Before reaching Thailand, we decided to make a stop for four days on Penang island, not far from the border. We took a 5h long bus from Kuala Lumpur to Butterworth, then a short ferry to the island, where we landed in the city of Georgetown.

Georgetown

As we were only staying one night in Georgetown, we did not have time to visit the city properly. We could still find some unique places.

One of such places are the jetty, which are mainly pontoons at the sea. Each of these villages on stilts is owned by a Chinese family.

The pontoons can go quite far into the sea. Some were without light and quite narrow, a quite scary experience!

Monkey beach

Our next stop in Penang was the Monkey Beach in the middle of a national park. The only way to get here is to walk through the forest for an hour or take a boat from the nearby fishing town (we preferred the boat). Once we arrived there, we were amazed by the place. We were far from civilization, with no electricity and no telephone!

Animals on the beach

Many animals, including cats and dogs, live in the campsite where we stay, rather than people.

And of course the monkeys that give the beach its name. We even got a chance to feed them as taught by a German who has lived there for 15 months (otherwise we wouldn’t recommend approaching wild animals unknowingly!).

Lazyboys campsite

We stayed three nights at a camping site named lazyboys. At that time, the camping was managed by Eva, a Belgian girl who have been there for 10 days when we arrived. We settled in the A-hut on the left:

This hut is a perfect place for sleeping near the sea!

The lighthouse

Near the beach, there is a lighthouse, built in 1883 by the British. We decided to climb up there (240m high), this was quite a ride up, surrounding by mysterious sounds generated by crickets.

We finally managed to get to the lighthouse:

There we were amazed by the view!

Overall, if you are up to a no phone, no lights (we were going to bed by the sunset) and not so clean facility stay, it was a very recommendable and meditative visit. Adjusting to be away from civilization was not an easy task but not doing anything but just sitting by the sea the whole day and reading books was a great experience!