Penang Is…Forgettable
Saturday, 21st January, Ali’s Guest House, Batu Ferringhi, Penang, 11:25am
After a red-eyed 7am flight (meaning leaving the hotel at 5am, after getting to bed at 12am. There’s a story behind this. Hmm…okay, quick summation. Basically we went back to the same hotel we’d originally stayed at [Classic Place], only to be given a crappy twin-bed room that wreaked of cigarette smoke. So, understandably cranky, we had to try and spend as little time as possible in that foul-smelling room , so we went to see a late movie [“Keeping Mum” to new Rowan Atkinson film which was really black humour, quite strange but overall enjoyable], and then we got back late, watched a doco on the Ebola virus [which has resulted in James declaring all monkeys as “ebola monkeys”]). Anyway, after a red-eyed 7am flight, we arrived in Penang. We thought it sensible to go straight to Georgetown a “highlight on any itinerary” (Lonely Planet quote). This city was a slum. It was filthy, the rooms were dirty cells with either no bathroom attached or a grimy, mouldy thing with a broken toilet and dripping tap. These rooms were all about $10, so, in exhausted, sweaty irritation, we accepted a lift to a local beach with a guy who was already taking another tourist out there. The beach is called Batu Ferringhi, and is meant to be the best on Penang. Penang, poor little crappy-beached Penang. Look, Ferringhi isn’t that bad, it’s just quite overcast, small and the water is really murky. We still went swimming twice, and lazed on the beach enough to get turned a little pink. But the room we’re staying in is quite expensive (but right on the beach), so we’ve decided to leave today and go to an island further South called Palau Pangkor. It’s costing us a fortune to do it (the equivalent of about $45 to get there), but we can either stay here and pay half that alone for the room, or we can just pay and take the risk of staying somewhere better. I’m sure Penang is nice at the right time of year, but we don’t have much to say about it right now. It’s okay, it’s not bad, it’s just really mediocre. We have better beaches at home.