The year 2016 was reaching to an end and I had
to finish off my annual leave which began from 19th December. I was
kind of excited to get the 2 weeks off from work and was hoping to get some
rest and most importantly, reminisce on my 2016 journey. However, I somehow found
myself done with all of that by the end of the third day and got a little bit
bored.
Luckily, a buddy of mine, Kamil, had plans
for a short getaway to Penang and invited me to come along. Prior to the
invite, he had roughly drafted the logistics with a personal ‘amateur’ tour
guide, who also happens to be our dear friend, Zi. Zi is a PhD candidate at
Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and has been living in Nibong Tebal, Penang for
a couple of years, so she pretty much knows her way around Penang (both mainland
and island).
We had decided for trip to be from 27th
till 29th December. Yes, it seemed like a brief period of time but
we were not really fixed on planning to visit specific places or to cover a lot
of ground. In fact, we didn’t really know where we actually wanted to go, heck,
Kamil and I even bought our ETS train tickets for our return journey, days
before the trip began. To top things off, our married friends Yan and Ezad also
decided to join us, two days before our travel date.
Tuesday, 27th
December 2016
I met with Kamil, Yan and Ezad at KL Sentral
around 9 am and the four of us took the train to Sungai Buloh. Then, Zi (who
was from Kuala Selangor) fetched us up and we drove to Nibong Tebal. Before we
got ourselves checked in at our accommodation, we rushed our starving selves to
a popular local lunch spot in Permatang Tok Mahat called Restoran Mak Su.
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| Restoran Mak Su |
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| Plenty to choose |
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| Our lunch |
The food was great and they had a wide
selection of gravies and sides. However, according to Zi, the price was
considered to be a bit pricey compared to other restaurants nearby. But hey, we
enjoyed the food, so no complaints from us! Plus, we were truly touched (actually surprised) as Yan voluntarily
said she wanted to treat us to it!
We then headed to our accommodation at the
USM hostel – Desasiswa Jaya Utama. The hostel was comfy and very cheap! One
room cost us only RM53/night (inclusive GST). Each room is equipped with two
single beds, an air-conditioner, a ceiling fan (in case the AC is not suffice as if you are a polar bear), toilet,
a study table and a wardrobe. The only downside for me is that the toilet does
not come with a water heater. The hostel also provides a tele, iron,
refrigerator and small dining table in shared the living room.
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| Our room |
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| The shared living room |
After a quick rest and freshen up, we headed
to Design Village to have a look around. I did not intend of buying anything,
so I just took a stroll and went in a few shops. I noticed there were not a lot
of discounts and offers at the time and there were still other outlets that have
not yet opened.
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| Design Village: http://designvillage.today/ |
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| Cool area for the kids to play at |
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| Christmas season at Design Village |
Afterwards, we went to get dinner. The
decision on what to eat and where to eat has always been something that my
friends and I struggle with. But this time, it was different as we had put full
trust on Zi and followed her recommendations. We had dinner at Omaq, located in
the food court opposite of the iconic old clock tower of Parit Buntar, where we
had Char Kuey Teow and satay as our ‘side dish’ (don’t judge us, we’re on holiday). Okay I know some would say “Why
on earth did you go there for a Char Kuey Teow? You should go here and there for the best ones, instead!” But hey, we weren’t keeping
scores of eating out at all those famous stalls or whatsoever, we just wanted
something decent enough and enjoy ourselves without having to be in any hassle.
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| Parit Buntar Clock Tower |
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| Our dinner |
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| Delish! |
We got 5 Special Char Kuey Teow plus drinks
that cost us RM40 and the satay was RM0.70 per
stick. Not bad at all. The Char Kuey Teow for me was delicious, though I wish
they would come in bigger portions. The satay was just okay I guess, as they
were a little bit under seasoned. All in all, it was a good dinner! Then we
called it a night and turned in.
Wednesday,
28th November 2016
This day was mainly dedicated to be spent on Penang
island. All of us agreed to start the day by visiting Penang Hill. So, after Zi
had given us a very convincing speech on the importance of getting there early
(to avoid the long dreadful queue),
we all got up early, had breakfast and headed off to Penang Hill. Our strategy
was to leave as soon as office hours started so we wouldn’t have to deal with
the heavy traffic especially on the Penang Bridge – and it worked! We arrived
at Penang Hill at around 9 am.
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| Penang Hill: http://www.penanghill.gov.my/index.php/en/ |
The time we arrived, the queue for the
funicular train not particularly that
long. We only had to wait 3 times (30-45 minutes) for our turn to get on it. Funny
thing, we were so determined to secure the best spot on the train – at one
point we were like 100 meters Olympics sprinters at the gate. Yan really wanted
to record a video with the very best view going uphill and fortunately she managed
to do so!
