All direct flights to Penang from the UK & Ireland

Mark Says

As with many other Asian destinations, the island offers a mix of the ultra-modern and more traditional ways of life. Big business is very much on hand: numerous multinational corporations have set up shop in this part of the world, and Penang’s industrial free-trade zone continues to divide capitalists and labour activists. Yet dotted in amongst these gleaming company headquarters and shady, clandestine workhouses lie evidence of less material, spiritual pursuits, such as the area’s many colourful mosques and temples. With a Chinatown and a Little India amongst its neighbourhoods, the island couldn’t be accused of worshipping the Yankee dollar alone. Start at the bustling centre and capital, Georgetown, then work your way out towards the island’s beaches. The quality of sand and sea water varies from beach to beach - many have found Penang disappointing as a holiday resort - though the island remained mercifully unaffected, on the whole, by the Asian tsunami of early 2005. Back on dry land, there’s architecture both old (Fort Cornwallis, where Sir Francis Light first landed in 1786; or the Kek Lok Si temple, which started construction in 1890 and is still being tinkered with today) and new, such as the Komtar Tower, a sky-scraping development that holds stores, offices and - a true Malay quirk, this - even its own squash courts. Even taller is Penang Hill, whose 2,750 feet are best scaled via cable car. Those with vertigo need probably not apply, and equally those with a fear of reptiles are most likely best off avoiding Penang’s extraordinary Snake Temple, whose ornaments are adorned by a truly serpentine tangle of (thankfully venom-less) pit vipers…