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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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! 😂
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| Yeayyy we queuing on the front line when it arrives |
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| 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.
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| The Observatory |
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| Cafe and Museum |
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| 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..
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| Warm welcome from the turtles! |
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| 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..😊
