Actually, I've never actually go to Penang for a vacation or road trip before; at least on my own. I think the last time I did was during my secondary school (or is it primary school, I can't remember). Itu pon time lawatan sambil belajar. >.<" Sadis. Since everyone is talking about how good their foods is, I'm like, I need to make time and go there for food hunting! And there's famous Penang Hill with the new must go attraction, The Habitat.
Accommodation
As for our accommodation, we book it from Booking.com. We choose to stay at Wassup Youth Hostel. No worries on the payment part, just pay cash upon check-in. As we only stay one night, we were charged RM94.90 for a bedroom with private bathroom. Great deal right? They will require you to pay RM50 as deposit, which will be return back upon check-out. Location wise, this place is very good and the ambiance is very nice. If you're driving, you can park at the back of the hostels and it will charge you per entrance; RM4 which operates 24/7 (self-service). There's back door to enter the hostel from parking area. Yeay!
Updates:
If you'd like to have some discount while using Booking.com, you can use referral code "caab8990" to get 10% discount. But it applies to first time user only.
Since we arrive a bit late, we decided to continue the trip tomorrow. Plus, we didn't do research on what to do during night time at Penang. 😂 At the end, we ate our dinner at A&W. Haiyah. What a waste, we go all the way to Penang, just to eat A&W.
After a little discussion with my sis, we decide to go there for 1 day and 1 night trip. I end up buying ETS ticket online from KL Sentral to Ipoh and meet my sis there before going to Penang. You can buy ETS ticket here; KTMB Online. The journey take roughly 2h40m. I'd advised you to be at the station 30m earlier. It will depart on time. They also provide facilities like, cafe (coach C), toilet, surau, etc. For full facility list, you can read here, ETS Onboard Facilities.
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| Cafe inside ETS in coach C |
Accommodation
As for our accommodation, we book it from Booking.com. We choose to stay at Wassup Youth Hostel. No worries on the payment part, just pay cash upon check-in. As we only stay one night, we were charged RM94.90 for a bedroom with private bathroom. Great deal right? They will require you to pay RM50 as deposit, which will be return back upon check-out. Location wise, this place is very good and the ambiance is very nice. If you're driving, you can park at the back of the hostels and it will charge you per entrance; RM4 which operates 24/7 (self-service). There's back door to enter the hostel from parking area. Yeay!
Updates:
If you'd like to have some discount while using Booking.com, you can use referral code "caab8990" to get 10% discount. But it applies to first time user only.
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| Our room at Wassup Youth Hostel |
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| Chilling spaces; have PC and books |
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| Resting area next to swimming pool and pantries |
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| Cute swimming pool |
Anyway, after dinner, we decide to go back to hostel and plan what to be done tomorrow. Of course we don't want to repeat the same mistake. Here's what we do and where we go. Who knows might give you some insights or tips on your trip to Penang. 😄
Breakfast
We start our day by having our breakfast at Astaka Taman Tun Sardon. It is food court with plenty stalls where you can choose various delicacies and foods. There's also famous halal Chinese Muslim stalls, 2:2 Fun. Since we was starving at that time, we didn't go straight and search for the stall, but instead, we just find a sit and buy some roti canai. You need to queue up to buy. The roti canai gravy/sauce is a bit different compared to Selangor's gravy/sauce. They seems to add some peanut inside their gravy, so it taste a bit different. Not a bad different though. 😂
After we finish up our roti canai, we go and search for Chee Cheong Fun at the famous Chinese Muslim stall there. Since we just had our roti canai, we decided to tabao (take away) the food and eat it later.
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| Halal Chinese Muslim Stall |
Penang Botanic Gardens
We didn't plan to go to Botanic Gardens; we set our GPS to Penang Hill, but instead it navigate us to Botanic Gardens. Hahahaha. It seems like you can also go to Penang Hill from here, but here's the catch; you need to hike there. 😆 There's also group of monkeys (families i guess) inside the park. Owh! You can't bring food and feed the monkeys there or else, the monkeys will become more aggressive later. Overall, this place is very serene and calming. However, some part of the park requires maintenance and can be improvise in the future.
Entrance fee: FREE
Parking fee: FREE
Penang Hill
After our visit to Botanic Park, we set our GPS again to Penang Hill. This time, it took us there for real. 😆 When we arrived there, we saw a lot of people queuing to go to Penang Hill. So, we decided to buy fast lane ticket, which cost 4 times higher than normal ticket (RM10), but we can save our time by queuing there in the hot weather. By using fast lane, you don't have to queue at all. Yeay! Worth to buy, at least during that time.
Entrance fee: Varies by nationality and age category.
Parking fee: Rate calculate hourly - RM6.
The Habitat @Penang Hill
The Habitat is the new attraction which located at Penang Hill. It's like killing two birds with one stone. You can purchase ticket from small booth opposite the Owl Cafe. We bought two tickets for RM94. They provided shuttle to go to The Habitat. You can also opt to go by walk there if you like to spend your time at each checkpoints (you might get great view also!). The driver said that you can also bought the ticket at The Habitat itself. He also said, if you purchase using Maybank on the last week of the month, you'll entitled to get 50% discount. 😱
Lunch
We had our lunch at Hameediyah Restaurant; located Campbell St. The food is awesomely delicious; really suited my taste. I'd say this is one of recommend place to eat in Penang. But just bare in mind, since you need to queue up for quite a while, please make sure you're not starving. Or else, you might end up become angry bird right there. 😆 They also provide air-conditioned seating places on the second floor or you can also go to their second shop to eat; also air-conditioned, just few shops next to it.
Teochew Chendul
I guess you might've heard or eat at Teochew Chendul before right? The one inside the shopping mall. It's quite famous among Malaysians anyway. But we went to the first store of these famous franchise at Lebuh Keng Kwee. The queue is super long. All you need is patience. Anyway, I don't really like it since it's a bit sweet and the cup is a bit sticky (i guess because of sugar) but hey, if I don't like it, it doesn't mean you won't like it right? 😄
Fruitmade
Both my sis and me really love smoothies. She googled and find this newly opened fruit bar at Lebuh Cannon. For those who loves smoothies can come and try this at Fruitmade. There's few options to choose from and there's also fruit ice-cream if you didn't like smoothies. 😍
Bandar Cassia
Actually Bandas Cassia is the new township at Penang, which you can easily find as it is at the end of Penang Bridge 2 from Penang Island. This developer has created a beautiful landscape which attract many people to come and take a picture here. But when we arrived there, it's really crowded and we didn't get our perfect shot. 😔
Anyway, that's how we spend our time at Penang. 😎