gurney-drive-and-penang-hill
type: Article
content: Gurney Drive I spent the last few days hanging out by myself, or with friends I just met. I've wandered around George Town a little more with P and A. MM (Malaysian Mum) took us all for steamboat at MamaVege on Saturday (24th): We ordered two kinds of soup, which are served in bubbling pot on a hot plate built into the table. Plus a selection of vegetables, not-meats, and noodles, which we drop into the soup and watch simmer. Then I wandered around Gurney Drive, an area north of George Town where there are lots of fancy condos and hotels and is a common place for tourists to stay. It's a far cry from the 'heritage' of George Town, and largely malls and plazas and shiny new buildings. I thought there might be some form of beach access, but it's mostly off limits because of construction in the sea (Penang Island is all out of develop-able land). At one point I wandered down a side street in the hope it might lead to the ocean, but it turned out to lead to some guy's orchard. Just as I realised I was on someone's land and should probably leave, the owner, Bok, popped out of the bushes to say hi. He told me all about the fruits he was growing (coconut, jackfruit, various others) and that he does it for fun not profit, now that he's retired from managing a security firm. He picked a small, yellow relation to the guava (English name unknown) from a tree for me to try; it was mildly sweet and fragrant. I eventually made it to Straits Quay, or at least the shopping/hotel complex part of the area. There's a trail along the seafront that leads from Tanjung Bungah to Straits Quay, once you can find the way in. It runs behind a huge area of luxury villas, most of which are still under construction. It was more peaceful here than walking along the road... obviously. All of the villas have pools facing the sea. A good place to stay if you want to veg out and aren't interested in the local area or culture. I walked back along the seafront until I returned to Gurney Drive. I spent …
generator: sloph
name: Gurney Drive and Penang Hill
published: 2016-12-26T12:45:00+08:00
tag: air+itam
tag: food
tag: gurney+drive
tag: hiking
tag: malaysia
tag: penang+hill
tag: penang
tag: travel
tag: vegan

annalakshmi
type: Article
content: So I knew there was a volunteer-run, pay-what-you-want vegetarian Indian restaurant somewhere in George Town, but somehow neglected to find it and save it on a map with the rest. And today I discovered... It's around the corner from where I live. So it's probably a good job I didn't find it sooner as I'd have neglected all of the other restaurants, but really. The food is so good, and the ambience is beautiful. It's part of a temple; roof but no walls, surrounded by trees and plants and bamboo, with tranquil music playing. While I was there, the sky opened and the downpour clattering on the sheet metal roof added to the peaceful atmosphere. To top it all off, one of the staff gave me a ride home as it was still raining heavily when they were closing up. Absolutely <3
generator: sloph
name: Annalakshmi
published: 2017-01-19T14:57:00+08:00
tag: annalakshmi
tag: food
tag: penang
tag: review
tag: travel
tag: vegetarian

buddhist-temples
type: Note
content: There are a whole bunch of big Buddhist temples not far from my apartment. I went to see them today. They include many shiny things, giant domes, belltowers, and a sleeping ('reclining') buddha. There was a great big angry bird with a sword, which I decided must be Tigo's ancestor. From the top of one of the towers I could see my apartment. In general, they were a lot bigger and had a lot more to see than I expected. Photos and walking trail.
generator: sloph
published: 2017-01-21T21:00:00+08:00
tag: buddhist
tag: penang
tag: temples
tag: travel

cs-penang
type: Note
content: Last night I joined the CouchSurfing Penang meetup at coffeeshop/bar Behind 50 on Love Lane. They're a really lively and enthusiastic bunch, locals and travellers alike. They meet every Friday, and frequently arrange adventures. After a couple of hours and a group photo, they broke into two groups: beer and food. I joined the food party, and we got curry from a 24 hour place in Little India: a huge plate of cabbage, rice and dahl for 3.50myr (about 64p). Rohan, the main organiser, was kind enough to give me a ride home after that, since it was about midnight by then. They're going on a motorbike trip to the mainland this weekend, to see a ton of attractions and camp overnight. I'd seen the post about it on their CS group a week or so ago, but it read like it was for people who could ride motorbikes... it didn't occur to me to ask if anyone was going in a car with a spare seat. Turns out a few of them are, but now I have other committments this weekend. But I'll certainly be joining their next adventure!
generator: sloph
published: 2017-01-14T08:45:00+08:00
tag: couchsurfing
tag: penang
tag: travel

