Having travelled quite a bit over the years, I have always found the Hop-On Hop-Off buses pretty cool (I boarded one in London, the one in Paris and yes, even the one back here on KL) and this is no different, except it is at my hometown and I never quite got on the Hop-On Hop-Off here before…

So pulling the Influenzas team along, we headed to the Chowrasta Market where we boarded the next Hop-On Hop-Off bus that stopped there…

We got on and paid the person in charge there and he gave us our tickets and we headed to the upper deck of the bus to chill out..

You can choose to be at the open too area which is highly recommended as you can take photos as well as see the sceneries best… but if it starts raining or get too unbearably hot, you can run inside to the covered and airconditioned area and relax there…

Equipped with both pre-recorded commentary, Hop-On Hop-Off (HOHO) buses allow you, whether you are a local or a foreign tourist to visit various places of interest Penang entirely at your own pace.

Just take a nice ride around the routes… There are however two different routes for the Penang Hop-On Hop-Off, which are the City and Beach… but since my team members had been up and down batu Ferringhi to the escape.my and back down to Gurney Drive and Esplanade, they were not too keen on heading back up on the bus again, so we just took the City route…

Our trip started from Chowrasta which is actually Stop No 7, but then it does not quite matter where you want to start your trip…. just Hop on, get your ticket and you can just take as many rides around the routes or hop on and off as you wish…

From Chowrasta, we passed the Unesco Heritage (Stop 8) sites like the Kapitan Kling Mosque, Masjid Jamek Lebuh Chulia, or walk to Armenian Street nearby and such before passing by the Clan Jetties (Stop 9)….

…and Penang Swettenham Pier (Stop 10)..

You will also pass by Penang’s oldest church , St Georges church (Stop 11) and the Penang Museum is just next door or so…

Stop 12 brings you to the Blue Mansion or the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion as well as the very old and kinda spooky Christian cemetary where Sir Francis Light and his family is said to be buried there too..

Stop 13 is at Kelawei Road, where you can check out Wat Chayamangkalaram and also thr impressive Dharmikarama Burmese Temple…

…from Stop 13, the Penang HOHO bus will head to Stop 1 at Gurney Drive..

You can disembark and change to the Beach Route which will take you up to Tanjung Tokong, Tanjung Bungah, Batu Ferringhi and Teluk Bahang to the Tropical Spice Gardens, Penang National Park or Entopia/escape.my if you like….

But like I said, we had been heading up that route to the escape.my for the past two days and my team did not really want to do that again, so we sat in the City route bus and followed it to Botanical Garden (Stop 2) and on the slightly lengthy trip to Penang Hill (Stop 3), then to Kek Lok Si and Ayer Itam Market -where you can get superb legendary Penang laksa here (Stop 4) before heading back down to Penang Times Square (Stop 5) , Komtar (Stop 6) and yaaaassss… arriving back where we started…

Penang’s HOHO services operate 7-days a week from 9am until 8pm with 20 minutes interval between each designated stop but well, it also depends on the traffic conditions.

These daily circular trip rides, with 22 bus stops, covers quite a lot of major attractions on the island, including hundreds of hotels along the routes. The interchange stops at Gurney Drive allow passengers to switch between buses on the Beach Route and City Route easily….

(pic taken from thestar.com.my)

Bus tickets are available at authorised ticket agents, at the certain mobile counters, or on-board the HOHO buses, and also online at myhoponhopoff.com.

Tickets (as from 15th February 2018):
MyKad Holder – RM19 for a 24- hour validity or RM32 for a 48-hour validity
Child (5-12 years) – RM12 for a 24- hour validity or RM20 for a 48-hour validity

Standard Adult ticket – RM55 for a 3- day pass
Child (5-12 years) – RM30 for a 3- day pass

*0-4 years old travel free-of-charge

For more details, do check out www.facebook.com/pghoponhopoff or call hotline 1800-88-5546