by my self is composing a complete itinerary. This itinerary is really helpfull for the trip, because it contains information about time schedule, tourism sites to visit, type of transportation to ride and how much does it costs. Even if you get lost, at least you still have a trip direction..Haha.

This is my Penang Trip itinerary..if you are interested to be budget traveler you can use my itinerary posted in this blog as you want! 😎

Well, our trip to Penang from Surabaya took 3 hours flight with 1 hour time gap, Penang is 1 hour former than Surabaya. We took off at 5.15 AM and arrived in Penang at 9.20 AM (Penang time). 

Had breakfast on board

Welcome to Penang!

Due to our plan, we will use RapidPenang Bus during our trip to cut the transportation costs. These buses operated by government and strolling around Penang Island.

Made a pose with RapidPenang..😄

Our hotel was in Penang Road. It’s a well-known road and also the center of tourism attraction in Penang , because it’s close to famous Chowrasta Market and Penang’s street arts. Book a hotel in the tourism center also help you to cost the transport cost, because you can easily visit tourism sites by walking and many kind of public transportations available.

We got information from internet that we can ride RapidPenang 401E or 401 from airport to Penang Road. But when we asked the RapidPenang officer in airport, they suggested to ride Airport Transit (AT) instead of 401 bus. So we follow their suggestion but hey, they lied!

We paid RM 2.70 (around IDR 8000) for the bus fee, but the driver didn’t stop in Penang Road! The bus stop at Transfer Road that we should walk about 1 km to reach Penang Road and find our hotel. Huft..

It took about 40 minutes from airport to Georgetown, the heart of Penang Island.

RapidPenang Airport Transit (AT) tickets

After 15 minutes walking, finally we arrived at hotel, Grand Inn Hotel-Penang Road. It was a budget hotel with nice facilities. We got a medium size room with nice bed, a flat TV, complimentary coffee and water, nice bathroom with shower and toiletries. It was only IDR 235.000/night.
We choose the right hotel! We also pampered with very nice service, we got a room before check-in time! It was 11.00 AM but they change our room to 1st floor and allowed us to directly use the room.

For those who never been traveling to Malaysia please consider to bring the right power plug because this country use type G power sockets. If you forget to bring this kind of plug, you can buy it at airport..don’t worry.. 😛

After put all of our luggage then we were out for lunch (all food informations in Penang  will be share in different stories 😉) and strolling around hotel. Penang’s culture is influenced by Indian and Chinese. Most bulding has old china town architecture.

Street Arts at Lebuh Chulia, Lebuh Armenian and Lebuh Ah Quee

Our hotel in Penang Road is close to Penang’s famous street arts. You can find many street arts at Lebuh Chulia, Lebuh Ah Quee and Lebuh Armenian that only 5-10 minutes walk from Penang Road.

Some street arts that we found..

Finding those unique streets arts only spent 2 hours and we still had many hours before dinner time. So we decided to visit Komtar. Komtar is a short for Kompleks Tun Abdul Razak, a shopping complex that Penang citizen love to visit because of it’s cheap price. Komtar also become RapidPenang bus interchange station, all buses in Penang have to transit here. So if you confused what bus to ride, you better come to Komtar and ask the officer. 😁 

At Lobby

To go to Komtar from Penang Road, we rode CAT (Central Area Transit), it’s a free shuttle bus that strolling around Georgetown (Penang’s old city area including Penang Road and street art’s area). You can catch it at bus stop with this sign:

Observatory Desk and Rainbow Skywalk at The TOP Komtar

At Komtar there is a building called The TOP, that has glass observatory desk and Rainbow Skywalk to see Penang from top. It was amazing to visit the glass observatory desk, because you can experience standing in glass floor and see traffics under your feet! For me it’s super scary, imagine that the glass might break and I will have free fall performance from 65th floor! Hahaha..

The entrance fee of The TOP observatory desk and Rainbow Skywalk is quite expensive, RM 118. And you might be lose more money to buy souvenirs or instant photos that they offer.

But once you arrive at The TOP, you will be amazed by Penang’s  view from the top. It’s totally beautiful! (even when it was cloudy 😭)

First day in Penang was so fun!

After took many photos at The TOP Komtar, we went back to hotel and preparing the next day journey.