Month: September 2023

So named on the 12th August 1786 to commemorate George IV’s birthday when he was PoW. The island is now called Penang.

 Bay View Beach Hotel pool from a balcony

View from our balcony

A perfect place after the long drive from Cameron Highlands – Penang Island is connected to the mainland by a bridge – 13.5 km (8 miles) of dual carriage way which was opened in 1985.
Since our visit in 2005 Malaysia has built a second bridge from the mainland to Penang Island.
The second bridge is 24 km (15 miles) long and was opened in 2014. This bridge is the second longest bridge is Asia.

The bridge that we crossed in 2005.

The above is our hotel in Penang, which is located at Batu Ferringhi beach area which is about 17 km (10.5 miles) out of George Town which is the main shopping area of Penang. 
The picture above is from the internet. The hotel looks very similar to when we visited in 2005. 

I took the above in 2005, part of the foyer and reception.

As much as I like swimming, the thought of swimming to the bar adds to one’s daily exercise.
The picture below is the bar (the red roof building) and we, mainly the men, would sit on underwater stools and tell tall tales of yesterday and order another round.
True friendship is listening to a story that you have heard before and pretending that this was the first time you had heard the story. At least the barman would smile as he poured another cold beer.   

One evening we decided to celebrated the birthday of one of our male friend’s and we planned to meet at a small outdoor bar next to the hotel (the drinks were cheaper), and we would decide as to which restaurant we would visit for the birthday boy. 

Our birthday boy was a little late and during our waiting time we had been watching the monkeys running across the roof.

The above might not be all that clear so I have cropped another photo below.

This fellow and his mates were having a great time running around the tree
tops and the roofs of various buildings.
Finally the birthday boy arrived and commented on the monkeys at which we all asked
‘What monkeys, we haven’t seen any monkeys?’
“How many have you had already?’ asked someone.
‘I only had one!’ was the stern reply –
‘It must have been a large one if you can see monkeys!’
The banter kept going until we couldn’t keep a straight face any longer. 
We agreed on a restaurant- the choice was quite large.
Each evening of our stay we ate at a different restaurant.

  Our evening was rounded off with a walk through the night market, where stall holders sold everything from clothes to DVDs, local artifacts, drinks and lolly ices. An ideal place to buy small presents to take home.

Tomorrow, we have booked a mini-bus and guide to show us around Penang Island. 

Camron Highlands so named after William Cameron geologist and explorer who, in 1885 was given the job of surveying the area. The highlands are in Malay (now Malaysian) State of Pahang and in 1887 the Resident (British Government Official) considered the area would be fine for a sanatorium, health resort due to the climate. A pathway was cut through the jungle, but nothing happened for forty years.

We left our KL hotel and boarded two mini-buses for the journey to the Highlands. The early part of the journey was mainly motorway until we started the zig-zag climb up to Tanah Rata where our hotel was located.

The winding road was a problem, particularly for me because I am not a good traveller by bus.

I took advantage of the stops the driver suggested as places of interest.

 

Strawberry Park Hotel, Cameron Highlands, our hotel.

Maureen on the balcony of our bedroom.

We took various tours around the area because our time in the Highlands was limited. The climate was perfect, just right to tour the main sites.

It was always tomatoing season, where ever you went just pick and eat.

and of course, strawberries, hence the name of our hotel.

We visited a tea plantation and watched the picking process and later the drying of the leaves and packing the tea. The above photograph shows some of the homes of the workers.

The plantation in the photograph was created in 1935 and was reopened in 1972, and when we visited in 2005, they were producing 600,000 kgs (1.3 million pounds) of tea a year, the equivalent of   820,000 cups of tea a DAY!

An insect ‘farm’ with friendly butterflies, and not so friendly

not all the insects were threatening.

Beehives for honey – the bees didn’t seem at all bothered by people wandering around.

An interesting quiet town, as we walked around the main shopping area.

Sam Poh Buddhist Temple built in 1972, which was open to all visitors, and it was free as long as we were quiet and we removed our shoes.
The majority of visitors are local Chinese or Chinese visitors from Singapore.

We only had two days in the Cameron Highlands, so we packed as much site seeing as possible, but all good things come to an end and we boarded our bus for the three and a half our trip to Penang. I was not looking forward to 250 km (155 miles) of winding roads down to sea level.

I need not have worried because we were not going to use the winding road but a freeway. The trip took us about four hours and it was a pleasant trip according to my stomach. 

We were restricted in our choice of airline from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur because we wanted a direct flight rather than transiting Singapore or Bangkok. At that time Qantas nor its subsidiary Jetstar flew to Kuala Lumper so we flew with Malaysian Airlines.
We ended up flying with this airline quite a lot over the early years of our group travel. We were happy with the service and the price.

