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.