Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The resort has its own jetty, with boats leaving roughly every two hours (adult/child
RM6/3).
Day-trip package tours
(adult RM50-60, child RM30-35)
allow access to the pool and other
activities including rock climbing.
No buses run past the jetty; a taxi from George Town will cost around RM50.
Batu Maung
At the end of the Bayan Lepas Expressway you'll reach the turn-off to the Chinese fishing
village of Batu Maung. Once home to a biodiverse mangrove swamp, encroaching devel-
opment from the Bayan Lepas Industrial Zone has resulted in extensive clearing. Develop-
ment here is expected to skyrocket with the building of the new bridge linking Penang to
the mainland. It's Penang's deep-sea fishing port so there are plenty of dilapidated,
brightly painted boats along the coast.
The renovated seaside temple here,
Sam Poh Temple
F
has a shrine dedicated to the le-
gendary Admiral Cheng Ho, who was also known as Sam Poh. The temple sanctifies a
huge 'footprint' on the rock that's reputed to belong to the famous navigator.
Perched on top of the steep Bukit Batu Maung is the
Penang War Museum
( 626 5142; Bukit
Batu Maung; adult/child RM35/17; 9am-6pm & 7-11pm)
This former British fort, built in the 1930s,
was used as a prison and torture camp by the Japanese during WWII. Today, the crum-
bling buildings have been restored as a memorial to those dark days. Barracks, ammuni-
tion stores, cookhouses, gun emplacements and other structures can be explored here,
which also offers 'suspense and eerie' night visits and paintball (from RM75).
Also in town is the
Penang Aquarium
(Pekan Batu Maung; adult/child RM5/2; 10am-5pm Thu-Tue)
,
which houses 25 tanks filled with colourful fish; there is a tactile tank with a young green
turtle, and visitors can also feed koi.
Bus 307 leaves for Batu Maung every half-hour from Weld Quay Bus Terminal and
Komtar Bus Station (RM4); a taxi here will cost about RM50.
Kampung Pulau Betong
This is a fishing village utterly off the beaten track with delightful
kampung
houses,
flowers and colourful docked boats. At around 5.30pm the fishing boats come in and sell
their fish at the little market near the dock. Bus 403 runs from Balik Pulau as far as the
market (RM1.40), but if you walk another 1.5km you'll come to
Pantai Pasir Panjang
, an
