Weekend Guide to Penang, Malaysia

Why go to Penang, Malaysia?

One of the highlights of our Malaysia holiday was exploring the island of Penang. Georgetown is Malaysia’s second largest city and when doing our research seemed to be a must visit spot – especially for foodies. This colourful, multicultural city has so much to offer: history, architecture, lively night markets, hiking, nature, beaches and more. Georgetown was also awarded UNESCO World Heritage status because it’s cultural and historical heritage has been preserved so well. Travel Tip: Download the Grab app, Uber doesn’t work in SE Asia so if you’re looking for an affordable and reliable alternative to taxis this is your best bet.

Experiences and Things to Do

Sightseeing Activities

Kek Lok Si –  Kek Lo Si in Penang is one of the largest temple complexes in SE Asia. ’s located high in the hills of Penang, facing the sea, with impressive views of the city. You could easily spend a morning or afternoon here wandering through the colorful temples, pagodas, beautiful gardens, and prayer halls that make up this massive complex. It’s also a prime location to visit for Chinese New Year with its LED decor. We saw them already start to prep for it in early January when we visited. In trying to fit as much as we could whilst in Penang we set off to visit this temple super early to beat the crowds. Turns out we were too early, but our very kind Grab driver dropped us off to the open Air Itam Open-air market at the bottom of the hill so we can grab some breakfast while we waited for it to open. Despite what google or any other website says, Kek Lo Si temple opens at 8:30 am not 7:30 am. Street Art – Penang is not only known for its deliciously affordable street food but also full of street art. Everywhere you walk in the old town there’s something cool and unique within blocks of each other. I personally liked the pieces by Ernest Zacharevic who incorporates items like bikes and swings within his pieces. Also, just be prepared to queue up to take a pic of or with his art, everywhere we went there were loads of people interacting with his work. ‘Google Penang Street Art Map’ and you can find some great interactive maps that show you where all of the street art is located if you need help finding them as you explore Penang National Park – For those who love nature and hiking, Penang National Park is an activity to hike through a lush jungle to secluded tropical beaches. Before entering the park, you’ll see many stands offering boat services to and from the beaches if hiking isn’t your thing.  There are two well-marked paths leading to the two most popular beaches, Kerachut Beach (Turtle Beach) and Monkey Beach. The beaches are in opposite directions, and the sign estimates the hike to either beach will take about 1.5 hours.  “Turtle Beach” is the most beautiful clean and mainly secluded beach to visit where the have a conservation and preservation centre for Turtles. We hired a boat to pick us up at Kerachut Beach (after allowing some time to hike and explore the beach) and take us to Monkey Beach to spend some time there. If you’re up for more hiking you can hike back from Monkey beach, but since there was a storm several days before the hiking trail wasn’t clear so we took a boat back. Also, keep an eye out for the monkeys! Cheong Fatt Tze – The Blue Mansion – For UNESCO and architecture buffs visiting Georgetown, Penang, I fully recommend doing a tour of the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion. This heritage building is known for its external decorations and indigo-blue outer walls which is also why it’s referred to as the Blue Mansion. The mansion was originally built with careful attention to Feng Shui and features Gothic windows, Chinese cut and paste porcelain work, Stoke-on-Trent floor tiles in geometric pieces all shaped to fit a perfect square, Glasgow cast ironworks, and Art Nouveau stained glass windows. The restoration efforts for this B&B / Museum have won UNESCO awards for heritage conservation.  Also for Crazy Rich Asian Fans, this building is also where the infamous Mahjong scene happens in the climax of the film.

Eat

New Lane Street Foodstalls – When researching hawker centres in Penang, this is one that kept coming up in all of the food blogs and articles and with good reason. At 16:00 each day, Georgetown’s Lorong Baru closes down to vehicular traffic turing the street into the a thriving outdooe hawker food centre. Some recommended dishes to try are char koay kak (flat rice cake noodles), char kway teow (flat rice noodles with cockles, prawns, chilli, and bean sprouts), oyster omelette, and chee cheong fun (rice noodle rolls) Presgrave Street Hawker Centre – The Presgrave Street Hawker Centre is almost hidden along Lebuh Pregrave, one of Georgetown’s back alleys. This is definitley a local spot that required a bit of research on our end to find out, but what a place for a great tasting quick meal. This hawker centre, is best knonw for it’s famous prawn mee (RM4.50 – if I remember it correctly) from a stall called 888 Hokkien Mee. Penang Hokkien Mee consists of noodles with a spricy prawn broth along with slices prawn, veggies, and sambal. What makes this dish popular of all of the others is that the broth is both light yet savoury so that it’s not overpowering. The Jetty Food Courts – The number one rule of hawker centres are if there’s a queue (line) then there must be something super delicious there. Case in point after walking around to explore the street art and jetty area, we stopped over to the Jetty Food Court for a snack. The only stall with the longest queue was the Hameed Pata Special Mee which sells delicious mee sotong (fried squid noodles). This delicious dish comes with a generous portion of sambal and is only just RM 5.00. Don’t worry about the queue too much as they do clear the line rather fast. Red Garden Food Paradise – This is probably the most touristic of the hawker centres that we ate at, with plenty of chinese, kebab, and sushi options amongst the usual malaysian food flare. This night market is open from 5pm well into 2am and offers cheap beer, live music, and flashing lights a quirky night of fun. Air Itam Market – Air Itam Market is a local wet and dry market with hawker food. Located outside of Kek Lo Si, this is a great spot to go before or after visiting the temple. As you’re outside of the main city centre, expect much cheaper prices. For example for a noodle soup dish and some coffee we paid RM 4.50 which is probably the most affordable meal we had in our whole trip around Malaysia. The Curry Mee from Air Itam Sister Curry Mee and Assam Laksa are also supposed to be some of the best in Penang here but unfortunatley it wasn’t open for us to try. Deens Maju Nasi Kandar – A local favourite spot for Nasi Kandar, which is a meal of steamed rice (plain or mildly flavoured) servced with a variety of curries and side dishes. This dish was popularised in malaysia by Indian Muslim traders from India. Upon arrival we saw that the queue was quite long, but also moved pretty fast since we only waited about 15-20min to order our food. There are beef, chicken, squid, fish and many more cooked in different type of curry sauces. Upon picking our main, the service staff  then poured various types of curry gravies and sauces before wrapping it up for us. It’s a messy looking meal but delicious and full of flavour.

Stay

The Wembley Hotel  –  This well located hotel is right in the heart of Georgetown and walking distance to the old town area.  For a luxury hotel we found it to be very affordable (thanks booking.com) and a good home base for our activities at the end of the day. It was also a 5min walk to the New Lane Street Hawker Centre so we were quite pleased to be near to some great food.