39. Transport to KL Sentral: Another taxi! This is the hundredth taxi I think I’ve sat my butt in in the past few days haha. Ok, so lugged our luggage in and whadya know? Cannot close! Taxi driver had to secure using this hook and string thing. Clever!

From KL Sentral we took a 6 hour train ride to Butterworth. It was very comfortable and I slept the whole way. As you can see in this ugly photo here.

Subahanallah! If ugly had a face…

40. Butterworth Train Station: Yeay finally here!  Butterworth is a delicious sounding place that is the main town on the mainland side of Pulau Pinang. Less happening, and actualy quite boring if you don’t know anyone there. Hehe. But it is an important transportation hub for all train and many bus services because none of them goes directly to Penang island.

This is the very first engine used to commute between Kuala Lumpur and Butterworth. Took pictures there. 😀

Posting this picture up because I look skinny hahaha. I sucked tummy in! 😛

Anyway just for your info: Butterworth railway station is conveniently located next to the bus and ferry terminal, south of the town centre. It is a major rail terminal for Keretapi Tanah Melayu (Malayan Railways) trains heading south to KL and Singapore, and north to Hat Yai in Thailand. Interesting right? There is an adventure there waiting to happen. 😉

41. Transport: Motorcycle!

LOL! No lah, I’m kidding. I cannot drive a motorbike at all. Our friend took us by car and drove to a swimming pool. Have no idea where it was and what it’s called. So I’m just gonna call it, Butterworth Swimming Pool!

We came with the intention to swim, but unfortunately the rules in the pool were quite strict and we could only swim if we were wearing swimming caps and goggles. Sigh! So no swimming.

42. Pantai Bersih: Haha, yes it really is called Pantai Bersih! Poor beach however, did not live up to its name. But I enjoyed the beautiful orange sunset.

Reminds me of the dirty Pantai Jerudong a bit.

43. Henry’s house. Henry is our very good friend from Butterworth and had generously spent his time with us when we were there. We didn’t stay at his place. We were just there to hang out a bit, freshen up, before going out for dinner. Anyway, his family owns a roadside restaurant and sold delicious (apparently) non-halal wantans! He is the cook for the restaurant. 😀 I have awesome friends who do awesome things for a living.

His family is a mixture of Taoist and Buddhist. Hehehe. Very interesting I thought. Although Henry himself is quite atheistic. Here is their tapikong, put in the living room!

44. Random Nasi Kandar Restaurant: Or in this case, Nasi Kandar Salam where I had THE BEST NASI KANDAR EVER. I was quite wow-ed.I mean, I knew Pulau Pinang had the best nasi kandar, after all this is where it came from. On this day, I realised, everything I’ve read about it is an underrepresentation. There should be new adjectives created to describe the curry gravy I had.

The thing is, this was just a random Nasi Kandar restaurant, there are better ones with more delicious food apparently. I was like… *speechless*. I cannot imagine nasi kandar ever tasting any better.

By the way, we had nasi kandar because we were heading towards Sungai Dua, where the best Penang Char Kway Teow in Butterworth is. It had a long queue, so we need to eat something first. Haha.

45. Sg Dua Char Kway Teow, Telur Ayam Di Basuh: I love that they tell you that their eggs are washed! LOL. Anyway there were so many people there!

This is their menu. Only 3 items.

This is the VERY VERY GOOD CKT!!! Penang style is different where there is quite a lot of gravy. Tastes a little peanut-y and because Penang is a coastal area, all seafood, including the cockles and prawns used are extra extra fresh.

46. Transport: Midnight Ferry from Butterworth to Georgetown.

Obligatory group photo

Georgetown, from the perspective of Butterworth. Two towns separated by the Penang Straits.

View of the interior. Pick any seat you like! But since we’re going on the midnight ferry ride, it was pretty much empty except for a few people.

An identical ferry next to ours. Top floor for people and bottom floor for cars.

This was a very interesting ride. I am now in love with ferries! This ride, which took about 30 minutes, only cost RM1.50.

47. Transport: Amir’s car! On the Georgetown side, friends of ours, Amir and Lan were already waiting for us. Many hugs and laughs were exchanged because I haven’t seen these boys in over 7 months! Like my friend said, “kalau betian basar udah!”. LOL. Amir is very young like 24 yet he already owns his own small contractor business. Building houses! How cute is that? Like him, his father also joined SSEAYP, and was in the same batch as our national leader. Hehe.

48. Bayview Hotel, Penang. Since it was already quite late, we went straight to our hotel.

This is the only hotel I know that has more than 5 electrical sockets in each room!!! Awesome right! LOL. But we spent the night talking and laughing and pretending to sleep!

Next Malaysia Tour post would be about our day in Georgetown with Lan and Amir! 😀