Where: Penang, Malaysia
Hotel: Eastern and Oriental Hotel, Georgetown
It's the Vesak Day long weekend, and Poika insisted that we have to go somewhere. (He seems to have some sort of a strange disease that forbids him to stay in the country whenever there's a long weekend. I think it's called the Wanderlustitis.) We originally wanted to go to Hong Kong, but the when we added all the possible expenses, the trip turned out to be quite costly. Malacca was second choice but it didn't happen as the nice hotels were fully booked. So we ended up in Penang. We booked a terribly expensive flight on Jetstar (cost us SGD $500 each!), and a really nice suite at the Eastern and Oriental Hotel
Day 01 (Friday)
Arrived early in the morning, had breakfast in the hotel.
Went to Fort Cornwall, there wasn't much to see, except a few old canons and a really short fort.
We then chanced upon an interesting place called the Pinang Peranakan Mansion. Pretty interesting tour.
Our guide, who claimed to be best in the house.
Having had enough of sweat pouring out from us, we had a dip in our nice little pool back in the hotel. Then dinner, and drinks at the street right across from us. And in our drunken state, paid 25ringgit each to get to a club to watch a hair cutting competition that's happening past midnight. How strange are these people?!Day 02 (Saturday)
We decided to take in the Vesak Day festivities and took a trip to Kek Lok Si Temple. It's a huge temple that sits on a hill, about half hour drive from GeorgeTown. We could see the tall pagoda and a very big statue of the Goddess of Mercy quite far away in the cab. We spent a couple of hours in the temple, snapping away, got too tired too hot, hopped in a cab back to town to get a massage, feed our hungry tummy and dip in the pool.
For dinner, Poika found a Peranakan restaurant in a street called Jalan Nagore. We were pleasantly surprised when we got there. It was a quiet street of Peranakan shophouses, with pretty fairy lights. We walked around for a bit, but there really wasn't anything much. Other than a pretty cool bike cafe. After our very short exploration, we went for Peranakan food at a place called Nonya and Baba. Yummy!
And of course, we ended the night with drinks at the bar.Day 03 (Sunday)
We have a couple of hours to spare before our flight in the morning. After our big fat breakfast, we went to the famous Blue Mansion just across our hotel. It's a quaint old mansion with quite a bit of history. It won a UNESCO Most Excellent Heritage Conservation Award in 2000. Was worth visiting and we had an extremely chatty guide to keep us entertained for over an hour. No photo taking allowed, but naughty me just had to do it.
It was overall a short and sweet holiday. We'd be really bored if we had spent any more time than we had there. Now, time to get excited about our next trip. We are going diving! Yay!
Some extras...
• Another nice place to stay.
• And check out some of their recommendations here.
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