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| Getting ready for our turn |
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| Looks like the comrades were here #SelamanyaHarimauMalaya |
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| Our view from the train |
So, once we reached the top, we all decided to
go on a walk at The Habitat. To enter, we had to pay RM20 (RM10 for students)
and walked roughly around 1.2 kilometres till the exit. Along the route, we
enjoyed the light walk and got sunk in with nature for a while. We also got to
view the lush green scenery. We spent a lot of time taking photos using Kamil’s
GoPro and Yan really had it her way by recording videos and capturing ‘slow
motion’ and ‘boomerang’ videos. All fun to look back at our silly selves! Unfortunately,
we weren’t able to spot the wild animals that were indicated on the information
board along the path. But according to Yan, she did see a squirrel (Really
Yan? Really?) We were understood that The Habitat was only recently opened
and still expanding/developing new facilities/attraction sites in the area, so
there weren’t much to do yet. It was a decent walk, but to be frank, for RM20,
we kind of expected more.
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| The Habitat: http://thehabitat.my/home/ |
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| Our tickets |
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| Lush greens! |
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| The Giant Swing |
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| There were a few of these there |
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| Do recycle! |
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| In case you forgot your drink |
After exiting The Habitat, we got a ride on a
buggy! It cost RM30 (per buggy) for a 15 to 20-minute ride around the hill.
Even though the ride was quite brief, we really did enjoy it and felt calm as
the wind ran through our hair (unfortunately
I just shaved my head so the pleasure was minimum LOL). We even stopped at
a couple of sites and took some photos. Worth the RM30 or for our case, RM6
each.
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| Kamil's checking out the buggy |
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| Taken at one of our stops during the buggy ride |
It was a very hot day, so desperately
determined to share some cold icy treats! We got a bowl of ais batu campur and a bowl of Mango Ice (RM15 total IINM) – and
goodness me, both of them, especially the mango treat was an absolute delish. I
even considered to add one more just to myself.
As we were walking out of the entrance of Penang
Hill (around noon), the place had already packed with visitors and the queue
was insanely long! I was so relieved we got there early. So if you guys are
planning to visit Penang Hill, do come early!
It was then noon and we decided to get lunch.
The walk and laughs made us really hungry. So we drove to the city centre and
planned to eat at Kapitan Restaurant. As we were on our way to the restaurant,
we got cranky (mainly due to accumulating
hunger) and to make things worse, we were trapped in terrible traffic. We
had to patiently search and wait until we could finally spot a parking space (about 500 meters away from the restaurant),
after about an hour circulating the area that is.
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| Restoran Kapitan |
So here we heard they are famous for their Claypot
Beryanis so we all ordered the ones with tandoori chicken and lamb except for
Ezad as he asked for the chicken Milano Beryani.
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| Food! |
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| Mine! |
The food was superb! The hungry belly might
be a factor of me stating that but the be honest, I think the tandoori chicken
was definitely one of the best tandooris I have ever had. It was perfect, not
too salty, not too spicy – but not too mild and tasteless, and pretty juicy as
well. Yummmsss!
The heavy lunch made us felt like lazy bumps
for a moment but we had to get going and we went to the Kapitan Keling Mosque (steps away from the famous Line Clear Nasi
Kandar) to perform our prayers. We were blessed and grateful to have the
chance to be there and the spiritual tranquillity was felt the entire moment we
were there.
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| Kapitan Keling Mosque |
Next, we took a stroll along Armenian Street.
It was burning hot and had lured Yan and I to get ourselves a couple of ‘ais kepal’, each cost us RM2.50. You
could choose to have them with a combination of three flavours such as laichi,
rose, mango, to name a few. It was okay I guess it and helped a little on a hot
day like that, albeit the rose flavour did turn my lips to whorish red.
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| Ais kepal |
Later in the afternoon, we all decided to get
out of the city centre and headed towards the Batu Ferringhi beach. We spent
more than an hour there, just to enjoy the view and breeze, chit chat and just
relax. In case you were wondering, yes, it didn’t seem like a thorough
exploration of the city, but we didn’t want to go through all the hassle and
rush.
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| Ferringhi Beach |
We then headed to Masjid Terapung nearby to
perform our prayers. As soon as we were done, we started to feel hungry again –
I think the ‘No Diet’ rule that I enforced on the gang during this trip really
made us take it as an obligation to eat like there’s no tomorrow. We wanted to
try Nasi Kandar, so Zi took us to Nasi Kandar Ali Restaurant at Parit Buntar
for takeaways. Why there? Basically the same reason as regarding to our choice
to have Char Kuey Teow stated above – plus it was already late and we wanted to
be close to our accommodation.
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| Look at that line |
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| Gravies! |
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| More gravies! |
It was quite cheap (I can’t remember the exact price). I had my regular ordering style every time I go and eat Nasi Kandar; “Nasi lebih, kuah lebih dan ayam seketul” which
is Malay for “Extra rice, extra gravy and a piece of chicken.” I saw begedil (Malay version potato fritters) which
was quite odd to be found selling at a Nasi Kandar joint and I decided to grab
one.
