After an amazing time in Taiping and Penang, we have now arrived in Kuala Terengganu. It only took 9 and a half hours to get here on a coach, but it’s all a part of the adventure…

📍 Taiping, Malaysia

The main goal for Taiping was to find where my dad had been born. My grandad had been in the RAF, and in 1965 he and my grandmother had been in Malaysia.

There wasn’t a lot of information online about the military camp (that we could find), but I knew it had been called the Kamunting British Military Hospital, and there were a couple of comments on a TripAdvisor forum regarding where the hospital would have been. Using these as directions, we were able to find the location of the hospital.

It is now on a Malaysian army camp, so we were not able to go inside the camp to look around for the hospital building. Despite this, it was still a great experience to get as close as we did and to imagine how much it would have changed since 1965.

Whilst in Taiping, we visited Taiping Lake Gardens twice and Perak Museum. The gardens were the first public gardens established during the British rule in Malaysia and are really beautiful. The museum is the oldest in Malaysia and features exhibitions including: skeletons of animals found in S.E. Asia, Malaysian handicrafts and information on Malaysian aboriginal people.

We only saw a couple of other Westerners during our stay in Taiping, and on occasion felt uncomfortable from the amount of attention we would receive. Some people would smile or nod at us, a few said “welcome to Malaysia”, but most people would just stare or laugh. It can become annoying, but unfortunately it was something out of our control.

Despite this, Taiping is a lovely place and the surrounding hills make a beautiful backdrop. There are some fascinating buildings, and a Heritage Trail that is easy to follow.

📍 Penang, Malaysia

There are a few ways of reaching Penang, however this was our route from Taiping.

Firstly, we took the train from Taiping to Butterworth. As before, when we booked the tickets at the station we were assigned seats, however we did have to wait for nearly 2 hours for the train. But it was comfortable once we were on and took less than an hour. Once at Butterworth there are signs that direct you to the ferry terminal, which is only a couple of minutes walk away, and the ferry itself was a 10 minute journey. There are taxis waiting as soon as you get off the pier, so it was a straight forward process for us throughout.

Luke was keen to explore George Town, the capital of Penang, so we spent our first full day exploring the city. It became one of our favourite days to date.

Famous for it’s street art and British colonial buildings, we started our day by visiting the tourist centre and were given a few maps and some information from the staff about what we could do. From where we were, we decided on a route we would take and started on Pitt Street (aka Street of Harmony).

The Street of Harmony is named as such as there are four places of worship (each belonging to a different faith) that coexist together on one street. 

Then we used the map to look for the street art that is so well known. Unfortunately, a lot of the pieces have been worn away or ruined, but we did see a few nice pieces. We missed a few on our first walk through, but circled back a couple of times in order to find them.

We grabbed some lunch at a food market before we walked through “Little India“. This is basically a few connected streets that are filled with sari and jewellery shops, and the air is thick with the smell of various spices. This led us towards the port area of George Town, just in time for the rain to come down heavily on us. We took a walk around Fort Cornwallis (built in the 18th Century but never engaged in combat), before calling it a day and heading back. We finished our day by having a swim in the rain because, why not?

As we had spent the whole day in George Town, we decided the following day would be dedicated to exploring some other parts of Penang. All online blogs tell you to visit Penang Hill, so we headed there first. Unfortunately, when we arrived at 12pm we were told they were closed until 2pm (which was not stated on their website) and with it being half an hour drive from our hotel, we created a new plan.

Kek Lok Si Temple was highlighted on our map as a keen place of interest, and it was only a 20 minute walk from the base of the hill. It is the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia and can be seen from miles away due to the seven-storey statue (we later discovered the statue is of a Thai king).

The first level is home to a large tortoise pond, and a cable cart is there to take you to each level until you reach the top. Despite the heavy clouds, the view was stunning and the presence of the statue was breathtaking.

Then it was back to Penang Hill, and another cable cart journey. There is a variety of treks you can do at the top of the hill, as well as taking in the stunning view. We decided to take the shortest trek through the Rainforest before heading back down.

We finished the day by going over to Batu Ferringhi by the sea, as it was a destination my grandparents had visited during their time in Malaysia. My dad had even told me the name of the hotel – Lone Pine – and we were able to grab a drink there. I think it will have changed a lot since then, but it was lovely to think they could have sat near to where we were all those years ago. We enjoyed dinner at sunset on the beach, before calling it a day.

As we mentioned at the start of this blog, we are now in Kuala Terengganu. It’s very close to the sea, so if the weather holds up, we might just relax down there after being very busy this past week.

We’ll then be moving on to Malacca and following that, flying to Singapore! So we’ll probably send out another blog then for you.

Lots of love, Caitlin and Luke