My first budget air to Penang

It's year end school break, and whole family went to Penang for a short holiday. I had travelled on budget airline for work, but as family, this is first time. We chosed Airasia as it has the better timing compared with the others. Here's my thoughts about using budget airline.

Booking changes

Due to some unforseen circumstances, we have to change our original travel date. This means that we have to pay the additional charges for the changes, and in the end, I can travel to as far as Bangkok for the total cost. Travel on budget is attractive provided the airfares that you have chosen is on promotion and that you dont make any changes after.

As part of the so call value added service from these budget airlines, they will offer total booking, including hotels and insurance. Please compare on those, as I found out mine, for the same hotel, it cost lots more than my booking with the hotel. Remember there is no free lunch.

Luggage

As it's a budget airline, this means that you have to travel light. I used to travel without even bother to weigh my luggage, but this trip, I have to make sure that our luggage is not more than 7kg. I mean this is crap, but then again, they have to make money from somewhere. Before the trip, I read in some forum that they are strict with the weight. However, on this trip, I did not encounter any check at any of the checkpoint in the airport.

That's all for my after thoughts with budget airline, below was my 4 days Penang travel itinerary, nothing fantastic, just slow and easy as this is not our first trip there.

Itinerary

Day 1:

1. Arrive and check into Goldensands at Batu Ferringhi. 
2. Wasted no time and got a taxi to Gurney Plaza
3. Had late lunch at Xuan Xin Ramen Kitchen and food was good. 
4. Started shopping after late lunch at Gurney Plaza
5. Left and went back to the hotel to rest early as everyone was tired.

Day 2:

1. Had nice breakfast in the hotel
2. Book a taxi for 6 hours at a reasonable price to bring us to the following places. We found this taxi uncle, Mr Ho, by chance, He sent us back to hotel from Gurney Plaza on Day 1 and found him to be honest. Thus we ask and booked him for our day 2 trip. If you need a driver, you can call him at 016-490 4756:
• Kek Lok Si Temple
• Lunch at Tek Sen, really good food
• Penang Mural hunting, including a visit to Chew Jetty
• Bought Tau Sa Piang at Ghee Hiang
• Back to hotel
3.  Dinner at KFC before turning in early for night after a tiring day. KFC tastes nicer in Malaysia somehow, so this is one of our usual meal that we will have.

Day 3:

1. Took the free hotel shuttle bus to Georgetown for local food hunt
2. went to joo hooi cafe at Penang road for our usual local fix. Quite disappointed as we found the standards (Char Kway Teow and Assam laksa) have drop compare to many years ago. 
3. There are 2 stalls selling Chendol at the side lane, one is usually the longer queue and the other fairly quiet. I tried both, and they taste the same to me, thus I dont understand why bother to queue at all.
4. Continue shopping and went back to hotel for swim.
5. Had dinner at the ship restaurant. Been in Penang so many times, and first time dining there. Food is not bad and good experience.

That's it for the relaxing trip to wrap up 2015.