Self-backpack trip to Penang

Hey guys! Today I'm gonna talk about my very first self-backpack trip to Penang, a very famous travel destination in Malaysia. I bet most of the Malaysians have been there with their relatives and family members but today I'm sharing my past experience of travelling alone bearing my own expenses using my savings.

Chew Jetty @ Penang

This trip was a 3 days 2 nights trip. So on this backpack trip my friend (my adventure partner) joined in as well. The initial plan was to have 4 people to go together but it ended up only one turned in. So after SPM examination, at the very last minute we decided to make a brave choice of going trip to Penang. We did reservations on our accommodation and tranportation before the trip and thankfully it didn't cost much.

On the happening day, we took the midnight bus from TBS sentral to Sungai Nibong Station. The journey took us around 6 hours (so we spent the night sleeping inside the bus, indirectly saving one day of accommodation and have more time in Penang, yay). Generally to save budget our mode of transport is the public bus and lucky enough the places they we were heading to are all accessible through the public bus. We took the public bus to Georgetown, then found our accommodation, the 80s guesthouse, located at the center of Georgetown. This is a guesthouse whereby people who stays in shares a same dormitory, indeed compared to hotel it saved a lot. So in our dormitory, they had 8 beds in total, so 4 of them were Western people, and two of them were Chinese.

view from top of Penang Hill

After settling down, it was only 7 in the morning we continue to head to Penang Hill to catch the morning breeze. We are quite lucky to reach the place early because later the amount of visitors started to increase. We took the Railway to the peak of the hill. The view on top was breathtaking. After that, we returned to the bottom to take our breakfast. The price are quite reasonable. I ordered a Char Kuey Teow and it costs RM4, which you could hardly find it in the big cities such as KL. Soon we returned to Georgetown and rented bicycles for a day thinking of travelling Georgetown by cycling. Trust me it wasn't as easy as we all thought. Though they have bicycle lanes but drivers seems to be intolerant in giving ways, but the situation was still manageable.

Upside down museum

3D museum

We then visited a few museums such as the Camera Museum, 3D Museum, Upside Down Museum and the Penang Museum which is located nearby. I was impressed about the Camera Museum whereby they showcased many types of camera and explained about nostalgia of formation of cameras. The 3D Museum and Upside Down Museum are mostly about different perspective of arts and it was pretty impressive as well. On the other hand, Penang Museum is somewhere where we can learn about the histrory of Penang and their relative culture and traditions. At night, we took the public bus to Persiaran Gurney to visit the night market to hunt for food. Over there a lot people lined up for its very famous Oyster Omelette and it's Char Kuey Teow, I ordered the oyster omelette and it was pretty good. Worth a try. Then we visited Gurney Paragon and Gurney Plaza to take a look and the trip ends for day one. Wee!

Escape Park!!!

Jubilee Clock Tower

Day 2, we finally headed to our main objective of our trip, to visit the Escape Park! Both my friend and I always loved adventurous stuffs and we just couldn't miss the chance of going there to accept challenges 😜. Early in the morning we were so excited and we took the free bus to Escape Park. The place was huge! We went through most of the stations in the rope course and it wasn't as easy as our past experience in Skytrex Shah Alam. Took us a half day to finish the 3 levels, and it was super exhausted. Then we headed to their highest flying fox, trust me it was sooo much more relaxing and exciting. The best part is to be on top around a height of a 20 floored building and slide down from there, and witness the beauty of nature! So much of amusement. We made a new friend during the zipline course and got to know he's same age as us but currently working in Escape.He was kinda impressed that we came on a trip on our own ahaha. It was so much fun up there and how nice if I could go for the zipline again! Back to Georgetown, since the weather was hot and we were super thirsty, we took this opportunity to visit their famous Teochew Cendol to have a sip of icy cold cendol and Ais Kacang. There were so many people on line to buy cendol and the line was super long! Then at night after a short dinner, we toured Georgetown by taking the free bus and walk around, managed to see some of the famous attractions, and another day has ended!

Delicious White Curry Noodles

       

Penang Famous Tau Sha Piah

Day 3, the last day of our trip, we went to the historical Fort Cornwallis. We then walked around Georgetown to find for those "hidden" wall arts around the town. Never forget to buy the well known Tau Sha Piah for family members along our way. We visited the Chew Jetty, and managed to try out a bowl of delicious Penang White Curry Noodles nearby the jetty. (been finding for the curry noodles for 3 days since my dad suggested to try out there). We even tried out for the ice ball! Before leaving Penang, we managed to have our last plate of their well known Wantan Noodles and it was pretty delicious. Food hunt was fun! We took the ferry to Butterworth, and then from there we waited for our bus whis has delayed for 6 hours due to traffic congestion from KL. What a waste if we could have utilize the 6 hours for more exploring!




           



Generally, the trip was quite fun to be honest, especially when it comes to spending our own savings and travel on our own, and it is our very first time travelling alone! In this trip it didn't cost us much, almost around RM350-400. Quite worth it, because we visited several places, enjoyed numerous delicious food, and the best part to get discounts on entry tickets (students price are mostly half of the original price) which let us saved even more! Though there were circumstances on finding locations, finding for food at first, but it went well after that. It was a super fun experience and I hope to have more self backpack trips in the future, hopefully travel internationally! To more self-trips to come!😉

We are planning our next trip to Bangkok, Thailand. So stay tuned!