north-west-georgetown
type: Article
content: I went for a walk around my neighbourhood today. As ever, in search of the nearest sand and sea. This time I headed in a straight line towards the nearest coast. It's consistently inaccessible, but there's a seafront seafood restaurant called Ocean Green and their driveway leads to a small tranquil beach. Barely a sliver of sand, but just enough to walk along or sit around for a while and listen to the rhythm of the ocean. And the caw of crows, which makes a change from seagulls. There's trash and boats making the water grimy, and the beach less than idyllic, but there are also no tourists. One or two locals working on boats or digging things from the sand. I made my way north, until I couldn't walk any further along the beach. I got as far as I got when I was coming from the other direction on my walk home from Gurney Drive a couple of weeks ago. I backed up, and entered Northam Beach Cafe, an open seating area outlined by hawker stands. It was just before 16.30, so they weren't quite open and the staff were just stirring. I took a seat in one of the blue plastic chairs, which had the KL Tower embossed in the back, and watched the sea. I could see distant mountains on the mainland straight ahead; construction and cranes off Gurney Drive to the north; and heavy equipment of George Town jetty to the south. It wasn't long before one of the guys wiping the tables asked me what I want to drink, so I ordered a small apple juice, no ice: 5myr. Steep, I think, but it came in a pint glass. He was also able to furnish me with the wifi password (northambeach123). Suddenly this becomes a viable place to work. At hawker areas like this, you order food at the individual stalls, but give your drink order to someone who comes to your table. In both cases, you pay when your item is brought over to you. It doesn't look like there's much in the way of veggie food. I saw signs for fruit rojak, beancurd, and grass jelly though, so maybe I could hang around for a while without starving …
generator: sloph
name: North West George Town stroll
published: 2017-01-09T19:35:00+08:00
tag: beach
tag: food
tag: georgetown
tag: janxden
tag: justgo
tag: malaysia
tag: northam+beach+cafe
tag: penang
tag: travel
tag: vegan

pee-on-it
type: Article
content: I had a vague plan of hiking from the Botanical Gardens to Batu Ferringhi. I found a trail from Batu Ferringhi which claimed to connect to a road to the Botanical Gardens, so I figured how hard could it it to be to reverse engineer it? So I met a bunch of my new energetic vegan yogi friends in the Botanical Gardens at 8am, and we wandered around a bit before embarking up Penang Hill, which all trails seem to lead to. About half way up Penang Hill we saw this dilapidated and entirely unreliable sign to Batu Ferringhi. We decided not to follow it, and instead carried on to the top of Penang Hill, as nobody else I was with had been up before. We had been following the jeep track, but diverged onto a muddy trail when we found one. This was the route I took last time, when I started at the Moon Gate. Starting by the jeep track is much faster, though far less interesting in terms of terrain. At the top I had cendol (twice the price of at the bottom..) and the far more experienced yogis than I piled up a bit, for a fascinated audience of tourists and locals alike. The beach was calling, so we decided to charge back to the Botanical Gardens as fast as we could, pick up T's car, and drive to Batu Ferringhi. Close enough, right? About one quarter of the way down the hill an unsmiling chap offered us a ride in the back of his truck. We accepted, enjoyed the bouncing rollarcoaster ride, and cut about 45 minutes of our journey. We drove to Batu Ferringhi, and chilled on the beach opposite the Tropical Spice Garden. It had been overcast for most of the hike (good) but the sun was emerging while we were at the beach. It was hot, anyway. I lounged around in the sun for a while, then relocated to lounging around in the shallows of the sea. Lying on the sand, letting the waves wash over me was thoroughly tranquil. The sand at this beach was great, too. Big grains, so they weren't annoying and sticky like normal sand. As it moved around underneath me due to the waves, it felt like a b…
generator: sloph
name: Pee on it: Penang Hill, Batu Ferringhi, and a close encounter with a jellyfish
published: 2017-01-24T13:30:00+08:00
tag: batu+ferringhi
tag: beach
tag: health
tag: hiking
tag: life
tag: penang+hill
tag: penang
tag: travel

penang-to-langkawi
type: Travel
cost: 70myr
end time: 2017-01-28T17:00:00+08:00
generator: sloph
name: Ferry from Penang to Langkawi
origin: george-town-penang
published: 2017-01-28T09:00:00+08:00
start time: 2017-01-28T14:00:00+08:00
tag: boat
tag: ferry
tag: justgo
tag: langkawi
tag: malaysia
tag: penang
tag: travel
target: langkawi

