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Penang construction update (2023 edition)
Trip report for my visit to Penang in March 2023. New hotels questionably close to the old town, an endangered historic cinema, and land reclamation mania.
James Clark
April 04, 2023
Penang is one of the main cities that I revisit every year, with 2021 being the only year I missed in the last decade (no prizes for guessing why). While the old town remains entombed in a UNESCO-protected time capsule, some big projects are going on around the island.
I got the bus from the airport to the old town area of Georgetown, which can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. Unfortunately, Penang has still not approved the light rail project that will connect the airport to Georgetown. Along the way, I saw some apartment projects that were advertising the fact that they are near a future light rail station.
The bus also went by The Millennium project, which was in the planning stage in 2019, and not 1999 (as most things named Millennium were).
There are several big projects like this near the airport, but I will cover that part of the island another time. My focus for this trip was along the north coast, including a land reclamation project that has sprouted the newest island in Southeast Asia.
