“You’ve never been to Penang unless you’ve been to Penang Hill” – that’s what the slogans say. Usually you would get to Penang Hill by cable car from the base station on the outskirts of Penang, but this was closed for renovation. This actually presented a great opportunity for us to get to the top with very few tourists around, so we decided to hike up.

It’s a simple matter of taking the bus to the botanical garden, where there are a series of well-marked trekking pathways that guide you up the (incredibly steep) hill to the summit. You start off heading up the jeep ascent road, but then you turn off into the woodland.

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It will take you a good few hours if you take it easy, and especially in the heat, but it’s brilliant jungle trekking. We saw plenty of monkeys, and an elusive gibbon as well – too elusive for my camera even! Some of the monkeys are utterly adorable:

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The views on the way up are rather worthwhile as well, at every clearing or sub-summit you have another little reward to keep you walking:

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Eventually we made it to the summit area, where the cable car stops:

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We whiled away a good few hours admiring the view, butterflies, local flora, slightly tacky tourist attractions (Owl museum?) and the terrible choice of food. At least now we could say we’d been to Penang! As the cable car is closed, nobody bothers opening the food stalls, so we were stuck with a pot of corn (salted, with butter) as our lunch.

Sleepy from the trek, we napped a little in the sunshine, enjoying the peace and cool air of the hilltop:

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At some point, it occurred to us that we’d want to find a way down the hill. It was getting very hot in the afternoon sun, and we didn’t really have the energy or water to trek back down.

I spotted a jeep carrying vegetables to a restaurant which was preparing to open in a couple of days’ time. Waving at the driver, I managed to persuade him to take us down into Penang without charge (saving us about 120 ringets each, by the sounds of things!) He was even nice enough to drop us off at a Thai restaurant which he said was really good. Although the restaurant was closed, we were grateful for the gesture. We hopped a bus back to Penang centre.

Sam and I headed into Little India to try the Indian street food. Again, we stuffed ourselves, starting with samosas and working our way through curry, nan, spicy roti, cake, fruit (finally tried a mangosteen, which is delicious!), sweet bread, candied fried ghee and finally a sweet roti, which left us sat by the park practically unable to move. It was genuinely funny how much food we’d eaten – we were both in a hysterics as we reluctantly chewed the last few bits of roti, practically ready to lay down and sleep at the waterfront.

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That was a good time to call it a night, so we did. I said I’d catch Sam for a beer later, or perhaps early in the morning  to go see a museum or two. Clara and I had booked a ferry to Langkawi, an island off the West coast. It turns out we were both still food comatose by 11pm, so no beer, and as the ferry was booked for midday the time in the morning quickly ran away with us, leaving no opportunity to say goodbye. I think it will have to be a coffee back in the UK at some point, Sam!