Sunday
Today we packed up and headed to the airport for our flights to Malaysia. Georgetown came highly recommended in our Worldschoolers group, so we decided to come here next! We had a week to fill before heading up to Chiang Mai, so this gets us part of the way back plus adds another country to our list. We’re certainly adding a lot of stamps to our passports lately!
We had time to eat lunch and do the big slide again in Terminal 3 before catching our flight. We actually had two flights today — Singapore to Kuala Lampur and then Kuala Lampur to Penang, Malaysia. Both flights went smoothly and the only issue we had was circling a bit before landing in Penang due to weather. Both flights were short too, less than an hour each.
Upon landing we caught a Grab up to Georgetown to our AirBNB for the week. We’re staying in a traditional home right in the historic center, so it is quite unusual! There is a bathroom and shower next to the kitchen and another bathroom upstairs on the porch. The bedrooms and office space are air conditioned, but everything else just has fans for cooling.
For dinner we walked to a Malaysian restaurant. We ordered a smattering of things, including lace pancakes with curry, vegetable tempura, and a curry and rice dish. They were all pretty good — and different from what we’ve been eating in Singapore.
Keller and the kids went back to the apartment and I walked down to the 7/11 for breakfast items. On the way I passed a Chinese temple and some of the famous street art scattered throughout Georgetown. I also passed a very busy food court that I imagine we’ll be frequenting this week.
Monday
Since Keller doesn’t have to work until late tonight, we took our time getting up and going in the morning. After breakfast, school, and screens, the kids and I walked down to the mall to check things out. There was a large playground structure on the way, but unfortunately it was all blocked off and not accessible. Kamy and Caden were a bit disappointed.
Ultimately we made it to “The Top,” the tallest skyscraper in Penang, where several floors are filled with kids activities. They sell a day pass for everything, but since we didn’t have a plan for the day yet, I just paid for a bumper car round for both kids. Kamy got to ride with the adult cars and Caden had a long round in the children’s bumper cars with another girl.
Keller joined us about lunch time, so we walked to Love Lane where there is a long string of Western and nice restaurants. We opted for Mexican at Holy Guacamole. It was definitely respectable! Mexican in Malaysia, who’d have thought?!
We wandered through Georgetown, looking for more street art and stopping where something caught our eye.
One of our stops was a Chinese temple. The carving on the exterior and columns was very impressive!
Ultimately, we ended up at the Wonderfood Museum. This entire museum is dedicated to the varied food culture of Malaysia and has life size and extra large replicas of different Malaysian cuisine. The kids enjoyed being silly with the large props too.
We had dinner at The Jetty food court I’d scoped out the prior night, though the food was just okay. The place was hopping regardless!
Tuesday
Today we’re heading up to the top of Penang Hill. Keller had to work late overnight, so we didn’t get going until mid-afternoon. We took a Grab to the base of the hill and bought tickets to go up the Funicular. Unfortunately, the line and ticketing system is quite misleading. It took almost two hours from when we bought the tickets to when we actually made it to the top of the hill.
The funicular itself was quite amazing — it is one of the longest in the world and is incredibly steep. It has been open in different forms since the 1920s, though the current cars were replaced after 2000.
From the top of the hill you have quite a view of Georgetown, the two bridges connecting to the mainland, and the entire bay. There was also a troop of monkeys right at the exit for the funicular — eating leaves in the treetops.
We passed all the chaos at the top of the hill to head to The Habitat. There must be some kind of celebration or holiday going on today because there are a LOT of Indian families here wearing traditional garb and saris. There’s also restaurants, a museum, cheesy walk through carnival games … it was a lot to take in.
The Habitat, however, was much much quieter. We’d missed the opportunity for joining a tour since it took so long to get up the hill, but we had enough time to wander through the nature preserve. We were walking through the rainforest, but the paved flat paths certainly sanitized the experience. We were almost the only people there too, so it was very quiet. Kamy and Caden especially enjoyed the swings and the long elevated walk through the canopy.
There is another elevated walkway at the top of the hill too, so you are literally at the level of the clouds. In fact, there were some clouds in the forest below us. If it were sunny, you’d be able to see Thailand from here!
Getting back down the hill was an exercise in persistence. We’d only bought one-way tickets for the funicular, since there was no cost advantage to buying round trip. When we were ready to leave, we were looking at at least a two hour wait to get on the funicular! We were NOT interested in that. We asked around and found out it is possible to hike down the hill, but since it was getting dark and there is not a paved path we decided that would be a bad idea. A two hour hike downhill in the jungle, with a stick to fend off monkeys did NOT sound fun.
There are some enterprising drivers who haul tourists back down in their 4 wheel drive cars on a back road. This road must have been 100 years old, with crazy steep sections and many blind switchbacks. In fact, our driver kept the windows rolled down and honked on his approach to the blind corners to listen for anyone else doing the same. It was NUTS! It was also a little pricey, at 80 baht for the drive, but it was the best 80 baht we’ve spent in a long time! 😉 To be fair, we were just glad to get down the hill at that point. Plus it didn’t take two hours of waiting.
