My first day in Penang was what backpacking is all about. Unplanned travel can bring you the worst and best moments almost concurrently. Leaving myself exposed to what the open road had in store for me brought me from despair to elation in minutes. It felt good to be alive (in the end…)
I took the overnight sleeper train from KL to Penang. A very backpackery thing to do - you save one night's accommodation, get a good dose of local colour, and cover some serious ground. And all for a tenner!
I arrived in Penang in the pitch dark at 6am (the sun rises late down here) with no map, no accommodation booked and no idea what I was doing.
The fifteen-minute ferry from the mainland to Penang Island only cost a few cents - but I'd say that's what had been spent on the boat's upkeep in the last few years. I tried to calculate how far I could swim and what the most buoyant items in my bag were. But such drastic measures were not needed. I arrived safely at the port.
I often travel without a map. When I do I usually just follow the flow of traffic. This has an unparalleled record in bringing me straight to the red light district! Quite an interesting social observation that. I got propositioned three times on the one street. And it was only just after 6 in the morning. Is that really a peak time for such an industry?
That put me little on edge. Then one of the hotels I'd read about in a guide book many months previous turned out to be nestled down crack alley in Chinatown. Not the relaxing few days in the sun I was looking for. I moved on.
Two hours' walking is 15,000 steps. Add a 15 kilo backpack and 32 degree temperatures and you can imagine how I was starting to feel. Worse still both the 5-star palaces and 10 euro dumps of Penang were telling me they had no vacancies. It was getting to the stage where I was really thinking of just getting a taxi to the airport, changing my ticket and leaving Penang as soon as I'd arrived on it.
As I walked along aimless and despairing I came across an internet cafe. My Japanese hotel booking site gave me nothing. They didn’t have a single Penang hotel on offer. I tried Travelocity, Expedia, Hotels.com – all the websites I could think of. You would not believe the prices they were asking. Like 500 euro a night. I saw one room for 46 euro and thought this could be a goer. The booking was going smoothly until I read the notice: ‘Important information about your hotel: construction has not yet been completed.’ It was at this stage I would have loved to have had a good cry but don’t seem to have the ability anymore. It would have been such a release.
Then I got inspiration. About 200 metres before the café I’d passed a really slick looking hotel. A real 5-star place – it looked like one of those hotels you see in Wallpaper Magazine. I hadn’t even bothered going in to ask if they had vacancies. It looked that far out of my league.
I decided to do a quick search on the web. I found their site and lo and behold they had a suite room (seriously the best hotel room I have ever stayed in) for only 50 euro a night. I’ve put up a picture of the stylish lobby to give you an idea of what it was like. If you really want to know more got to www.ghotel.com.my
Mere minutes after my lowest point that day I was sitting in their café eating muesli and fresh fruit, drinking the best coffee I’ve had in Asia, and smiling to myself at how quickly things can turn around when you just follow your nose and don’t give up hope (close and all as I came).
I took the overnight sleeper train from KL to Penang. A very backpackery thing to do - you save one night's accommodation, get a good dose of local colour, and cover some serious ground. And all for a tenner!
I arrived in Penang in the pitch dark at 6am (the sun rises late down here) with no map, no accommodation booked and no idea what I was doing.
The fifteen-minute ferry from the mainland to Penang Island only cost a few cents - but I'd say that's what had been spent on the boat's upkeep in the last few years. I tried to calculate how far I could swim and what the most buoyant items in my bag were. But such drastic measures were not needed. I arrived safely at the port.
I often travel without a map. When I do I usually just follow the flow of traffic. This has an unparalleled record in bringing me straight to the red light district! Quite an interesting social observation that. I got propositioned three times on the one street. And it was only just after 6 in the morning. Is that really a peak time for such an industry?
That put me little on edge. Then one of the hotels I'd read about in a guide book many months previous turned out to be nestled down crack alley in Chinatown. Not the relaxing few days in the sun I was looking for. I moved on.
Two hours' walking is 15,000 steps. Add a 15 kilo backpack and 32 degree temperatures and you can imagine how I was starting to feel. Worse still both the 5-star palaces and 10 euro dumps of Penang were telling me they had no vacancies. It was getting to the stage where I was really thinking of just getting a taxi to the airport, changing my ticket and leaving Penang as soon as I'd arrived on it.
As I walked along aimless and despairing I came across an internet cafe. My Japanese hotel booking site gave me nothing. They didn’t have a single Penang hotel on offer. I tried Travelocity, Expedia, Hotels.com – all the websites I could think of. You would not believe the prices they were asking. Like 500 euro a night. I saw one room for 46 euro and thought this could be a goer. The booking was going smoothly until I read the notice: ‘Important information about your hotel: construction has not yet been completed.’ It was at this stage I would have loved to have had a good cry but don’t seem to have the ability anymore. It would have been such a release.
Then I got inspiration. About 200 metres before the café I’d passed a really slick looking hotel. A real 5-star place – it looked like one of those hotels you see in Wallpaper Magazine. I hadn’t even bothered going in to ask if they had vacancies. It looked that far out of my league.
I decided to do a quick search on the web. I found their site and lo and behold they had a suite room (seriously the best hotel room I have ever stayed in) for only 50 euro a night. I’ve put up a picture of the stylish lobby to give you an idea of what it was like. If you really want to know more got to www.ghotel.com.my
Mere minutes after my lowest point that day I was sitting in their café eating muesli and fresh fruit, drinking the best coffee I’ve had in Asia, and smiling to myself at how quickly things can turn around when you just follow your nose and don’t give up hope (close and all as I came).
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