*Personal preference – I always have my Nasi
Kandar to go rather than dining in. I find it a thousand times better that way.
I don’t know why but maybe because if we give some time to let the rice, meat
and gravy to be wrapped and infused together, it will create a MAGICAL taste.
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| The RIGHT way eating Nasi Kandar |
It was pretty nice and worth it. However,
it’s difficult for me to say more about it – not because they weren’t that
good, they were! But for me it would always be a biased review as I am a fan of
Nasi Lemak Royale in Alor Setar. Some might say “Hey dude, that’s not Nasi
Kandar laaaa!” or “Of course you’d think that way because you’ve never tried all
the other famous Nasi Kandar.” Well, you probably have a valid point, but I
fell in love with Nasi Lemak Royale since I was 13 and I even had the thought
of having it as my last meal before I get executed on a death sentence. Anyway, after dinner, we took our bloated
and knackered selves to our hostels and got into bed.
Thursday, 29th
November 2016
It was the last day of our trip and we didn’t
have to leave to the train station till 6 pm. So we were in no rush. Zi took us
to the USM campus food court where we would ‘supposedly’ have some light
breakfast. Well, everything changed when Kamil willingly said that he’d pay for
our breakfast. We are good friends, so we had no shame of taking the advantage
over the offer. We had some Nasi Lemak and Nasi Goreng all with sides - chicken
pieces and hash browns (yeah we wanted to
make our Asian breakfast a wee bit Western, JK). The total was only RM15!
Note: As an alumni of UPM, I really
envy the USM students because of this!
After breakfast, we drove to the jetty and took
a small boat to get us to Pulau Aman. The 5 to 10 – minute boat ride cost RM7
for a return ticket. I personally enjoyed the boat ride and nothing beats that
feeling when the wind ran through your hair (again, I regretted going bald before the trip LOL). We were pretty
early to have arrived at the island so there weren’t so many visitors.
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| The boat to take us to Pulau Aman |
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| I wish I didn't shave my head |
We then took a walk in the village and ran
into some friendly faces of the community living there. We didn’t do anything
adventurous like tracking around the island or anything. After about a 15 –
minute walk we stumbled upon a spot that we thought good enough to take some
photos at. Then, at one point I gave stone skipping a try, and somehow I
succeeded! So the rest of the gang gave it a go as well, except for Yan as she
was on her ‘video recording duty.’ We spent a lot of time and energy at that –
yes, it drained a lot of our energy. So, we got hungry again!
We then headed to Terapung Restaurant. As we
were approaching the restaurant, from far, I saw one of the restaurant workers
threw garbage out into the sea. Such an irresponsible act! Anyway, the
selections of fresh seafood were unfortunately not that wide and varied. We bought
3 Kilograms of clams (RM6/kg) and 1 Kilogram of prawns (RM60/kg) and asked the
chef to have them steamed. While waiting for the clams and prawns to be cooked,
we all ordered a variety of noodle dishes except for Zi who had Nasi Goreng – at
RM6 per plate.
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| Restoran Terapung |
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| Our 'appetizers' |
The dishes were nice and all but we were
actually more looking forward to indulge in the feast of seafood that was being
prepared. Then, the moment we all had been waiting for had arrived – the
steamed clams and prawns were served, with some spicy side sauces.
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| The main meal |
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| Oh yeah :) |
We immediately attacked them. I don’t eat clams so I was full - heartedly
committed in stuffing my face with the prawns. I kept on eating until I stopped
at my tenth prawn (maybe more) when I
was truly full and satisfied. Zi and Yan really amused me with the amount of
seafood they consumed – A LOT. It was a great meal. Eating fresh seafood by the
water was kind of perfect- plus it was Ezad’s treat!
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| Just making sure there were no left overs |
After we devoured the meal, we headed back to
the mainland. We then picked up a few packages of Jeruk Pak Ali (picklings) for
some friends and family back home, got back to our hostels, rested a for a
little while, packed our things and checked out. Zi was then nice enough to treat
us to some rojak, cendol and ais batu campur before sending us off to the Parit Buntar train
station for us to head back to KL.
To end…
Penang is a great place to visit with friends
and family. If we had spent more time there and had a more detailed itinerary,
we would gotten more fun for sure. But in the end the trip served its purpose.
We had a good time together, enjoyed a lot of good food and well prepared to
head back to KL with our busy work piled up on our desks.
I would like to thank Zi, for being our super
duper tour guide by letting us to use her car, showing us around here and there
and also put up with our endless requests.
Thanks to Kamil who had initially planned out
the trip along with Zi and invited Ezad, Yan and I. Thanks for sharing all of
the great photos with us.
Finally, thanks to Ezad and Yan who could
join us on this trip and made it more awesome! Thanks for all the hilarious
short videos taken of us.
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