Friday, February 20, 2009 at 11:36PM Well I’m back over in Asia again for more touring around and exploration. Flew into KL, Malaysia Tuesday and immediately got out of the big (and dirty) smoke to head north to Penang. Not too much to report so far so I’ll just throw up a couple shots from sunset & early evening yesterday. Both are shot from the top of the Komtar shopping complex, which lies at the base of the Komtar tower.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007 at 05:54AM Ok, time to stop being (quite) so slack. Had a bunch of people tell me to pull the finger out and get some more posts in here, so I’ll try to get back to updating it regularly. Aside from general laziness the main reason I’ve stopped posting is because I haven’t been travelling about too much. Really just settling into ‘living’ rather than ‘visiting’ here. ‘Here’ being bouncing between Phuket and Penang (Malaysia).
It was never even meant to be a stop on the tour at all as I figured it’d be too touristy for me.
Turns out I quite like it. I’m staying in a quiet little alleyway about 100m walk to the beach and within walking distance to everything I could need. I have a large room with in room wireless internet, king size bed, private balcony, daily maid service, fridge, kettle, large private bathroom, nice hosts etc, all for about $20 a day. Motorcycle hire is $5 a day and a short (fun) ride is all it takes to find an empty beach if the hoards of tourists on the main beach here get under the skin too much. Between excellent street magicians, outrageous prancing lady boys, bar girls who are almost impossible to beat at pool, guys with huge lizards or monkeys walking down the street, parasailing, jetski-ing, or watching us kick ass at cricket on cable tv (in all the bars and even my own room) there is always something to see and do. And when I don’t feel like seeing or doing then the place I’m staying can be remarkably quiet. There are annoyances here sure, but all told it’s an excellent spot to lose a couple months.
This is a bit of a creeper of a town.
At first it is just another grimy SE Asian city with open sewers, motorcycle petrol fumes and general chaos. But after you spend a few days there it has a habit of growing on you. And it isn’t just me, there are a lot of return/long term travellers in Penang and when you talk to them almost all have the same story: “I was only supposed to come here for a couple days to get a new visa for Thailand but I just never got around to going” This city does that to you, my couple days turned into a month before I knew it. It is just a great place to chill, the old Chinese shop houses have a allure and charm all their own and getting lost in the twisting alleyways can be a pure delight. The people there are absolutely the friendliest of anywhere I have ever been. I’d regularly get folks on the street just wander up and strike up a good natured conversation. At first I was quite wary as (coming from Thailand) I would wonder what there were going to try to sell me, but it isn’t like that. In Penang “Hello, where are you from?” means just that, as opposed to what I’ve seen so far of Thailand where it means “Give me a sec to walk over to you, pretend to shake your hand so that I can grip tightly and pull you physically into my store”
Over the next couple of posts I’ll probably delve a little deeper into things I’ve been up to over here but for now I’ll just share a leaflet I got handed here the other day walking down the street. It’s the first time I’ve seen one of my shots in print without expecting it, sure, I’ve seen my work in magazines before but I’ve bought the magazine knowing it. Here I was just walking down the street and from a complete stranger handed one of my photos (of Celine too at that). It was a very cool moment.
The original shot can be seen here.
Saturday, September 15, 2007 at 11:22PM If you stay in Penang then you absolutely have to stay at the travellers lodge (75 Muntri st). The reason is the owner, Mr Loh, is quite possibly the happiest guy on the planet. Whether it is the first time you walk in or the 12th time you wander in from a day exploring he has a smile for you (all three teeth of it) that seems to be trying to split his head in half. From bending over and waving frantically at the floor to show how to pronounce his name (my name Low, you know *wave at floor* LOW!) to demonstrating how the hallway is so long you can jog up and down it for fitness (he reckons he does 50 laps a day) he is always quick with a joke and jollier than Santa.
I don’t have any shots of him unfortunately, nor many of Penang at all, but I do have a pic here of an incredibly ornate Chinese temple just a couple doors up from where we were staying. The whole surface of the temple was that grey stone and every inch of it covered in beautiful stone carvings:
And another spectacular sunset that we experienced after nutting out our way through the twisting streets to the ocean:
Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at 03:06PM After our (all too) brief sojourn in the lap of luxury it was time to hit the road again on our quest north toward the Thai border. We decided to make Penang the target for the first day and were all set for another day of painfull stinky hot bus trips and transfers when Celine’s social tendencies saved the day again. A conversation to the couple next to us on the ferry got us a couple seats in the car they’d hired for their trip around Malasia. They just happened to be heading to Penang and even better was that despite the fact that their accomidation budget seemed much higher than ours they just so happened to be staying a block away from several Lonely Planet recommended backpackers.
On the way we decided to search out some food and happened across some huge candle looking things:
Turned out they were giant joss sticks and it was some sort of buddhist ceremony. Yet again Celine started gabbing with the locals in Chinese which resulted in a bunch of info, a free bagfull of guava (*shrugs*) and demands to take a picure of them and (as translated by Celine): “put on internet, let whole world see!”. So here you go world (the two on the right are the couple that gave us a lift) :
This was also the place I discovered this great drink (I originally bought one just because the name tickled me, turns out a bloody good drink, tastes like mountain dew):
Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at 02:47PM As I said before our stay at Pangkor island resort was the splurge part of the trip. I very much doubt I’ll be staying in anything other than budget accomidation for the rest of my 6 months over here, certainly nothing that will measure up to the luxury that this place had. A beautiful villa, right on the beach, complete with a private outdoor shower that would probably run Wivenhoe damn dry in about 10mins. Top it all off with a sunset most postcards would be envious of and it was bloody close to perfect. I’ll let the pictures tell the story:
Copyright © 2007, Ben Heys. All rights reserved.
