7/8 MARCH THURS/FRI: Half day in Penang. evening flight to Qatar

We hired a car for 24 hours from Penang airport to give us some flexibility with sightseeing and to save us getting a taxi to and from the airport.  We arrived at our hotel around 8.30pm and went straight out for a beer.   We'd had a snack meal on the flight from Singapore so weren't bothered about food.

Our hotel for one night.   Yeng Keng Hotel in George Town, Penang.

This is a 200+ years old anglo-Indian  mansion that belonged initially to Shaik Eusoffe bin Shail Latiff an Indian-Muslim family with a name that trips off the tongue!  The building was donated to the trustees of the Straits Chinese Building Association in 1939 and leased to Yeng Kent Hotel.   The present owner took over its conservation and upgrade in 2009 and completed the upgrade to a heritage hotel in 2010.  

Gateway to hotel grounds

hotel frontage:

 Once again, the staff at this lovely Heritage Hotel have come up trumps - helpful, friendly and informative.  Lovely place to spend our last night I think.

Bedroom

with adjoining private lounge room

Landing outside our room

and downstairs ...

Patio area - there is also a large courtyard area but the temperature reached 41deg today so far too hot to sit outside, even under parasol umbrellas.

Pool area

and I think there's something quite special about having your name on the stair risers ... perhaps I'll get the carpet removed on ours at home and have 'CLINKERS' in gold lettering!

It would have been nice to spend a little more time here but this is the end of our trip.    We stayed in the Ren i Tang Heritage hotel when in Penang 2 weeks ago and it was a lovely place and probably in the better location in terms of shops and bars.   However there were steep/shallow stairs to negotiate to get to our room.   Here we are on the first floor and the stairs are easy to negotiate so I think on balance this was the better experience for us.

When we left Penang to drive to Cameron Highlands a couple of weeks back we opted to exit the island via the bridge (the fastest route) so today as we had a half day to spare we decided to take the car across to mainland Penang (Butterworth) via Ferry.   Both ferry and bridge crossings are free of charge when leaving the island but you pay a fare (or toll in the case of the bridge) to return to the island.  The fare is only 7.70 Ringgits (about £1.45).

Ferries leave around every 10 minutes and the crossing takes around 20 minutes.   There are good views of Penang island (Georgetown) when you leave but today was quite hazy.

They are all decorated differently but the ferries look like this

and from the car deck ...

Views from the ferry, looking back to Penang island (Georgetown).   Its hazy today unfortunately.

The Clan Jetties along the shoreline (houses on stilts)

Jetty temple

We admired this yacht from afar .... and thanks to Google now know that the Asean Lady is a Catamaran motor yacht worth US$60,000,000 and belongs to Brian Chang (net worth US$100m - reduced from US$560m in 2008 according to Forbes).   How the other half live eh?!

To give a purpose to our visit to the mainland we decided to visit the Temple of the 9 Emperors.  We had no sat-nav with this car so made a few wrong turnings and ended up at Tesco (I kid you not).   David insisted we have a look around.    Superficially its the same store that you'd visit in England but all the signs are in 'foreign' with translations helpfully provided.    They had an F&F clothing section and a range of Everyday Value foods!

We bought some black peppercorns which were sold loose in the veggie section - very peppery and very cheap!

We found the Temple eventually but I'll make a separate post as am writing this from the Plaza Lounge in Penang airport and not sure how much time I'll have available.

PS:  Before we left the UK I discovered that The Plaza Lounge gets slated on Trip Advisor.   As a result of the reviews I decided definitely not to have anything to eat here and as they don't serve wine (!) have just had a beer..   Not a very good Lounge - can't wait to get on the plane and get decent food/drink/service.

6 MARCH WEDS: Morning in Peoples Park Singapore, Changi Airport and Flight to Penang

This was our final day in Singapore.   David wanted to spend some time in Changi Airport as he'd read that there are enough attractions within the airport complex to keep us amused for a few hours.  Our flight from Singapore to Penang was 1820 hours so we decided to get to the airport around 1430 to explore a bit.

So, on our last morning, for the first time we decided to check out the pool at Furama hotel.   We'd bought swimsuits with us 'just in case' but never actually been near a pool this trip.   The pool is on Level 6 and the first thing we noticed on that floor was a pervading smell of damp.  I'd read some reviews on Trip Advisor where people had reported musty, damp smells but on the 20th floor we've had no such experience.   I think if we'd not booked an Executive Package and had been allocated a room on a lower floor we might have revised our opinion about the hotel.

Anyway, the pool area isn't the nicest we've seen but its more than adequate.

I think the thing David will miss most about the Furama  is 'ECHO' our virtual butler.    He's got into the habit of saying 'ECHO' turn on room lights, 'ECHO' play sleep music etc.,    I wasn't too chuffed when in the middle of a lovely refreshing shower all the lights went off - David playing with the commands again!    I did try 'ECHO' turn off husband but the response was 'Sorry I don't know that one'.   'ECHO' has a female voice and the usual response is 'OK' with no arguments so nothing like a wife then!

To kill a couple of hours we had a walk around the huge People's Park complex adjacent to our hotel.   We've had a couple of cheap & cheerful evening meals there but never really explored it all.    Its a meandering complex with some indoor and some outdoor stalls/shops and caters primarily for the local Chinese/Singaporean population.   There are still lots of older folk carrying on their traditional trades like shoe mending and barbering (if thats a word).  Refreshing to see that not all the traditional trades have been eradicated/modernised yet.

Lots of shoe repairers around

She isn't begging .. this lady trishaw driver was listening to music and bopping away very happily. 

We were there around lunchtime and the food halls were all packed solid.   Traditional meals are around S$5 to S$15 (£2.80 to £8.40) - good honest no frills dining.    Apart from breakfasts which were included, we haven't eaten in any of our hotels this trip, always opting for local/street food.

Just choose your dish and find  a table in the central seating area

Helpfully for us the stalls all have pictures of the different dishes so we can work out if its something we can cope with but we always query chicken dishes to make sure they are boneless.   The Chinese tend to just chop ducks/chickens with a cleaver and you get portions, bone splinters & all

We booked a 'Grab' - kind of Uber car to take us to the airport.    In the UK we've never had any dealing with Uber so we're in awe of how efficient the Grab system is here.    Grab bought out Uber in Malaysia/Singapore.    Once the Grab App is downloaded you just request a car to take you to xxx destination and wait for the response.   You're told the car registration, the driver's name, the fare and the estimated time of arrival (and you track its progress).   Sorry if this is normal with Uber in the UK but to us its a revelation - and they're half the price of standard taxis.

Ours was just a short flight to Penang (scheduled to be 90 minutes but was actually around 70) and it left from Terminal 4.   The Changi Airport attractions David had read about were mostly in the other terminals - cactus and sunflower gardens, Enchanted Gardens, Kinetic Rain art installation, Butterfly Garden etc. 

In Terminal 4 there were a few things to see including a mini museum and metal flower artwork.

There were also some huge metal 'slinky' type decorations suspended from the ceilings which moved and changed shape constantly (quite mesmerising).   The airport is very, very spacious.  The bathrooms are palatial - there are snooze lounges if you want to rest comfortably

This area was fun for a while ...

Its a row of 'shop houses'.   Periodically the doors/windows are thrown open and holographic images/scenes played including feuds and romances between neighbours, ladies shopping for fabrics etc.   Its all very well done.

You might have to view in full screen mode to see the detail.     The videos are cut short because a very irritating man walked in front of my camera 3 times (he soon realised how cross David and I were)!

The shops below these houses are functional .... David shopping for curry puffs: