Actually I’ve been travel a lot for the past few years, but I rarely travel domestically, NO.. please don’t say I’m showing off, but its truly that travel within Malaysia actually cost more!

A few things to share and compare here.

* The Air tickets to International sometimes are cheaper than to KL.
* Lots of places like in Peninsular needed to access by car, if you don’t have a car, then anything else would be expensive.
* Hotels and tour packages for domestic are usually very expensive. Compare to those travel packages that offered for our neighborhood country, everything in Malaysia seems more expensive.
* Travel information are hard to get online

Anyhow, there’s actually lots of great places to explore within Malaysia. Cameron Highlands is one of the place that I wish to go but always ended up to other places. I’ve been study online for the information for the highlands, with the helps of friend who always travel up and down, only then I manage to get ourselves the free and easy trip!

Maybe some of you might be thinking, drive from KL to Cameron easy only la, why make its sounds like you are going oversea? Excuse me, I’m really going over the SEA. To go Cameron Highlands, we need to travel from Miri to KL over the sea. Then only we could take BUS up to the highlands. Journey seems long to us, but its worthy for our never ending honey moon.

Arriving Cameron , Tanah Rata Tourist Centre

The very first important thing we need to take note for the free and easy trip is you need to get a a simple local tour from Cameron. The one get from here seems good. I don’t need a luxury tour, but just bus transfer from KL, pick up, accommodation and simple country side tour.

Note: They charge extra RM50 during the weekends, same things goes to Hotel rate.

This could be my first review for Tune Hotels, for the fact that I thought there should be a lot of people blogging about it. Somehow, I guess from my experiences with Tune Hotels, maybe I should be sharing it too.

So far, Tune Hotels are expanding. We’ve stayed in KK (one borneo) , Kuching (waterfront) and the latest Penang (Downtown). If its not because there’s an option to stay at 5-star sleeping experience at a 1-star, I bet all the above places I couldn’t have visited.

The most recent trip we’ve done was to Penang. Like I mentioned before, we were supposed to go Phuket, but we have change our mind and reroute to Penang. The room was booked 1 week earlier, and to my surprise, the room rates is only RM36 +/-. (tax / aircond 12 hours incl.)

HDR photos of Tune Hotel Downtown Penang

Getting There
We took a local bus from the Sg. Nibong Bus Terminal. You may choose to take a taxi but I think that would be much more expensive compare to RM1.50 per person.

Rapid bus: T304
Destination: Jalan Burma (Tune Hotel)
Fare: RM1.50

Tune Hotel Down Town Penang:

03-7962-5888
View Larger Map

Check-in to Tune Hotel Downtown Penang

Welcome to Tune Hotel Downtown Penang.

The lobby area is located at the 1st floor of the building.

We were there just on time to Check In, you can’t be there too early, they won’t entertain you. That was my experience in KK where they are quite lenient in cases like this, so don’t ever think to gain more hours of stay by go there earlier. This is not the same as other hotels.

The check in process are simple, and fast but then you gotta pay RM10 as a deposit for the key card then you’ll get the refund when you check out. Also if you would like to rent for the towels and toiletries, do let the service staff know. They will help you on that.

The staffs are well trained and very friendly, regardless of race.
We’ve always face situation where the service industrial will be biased in between foreigner and local customers. But this could never happen at Tune! Well done!

Let’s show you around the Lobby Area.


Other than the waiting area, there’s also a small cafeteria for a cup of tea.

You can also grab some travel leaflets and plan ahead your trip in Penang.

The best part, there’s free internet service. To be fair, you can only have 10minutes per use. At least can update my Facebook saying “I’m here in Tune Hotel Down Town Penang!“.

Check In is done, let’s go to the room! *wink*

I guess the lift is sponsored by Nippon Paint =.=

As advertised, there are 5 reasons to stay at Tune Hotels.

Let’s check it out, how true could that be?

5-star beds

Seriously , it is so comfortable that you wish to bring the bed home !

Although the room might not be as spacious as the other 5 stars hotel, but I think it consist of everything that I need and cut off all the unnecessary!

These are not wallpapers but its painted! Nice!

Power showers

I really like the bath room, especially the power showers. This would be my concept bathroom when my house is ready. Neat and the glass door would be nice for someone to peep you while you are taking bath. Ahak!

Central & convenient locations

Every Tune Hotels locate at the best and strategic place in town. For instance, we have all the best food surrounding us, and it was just a few minutes walks to the heritage site and shopping malls. Check out my food hunting post, and you’ll know how convenient it is.

