Sojourneyers – One family's adventure

Follow a family of three as we travel the world exploring and learning more about the world, ourselves and our family

We’ve had a full apartment the last few days.  Jonathan’s mum, Mary, has been visiting from England, and an Aussie friend of his from Japan popped on down from a conference in KL.  We’d held off on hitting some of Penang’s must-see sights until they arrived, so we eagerly headed to Penang Hill one afternoon.  The cloud-laden skies and smattering of raindrops as we stood in line for tickets up the funicular offered an inauspicious start to the day, but we’ve learned quickly that the weather here is mercurial and the skies cleared quickly enough (or maybe we just got above the rain clouds).  At 834 meters above sea level, Penang Hill offers wide-sweeping view and a welcome escape from the humid heat and was one of the first hill stations founded by the British in the late 1700s.  We enjoyed a lovely lunch in the gardens of David Brown, a British-colonial style restaurant.  Afterwards, we walked along a meandering path while Z was periodically grabbed by other tourists for photos.  She’s become well-accustomed to this in the last two weeks and now smiles obligingly for the photos while the photographers shove me out of the frame.  Doesn’t do much for my confidence, but Z thinks she is a star!  We then hit up the Owl Museum which sounded promising for an animal-lover like Z.  We paid the entrance fee and only then did they open the door to the museum and reveal that it was a museum of owl pictures, china and other art involving owls.  Not a live owl to be seen.  Somehow, we still enjoyed our quick visit.

After that we grabbed a buggy (known in other parts as a golf cart) for a lovely little ride along a road that could have been mistaken for the English country-side to Monkey Cup Garden.  Despite its misleading name (no monkeys!), this proved to be a highlight of Penang Hill.  Monkey Cups are carnivorous plants, also known as pitcher plants, and it was fascinating to learn about how they trap their prey (including rats)!  Z was brave enough to hold an enormous millipede but she drew the line at holding the scorpion–as a mom, I was happy about this display of commonsense. As the lush gardens were unleashing their mosquitos on us, we wrapped up our visit there and headed for a quick look at a Hindu temple and mosque, although the adjacent playground proved more of a draw to Z.

The following day we headed by bus to Penang National Park where we purchased tickets for the short boat ride to Monkey Beach.  I was eager to visit one of the few jellyfish-free beaches in Penang.  Although the water wasn’t as clear as I had hoped and the shoreline was busy with fume-spewing jet skies, we all enjoyed a worry-free swim in the sea and had a lovely picnic on the beach.  Jonathan kept warning us that we needed to keep watch so that the monkeys didn’t steal our lunch, but while on his watch a bold monkey stole our bunch of bananas and efforts to recover them were unsuccessful.  (Don’t mess with hungry monkeys.)   Monkey Beach also offered some other novel sights.  As Malaysia is a Muslim country (and appears to be a popular destination for more conservative Arab-Muslims), our beach experience offered burka-clad women taking ATV rides into the jungle and groups of Muslim teenage girls clothed head-to-toe wading in the ocean and taking banana boat rides.  Sunburns and mosquitos obviously aren’t a threat.  The highlight of the day though was when we decided to forego our boat ride back and take the jungle walk back instead.  It involved slippery scrambles up rocks, rope-assisted stream crossings and dense jungle brush to climb through, and Z couldn’t have had more fun.  Mary was the real trooper, however, as she hadn’t planned for a jungle scramble and had shoes that had no traction and wouldn’t stay on her feet.

The Butterfly Farm was our final visit.  Zara fortuitously happened to be wearing a flowered dress and one butterfly attached itself to her and wouldn’t fly away.  This is a girl who at lunch the other day found a quarter inch worm on the ground, nicknamed it Squishy and played with it for over an hour.  Obviously, the butterfly was a step up.  We all thoroughly enjoyed our visit to the farm and I can see going back.

Last night we also finally visited the Batu Ferringi night markets where I picked up a much-needed pair of “designer” sunglasses for three US dollars and Z found a much-coveted pair of “reading” glasses (without the pesky addition of prescription lenses).  She’s been obsessed with wanting glasses for the last couple of months.  Odds are she will need glasses in a few years anyway, but am hoping this is as close as she gets to the real thing for at least a couple of more years!