Oh yes Penang is one of Malaysia’s famous touristic places and has one of the biggest cities. The capital Georgetown is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site along with Malacca. It IS a very beautiful and historic place.
But you aren’t likely to feel you’re in Penang with all its fun when you actually find yourself living in the farthest spot from the city and nearest the border of Perak :(
Unless I didn’t choose to go for Engineering course and be placed in the Engineering campus in Nibong Tebal, I would instead have been delighted to be living in the island and center of the city in the main campus. Agh.
And some more, Nibong Tebal is purely a jungle than a town! No public transports come inside the campus, and the nearest town is Parit Buntar (yes, in Perak state actually). You have to call a taxi to bring you to bus station in Parit Buntar. Then again there’s no direct bus to Penang island crossing the bridge. You have to take one hour trip to Butterworth and take a ferry to Georgetown. Yes, FERRY!!!!!!!! It sounds fun only if you just take ferry, not those very long journey that simply makes you feel as if you’re traveling to another state. I was in the main campus last week to do the medical checkup since our campus here doesn’t do X-ray thing, and USM provides shuttle bus to go there actually, but only 2 trips per day, 8.30 am from Eng campus and come back at 11am from main campus, and 3pm from Eng campus and come back 5pm from main campus. Thing is, I MISSED the morning bus!! T_____T And since there’s no other free day to go, and I had my classmate Fiona with me, we decided to turn it into an adventure and took taxi, bus, and ferry to go there. It took damn hours to really reach there instead of 1 hour by shuttle bus (use bridge, like many other cars do, and I still can’t understand why no public bus goes there by bridge). But we managed to catch the return bus at 5pm, fortunately. One day of traveling to Penang, and you say we’re living in Penang? BTW Nibong Tebal to Georgetown are at leats 35km apart.
OK, nevermind that. I just have to get used to the fact I’ll be living in the jungle for at least one year. It’s not too bad, actually. Think nature, no noise and air pollution. Coz here in this campus everyone is riding a bicycle. I have never seen lots of bike users like this in any other place in Malaysia before. It’s like a new discovery :)
One of the many garages in the hostel area (we call it Desasiswa here, = Student Village).
Yes, BICYCLES ONLY :)
My bike!!!!! :D :D Who would have thought that I ended up riding bicycle again lol. Oh yes, Coffeebeanie, it's red color ;) How come did you guess PINK?? :o
Path for bicycle only to go to school buildings. I can't remember if I have seen such environment and biking society in other places in Malaysia before. For a moment, I thought I was in Holland instead of Nibong Tebal :))
Palm trees, lakes.. (though seen in picture is rather a flooded field after a rainy day). Hmmm yes as you can see we really live in a jungle.
Desasiswa Lembaran Blok 1
My hostel building. My room is at the top level, no lift, hence another means of exercise apart of the bike. I live a healthy life now!! :P I have 3 roomates here, well USM hostel here is not as “posh” as UIA hostel I was living in past years, but trust me, it isn’t too bad either. I guess I’ll survive here for one year. Or actually, my course seems to last for 1.5 years. Agh.
Frida
Haris
HoppyVanderHare
Iago
Mukhsin
Yul-goon