Penang Eat Only Trip | Jalan Selamat | New World Park
Under the same building of Tune Hotels, there’s also 7-11 convenient store , CIMB Bank Kiosk, Captran – tour assistant and also a massage center.

Clean environment

I would say that the rooms are well maintain, and the cleanliness are always top. At Tunes, they care about Earth Resources. Less Waste, More Earth.

24-hour security

For security wise, other than using the new key card access system, they also have a small safe deposit box inside the room. There’s also security guarding the hotel entrance. If compared to KK (one borneo)’s experience, the Penang’s is doing far more better than my expectations.

Thumb Ups for Tune hotels, and double up credits to Tune Hotel DownTown Penang.

Tune Hotel during day time

Tune hotel at night..

This has been my best experience staying at Tune Hotel. Have you plan your next travel destination? If not, do consider Penang, there’s no regret on it.

Today I’ll be here featuring the 6 days home of us in Gold Coast.

It would be a wise choice if you choose to explore this little town by your own. Everything is convenient which is truly can be called as Free and Easy.

Our Hotel : Backpackers in Paradise
Yen had pre-booked the hotel thru their website, we go for the One Room Apartment, where its air-conditioned, complete with toilet and kitchen.

We arrived in Gold Coast around 8am Australia Time. The airport transfer dropped us right in front of our hotel and we’ve waited eagerly for the check-in. 3 of us feels collapsed but its not due to jet lag , its just that we could not get a good rest in the plane.

Blame AirAsiaX for giving us such a discomfort seat!
Sigh!What to do, you get what you pay!

This is the Apartment that we’ve booked earlier. We got one unit upstairs.  It looks more like my grandma’s kampung house. That’s my very first impression.

The check-in procedure makes me feel that Gold Coast does not welcome Asians. The receptionist are mostly young people. They don’t really entertain us, the Asians. From their service attitude, its proven, they are quite racist.The big boobies ladies only entertain those beach boys visitor, while looking at us the yellow-ish skin people, they don’t even give a glance!

The poor thing is we felt like cheated as they told us its now the Peak Season, okay, it’s Easter Holiday, so they have to increase the room rate. They have no right to call the rate without notifying the customers in advance. We have all our booking confirmation, but we are just tired of argument, so just don’t give her a damn! It will just spoil our holiday mood.

Before we could go out and explore this little town, its better for us to get some rest in this kampung house. See, this is the bedroom of Yen & I.Ooops sorry I forget to clean up the bed.

The toilet seems to be very simple, which at first I feel its a little bit unhygiene. Okok. Kampung House, cannot compare with 5 star hotel.

This is the living room, which the sofa was turned into a bed, which is for Eet. Poor boy… but its equipped with TV and Aircond. While we in the room don’t even have airconditioned.

From the other corner, there is the Kitchen equipped with all the kind of utensils. Even if you want to bake a cake also can! At least this makes me feel worth for paying so much.

This is the balcony view, hmm, just the other residential suite next door.

Life in Gold Coast is real bored. I feel myself like an old nanny here.  We don’t have internet access in our room, so we have to entertain ourselves everyday. Hmm…

Their TV programmes were mostly news during the day time, I could only catch up good movies at night.

What else, reading my readers digest to kill time, while Yen crazy about her Sudoku..

How about him? He is the TV operator all night long. Getting bored.. getting bored..

One good thing about renting this Apartment, at least we can cook at home. We do have home meal almost everyday!

Tada! This is the best meal , Eggs + Ham, Vege + Maggie Curry (Made in Malaysia). Hmm, don’t play play, at least it saves us a few bucks!
Hey, wait a minute, we do have visitors here in Gold Coast.

Hi, this is MeoW meoW! ~ haha, she didnt tell me her name la..

She is fury and fat! The cats are even friendlier than those receptionist downstair.

Meow Meow trying to peep us, seeing what’s cooking inside. Sorry la, no fish today! We only have Maggie Mee…

Although from the first impression, it was quite disappointing. But after the 6 days stay here, I feel that I’ve get used to it. Although the receptionist are not friendly, but why do I have to bother so much. Just take it easy..

Coming up, I’ll be cover up my visits to the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary and also the exciting Theme Parks!

This is where I wait for my pre-booked shuttle bus service everyday, but everyday we also miss the bus!

Look, the weather seems so good!

Bah! Catch me soon.. I’m going to catch my bus before it rains!

Budget list:
AUD $ 554 for 6 night accomodations.
AUD $ 185 per person.
Food: Got it from local Supermarkets. Prices are more or less the same in malaysia, just that they are in AUD $. :p