Penang
We are full of anticipation to get to Penang, but also a little worried, as we have a five hour bus journey ahead of us (the train was sold out unfortunately) and we have no idea what the bus will be like. Recent experiences of taking vans in Palawan have left us a little scarred. However, there was no need to worry. The bus is as comfortable as can be, and the road is mostly straightforward highway. After almost an exact five hour journey, we arrive at the bus terminal and Grab ourselves to our hotel, which is located in Georgetown, the main city on the island of Penang.
To sum it up in one sentence: Georgetown is awesome! Walking around in the city is a bit like an open air museum (it reminded us a little of Hoi An, while being more authentic), and the food is incredible. We couldn’t believe our luck when we saw upon arrival at the hotel that the next day would be the start of the Penang International Food Festival. The start of this two week long festival is marked with two evenings of Street Food Festival. You can imagine our delight!
Besides being a UNESCO World Heritage site for its architectural history, Georgetown is known for its street art – you may have seen the below before.
After a pretty delicious breakfast of Roti Canai (more about that below), we follow the Street Art Map of The Next Somewhere as guide to our walk. It’s very hot again, so we move along at sloth speed, desperately trying to walk in the shadow. Nevertheless, we tremendously enjoy walking around. And it’s not just the street art, it’s the architecture that gives the city its charm and makes it so pleasant to stroll around. We spent three full days in Georgetown, two of which we fully dedicated to walking around and looking for street art.
On the third day, we take a Grab to see the Kek Lok Si temple, a few kilometres outside of Georgetown. It is the largest Buddhist temple complex in Malaysia, with a beautiful pagoda and a 30m tall bronze statue of the Goddess of Mercy.
Back in the city, we of course cannot miss the Food Festival event of the day, which is dedicated to coffee. It is located in the Hin Bus Depot, which has almost been completely torn down and hosts pop-up markets and events. It’s a beautiful location (with a bit of street art as well). We have a coffee and try a few of the delicacies that are traditionally consumed with coffee, notably Dangai – coconutty goodness.
We end our stay with a walk towards the final artworks we wanted to see, a bit of shopping, and some more steet food at the Chulia Street Hawker Stalls.
Street Food
This is by far not an exhaustive list, but it’s what we managed to try. If you have a chance to be here during the Penang International Food Festival, don’t miss it! It’s a two week event, with a few main events in Georgetown on the weekends and mini events in Georgetown and other places in Penang province.
Woodlands
Indian vegetarian restaurant in Little Indian (who would have thought). We really enjoyed it. A local lady claimed that the Friday thali is better than the Sunday thali.
Roti Canai Transfer Road
We went there on a Saturday morning and it was pure madness. While, apparently, usually they have a range of options, on busy mornings they only serve Roti Canai with chicken or Roti Goyang (with poached egg). If you’re not into chicken, we’d recommend avoiding the weekend. The restaurant was also present at the food festival and they had a bunch of delicious curries on offer.
Roti Goyang
Mostly known for – guess what – Roti Goyang, but they serve all kinds of different roti.
Roti Canai Jalan Argyll
We went here after not finding vegetarian roti canai at transfer road and it was delicious. Much calmer and nice staff.
Sen Ji Vegetarian Wan Tan Noodle
In front of Chowrasta market – delicious for breakfast.
Apom Balik Hawker Stand
On Lebuh Kimberley, just after passing Lebuh Cintra. Delicious Apom Balik. Probably only there in the morning.
Chulia Street Night Market
Famous for its hawker stalls. We came on a Monday night and it was pretty quiet, there were maybe 10 stalls or so (not sure if that changes depending on the day of the week). It’s a very tourist oriented area. Had some nice noodles.
Kimberley Street Nightmarket
We just walked by but we preferred the atmosphere to Chulia Street. Seemed a bit more authentic and local.
Shopping
Georgetown had a bunch of really nice shops, ranging from your usual souvenir shop to more artisanal boutiques. There’s of course also malls if you’re looking for brands.
Dress Shop
We don’t know the name of this shop, but it’s right next to Shop Howard (see picture below). Really nice selection of dresses, both local and imported (from Korea, as the owner explained to us). Something a little different from the souvenir shops. 
