Penang - Batu Ferringhi

If you're a Star Trek fan, then the name Ferrenghi will make you immediately think of the villains with the large ears, pointy teeth and overwhelming desire for profit and females. Whilst there are lots of people at Penang obsessed with profit and females and even profit from females, it's not quite the same thing. Ferringhi is the local word for foreigner, Batu is rock, so Batu Ferringhi is the foreigner's rock. It is a strip of beach on the north coast of Penang island. In the seventies, it was on the hippy trail. A well known hang out where hippes could, well, let it all hang out. But what's it like today?

Today, it's just another tourist beach in South East Asia. The original attraction of the beach is its isolation. It's a good twenty minute car ride from Georgetown, the main settlement of Penang. Before the modern road was built, it would have been much more removed. Today, it's all modern resort style developments, screaming children, overweight pink visitors and local water sports operators tanned totally black. Bizarrely, it's still quite nice.


The beach itself is very long, but not very wide. The resorts are right up against the water. The beach is probably no more than 10 metres wide at any point. At the far east of the beach, the newest resort has been built so close to the water, that a rock wall has been built to stop it from washing away.


At each end of the beach, are some amazing granite formations. They look like giant marbles randomly plonked into the sea. They're found in all the beaches all around the island. Indeed, the whole region has them. They're not as cool as the sandstone ones near Phuket, but they look much neater! :-)


The water is a little bit murky. I didn't go swimming in it. No one else was giving it a go either. People seem to avoid touching it like it was a toxic waste dump, which it probably is!


This doesn't stop the water sports enthusiasts though. The beach serenity is constantly punctured by the angry buzz of jet skis going backwards and forwards along the beach. You can also go on a horse ride. There seems to be a large herd of horses on the beach, which also means large piles of horse manure along the beach as well.


Despite its many problems, I still like this stretch of beach. I walked from one end to the other in about an hour and barely saw a sole. Everyone is confined to their beach side pool areas, leaving the beaches to the few people brave enough to leave their resorts. A beach with no people - marvellous!