Then we were downstairs ourselves after saying goodbye and thanks to Michelle's brother Peng and his wife MooiKuan. We got another Grab taxi, and of course being a Sunday morning at that hour there was hardly any traffic.
We had booked ourselves an Airbnb homestay at a perfect location at the base of Penang Hill. There are a lot of hiking trails in the area, so we were looking forward to getting out and testing the doctor's diagnosis that there is nothing wrong with my heart!
We have our own room and private bathroom in a beautiful big home at the base of the hill.
The couple who also live here are really nice, and are about our age.
The facilities.
RM180 ($38.70 USD, $51.75 CAD) per night including breakfast, and we are staying for 4 nights.
We got ourselves settled in, and then went out for an early lunch.
Lunch. Some kind of chicken soy dish with a bit of what they call omelette and rice.
Quite nice, at RM17 ($3.70 USD, $5 CAD) each.
Then we hit the trail. We haven't been out for a decent hike for a while, so I planned us a 5 km (3 mile) circular route, but fairly steep. It was noon though, and about 30C (86F), and so it didn't take long and we were dripping with sweat. We brought lots of water though.
Uphill every step of the way.
A lot of different vegetation to see.
Interestingly, the trail has been paved with concrete.
Really pretty area.
With a lot of views looking back at the city.
Bananas.
Interesting fungus.
Pretty flowers.
Giant bamboo.
We were hiking up to the Buddhist stupas.
More giant bamboo.
I heard some rustling in the forest, and spotted this monkey...
There were actually two or three of these Dusky leaf monkeys around.
Almost every rock has a stupa on it!
Ruth and the stupas!
We heard some more rustling in the trees, and there were a few different monkeys, these ones are Crab-eating macaque monkeys.
At the viewpoint. Glad I didn't need this!
View looking back at Georgetown.
Many people take the funicular railway up and down Penang Hill, but even if we wanted to, it is under maintenance until the 11th. There is an old path that is now just a series of hundreds (thousands?) of steps going up or down...
Ruth, coming down the steps at Penang Hill.
LOTS of steps!
Almost at the bottom.
So, the heart seems to be working fine!
One of our readers is a Canadian guy who lives here in Penang. He contacted us and asked if we wanted to go for a hike later this afternoon, so we are hoping the weather cooperates enough to let that happen. Calling for rain towards the end of the day.
Also, we did some future travel planning, and will be headed up to Langkawi Island for a week starting January 11th.
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Wow, what a hike. Looks challenging but beautiful! I think the fungi are turkey tails, and the flowers look like some form of daylillies, perhaps. Love that you can see wild monkeys on a hike...as long as they aren't mean! Glad the old ticker seems to be working fine, Kevin!
ReplyDeleteIt was a good hike and quite the workout especially in the heat. Going up on the trail wasn't too bad but coming down all those stairs was tiring, we are glad that we didn't have to go up those stairs.
DeleteI think the fungus is called ganoderma and is in the same family as the turkey tail, so very similar. The flower is a Rhodophiala rosea, in the amaryllis family but they do look like a daylily except that they don't have any leaves on/around the stem of the plant.
It was fun to see the monkeys, the black ones tended to stay away from us but the other ones weren't so afraid and you really have to be aware of them or they will snatch food or other items from you. We didn't have any problems with them but we weren't going to stick around to see if they were friendly or not.
Kevin's heart didn't give him any issues but then it really hasn't before either.