I booked the tickets with a local travel agent, and I requested that the travel agent arrange for a mini-bus in Kuala Lumper to take us from the airport to the hotel. This was the first and the last time that I did not arrange a local travel / transport company at our destination myself.

Our problems began at check-in, we had eight tickets but only seven people had been booked. After several minutes of back-and-forth phone calls our eighth passenger was allowed to check-in.

After we had left the check-in counter, we compared our tickets and realised that our Germen/New Zealand friends where not seated near the remaining six, which was what I had booked, but they were not even sitting together as a couple

Back to the counter and another discussion to have our friends not just close to us but sitting together.

Finally, when we boarded and we were all sitting together. My seat was broken and would not stay upright during take-off & landing. It made me wonder what would happen next. Thankfully the flight was without incident and we arrived safely in Kuala Lumpur.

Once we clearer immigration and customs we were in the arrival hall, and I started to look around for the booked transport to take us to the hotel. I left Maureen with our friends and I went looking for anyone waving a sign containing my name or the names of any of our friends.
To say I was becoming angry was an understatement – I was as mad as hell!
Because all this happened twenty years ago I will not mention the Malaysian company’s name who were supposed to transport us to the hotel.
We had been waiting for some time when a young man approached me and asked if he could help. Being aware of touts I was reluctant to explain our problem until he took out a business card and explained that he worked for a Malaysian travel agent called Hasry (could be Hasty Travel) Travel and he was aware of the name of our ‘missing’ travel company.
He kindly rang the company that should have met us and was told by ‘our’ agent that they  thought we were due to arrive the following day – someone had failed to read the fax correctly.
I was able to speak to our missing travel agent and they asked me to use Hasry Travel’s transport service to our hotel and to pay them for their services, obtain a receipt, and I would be reimbursed the following day.

We arrived at the hotel around 11.30 pm (1.30am the following day for us) and as we were checking in I had the feeling that we were not expected. We were allocated rooms and as we were tired, and it had been a long day and all we wanted to do was sleep.
I viewed our room and was not happy. A quick look around and I was ‘upset’ to say the least. The room was below standard – we had a toilet that leaked, the shower leaked and flooded the floor, I could smell smoke and had requested a non-smoking room, we had two single beds, but I had requested a double,  what a start to a holiday.

The following morning after I had a short chat with the management, we were all moved to larger rooms, which were of a standard that we expected – double beds, non-smoking, non-leaking showers etc. in fact the standard of room that Maureen & I had experienced the previous year.

Our missing travel agent arrived with the promised money to reimburse my expenses, so I asked about a tour of Kuala Lumper with an English-speaking guide and a mini-bus. He was only too happy to mend bridges. . . .

At last, the holiday could begin –

War memorial, which is very impressive.

The old railway terminus opened in 1910- the new one would be opened in 2001.

Up to 2011 the old station had a 170 roomed hotel attached called The Station Hotel and the lobby bar was famous.
Up to 2009 you could still ‘buy’ a room for the night as long as you did not mind the peeling paint etc.
In 2015 it was taken over by a consortium of Singapore businessmen but their effort to rescue the hotel failed and the place is now locked and the inside derelict.

Next stop was the Royal Palace & the Guards

Foot guards

Driveway to the Palace – the guards didn’t mind us getting close to take a photograph through the main gate.

A touch of yesterday Royal Selangor Club, the area above was rebuilt after a fire in 1970. I took the above photo.

The above picture from the internet – the central area from earlier times. The club was founded in 1884 during the time when the British controlled Malaya. In front of the club the area would be used for games of cricket.

On the 31st August 1957 Malaya gained in dependence and the British flag located at Medaka Square (which used to be the Selangor cricket pitch) was lowered down a 95 mtr (312 ft) flag pole (one of the largest in the world) and the Malay flag was hoisted in its place.
Malaya did not become Malaysia until September 1963.

Another shot of the mast and the Malaysian flag.

We also visited a Mosque, which was interesting, but we all had to be

appropriately dressed.
The ladies with their head covered, but not the males.

Kuala Lumpur was not all history & culture- inside a large shopping Centre

Scream time

After the arrival problems things went well and I arranged for a minibus transport to the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia, which would be an approximately four-to-four-and-a half-hour drive.

The main thing I learned from this holiday was to use the internet (which was not as sophisticated as today) to arrange all foreign hotels, transport and places of interest myself, and only use the local travel agent in Australia to deal with the airlines.

That’s what happened for the next ten years for the eight of us.