7/13 Penang in the Mouth

The loud noise from the air conditioner in my room woke me up, yet the weather was too hot so I forced it to keep working.

It's only about 7, but my room was getting unbearable from the noise, the sunlight shining in almost blinding my eyes, so I headed out for my main mission of the day: booking the bus ticket to Hat yai tomorrow.

Penang had two big bus stations, but there weren't many going to Hat Yai which was located in Thailand. I had no choice to find the only bus going there in George Town, or to take the ferry across the water to Butterworth and set off from there.

I have read news about the agency Newsia providing a 10 seater minivan to Hat Yai with an approximate 4-hour trip costing only 35RMs, so I decided to find its location and book the ticket with Newsia.

My skin felt burnt through all the walk in direct sunlight, it not just felt like hot, but much pain.

But I really found Penang to my liking except for the unbearable hot weather, it's much like Perth in Australia, with little streets and low height buildings. There were also many delicious meals being sold throughout the city: Indian courses, Malaysian meals or Chinese foods.

For example, the locals were always debating where one can get the best Hokkien Mien, or Assam Laksa, White Curry and Chicken Rice. I followed the recommendations of one of the locals and reached a booth selling Hokkien Mien and had one for breakfast! Spicy noodles with hot red prawn soup for breakfast! It tasted delicious by the way. I continued to look for Newsia agency which was supposed to be located by Komtar.

However, I spent most of my afternoon searching for the address and GPS locations of Newsia that I had found on the Internet but got to no good end. I was ready to give up and searched for another way to get to Hat Yai tomorrow, then I caught a glimpse of a small red sign under one of the dirty booths beneath Komtar and there was the Newsia agency! It was nowhere near the addresses given by the information online, and was full of smoke and pretty dirty inside. I bought my ticket and got out as soon as possible. Good, mission of the day, done!

Got some food and drinks at the Komtar supermarket, before leaving Penang, the price of junk food was fairly cheap here in Malaysia, and since I would be leaving for Thailand tomorrow, I strolled around George Town until the night had fallen to enjoy my last bit here in Malaysia.