LAST DAY OF 2010, I hear some people sighing with a breath of relief, or some others dreading the new year, but for the Leong family, it was spent on the coast of Batu Ferringhi, and the highest point of Pulau Pinang.
Kafe Kheng Pin, just opposite Oriental Hotel on Jalan Penang, was bustling even in the early morning of the last day of the year. Reccommended by the hotel staff, we had our breakfast there. There were some differences between the food in Penang, and those you would find in Singapore. Hokkien prawn mee in Penang gets you the soupy version, whereas, in Singapore, you would expect to get the fried version. Wanton mee in Singapore is served with Char Siew, whereas, Wan Thung Mee (spelt differently as well!) was served with shredded chicken, the only plausible reason i could think of was that maybe they wanted to appeal to Muslim customers as well, but I doubt it, because the dumpling was made with minced pork too.
With our stomachs 75% filled, we hopped into our Mazda3, and took a drive to find the beach where we could do some seasports! Well, the navigator of the day, which coincidentally happened to be the navigator of the whole trip, aka me, knew only that we had to head in the direction of Batu Ferringhi, without actually knowing where exactly to find those operators for parasailing, banana-boating, jet-skiing! So from the city centre of Georgetown, the ubiquitous high rise hotels gave ways to winding roads, with rock walls on one side, and beautiful sandy beaches on the other.
Travelling on the road, we were suddenly stopped by a traffic police on his patrol bike. This really made us stopped in our feet, like literally, we thought we might have broken some traffic rule which we were totally unaware of. But unknown to us, this ‘traffic police’ was actually just a road marshal for one cycling event that took place that morning. He merely showed us his white oversized gloved hand, and smiled as us. Seconds later, hundreds of professional cyclist in their suits and ultra-light weight road bikes zoomed past us. Pulau Pinang was said to be home to quite a few cycling events, this must be one of them.
We were finally allowed to go, even though the cyclists were still streaming past, I guess it was impossible to block the road to accomodate to the slowest participants. We drove on, not knowing that the beach was actually accessible behind Hard Rock Hotel, which we passed by. Covering the whole stretch of the northern part of Pulau Pinang, we ended up at the national park. The national park of Penang is the smallest and newest Taman Negara to be recognised in Malaysia. It offers a few trails, some of which ends at beaches where sea turtles and monkeys make them their homes. Seems like a nice place for an easy trek, it made it to my list of to-trek.
At the ranger’s counter, we asked two Chinese girls, whom we assumed to be Penangites, where the supposed beach activities were. They pointed us in the direction where we came from, saying we had overshot our destination. Upon reaching, we saw much of these sea activities were already been carried out. There were 2 operators there. They worked without any counters whatsoever, just a couple of sales person, with a laminated pricelist that was already soaked with sea water and crumpled. They offered many activities, horse riding, ATV rental, para-sailing, banana boat, jet-skiing, boat trips, so on. We were interested in doing 3 – parasailing, jet-skiing, and something called the Viper, and managed to strike a deal with the Indian sales person we were talking to.
As small as the para-sail, or rather the person on para-sail, appeared to be when viewed from the ground, every other thing on the ground feels as if they were as tiny as ants when you see them from the sky. That must have been what birds would have felt, if they had brains the size of human’s. The whole experience of the wind bringing you through, was quite novel to me, because I have not yet tried paragliding.
They had experienced people on the shores giving instructions as to when to pull the strings that were holding on to your dear life, so as to allow the sail to collapse to the shores and bring you safely back to reality. For mum and dad, they kinda missed the signal and flew right over, about 50m away from the proposed landing site! But all is still safe! Phew~
We tried the viper next, the second item in our package. We didn’t know what this was, till the Indian salesperson introduced it to us. He said, “You’ve tried the banana boat before right?” and all 4 of us nodded in unison. He carried on to say, “Then you should try the viper, is a sofa on the sea! But very very exciting! Like a roller coaster!” We look at him skeptically; he sensed it, and reassured us, “I never bluff you! Somemore, I give you two person each time, then you can enjoy more!” So we gave it a shot!
The Indian man was right, it was hell of a fun time! There were handles at the arm rest of the ‘sofa’ but halfway through the ride, I dared my brother to not hold on to them, and be flung upwards into the air as the viper seat came into contact with the crests of seawaves. We let out shrieks of enjoyment, which the boatman understood as screams of terror, and looked back at us occasionally to make sure our faces were not green with fear. The third time he turned around, I showed him the thumbs up sign, and he revved the engine much more, propelling the boat and the viper seat at a much faster speed forward. The feeling of droplets of saltish water spraying on your face and arms was simply exhilarating!
So after the heart-thumping experience, the last on the package list was the jet-ski! I’ve seen Jet Li (oh, that was an unintended pun!) maneuver one effortlessly and confidently when on his quest to nab that baddie in 101 of his action movie. I should have known better that that was belittling this small monster in the sea. We were assigned to share one jet-ski amongst two. Guess that is better too, just in case some emergency happened. Anyway, there was this clip, that you had to chain to your wrist, that was essential for the jet-ski to start its engine. Any instance when the jet capsized, this clip would be disconnected and the engine would die off, lest it caused any life-threatening injuries to the riders. The ride was beyond what i can describe (partly due to my limited decriptive vocabularies). It was different from riding the ATV because of the bumpy sea surface. And at a speed of 40km/h, you felt as if you might be a flying fish, trying to jump out of the sea surface. The jet was surprisingly stable as well, and could make sharp turns at super high speed. You just have to overcome the psychological barrier that you and jet could make it and not fall sideways. I accelerated hard till my brother was grabbing me tightly from behind. The feel of the wind in your hair, slapping down on your face, it was unforgettable. Daddy and Mummy even went so far away that the staffs couldn’t locate them to call them back when the time was up. One of them managed to grab our attention, and rode our jet, with the both of us cowering below him. And when I say 40km/h was fast, he was travelling at 60km/h, with ease.
We had to quieten down our souls after that one hour or so of action, and settle for something milder, or else, my pair of folks would have suffered from some fatigue! The plan was to head up to Penang Hill. The Indian salesperson, upon hearing that, told us that Penang Hill was under construction, and offered to bring us on a boat trip to Monkey Island. I read it on the website that construction would be completed in December 2010, so we decided to not heed his advice. I told Mummy, maybe he’s just trying to get our business again. But damn was he right – Penang Hill was still under construction.
So we headed to the nearby Kek Lok Si in Air Itam, which was said to house a huge 30m tall statue of Kuan Yin. The statue could be seen from afar, and looked really majestic on the hills of green. Kek Lok Si, just like the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, was still under construction at this point of them, and there was huge efforts in trying to garner donations for the building process. Daddy donated some money and got his name written on one of those porcelain tiles used for the roof.
With no more nights left in Penang before we left for home, we explored Gurney Drive, which was a must-try on all tourist reccomendation lists. Gurney Drive was like Lau Pa Sat, just that it was an open air hawker area. There were more than 100 stalls there, many of which are selling similar food. For those who have not done any homework to research on other’s reccomendation (like us), it can really be a headache. The incessant rain added on to the headache. It only stopped when we have finished our dinner and got ready to leave, and that was when we saw Gurney Drive filled with tons of people, every table full.
The bo bo char char and the chendol were both too sweet!
We went to sleep really early that night, none of us really cared that we would be waking up to a new year. There wasn’t much celebration in Georgetown as well, just a short and brief fireworks display that wasn’t so spectacular as well.
GOOD NIGHT WORLD, GOOD NIGHT 2010.
Life is a daring adventure or nothing 