Days 268-269: On Foot

I've mostly been exploring around the George Town part of Panang on foot. My initial walk from the bus station earned me a bit of a reputation with the people at the hostel, and some of my other walks have only heightened it. The first day there I walked around George Town more, covering a lot of ground as I ventured to some areas in town further from the hostel.

The next day I followed the coast west along the island maybe 5km to the fancy rich area called Gurney and ended up at a big shopping mall called Gurney Plaza. One of the staff at the hostel had recommended it to me as one of the best places for food on the island. Normally shopping malls aren't high on the list of people looking for good food, but this place had a massive food court underground with a mix of both fast food and sit-down restaurants. The dish I ended up with rice and beef in some sauce full of Malaysian spices that was pretty amazing. After, I decided to visit the theatre and watch The Hobbit, since I haven't been to a movie in quite awhile. It cost something like $3.50 (and another $2.50 if I'd wanted popcorn and a drink - a nice change from the ones at home). The selection of movies playing was also pretty fantastic. There were probably 20 different movies playing, some only once or twice a day, but ranging from Bollywood to Chinese to big Western movies. The commercials were also of not. Prior to the movie there were at least 20 commercials, which was a bit tiring. Luckily they were almost entirely badly dubbed or subtitled Asian commericals, which was amusing enough to keep it entertaining.

I had another meal (less impressive, but still good) at the mall before walking back to the hostel, having to stop a few times to wait out the bursts of rain, and making it back relatively dry.