The room at the top of the stairs…

My daughter and I are putting up at the Sungai Petani Inn, or what the locals call “SP Inn”…

It is not too bad and for RM88 per room per night, we get to stay in something like this on the 1st floor of the double-storey building, so it is literally one of the rooms at the top of the stairs…

For one thing, it is a lot nicer than the one I had in Sandakan for more or less the same price without breakfast. Here, we get it served to our room but it is nothing grand or fanciful, maybe just kampung fried rice perhaps, with tea…but if the occupancy rate is high, buffet breakfast will be served in the cafe and again, it is not going to be anything worth posting about – just a choice of bread and jam, fried rice or fried kway teow or mihun and free flow of tea.

There is even a swimming pool at the hotel and quite a big one at that, unlike some of the bean-shaped pools in some hotels that are about the size of a bathtub but made to look big in their promo photographs…but I did not bring along my swimming trunks.

These few days, the hotel is full because of the Pematang Pauh by-election. All the hotels in Penang are full…so this one is enjoying the spillover from there. Right now, the renovation works are still going on; you can see a section of the new blocks to the right in the first photograph and they expect to open that wing for business sometime next month. One thing I like about this hotel is that the Catholic church is right across the road – The Church of Christ the King…

It was very convenient for us to attend mass on August 15th for the Feast of the Assumption, a holiday of obligation…and on Saturday for the sunset mass. The church looks very nice on the outside but appears somewhat plain and empty inside. However, what it lacks in terms of interior decor, it makes up for it with the sophisticated sound system and a singer with a voice that is so deep and mellow that it will put many professional singers in the pub circuit to shame. He does not sound exactly like Elvis Presley but it would be safe to classify him along that line or among the best known country singers. Just listening to him singing the hymns backed by a good choir makes going to mass such a pleasure!

Other than its close proximity to the church, I think this hotel is the nearest (about 400-500 metres) to the town centre. It seems somewhat strange that there is no hotel in the town proper except for one that does not seem very safe or decent. So staying at the SP Inn, it is quite convenient just to stroll down the road to go shopping or for lunch or for dinner. The other day, we went to this nasi kandar shop and I had this…

There were sotong (cuttlefish), quail eggs. ladies’ fingers and a chunky slice of omelette with onions, while my daughter had deep fried calamari (sotong/cuttlefish), fish curry and the omelette as well, all for RM14.00 which was kind of steep…but it was all right as everything was very tasty…

One thing that I found interesting was how they would take a bit of the gravy of each dish and add all that to the rice…instead of asking you which one you would like and drowning everything on your plate with the sauce. I was also a bit impressed by the fact that they even had their own bottled drinking water…

Oops! I started off by talking about the hotel where we are staying…so how on earth did I end up talking about food? Anyway, I guess all of you are expecting that anyway and do not mind it one bit, right? ROTFLMAO!!!