COMMENT | There is still a lot of room for improvement in Penang.

While I received a lot of thumbs-ups from Penangites for my letter, titled "The Pearl of the Orient is glittering once again" there were also some who criticised me for being biased.

Yes, I was impressed. Because of the eight-year gap between my visit in 2009 and in the last few days of December 2017, I could see a lot of positive development in Penang that perhaps even most Penangites may not even have noticed.

When I look at Penang’s development these past eight years against a backdrop of 42 years since my first visit to Penang as a child in 1975, and many subsequent visits thereafter, I am simply mesmerised. Therefore, biased as I may be, it is based on very honest opinions.

However, I feel Penang still has a lot of room for improvement. To balance up my earlier comments, I have put together this piece. 

Transportation for tourists

Being an island which attracts a lot of tourists, both domestic and international, Penang needs to improve on its network of buses to serve the visitors.

Yes, although I only found out later that Penang does have a Hop-On Hop-Off double-decker bus service similar to those in South Africa’s Cape Town, it is either that they are too infrequent or our paths just never crossed.

We would have at least considered using the services given that finding a car park is always a hassle in Georgetown. My other question would be: “Can we afford it since we are on a shoestring budget?”

On this trip, we found a nice carpark just in front of the Made in Penang Interactive Museum. We used Grab and Uber to get around to the other museums. It has not struck us how much it would cost us if we depend on just Uber or Grab to get around, should we decide to take the electrified train to Seberang Prai on our next trip.

This is why I have strongly suggested to the Land Public Transport Commission (Spad) that there should be designated buses for tourists on a shoestring budget.

By this, I mean the designated buses should be painted with brilliant colours to differentiate them from other buses.

In places like Berlin, for example, it is so convenient to visit all the interesting tourist spots using these buses. If I recall correctly, it is just one ticket; you can hop onto the bus and stop at any interesting tourist spot.

The stops are usually very close to the tourist places. It saves families with young children a lot of hassle by avoiding having to walk some distance just to visit, for example, the Upside Down Museum.

We did think about Rapid Penang bus route 101, which is supposed to bring us to the local tourist destinations; however, being unfamiliar with Penang, we still hesitate to use the bus services unless we can identify the buses from afar and it provides simple information about each tourist destination.

I admit we did not plan our trip well as it had to be postponed due to an unplanned eye surgery and we had only a few more days left before the school term started.

When searching online for information, one has to wade through a sea of information, yet we were unable to decide what we could do with two days. There are so many lists with titles such as “The 10 Best Tourist Destinations in Penang”, or “Top 20 Best Spots That Cannot Be Missed”.

There is simply very little coordination between all parties to ensure that whatever information about Penang is presented in an organised manner for tourists. The closest thing I could find to a comprehensive website is the state government’s Visit Penang website. 

However, looking at the list of tourist attractions, I have to say that the list hardly reflects an exciting part of Penang that tourists have not explored yet. All the recommendations on the list are based on some tourist spots that were top probably in the 80s or 90s.

Where is the mention, for example, of the Jurassic Research Centre or the Sky Walk at Komtar, or the Made in Penang Interactive Museum?

If I had followed the list given by the Visit Penang website, it would be another boring trip. It is like Tourism Malaysia trying to promote traditional cultural dances on some of its “Visit Malaysia” posters to foreign tourists, when they are coming here with their kids not to watch a cultural show but to go snorkelling on the east coast.  

It would also help if Tourism Penang could organise information about the interesting tourist destinations, food eateries and hotels based on suburbs or provinces so that we can maximise our time, instead of having to zigzag from one location to another because we would not be able to know how far is point A to point B.

This is why a well-organised and dedicated bus service which provides tourist information is still among the best and most efficient models that I know of.  

Some of the museums that have sprung up over the past few years are great but to make the visits more complete, it would be good if some activity books are available for the entire family to track their visits to Penang.

For example, the Jurassic Research Centre at Komtar. We would find it useful if there are books that the kids can complete as they explore the centre.

Hawker stalls

Our highlight was, of course, going to hawker stalls in Lebuh Chulia, Chai Leng Park and New Lane.

However,  it is hard to locate the so-called “best” Penang curry mee, for example, unless you know the particular stall by name. Most of the hawker stalls still do not have a name.

This is one reason why despite visiting Lebuh Chulia, I could not find the hawker stall that my friend recommended which she said served the best char koay teow.

Imagine if I did not know the name of the coffee shop selling one of the best curry mee in Penang, and a second competitor appears at the opposite end of Lorong Seratus Tahun tomorrow, would I as an outsider not step into the wrong coffee shop?

Since Penang Island is famous for food, and places like Gurney Drive, Lebuh Chulia and New Lane have become popular with tourists, the attitude of the hawkers is also very important.

For example, when my wife ordered a plate of bee hoon at Lebuh Chulia, it arrived at the table with a plate of char koay teow. We all know that a plate of bee hoon would not cost RM5, but the man delivering the food took RM10 from me and mumbled something to himself. He never came back with the change.

The char koay teow was hardly palatable! Not to mention the cleanliness in the entire area was hardly commendable at all.

STEPHEN NG is an ordinary citizen with an avid interest in following political developments in the country since 2008.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.