After eating lots of famous Penang food, we had plenty of calories to burn. Shopping doesn't help much as it is often combined with snacking 😂 Fortunately, Penang has many sports attractions that burn calories while having fun. We spent an entire afternoon at ESCAPE and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.
ESCAPE has two sections - an Adventureplay park which provides "treetop" play, and a Waterplay park for splashing good fun.
ESCAPE is created by Sim Choon Kheng. He has the best job in the whole world, really. For 20+ years, his company Sim Leisure which is based in Dubai, builds adventure theme parks around the world inspired by Sim's childhood in a kampung (village) in Air Itam, Penang. After designing more than 50 theme parks worldwide, the world renowned adventure park designer came full circle and returned to his home to create ESCAPE in Penang.
ESCAPE is not the formulaic industrial-era theme park with mechanical rides or the cliché digital-era parks with virtual reality rides - ESCAPE aims to reconnect the players with nature. The rides recreate games children play in the villages of Malaysia. Relying mostly on gravity, it's "low tech, high fun" as Sim put it.
The Adventureplay treetop park was really fun and exciting. The rides go by wacky names like Monkey Business, Gecko Climb, Foxy Burrow, Flying Lemur etc. There are three levels of treetop play, and three courses per level. So, that means we have nine courses to play, if we like and have the time. That will take half a day for most young people, or Big Kids in ESCAPE lingo.
The courses can be quite demanding and always exciting. The staff help us put on and lock our harness into the steel cable system, then we go and play among the treetops on our own. It is totally safe as long as we make sure that our harnesses are securely locked in.
I managed just three courses before getting down, so that I can take photos and tell you about ESCAPE here mah 😝 I really hope to play longer as it is really addictive. If I live nearby, I might just treat ESCAPE as my regular exercise and work out hangout 😄
After fun at the treetops we swung over to the Waterplay park across Jalan Teluk Bahang for more games.
The first thing that caught our attention was the cheerful yellow "Banana Flip". Players slide down the nearly vertical slide at great speed, their downward plunge further quickened by rushing water on the slide.
At the bottom of the slide, there is a sharp upturn like the Nike swish, sending players through the air like human cannonballs.
They come crashing into the water with a huge spectacular splash 😄
There are a few more rides, all exciting and fun. The long, long spiralling Tubby Tunnel feeds into the Lazy River.
Speed thrills, hence, the Speed Racer.
The children's favourite is the giant bucket at the Play House which dumps gazillions of water onto the players below.
As a child, I always looked forward to camping nights. ESCAPE's "hotel" has what is needed to help everyone relive or discover their childhood.
When you plan your next eating trip to Penang, remember to pack your sporting clothes, climbing shoes and swimming gear. You will miss out on so much fun if you don't - not to mention come home too fat 😱
What is ESCAPE? To me it means escape from the dehumanising effects of industrial and digital play. It's especially important for future generations who have less and less exposure to natural play.
Wait... there is more coming soon. By the end of this year (2018), ESCAPE will feature the world's longest slide - it's 1 kilometre of never ending rolling good fun 😱
ESCAPE
GPS: 5°26'58.1"N 100°12'53.5"E | 5.449459, 100.214859
Waze: ESCAPE
Public Bus: Rapid Penang #101 and #102
Tel: +604 881 1106
Hours: 10:00am - 6:00pm (Monday closed)
Date visited: 16 Jan 2018
Summary of my eco-tourism attractions of Penang 👈 click
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