Fuan Wong The Gallery
We especially liked the photographs of Georgetown’ architecture.
Chowrasta Market
Wet and dry market, but also has a book section upstairs. On Sunday morning, most bookshops were closed, so maybe check in on another day.
Batik Lah
Locally produced, nice for little souvenirs like bags or purses. Also has clothes if you’re into boldly patterned shirts.
Hin Bus Depot
Sunday pop up market, but there were also a few things on sale on the Monday where we went. The building is worth a visit anytime for its street art, there’s also a coffee shop.
Activities
As you may have guessed from what we said above, we mostly enjoyed walking around in the city. The island of Penang has many other things to do and there is also a beach in the north.
Street Art Walks
We took the guide mentioned above as a start to our walks. Following this, you can already spot other street art. We did a little more research and found so many more artworks to see! The ones in the guide are certainly some of the most famous, and a few of them invite to be in the artwork, e.g. you can sit down on a bike or motorcycle. Note also that not all of the artwork is looked after and some of it has already disappeared (like the Lion Dance) or is fading (like Jackie Chan). Most artwork can be found on google maps, but make sure to always look into all directions if you can’t spot the one you’re looking for immediately. It may also be smaller than you thought it might be.
Kek Lok Si Temple
This was a pleasant escape from the city for a couple of hours, and it’s a very beautiful and impressive Buddhist temple, with a wonderful view. The pagoda costs about 50 cents entrance fee, the lift to the Bronze statue about 1€. In our opinion you can skip going up to the statue (it wasn’t very busy so we didn’t have to wait to take the lift, but definitely wouldn’t queue for this forever). We took a Grab for around 2.50€ each way. There is a bus from Georgetown but the total travel time was indicated at 1.5h, so we opted for the slightly faster ride (around 20-30 minutes).
Where to stay
We stayed at the Rope Walk Guest House (26€/night). The location is perfect and the staff is nice. The building itself is really pretty. The room was quite small for the price and there is only a shared bathroom (which we noticed only after we couldn’t cancel anymore). The shared facilities were nice, though. While during the night it was fairly quiet, it wasn’t very well isolated and you could hear people walk and talk when arriving and leaving. If you stay more than a couple of days, we would recommend that you look for something a little more comfortable in the same area.
Getting here
As said, we took the bus from Kuala Lumpur. When you start looking for busses, you’ll see that there are many many options and when you start reading reviews, it seems like none of them are good. On 12go.asia, most busses indicate a travel time of 6 or 7 hours – this means that either they stop several times or that they don’t take the highway. Most busses from Kuala Lumpur leave at a bus terminal a bit outside of the city and we weren’t really bothered to trek down there to buy our tickets. We found that one of the companies, Nice bus, has a counter at KL Sentral, so we went there and bought our ticket – and even found out that the bus left from there. The bus was super comfortable with a lot of space, and it stopped twice at a gas station for people to buy food or go to the bathroom. It also left on time and travel time was only a little bit longer than planned due to traffic. The Nice bus ticket costs around 10€/person, slightly more expensive than most other companies, but definitely worth it. You get dropped off at the bus terminal on Penang Island (connected to the mainland by a bridge), from where you can take a Grab into the city (around 20min depending on traffic, 5€). Our preferred option would have been the train, but it was sold out that day (we just assume that everyone was heading to the food festival 😉 ). The ticket costs around 14€ and drops you off in Butterworth, from where you can take the ferry to Georgetown, which only costs a few cents and takes 20 minutes or so. You can also fly into Penang, even from Kuala Lumpur, which seems a bit exaggerated. From Langkawi, you can take the ferry.
Langkawi
A 3h ferry ride takes us from Georgetown to Langkawi, Malaysia’s biggest holiday island. We are curious to find out if we’re going to like it here. We’re based in Pantai Cenang, one of the most tourist oriented parts of the island. Our hotel is located a bit away from the main street and we are happy to settle in the simple, yet spacious bungalow after the slightly small room in Georgetown.
