AhPek Biker - Old Dog Rides Again: June 2013

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Penang : Cross Ferry Ride Pt.2

You are at - Jotaro's Blog / AhPek Biker / Cycling Malaysia / Penang / Cross Ferry Ride Pt.2 | Go to Pt.1
AhPek Biker - Riding Adventures
Penang Cross Ferry Ride (Pt.2)

George Town to Pantai Bersih, Butterworth : 22nd June2013

Medium-sized Group Ride from George Town, Penang Island>Penang Ferry>Butterworth Outer Ring Road (BORR)>Pantai Bersih, Butterworth & back.
Distance covered : 21.7 km. (excluding ferry rides)

Route Recommendations :
1. The George Town UNESCO Heritage Core Zone is a worthwhile place to visit with nice old buildings from the colonial era.
2. Don't miss the good food on the island and also at the Raja Uda area of Butterworth.
3. Please note that last Penang Ferry is at 0100hrs from the island and 0040 from the mainland.
4. Hold on to your bikes when the ferry berth, as the could be a sudden jolt.
5. The day traffic along the BORR is fairly light, but evening and night traffic can be heavy, so do right carefully. Same goes for Jalan Raja Uda.
6. Along the BORR nearing Pantai Bersih be on the alert for motorcyclists who have the habit of riding against the traffic.

You are at Part 1 of a two part blog, click below to view the other part :
- Penang Cross Ferry Ride Part 1

PRELUDE

In Part 1, we had started our ride from the Penang Chinese Chamber of Commerce and had cyclo-toured the UNESCO Heritage Core Zone.

Finished with that interesting tour, viewing the older part of George Town and also the many street art, we had proceeded to the Penang Ferry Terminal; waiting to board the next ferry for Butterworth on the mainland. Our tale continues from here.

THE RIDE

Penang Cross Ferry Ride Map (click for Map Link)

Our ride route is : Penang Chinese Chamber of Commerce (PCCC)>UNESCO Heritage Core Zone>Ferry Ride>Butterworth Outer Ring Road (BORR)>Pantai Bersih>9 Emperor Gods Temple>Raja Uda & back.

We are all safely on board the ferry, and the loading ramp is being raised.

"Switch off your engines." somebody commented - this is the rule when inside the ferry, all engines have to be switched off.

Our bicycles having no engines, we did the next best thing - we switched off our rear warning lights and front flickering lights. There you are! Done!

The ferry that we are taking is called the Pulau Angsa (Goose Island). All the Penang ferries have a long standing tradition of being named after the islands of Malaysia.

It's going to be a twenty minute ride, so we might as well relax.

Robert & Larry doing some serious relaxing here.

Hey Nash! It's relax... not jump! This ride is not that tough!

We are halfway across the Penang North Channel, the sun has settled behind the Penang Island,skyline.

With a sudden lurch, the ferry berthed on the Butterworth terminal.

The cars have disembarked, seems like we have the whole ferry to ourselves. Wooohooo!

Land Ahoy!

And we eagerly rode up the disembarkation ramp onto solid ground.

Taking a short-cut to the Butterworth Bus Terminal, but ...

... it would have been good to ride up the regular way, up the ramps - there's such a nice bird's eye view from there.

An advantage of using the route we took is that it crossed the railway track that leads north to Thailand.

Hey! Watch out for that train!

Continuing on, we were soon riding along the BORR.

This is a great place for cycling, there's an emergency lane where we could ride safely.

But nearing Pantai Bersih we had to be on alert. Many motorcyclists take the easy way and ride against the traffic, I almost banged into this chap here.

Sunset view from Pantai Bersih.

Nash steals the bride again. Actually, the bride (in her red gown) was more interested in taking a photo with his red bike. So it was a trade off - "You take a photo with my bike, you take a photo with me!"

By the time we left Pantai Bersih it was dark and we had to cycle with more care.

At Jalan Raja Uda, we stopped at the 9 Emperor Gods Temple for a short visit. This place looks great at night...

(Photo by Sin)

... and also during the day time.

8:30 pm : It's way beyond dinner time. Stop for eats here then, the Raja Uda Hawker Food Court.

The Fried Oyster Omelet made by this man looks good, so good that we ordered three large plates to share among ourselves.

The Oh Chien (Fried Oyster Omelet) - it's fried with starch with spicy rempa added. YummY!

For myself, I had this Penang Hokkein Prawn Mee with Lor, added additional pig spare parts and munchy pig skin too.

And also this Fried Indian Noodles. Wow! I did eat a lot but then cycling does make one hungry.

Time to ride back to the ferry terminal.

9:30 pm : We are back at the Butterworth terminal.

Instead of us, queuing up individually to get the tickets from the booth, Larry went to the ferry office to get bulk tickets for us, and it came with a bonus - we get to board the ferry before the motorcyclists!

Conveniently, tickets needs to be purchased from the Butterworth side only; the fare for bicycles is RM1-40 for both ways.

Boarding the ferry before the motorcyclist was so much better, no jostling with them for space and accidentally knocking into them while riding or parking.

This time round we are taking the Pulau Payar.

With a sudden jerk, the ferry berthed on the island terminal. This time we were ready and held on to our bikes.

Vvvvrrooooommmm! Larry is getting ready to take off.

And we are back at the start/end point, this is the St. George's Angilican Church, next to the Chinese Chamber of Commerce.

It has been a good ride, a ride of seeing old buildings & street art, an experience of taking our bicycles onto the ferry, and good food on the Butterworth side.

