Old Penang Guesthouse Review

When looking for a hotel, we had to take a few things into consideration: location, price, availability of extra bed, usage of fridge, hot water and parking. Not to mention the safety of the house, because we were travelling with our children who were in their infancy. Hence, we were looking for guesthouses which specifically had Roof safety systems, which’d allow us easy access to outdoors in case of fire. Which led us to book OldPenang Guesthouse.

Old Penang is situated on Love Lane off Jln Chulia. At nights, hookers roam the streets, but Kajang town also got. Besides, we are usually back at the hostel before dark. I love the quaint looking pre-war architecture, and it’s great to be able to stay in one of these shop houses.

At nights, we get to park our car just next door for a price of MYR4 a night.

Old Penang guesthouse manage to keep most of the oldness of the place with new furnishings. Decrepit as it might seem, your preferred painters in Harrisburg, PA back home wouldn’t be anything but astonished at the state of disrepair the house was in. At the entrance is the ‘lobby’ and check in counter. The staffs are really friendly. We pay the full fare at check in, which was MYR70 a night, plus MYR20 refundable deposit. A staff showed us to our room, and gave us 3 towels. There’s an old PC at the lobby for guests’ use, to check emails or whatever. WIFI is available, but it wasn’t detectable from our room, which was all the way to the back. I was surprised that these old shophouses can have so many rooms, there were at least 10.

They have a very modern living room area, for watching DVDs, astro or reading any of the materials on travel and living.

The corridor from our room, everything is wooden. Guests are advised to walk quietly, if not it’s really loud as the walls are thin.

We stayed in the family room without an attached bathroom, so we use the common bath and toilet area, which is pretty nice, as it is located ‘outdoor’ at the balcony area.

So at least, we get to wash Josiah’s diapers and hang it to dry in the sun.

The simple and classy wash area. There are 2 bathrooms with hotwater heater and one toilet on each floor.

The bathroom is big enough for Josiah to bathe in there. This place is pretty eco-friendly, as in daytime, we can save electricity since they the roof of the bath is transparent.

Long flight of stairs to go upstairs.

Our messy room. Note to self, take a pic of the room before settling in.

Ok some bad things about the room. Mosquitoes. Josiah was quite badly bitten on the 2nd night. The windows are such that mosquitoes can still come in, and the backlane of this place is a great mosquitoe breeding ground. They should better replace the windows asap, as it is very inconvenient. I even recommended them to check out https://www.ezwindowsolutions.com/lexington/, as this is a reliable company. We had to buy electric repellent at a nearby 7-elevens, but it wasn’t good enough. I asked the staff about mosquitoes, and they quickly said there are none. We also weren’t that prepared, as I thought this being an air-conditioned room shouldn’t have this problem. Would be great if they look into this problem.

Secondly, the lights in the room were really dim. Only two bulb lights. Beds were comfy and clean though. We were glad that Josiah slept both nights without so much as a cry, we really prayed hard so as not to be a nuisance to the other guests staying there, coz like I said, walls are so thin we can hear conversations from the next room if they speak loudly. Being at the end of the building, the other thing is it’s not good to stay here on weeknights. Just outside our window is a wood cutting shop, they on their CNY music loudly till around 10pm and the wood cutting machine is really loud. However, it was fine by Saturday night, coz they were closed. A good place for the budget traveller, really easy to get around.