We slept in and had a lazy morning just swimming. We took a cab to Kuah and then caught the ferry to Georgetown (Penang) which is scheduled as a 2.5 hour journey. About 90 minutes into the voyage we stopped dead in the middle of the sea and were dead in the water for 45 minutes. We had run into a fishing net which had wrapped itself around one of the propellors. Crew members were diving into the water with knives to hack away the net. We ended up arriving mid-afternoon.
The hotel was OK, we had a room on the 7th floor overlooking a trishaw parkign area. A trishaw is a rickshaw pushed by a bicycle and has three wheels. The purpose of our visit was to go shopping, and so we got a trishaw ride to the main shopping area. By now it was 6pm and all the shops were closed. We were very disappointed as the rest of Malaysia is open ’til 11-12pm every night. We ate at a very dodgy place (thank god for malaria antibiotics) and went back to the hotel for an early night, disillusioned with Penang.
“purpose of our visit was to go shopping”
Mmm … Penang was really the shopping paradise for Malaysian, when the whole island had “duty free status”.
When Penang lost that status, Langkawi got the “whole island duty free status”, though the choice of items that duty free makes attractive is more limited, since Langkawi is not a big import/export port like Georgetown.
Depending what you wanted I’d think you’d find some things cheaper in Langkawi than in Penang.
regards, sabre23t =^.^=