Good fun with good friends - that is life worth living.

Tomorrow is the round island Where2Go cycling event (... see Where2Go - Stumbling Along, The Stragglers' Tale).

Tomorrow is going to be a tough ride day.

Adieu readers!

Related Blogs :

Penang Cross Ferry Ride (Pt.1)

- George Town to Butterworth 22nd June 2013

Seeing how much that the two of us enjoyed the Penang Cross Channel ride,

our other friends decided to join us on another trip using the Penang Ferry.

Where2Go Event - Round Penang Island 23rd June 2013

It all started well with me on track until a couple of pleasant distractions stumbled me and I was straggling.

Penang Cross Channel Ride - Tanjong Tokong to Butterworth 5th January 2013

An interesting ride from Penang Island across the North Channel via the Penang Ferry and onwards to Pantai Bersih, Butterworth

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Penang : Cross Ferry Ride Pt.1

You are at - Jotaro's Blog / AhPek Biker / Cycling Malaysia / Penang / Cross Ferry Ride Pt.1 | Go to Pt.2
AhPek Biker - Riding Adventures
Penang Cross Ferry Ride (Pt.1)
George Town to Pantai Bersih, Butterworth : 22nd June2013

Medium-sized Group Ride from George Town, Penang Island>Penang Ferry>Butterworth Outer Ring Road (BORR)>Pantai Bersih, Butterworth & back.
Distance covered : 21.7 km. (excluding ferry rides)

Route Recommendations :
1. The George Town UNESCO Heritage Core Zone is a worthwhile place to visit with nice old buildings from the colonial era.
2. Don't miss the good food on the island and also at the Raja Uda area of Butterworth.
3. Please note that last ferry is at 0100hrs from the island and 0040 from the mainland.
4. Hold on to your bikes when the ferry berth, as the could be a sudden jolt.
5. The day traffic along the BORR is fairly light, but evening and night traffic can be heavy, so do right carefully. Same goes for Jalan Raja Uda.

You are at Part 1 of a two part blog, click below to view the other part :
- Penang Cross Ferry Ride Part 2

PRELUDE

Biker Group @ Penang Chinese Chamber of Commerce before start of ride.
(Photo by Nicholas Lim)

Many of us from Kuala Lumpur will be going up for the Where2Go Ride Event in Penang. Most of us would be reaching one day earlier as the event starts early the following day.
With time to spare, what should we do? Do what bikers itch to do - Go Riding!

May of our friends had seen photos of Sin (of the hApPy HaPpy blogs) & me riding from Penang Island, taking the ferry over to mainland Butterworth, riding there and then coming back (... see Penang Cross Channel Ride). It looked interesting for them. So why not organize a ride for them so that they could have the same experience too. We did that and were quite taken aback by the response, 17 of us will riding!

So on an early Saturday morning, me & my buddy packed our three bikes into my car and drove up to Penang; eager to meet up with our friends.

Upon arriving in Penang we did what most visitors do - made a beeline for the nearest coffee-shop for eats after all Penang is a foodie paradise. I had this plate of delicious Char Keow Teow (stir-fried flat rice noodles)

THE RIDE

Penang Cross Ferry Ride Map (click for Map Link)

Sin had done a recce of the ride route the previous day, and had extended the route a bit on the Butterworth side. The ride route is now :

Penang Chinese Chamber of Commerce (PCCC)>UNESCO Heritage Core Zone>Ferry Ride>Butterworth Outer Ring Road (BORR)>9 Emperor Gods Temple>Raja Uda & back

Setting off from the PCCC, we must have looked like a very colorful lot with funny bicycles.

Larry, with his cute bicycle earring, will be leading the Penang Island side of the ride - he will take us round the UNESCO Heritage Core Zone.

My cousin Harry, will be marshaling.

Heading down Jalan Masjid Kapitan Keling, the mosque's (the Kapitan Keling Mosque) minaret can be seen on the right.

At Armenian Street, the quaint houses made us feel like riding into a colonial past.

Happily posing in front of the street art at Armenian Street, which depicts colonial days traders of scrap. Decades ago there were many shops here which dealt in unwanted old glass bottles, newspaper, scrap metal and what-not that people sold to collectors.

Further along at Chulia Street Ghaut, Larry tried his hand at scoring into a basketball hoop which was part of a street art.

Across the road, at Step By Step Lane; Corrina, SuiT and Nash tried their hands at the"Children On A Swing" street art.

Irene & Crystal at the swings, trying their best to look like pole dancers.

The street art in George Town has painting on walls with real life props incorporated to make them unique. (... see more Street Art Of Penang).

Next to this are huge metallic doors to a whare-house. On these doors are signatures, mementos left by tourists.

Larry, the yellow fellow, posing with some other yellow fellows.

Photo fun over, we continued our cycling around the Heritage Zone. It is such an interesting place to cycle, with mosques, Chinese & Indian temples next to each other - a real melting pot of culture place (... see more at Streets Of Penang : Temples).

More street art fun at Queen Street, are those two guys dancing? Shucks!

Around the corner, at Church Street, we stopped at the Peranakan Mansion a sort of Museum displaying colonial Baba-Nyonya life (... see Baba-Nyonya Manison blog). The place was closed at this hour but that did not prevent us from having some fun ...

Nash emulating Superman changing into his costume in a phone booth.

Crystal & me pulling one of those antique rickshaws.

We are off again, heading towards Beach Street with its stately bank buildings, the Malayan Railway clock tower is seen ahead (... see more at Streets of Penang : Stately Buildings).