air-itam-to-balik-pulau
type: Article
content: For some time now I've been wanting to hike from Air Itam to Balik Pulau (which literally translates as 'the other side of the island'). We finally got around to it on Monday: GJ and H, and Tammy and Jon from Wholey Wonder. We started our journey at Purple Stone Vegetarian Food Center in Air Itam, around 8am. We ate loads of delicious and extremely cheap things to set us up for the day. A selection of bao to share, some people at the buffet, and I had won ton mee. I was delighted to be able to get a nasi lemak parcel. They sell the normal versions everywhere on street corners for between 0.50 and 1.50 rm, but they contain anchovies and egg. The little triangular parcels are so enticing, so I was happy to get a veggie one (containing peanuts, veggie sambal and a little mock meat) for the road. Tammy and Jon moved their car (with us in it) to the top of Kek Lok Si where there's cheap parking. We walked down a bit to find the start of the hiking route. It was blocked by a police barricade, and we were told there was a landslide and no way through to the Dam. Not the type of people to let a little landslide derail our plans, we walked to the road that goes around to the other side of the Dam to see if we'd have better luck there. It wasn't long before we were distracted by a trail into the jungle, and we left the road. This trail rapidly deteriorated until we found ourselves fairly stuck on a hillside. After a few false scrambles, Tammy noticed a trail of paper triangles stapled to various leaves and trees, so... we followed it. And followed it. And followed it. We climbed, sliding through the mud, clinging to trees, clawing at roots. Some of the trees have spikes growing out of their trunks; I grabbed them once or twice. We chatted about snakes and monsters. It was tenuous at times, but finally whoever laid the trail of paper triangles came through, and we made it back to the road. But not the road we started from... the road we had been blocked from heading down origi…
generator: sloph
name: Air Itam to Balik Pulau
published: 2017-02-06T19:00:00+08:00
tag: air+itam
tag: balik+pulau
tag: hiking
tag: justgo
tag: penang

langkawi-to-penang
type: Travel
end time: 2017-02-04T14:30:00+08:00
generator: sloph
name: Ferry from Langkawi to Penang
origin: langkawi
published: 2017-02-04T09:00:00+08:00
start time: 2017-02-04T10:30:00+08:00
tag: boat
tag: ferry
tag: justgo
tag: langkawi
tag: malaysia
tag: penang
tag: travel
target: george-town-penang

penang-belly
type: Note
content: I'm definitely getting a Penang belly.
generator: sloph
published: 2017-02-16T15:28:14+08:00
tag: food
tag: life
tag: penang
tag: travel

penang-festivities
type: Article
content: So much for recovering from Langkawi, it's the peak of festival season across the various different cultures and communities in Penang. Balloon festival (4 Feb) After the ferry from Langkawi returned me to George Town, Malaysian Mum picked me up from the jetty without my asking, because she's nice like that, and delightedly exclaimed that my skin is now darker than hers. It wasn't long after I got home before I was heading out again. GJ had made it to George Town too, Ira was staying in a room in my apartment, and GJ had met H, another aspiring vegan, on his ferry. When I meet aspiring vegans I feel obligated to share my knowledge and food discoveries, especially when they're as excited about food as I am. So I took GJ to Ee Beng first, and we ate quite a lot. Then we met H on Love Lane, and walked through town to Little India. IN NR Thali Sweets they ate curries and I bought some of all of the vegan sweets to share. We stuck around until Ira could join us. We walked to the jetty and picked up a free shuttle to the Polo field, where a balloon festival was happening. There were loads of food options here too. We walked around then chilled on the grass and waited for the hot air balloon and fireworks show to start. Chinese New Year (4 Feb) We took the bus back to Chew Jetty then watched the Chinese New Year dancers, fireworks, and wandered around. Bumped into some others from the Penang CouchSurfing community. Walking back after midnight, in every direction were fireworks and on every street sudden firecrackers. Lots of people, lots of scared stray dogs. I've had a quite enough of the Chinese fixation with fire and loud noises. Pulau Penang is the best place in Malaysia to watch CNY celebrations, anyway, because of its about 70% Hokkien Chinese population. Photos of balloon festival and CNY celebrations. Ira and I got back to the apartment around 1, and jumped in the pool. My feet and legs were still on fire from mosquitoes and ants, plus the jellyfish stings from alm…
generator: sloph
name: Penang Festivities
published: 2017-02-11T02:08:00+08:00
tag: chinese+new+year
tag: festival
tag: food
tag: malaysia
tag: penang
tag: thaipusam
tag: travel