As we look for lunch, we are a bit shocked – prices are double what we paid for in the fanciest restaurant in Kuala Lumpur and three or four times what we usually paid for in Georgetown. As we are pretty hungry, we choose a Syrian restaurant and have a tasty shawarma wrap to at least give us enough energy to explore other options. This is made easier also by our next move: renting a scooter! We check out the beach, which looks busy but pretty, rest a little and then scoot off to a local restaurant, where we find mouthwatering Indian Malay food – for a normal price. All is good.
As the place close to our hotel promising Roti Canai is closed, we are back to the same restaurant before we start our island exploration the next day. Our destination: Gunung Raya, Langkawi’s highest mountain (881m). The guy who rented us the scooter said we shoudn’t be going there, i.e. it was to difficult to go up there with a scooter. Rebels that we are, we just went anyway – we needed to see for ourselves. After our recent experience in Port Barton, this road is a piece of cake. Yes, it’s uphill. Yes, there are a few potholes. But all in all, it’s a perfectly good road and we are happy our rebel attitude paid off. Driving up, we are going through a lush forest, which is very refreshing (Langkawi isn’t any less hot than Georgetown or KL), and we are greeted by some monkeys as we start our ascent.
Unfortunately, we don’t see much other wildlfe – this might be due to the time of day (it’s late morning). The tower at the top of the mountain is closed, so the other viewpoints must do. As we start making our way down, a few other brave adventurers on scooters are climbing upwards.
We’re ready for some beach time now and head towards Tanjung Rhu Beach in the north of the island. Generally, the beaches in the north are known to be wilder and less busy than the ones in the southwest. Tanjung Rhu Beach has one resort but there is a good part of the beach publicly accessible. It is far from untouched and remote – there are a couple of shops and a restaurants, as well as a beach bar with loud music. The sand is very nice and the water is bath tub temperature (though we notice that the crystal clear water of the Philippines has really spoiled us). It is not too busy – most people seem to come for the Mangrove Tours that are just next to the beach. We lounge around in the beach bar’s bean chairs for a bit, take a dip in the water and head back towards our hotel.
It’s not very enjoyable to drive here; roads are in great shape, but also very busy, so it’s not really leisurely driving. At least there’s a few monkeys sitting by the side of the road (but also the highest number of roadkill we’ve seen so far, mostly lizards).
One thing that Langkawi has really going for it is its amazing sunsets. We’ve watched three of them on Pantai Cenang and all three were amazing. We assume that you can enjoy them even more on a beach a bit further in the north, because it will be quieter.
The next day is already our last one on the island and in Malaysia. We need to start the day with a final round of roti canai, before driving north again to Skull Beach, recommended by our friends. As we arrive, a few local families are having a picnic, a few tourists are spread out on the beach, which is lined by shadow giving trees – it’s beautiful and quiet, no shops or bars around, no music. A little paradise on Langkawi! We read, we go into the – again – bath tub temperature water, we watch a monkey pull out a giant coconut from the trash and joyfully eating it – perfect!
We make our way back to Pantai Cenang one last time, have lunch and rest a bit. There is a museum about rice fields literally next to our hotel, so we decide to check it out towards the end of the afternoon. Despite what google says, the museum is already closed at 5pm, but it is still possible to walk around on the grounds, where you can see rice fields that serve to show people how rice is planted and grown.
After this, there is nothing left to do but go to the night market. There are nightmarket every day on Langkawi, and they change place every day. The one in Pantai Cenang is on Thursday, and it’s great! We are delighted to find many delicacies we discovered in Georgetown, and even a vegetarian version of Char Koay Teow. Not only do we get our dinner here, we also buy some snacks for our trip the next day. Yum!
With this feast and one more sunset, our time in Langkawi and Malaysia is already over. We regret a little not having planned more time for this wonderful country, as so many places remain to be discovered. It definitely made it on our list of places that we may want to come back to before heading home in September.
