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Thread: Penang Hill

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    Penang Hill

    From Komtar you can get there by bus for 1.4 ringit, or taxi for 20 ringit, the bus drops you off about a kilometer from the railway to go up the hill, yep just cross the road and you will see a big sign for it, just follow that road, on the way up that road there is quite a temple.

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    The hill is 830 meters above sea level so it is a bit cooler up there.

    The train is 4 ringit return, I cant really imagine anyone buying a one way ticket otherwise it is a long walk back.

    Going up the hill there are quite a few stations, all the rich colonials in days gone by built nice big houses there.





    Believe it or not this will hold 88 people, I really don't think I would get on it if it had 50 people on it.

    It goes uphill at a 45 degree angle, so the odds are if the cable snapped you would hit the bottom at a good few hundred mile an hour and would probably die.





    The trolley thingy at the front is to carry stuff in.

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    I think going up there is a lot like going to Doi Suthep to see the view of Chang Mai. Here you get Georgetown across to Butterworth. I like it up there at or around sunset as Penang is so damn hot!! Nice little hotel and restaurant up there as well if I remember correctly.

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    Supposedly Francis Light was the first to plot out a mule trail to get to the top in 1788, during the 19th century the rich colonials started building houses on the hill, obviously we couldn't expect the aristocarcy to walk, so they had bearers to carry them up and down the hill, 6 bearers per person.





    In this next picture you can see one of the more upmarket houses.


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    The first attempt at constructing a railway began in 1897, and construction was completed only in 1906. Service was launched in 1923. On 4 December 1979, four modern Swiss-made coaches replaced the slow and rickety old ones. The new coaches travel at an average rate of 1.5 metres per second, and takes about 25 minutes or so to travel along the length of the railway track, which is 2007 metres long.






    It is very rare that Penang has clear skys, so the pictures never turn out that good of the views.



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    Obviously as it passes thru jungle there are all the normal type jungle animals that you would normally expect, wonder how many monkeys are killed by the train each year?


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    At the top they have one of the old carriages from the old days.






    On top of the hill they have an Indian temple and a mosque, at the moment both seem to be having work done on them.





    The Indian temple looked a lot smarter than the mosque I might add


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    I actually took loads of pictures of the Indian temple, and about 2 of the Mosque.












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    Something like this would look nice any anybodies dining room

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    The Mosque.



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    The lonely canon on Penang hill, I really doubt it could fire far enough to hit a ship.
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    So if you have ever thought about hijacking one of these trains here is a picture of the controls.






    And here we go off back down the hill...



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    Here we have one of the stations on the way down, did I mention that you have to change trains at the halfway point?







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    This is the halfway point where you have to change.
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    When I last went up there we decided to walk back down - can't remember if it was a track or a road, but it was quite nice...until we were surrounded by a pack of about 8 unfriendly dogs...luckily someone called them off. I think the track ends up at the Botanical Gardens, or at least very close by. This place is worth a look for the plants and the monkeys who roam around in packs. But beware, as some of them are agressive, and some of them are thieves and will pounce on any bags you're carrying. While some run off whimpering if you so much as give them 'the look' others are pretty scary (you lookin' at me, punk?) and look like they wouldn't hesitate to bite off your finger if you wagged it at them. One scampered off with a small Malaysian flag I was going to sew on my backpack in less fashion conscious times. We also found that at this and some other locations we were hit on by blokes who would 'look after' our machine for a fee when we parked up on the street. We told one bloke to bugger off, and were slightly relieved to find the bike still intact on our return.

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