Penang
It’s Ella!!
On our first day on Penang Hill, we had a yummy Western breakfast at 7:30 a.m. sharp to catch the funicular down to George Town. We got broken up into groups, and after a bit of briefing and a short car ride using a popular local service called Grab, we got to wander George Town, shopping and taking pictures of the many cool-looking murals. It was really interesting to see the different pieces of street art scattered around the city’s walls—from polished paintings of cats and people to wire iron cartoons and wayward graffiti. I really enjoyed taking pictures of everything—both for the mural scavenger hunt we were assigned and for myself (I ended up taking so many that my camera battery died). I also really liked seeing the architecture of the city and how different styles coexisted and merged with one another. Penang has a pretty strong Chinese influence, and you can still see Malaysian and colonial British influences on the different buildings. My group also spent some time going into small shops and getting tea at one of the many cafés we came across.
Around 11am, we met up at Ms. Buxton’s friend Anita’s beautifully restored home (a 100+ year old shop house), with many treasures from her former antique shop making it like a museum, and we got to hear about some history surrounding the building and the furniture inside it.
After that, we walked to a nearby restaurant called Moh Teng Pheow. The food we had was a unique mixture of Chinese and Malay cuisine—referred to as Nyonya—and we sampled items such as different glutinous rice cakes, sticky rice, kuih, curry puffs and curries.
When we finished, all of us loaded into Grabs to drive to the starting point of the hike at a location known as Air Itam Dam.
Upon arriving, we were drenched by a momentary surge of rain, but were luckily spared bad weather the rest of the way up the hill. The hike was pretty steep, and had us walking over tangled tree roots and finding our way through puddles of muddy water and slippery rocks. We also got to see some interesting things on the way up—dragonfruit growing on a cactus, baby mangosteens on a tree, and different Buddhist shrines scattered along the way including a Buddha statue and a golden stupa. Everyone survived and made it to the café at the top called Monkey Cup (or Kopi Hutan)! We had some cakes and cold drinks at the café—like a peach mango drink—and walked around a small garden featuring carnivorous plants such as pitcher plants and a scorpion that some of us got to hold (not me). It turned out that it wasn’t venomous, but it is very similar in look to other scorpions that are. Once we were reenergized, we made our way back to our hotel to take some showers and get some well-deserved rest after a long day of walking.
We played some more of the same card games we’ve been playing for the past two weeks, and then we had a delicious dinner of nasi lemak with blue butterfly pea rice and crispy chicken, along with a dessert of fresh papaya! When we were full, we spent about an hour creating a final reflection in our journals on the entirety of the trip and ended the night with some relaxation and, of course, even more card games.
Tomorrow we’re going to spend more time in the city touring Kek Lok Si temple, Little India and some other cool buildings, so my camera will probably die again. I'm excited to see more of the city and end the trip on a nice note! See you soon!! :)
