Hotel NEO+ Penang by ASTON

The price of rooms tells you all you need to know, except that the bedrooms are unusually large, but the ensuite shower rooms are very small. Stay somewhere else if you can afford to. I suspect the hotel accepts a lot of one-night tour groups and therefore looks well used and starting to get shabby. Noise insulation is poor, even from outside (especially the Chinese puppet theatre which is on a side-street right below the majority of the rooms – this horrible over-amplified noise starts up ever night at 9pm for 2 hours – I don’t know why the hotel management don’t stop them). Buffet breakfast is adequate – do ask for an omelette which are very good. There is a good supermarket close by, and the central bus station under Komtar tower is a short walk away – but this should give you a sense of the area i.e. a bit run-down. We only found one decent restaurant nearby – Kirin Sushi – other restaurants are to be found in China Town and Little India. The excellent Red Garden food-court is about a 20 minute walk away (go up Jalan Penang and bear right at Leith Street). The free Central Area Transit (CAT) bus is a useful way to get around, but the route marked on the free map is mostly fictional. Take buses to other parts of the island (take the correct money for the trip as no change is given) : The 101 bus goes to the Entopia butterfly farm – it is well-worth the trip; as is Penang Hill - take bus 204 at 19:05 – the night-scene is better than the day-scene.