Butterworth to Penang Malaysia

Our train dropped us off at Butterworth, Malaysia which is at the mainland across the Strait of Malacca.  From there we had to find the ferry that would carry us across the water to Penang.  This was an up and down adventure...climbing stairs to one place to go back down other stairs and back up more stairs.  But eventually we found our way to the ferry port and made it onto the ferry. There were 2 decks of cars in which people stood around.  We choose to stand close to the railing for the good view!

The city of Penang is quite beautiful (especially in comparison to Bangkok) but the Strait of Malacca is very polluted.  The coloring was a funky green cloudy looking substance and we saw multiple dead fish and lots of trash in the water. 

After a 20 minute ride on the ferry, we made it to Penang.  Our plan was just to walk to our homestay but it turned out to be an extremely hot day (101 with the heat index!) so we opted for the bus instead.  Penang has a very cool free bus system that takes you around the main parts of Penang.  If you want to go outside this free bus route then you can pay to use other buses too (which we did as you will see later in my other posts). 

We had a family suite at this homestay.  The bunk beads were on the 2nd floor of the homestay and the master bedroom was up the flight of stairs pictured on the 3rd floor.  

We ate at Kappa Restaurant a couple times during our stay in Penang.  Not only did they have the best homemade shoestring french fries but they had fun things to play with as well!

Little India was right around the corner from our homestay.  We found great restaurants and more street food.

Indian breakfast on day 2!  Super yummy!

The boys outside Restaurant Kapitan.  The walls were nice and colorful!

During one of our wanderings we stumbled upon the 1st Subway we had seen on our trip so I got really excited although we didn't eat here. 

And of course we refrained from eating Subway because the street food in Penang was amazing!  Trucks like these lined the street with every common Malaysian food you could think of!  And maybe a few un-Malaysian foods too like french fries. This was the first time on our journey that we felt safe enough to eat some street food.

Our favorite noodle dish!  We ate this dish multiple times while we were in Penang.

No we didn't eat any octopus, but it was crazy to see different creatures like this one all ready to be eaten.

Oliver's favorite thing to look for on our trip was playgrounds, so our homestay owners let us know that there was a playground just a few blocks from our place.  As we were wandering to the playground, we found this beautiful fountain outside some beautiful architectural buildings.  Which all turned out to be government buildings.

We also found the remains of some Chinese New Year celebrations!

Chinese New Year decorations with more government buildings in the background.

Fort Cornwallis was like most forts that you see around the world but I am always impressed by their structure and size.  The original fort was built in 1786 and although it was built by the British Military apparently it was not built as a defense fort but for administrative reasons.  So of all the forts I have ever seen, I do believe this is the first fort that was not built to defend an area!

A view of the wall with its cannons, a lighthouse, and a ship's mast.

We made it to the playground before walking the perimeter of the fort, then returned again to the playground.  Both boys were very excited to get a chance to play and unwind in a wild fashion.

One thing that we noticed in Penang is their abundance of ravens!  These guys were everywhere...annoyingly so! Oliver thought they were funny!

Something that we noticed both on our trip through Thailand and into Malaysia were these exercise machines in the parks.  The boys loved these things more than they loved playing on the actual playground equipment.

After a long day of walking and exploring we ended up back at our homestay working on some of our drawings.  The bananas you see pictured were from a street market.  We had fresh fruit (only with a peel so we wouldn't get sick) usually before bed and again in the mornings when we woke up so we could go wander and look for food without getting hangry!