Activities
Langkawi is full of possibilities with museums, amusement parks, wild life shows, as well as countless tour on the island and the surrounding ones. We were considering visiting the Skybridge, but skipped it in the end. Enjoying the independence on our scooter, we only did one activity (and a half, counting the rice museum):
Gunung Raya
Gunung Raya is the highest peak of Langkawi. You can drive up there by scooter. Despite of what our rental agent told us, the road is not difficult. (However, if you’re not used to driving a scooter or motorcycle, we’re not sure if Langkawi is a good place to try it for the first time as traffic is busy, and especially there are a lot of cars (as opposed to other islands where there are mostly scooters and tricycles etc.)). From Pantai Cenang, it takes around 45 min, of which 20 consist of driving up to the peak. At the time we visited (April 2019), the view tower on top of the hill was closed. You can still enjoy the view from plenty of other places. As said, we didn’t see wild life besides monkeys. You probably have a better chance if you come early in the morning. You can also do trekking on the mountain.
Laman Padi (rice field museum)
As said above, we missed the opening hours (despite what google says, it closes at 5pm, except during school holidays). This would have been the opportunity to find out everything about rice production. We wouldn’t have driven across the island for this, but it was literally right next to our hotel, so we wanted to have a look. There’s actual rice fields, so visitors (during opening hours) can try planting rice.
Beaches
Pantai Cenang
This is the main tourist hub of the island. The beach is nice and water is good, too, but it is really busy – when we were there it wasn’t even crowded, there was just a lot going on with bars and restaurants and tour agents. Jet ski is a big deal here and every night around sunset, it was the big get-the-jet-skis-back-to-the-garage movement, with cars pulling several jet skis behind them. It is a also located very close to Langkawi airport, so you can see planes coming in all day (though you don’t hear them from the beach).
Skull Beach
Our definite favourite. Located in the north of the island, about a half hour drive from Cenang. No shops or restaurants very close by, so bring water. There is plenty of shade from the trees. View on the Thai island Ko Taruto. It got quite busy around 2pm, so maybe the morning is a little quieter.
Tanjung Rhu Beach
Also a nice option in the north, but less cosy than Skull beach. Restaurants and shops available. Next to a mangrove tour starting point. About a half hour drive from Cenang. You can rent sun beds from the beach bar.
Food
Yasmine
Syrian place on the main road in Cenang. The shawarma is good and the price is ok, the rest of the menu is pricey like all the other restaurants on that road.
Nasi Kandar Tomato
We could have lived here. Located in the south of Cenang, just after the tourist boulevard ends. Open all day. You can order roti canai in the morning and all sorts of roti, naan, etc. anytime. There is a counter from where you can pick your meal (rice, meat, veggies, daal – even tempeh).
Night market
As said, the location of the night market changes daily and we went on Thursday. We were so happy to find many familiar foods here again. You can eat at the market or take away.
Shopping
Langkawi is a duty free island, so if you’re in desperate need for liquor, cigarettes, or chocolate, this is your place. Note that the quantities you’re allowed to export by law are very small (we didn’t buy anything, but nobody ever checked our luggage when we left Langkawi for Thailand by ferry). Besides the duty free shops, Pantai Cenang’s Main Street is lined with shops and malls selling clothing and souvenirs. Some have the usual (fake) stuff, some are a bit different (we liked one called Cinnamon).
Where to stay
We really enjoyed our hotel The Coconut Langkawi (around 23€/night). It was a bit off of the Main Street in Pantai Cenang in a quiet setting. The bungalow was simple, but spacious. It had a fridge and a/c, as well as a small terrace. We would definitely stay here again, if we were to come back to Langkawi/Cenang. If you want to escape all the hustle of Cenang, you can look for hotels in the north. We checked only a few days before going to Langkawi, and it was impossible to find something for an even slightly reasonable price in the north (and even these options where scarce), but if you book earlier, you might be in luck.
Getting here
We came by ferry from Georgetown (15€/person, 3h). The ferry leaves at 8.30am from Swettenham Pier, you can by your tickets at the office of Superfast Ferries close to the pier. The boat is not particularly comfortable for long legs, but the ride (at least for us) was smooth. You arrive at Kuah Jetty, from where it takes about 25 minutes by Grab to get to Cenang (5€). Surely there are also ferries coming from mainland Malaysia. You can also fly into Langkawi. Coming from Thailand, you can take a ferry from Ko Lipe – more about that in the next article.
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