We had a Grab driver take us to pizza at The Loft. It was right next to Holy Guacamole and is actually owned by the same group of families. The pizza and pasta were pretty good, but the desserts were definitely the highlight. Kamy picked out the nutella calzone and Caden chose the bananas foster. Both were delicious!
Wednesday
Prior to arrival, I’d scoped out an amusement park about 45 minutes away from Georgetown. Called Escape, it started as a ropes course and outdoor activity park and added a decent size water park more recently. Since Keller had to work late, we decided to meet up at Escape.
The kids and I went first and were there right at opening at 10am. We shoved our swim stuff into a locker and headed straight for the ropes course. Kids under 12 can only do level 1 (easy) without an adult, so I went too and we opted for level 2 (medium). It was a long ropes course too — it took us about 45 minutes to complete the circuit. The cabling system was really good too, since once you were on the line there was no way to unhook and be unsafe.
Some skills were definitely harder than others, but they all required a fair amount of body strength to climb from obstacle to obstacle. Kamy and Caden both enjoyed it though! I think I was the most tired by the time we were done. 😉
We switched to a trampoline and airbag attraction next and then followed up with the rock climbing walls. Both kids managed to complete difficulty levels 2 and 3. They tried level 4 but the grips were just too far apart for them to reach. Kamy and Caden also tried A-Maze, a cave maze but quickly bailed out when it was super dark and creepy, with spiders whose eyes were red.
At this point we were all pretty hot and sweaty so the kids wanted to change clothes and get wet. We went back to the locker, grabbed our swimsuits and sunscreen, and then headed to the water park. Most other guests were still on the ropes course side, so we had it almost to ourselves.
The kids started with inflatable obstacle courses that were floating on the water. They were surprisingly fun and the kids liked splashing into the water at the end. We also spent some time in the splash park and playground area — multiple water slides with plenty of sprayers and buckets dumping on all levels.
We also did the racing mat slides, where everyone starts at the top of the hill and races to the bottom in their lanes. We’ve enjoyed these in the past and this was no exception. Our legs were a little tired from all the stairs, but that comes with the territory.
Caden also did the steep pink and white slide that makes you go really fast!
Keller was awake by now, so he headed our direction. The kids played in the slides area while I went up to the front of the park to meet him. He was not interested in the ropes course, so we joined the kids over in the water area once he got changed into swim trunks and his swim shirt. We’ve all enjoyed the swim shirts this trip — it drastically reduces the amount of sunscreen needed and it helps keep both Keller and Caden much cooler.
The raft rides were open at this point too, so we rode those a few times. They were surprisingly long and fun. We also took the boats around the lazy river. Escape isn’t a huge park, but what it has it does really well. Their wave pool is interesting too — they use a giant ball and pull it into the water to create the waves mechanically instead of using a wave generator like most water parks in the US.
Keller did the Banana Flip slide too — a giant drop slide with a hook on the end that flings you into the pool. It was quite a slide! Keller ended up doing it several times, including participating in the banana flip contest! He came in second place overall and got a big cheer from the spectators. 😉
Also at Escape is a new water slide. Not just any water slide either, but the longest tube water slide in the world! Certified by the Guiness Book of World Records, it is 1,111 meters long … 4 times as long as the previous longest slide! It’s not fully open yet, but we asked around enough that we were told when and where to meet to ride it anyway for a soft launch. The ski lift they built to carry you up to the top of the slide isn’t finished yet, so all the riders have to be brought up by pickup truck.
About 30 people were able to ride, so we felt very lucky that Ali and the other staff took great care of us to let us do it! We were actually the second and third tubes down the slide today, after one staff tube.
The ride was long and pretty peaceful. The slide was built up in the tree tops without heavy equipment, so there are overhanging branches galore and signs warning you not to provoke the monkeys. 😉 We didn’t see any though. We enjoyed the slide, but by the end the water wasn’t really strong enough to move us along. Keller suggested that they find ways to add more water midway through the slide, as it was fine at the beginning but turned into a trickle by the end. To be fair, we’d gone more than a kilometer! So, it’s not our new favorite, but we’ve done it and were glad we did!
We wrapped up with some more tube slides and the wave pool before calling it a night. We caught a Grab back to Georgetown and had them drop us off at New World Park Food City — a large, clean outdoor food court. We all found something tasty to eat, including dumplings, fried chicken and Keller’s new favorite char kway teow. We ended up ordering the same thing three times, it was that good!
We walked to Urban Artistry for dessert where they have soft serve ice cream in a bunch of unusual flavors. We opted for the beautiful swirl of sea salt (blue) and caramelized biscuit (brown). It was surprisingly tasty, especially the sea salt! We also shared a bubble waffle with chocolate ice cream and cookies. We had plenty of dessert to share, that’s for sure!
We walked back home and called it a night. Escape was a lot of fun and may end up on the “year of the theme park” shirt when it comes time to list every theme park we’ve been to. It was quite a surprise and we were so glad we went!
Thursday
Today we went a bit slower and spent the morning doing our usual routine. We grabbed lunch at Haiba, a Syrian restaurant with good reviews. We didn’t really love the food, but there were many tourists or expats from the middle east eating there, so it must have been somewhat authentic. The kids did enjoy their smoothies though!
