Penang island was our final stop, located in the north-west, relatively close to the border with Thailand. It's the second largest aglomeration in Malaysia, concentrating around the colonial city of Georgetown. A large part of Penang is a national park preserving tropical jungle habitat with its fauna and flora.
We drove all night in a coach to cross the peninsula and get there from Kota Bharu city. To get to Kota Bharu we took a slow low-fare bus that went through small Malaysian villages giving us an overview of how rural areas in Malaysia look like. Well, apparently all the money is invested in Kuala Lumpur.
Georgetown, baby!
The historic center is a leftover of the British rule, with fort Cornwallis and terraced wooden houses. It's a mixture of cultures at its best, where east met the west. Currently it's habited my malays, chinese and hindu people, as well as europeans. In close proximity there are chinese temples, catholic churches, mosques and hindu temples. Everybody seems to be in peace there.
Very vibrant and extremely colourful, it's malaysian capital of street art. Murals and art installations are literally everywhere, they give the city a super quirky vibe. Decorations made of steel wires hanged on exterior walls are common, demonstrating satirical pictures with captions in english. People either decorated their front porches with plants, lanterns or statues or simply stored their stuff on them.
To be fair, it was definitely one of my favourite cities we had visited in Asia. I don't know, I just felt so comfortable in this city burstig with artistic creativity.
To get to Penang National Park from Georgetown the easiest way was to take a public bus. When we got to the gates of the park we learned that a few trails were unavailable. We took a 2,5 km trail that led to a beach with a turtle centre. The trek was exhausting but satisfying, the path went up and down, up and down. It's much more attended than the trail in Perhentians.
We suspected a monsoon was approaching, so we decided to hurry up and take a water-taxi from the Turtle Beach and head back as quick as possible instead of running through the jungle again. We made an instant decision to stop at Monkey Beach as well, we haggled with the taxi-driver to drop us off and come back for us later.
Monkey beach was famous for... monkeys obviously. Paticularily insolent ones, they were capable of grabbing your feet if you didn't give them food. They found my friend's socks particulairly intresting.
To be fair, the jungle in Penang was awesome but the beaches were nothing comparing to the Perhentians. Maybe I got this impression bcause of the weather, I'm not sure. Greyish-green water was unattractive and unwelcoming comparing to crystal-clear shore with a turqouise glow. Monkey beach was a bit dissapointing, all the facilities in a pretty bad condition and full of litter. That was a nice comparison of the western and eastern shores of the malaysian peninsula, though.
Back to Georgetown. I won't be able to tell much more about the places we've seen, because at that point I was so tired and felt the pressure of upcoming flight home, that I walked around tiredly and didn't really focus much. I only grasped the aesthetics of colorful streets.
0 komentarze