Penang

Penang, "Pearl of the Orient", home to Malaysia's second largest city and with a rich heritage of cultural diversity. All you need to know is in these pages!

Penang Walking Tour - Part 1: "George Town, the capital of Penang and the second largest city in Malaysia, has one of the largest collections of 19th and 20th century buildings in SE Asia. The easiest way to see the old town area is on foot. Here's a suggested walking tour (all images are clickable):..."
Penang Walking Tour - Part 2: "George Town, the capital of Penang and the second largest city in Malaysia, has one of the largest collections of 19th and 20th century buildings in SE Asia. The easiest way to see the old town area is on foot. Having completed Part 1, here's Part 2 of a suggested walking tour (all images are clickable):...)
Penang Tours: Visiting Penang? Then why not check out the range of tours, excursions, themed tours and airport transfers from our partners, Viator?
Penang: Restaurant reviews: Here's some information about the restaurants we've eaten at during various visits to Georgetown since 2004.
Restaurant review: Bayview Hotel: "As you'd expect, the Bayview has a number of eating and drinking establishments, ranging from a nightclub in the cellar to a revolving restaurant on the top floor! We checked most of them out during our stay..." Kay and Dave review the food and bev outlets at the Bayview Hotel.
Restaurant review: Ecco: "We sat down and looked at the menu. It was short, but laid emphasis on natural, freshly-prepared ingredients and hand-made pasta and pizza dough. This sounded encouraging. After a friendly chat with the waiter, we suddenly realised that time was marching on and it was only 25 minutes until their closing time! So we ordered, and prepared ourselves for a wait - which in the end wasn't very long at all." Kay and Dave stumble across a little Italian gem in Penang.
Restaurant review: Farquhar's Bar, E&O Hotel: "Just as a visit to Singapore is not complete without a Singapore Sling in Raffles, we felt that we must have a sling or a punch at the E&O. Expecting it to be prohibitively expensive, we planned only to stay for one drink before moving on to somewhere more affordable. Surprisingly, we discovered that because of Happy Hour (which lasts from 5pm till closing!) the bar at the E&O was considerably cheaper than the so-called British bar called Soho, which we'd visited the previous evening." Kay and Dave spend a few hours unwinding in Farquhar's Bar at George Town's Eastern & Oriental Hotel.
Restaurant review: 1885: "Tea arrived and was poured - and looked woefully weak. Kay commented on this, but the waiter didn't seem to notice and carried on pouring anyway. As soon as he'd gone we lifted our teapot lids and poured the tea back in, noticing as we did so that the 'tea' was actually tea bags." Kay and Dave experience afternoon tea at the E&O Hotel, but get less than they bargain for...
Where to eat: Sheraton Hotel dinner buffet: "It just goes to show how limited our choice was of nice little local eateries that we'd end up having the buffet at the Sheraton. On the face of it, the choice looked good enough for us to decide to stay. On closer inspection, there were so many things worryingly wrong that I even took the time to write a whole page of faults and subsequently discuss them with the duty manager." Kay and Dave have a dining experience they'd rather forget at the Sheraton Hotel in George Town.
Restaurant review: Sushi King, KOMTAR: "This is one of the Malaysian chain of Japanese fast food restaurants. It has a fairly limited à la carte menu but an extensive selection of small plates of food coming round on the conveyor belt. You sit at the sushi bar and help yourself to these plates, which are colour-coded according to their price. Most of it is very inexpensive anyway, with the most expensive dishes being RM6 (less than £1)." Kay and Dave review the Sushi King branch at the KOMTAR complex.
Where to stay: Bayview Hotel: "We made our way up to Floor 9 and round the cavernous atrium to our room. As soon as we walked in we knew we'd got our money's worth – it was clean and generously sized, with a comfortable king-sized bed, a settee and coffee table, plus a desk and chair, complete with cable for a 2MB broadband connection at a reasonable RM20 for 24 hours." Kay and Dave return to Penang after three years and discover excellent value for money from the Bayview Hotel.
Where to stay: Eastern & Oriental Hotel: "The E&O is well placed for many of Georgetown's most obvious attractions - you can get to most of them by foot if you're prepared to walk for 15 minutes or so. But if you'd rather stay put and unwind, as we chose to do, the balcony of our suite offered a great opportunity to do that. What could be better than sitting down with a cold cocktail, a good book, and a view of the cruise liners sailing in stately fashion through the Penang Strait?" Kay and Dave indulge in a spot of pampering in the Eastern & Oriental Hotel in George Town.
Where to stay: Hotel 1926: "We had a "superior" room which was rather cramped so I would be wary of taking a standard sized one. The room contained one of the smallest double beds I have ever seen. Even so. the sheets were too small for the bed. We ended up remaking the bed with the sheet on sideways just so there was enough to cover us. The hotel's promotional material described it as a place of 'understated elegance'. Hmmm, an interesting description." Kay and Dave get less than they bargained for from the Hotel 1926 in Penang.