Next we walked to visit the Pinang Peranakan museum. It is located in a large restored mansion and shows how a wealthy Peranakan family might have lived. The Peranakan people were essentially mainland Chinese immigrants who traveled to Malaysia for trade and married local Malay women. The families were a hybrid of Chinese and Malay heritage and are distinct from fully ethnic Malays.
Next we walked through the shopping district and checked out several fabric stores. I was hoping to find some batik cotton fabric to make a quilt with, but alas I didn’t find quite what I was looking for. That being said, these fabric stores have A LOT of fabric! This one in particular was so tightly packed there were narrow “aisles” that you could squeeze down, mostly sorted by type of fabric.
We did find one batik store that specialized in hand printed block batik fabrics, but I didn’t fall in love with the colors or patterns. And at 50 Malaysian ringgit per meter, was significantly more expensive than what I can find at home (though arguably what I can get at home isn’t hand printed). Oh well, I tried!
Friday
Today we opted for burgers and fries for lunch. One thing Georgetown definitely has going for it is their wide variety of restaurants to choose from. Maybe not very authentic to the Malay area, but lots of tasty food! This time we ate at Burger Society and were particularly impressed with their chicken burger, of all things. Then we walked to Moody Cow for dessert, where they serve massive slices of home made cheese cake. These are so big, we got just one to share for all four of us and it was plenty. Unfortunately they wouldn’t let us eat at a table there without ordering a second thing (really?!) so we walked to the mall to find a table to eat at. Whatever.
From there we went back to historic Georgetown and onto Armenian street. Here they have a little batik painting shop that has handmade products for sale and allows you to be your own artist too! The owner has a bunch of little 8×8″ canvas images, pre-drawn with wax, that you can paint. We each picked out a canvas and got to work. I love all the finished pieces! We’re accumulating more souvenirs this trip than normal — thankfully I have an extra bag we can carry everything in!
We found some cheap and easy street food for dinner and then called it an early night.
Saturday
For our last full day in Georgetown, I took the kids up to The Top for some play time. They were able to get day pass armbands and do the majority of activities without me there too. That worked perfectly for me! I just sat in a quiet(er) lobby nearby and let them have at it! They loved the bumper cars and indoor play area, but Caden also enjoyed the Miniature Penang exhibit. It gave them some autonomy that they were missing and was fun for both kids.
Keller met up with us around lunch time, so we grabbed something light for lunch and went to one of the malls next door to hunt for sunglasses for Keller, as his finally broke when they hit the pavement. No luck though — it’s hard to find ones that fit his head well.
We ended up visiting the Penang House of Music instead. This was a cute little museum run by a passionate staff. We had a private guide who walked us through the entire exhibition and explained some of the historical elements of Malaysia music. Many of the displays were hands-on too, which the kids really enjoyed.
At the end of the museum there were a bunch of donated instruments that the kids could play on — a guitar, piano, drum set, bongo drum … even a trumpet and trombone! Caden especially loved making the trombone go “splat!” While the museum wasn’t very big, it was clear that it was managed with passion and they were hoping for growth in the future.
We walked down to Holy Guacamole for dinner. Today is Dia de los Muertos, so they were having an extended celebration! Kamy got her face painted too — it was very colorful! Caden and Daddy were going to get theirs painted too but the artist had left by the time they were ready to go. They had a special guest chef at the restaurant too, who prepared a black seafood paella. Since we enjoyed paella so much in Spain, we were happy to order it.
Instead of eating desserts there, however, we decided to go next door to Loft instead. We loved the desserts so much last time we would rather have repeats there. We ordered bananas foster again and added in an orange flan. Tasty tasty!
Sunday
We fly back to Thailand this evening, but as we have a late flight we actually still had quite a bit of time here in Georgetown. We slept in, packed up, and headed for lunch at a Turkish kebab place. It was very quick, reasonably priced, and tasty. Then we wandered down Armenian street — looking at souvenirs and hunting for the famous street art. We found several souvenirs, including earrings and a sarong for me and a zippered bag for Keller.
We spotted several well-known paintings, but my favorite was probably the swings. Kamy and Caden loved how interactive the art could be — they could be a part of the picture too!
Soon it was time to leave the apartment and take a Grab to the airport. We were pretty early, so the check in counter was still closed when we arrived, but we didn’t have any issues with our flights. This time we were on Thai Smile Airlines, Thai Airways’ discount carrier. We had a short 1 hour flight to Bangkok, then a two hour layover and on to Chiang Mai for a second flight.
It was quite late by the time we arrived in Chiang Mai, but thankfully our AirBNB host arranged for a private transfer van to meet us at the airport. We loaded up and arrived at the apartment about 12:30am. We were all pretty tired, so we went straight to bed. We have an early morning tomorrow too!
Overall we thought Georgetown, Penang Malaysia was just okay. We definitely were in the heart of the “tourist” district, but the strange combination of tourist hot spots plus abandoned Colonial era buildings plus the empty malls was quite strange. There certainly were highlights, but at this point I highly doubt we’ll be returning to Georgetown.