penang-hill-forest-challenge
type: Article
content: Today bengo and I inadvertently hiked the Penang Hill Forest Challenge ('the longest trail in Penang'). I had pieced together two other hiking trails and filled a gap in the middle, but it turns out that if you do this from the other end, it has an official name. Here is the GPS trace. Anyway, we started from home, and walked to the Botanical Gardens (about an hour). We took the 1500 steps route up Penang Hill, using Path A to reach the top (about 2.5 hours) where we relaxed with fruit and fruit juice for a while. We walked along Summit Road to Western Hill. There's a trail on the left going down, after about 20 minutes. We first missed it and continued down the road, which quickly became signposted as private property. We backtracked; the actual trial is pretty well signposted. From there there was lots of climbing - up and down - supported by a rope most of the way. Lots. Of. Climbing. And another hill. Then some more climbing. Oh look another hill. And a vertical slope. And some scrambling. And another hill. And so on. We encountered only 3 other groups of hikers on the way. There were a few points for nice views, but mostly trees. And hills. And another hill. But just because I was cursing every step doesn't mean I wasn't having fun. 4 hours later, the beautiful sight of local families splashing in pools nearby the Teluk Bahang Dam welcomed us. We dived in and sat in small waterfalls until our legs came back. The pools are in a nice park, which also houses the Forestry Museum. It was very peaceful. Once we'd recovered, we walked up the road to see the Dam and reservoir. Then we backed up and followed the road to Teluk Bahang village. We stuck our thumbs out but nobody stopped. We forged ahead to the beach, and immediately encountered Cat Beach - a cat shelter on a small, beautiful, secluded beach. Run by volunteers, in exchange for housing. I paddled, and hung out with the cats for a while. I think I see... my future. We stopped for vegetable fried rice at a sma…
generator: sloph
name: Penang Hill Forest Challenge
published: 2017-02-17T21:30:00+08:00
tag: beach
tag: hiking
tag: malaysia
tag: penang
tag: travel

week-in-review-4
type: Article
content: More AS2 wrangling. Shortlisted three titles for my thesis. Ate at lots more new places. Wrote up my #ownYourData study as a 1200 word extended abstract for AoIR. LEFT PENANG ;_; :O After 80 days, many new friends, and a lot of food. Arrived in Ipoh.
name: Week in review: 20 - 26 Feb
published: 2017-02-26T23:59:59+08:00
tag: food
tag: penang
tag: phd
tag: travel

penang-lightning
type: Note
content: Ahh, Penang skies display purple sheet lightning for several hours, many nights. I'd almost forgotten. It's beautiful. Then comes the RAIN.
published: 2017-04-30T22:45+08:00
tag: penang
tag: travel

https://rhiaro.co.uk/2017/05/592017a8e93d4
type: Acquire
type: Activity
amount eur: 0.30
amount gbp: 0.25
amount usd: 0.33
cost: 1.40myr
content: Bus Air Itam to KOMTAR
published: 2017-05-14T09:32:03+08:00
tag: bus
tag: penang
tag: transport

https://rhiaro.co.uk/2017/05/59201c28f12c1
type: Acquire
type: Activity
amount eur: 0.57
amount gbp: 0.48
amount usd: 0.62
cost: 2.70myr
content: Bus from Penang airport to KOMTAR
published: 2017-04-29T17:24:02+08:00
tag: bus
tag: penang
tag: transport

penang
type: Collection
total items: 28

https://rhiaro.co.uk/tags/penang
type: CollectionPage
items: https://rhiaro.co.uk/2017/05/592017a8e93d4
items: penang-lightning
items: https://rhiaro.co.uk/2017/05/59201c28f12c1
items: week-in-review-4
items: penang-hill-forest-challenge
items: penang-belly
items: penang-festivities
items: air-itam-to-balik-pulau
items: langkawi-to-penang
items: penang-to-langkawi
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items: annalakshmi
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items: gurney-drive-and-penang-hill
name: Penang
part of: penang
prev: https://rhiaro.co.uk/tags/penang