Yesterday we marked another sightseeing spot on the Penang list by visiting Penang Hill. It’s the highest place on the island and you have a wonderful view of Georgetown, Butterworth and many other parts of the island. Luckily my new roommate, who works for B.Braun in Spain, has a car here and we didn’t have to pay for a teksi (that’s the way its written here)! To get on top of the Hill you can either walk through the jungle for some hours or you can take a train! The railway that is still used today was finished in 1920 and is still used today. The only things that have changed since then are the cars that were renewed in 1977 from wooden to “normal” ones. Both types were/are imported from Switzerland then nobody knows more about mountains then them!! After a 30min ride from around 0m above sea level to around 800m we arrived at the train station nearest to the top. From there we followed a trail which was supposed to lead us around the hill but at the end we found out that we had to walk the same way back. But it wasn’t bad at all. Along the trail we saw a lot of the old houses the English traders built there which are really magnificent. They built themselves houses there because it is much cooler up on the hill and the humidity is not bad at all. As you can see on the lawn the owners still like the English way of life.
At the end of the trail was a Canopy Way, which is basically a walkway from tree to tree up in the air. It is really impressive how high but still very strong the trees are. The construction of the path was concerning us though a little bit because we were pretty sure that it would definitely not pass any German security check. But we are here in Malaysia and many tourists before us have passed this without any harm.
On our way back it started to rain a little bit and so we waited under a tree for some minutes and luckily Anja (Norwegian) had a Mango in her bag and so the waiting time was actually very short! As we arrived the train station because we wanted to go down but it was not only our group that had the same idea. We had to wait for about 2 hours until it was our turn because it there is only space for about 80 people in one car. While we were waiting two monkeys with big bellies appeared and wanted to be fed. Of course some of the people gave them sweets.
At night Jordi and I went to Georgetown to have dinner and to go out later. We ate Indian food which was really good and later went for a Pint of “Tiger” and later into the SS (Slippery Senoritas) Club. Going out here is really expensive compared to the normal spending. The entrance fee was 5€ and a bottle of beer (0,33l) was around 3€. Surprisingly all the people in there didn’t bother to buy the alcohol in glasses, they only bought bottles and only the best: Finlandia, Absolut Vodka, Jack Daniel’s and Gordon Gin. Ok, there are many rich people here so they are able to afford that but I still don’t know how they could handle so much alcohol. Most of them are half the size of a European and they drank quite a lot. The music in there was also very good: The good old American rap from Dre, Eminem and others. It was really good. They also had a house room that I have to check out next time. So as a resume I can say the first night out was quite a blast. I hope next time I go there will be some more Europeans with me so we can really show them how to party ;-)!!
After sleeping quite long on Sunday we went to Queensbay Mall which is the biggest one in Penang! But I had to recognize again that it doesn’t matter in which part of the world you step into a mall because you will find more or less the same stores in all of them. Some things here are a little cheaper than in Europe but for most parts there are the same prices.
That’s it for this weekend I hope you all have a good start into the new week.
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