Hello there! (by adam)

We arrived at penang at the ferry terminal and we were trying to get our bearings. We knew where we needed to head but unsure how to get there. This is normally always the case in new cities so we headed for the local bus terminal, on the way you always get scam artists that can see you with your big bags and try and take you for a ride. This guys was offering a taxi to china town where we needed to be for 20 Ringits even tho its tempting to me cause im tired and disorientated louise always reminds me that he's ripping us off big style haha he was saying the buses are crap and dont go anywhere you want to go and...... just as he was saying this a bus came by and BINGO we both got dropped off right outside our guest house for at a total cost of 2 ringits haha

Our guesthouse came recommended from our friends in phi phi and it was good, 5 pound a night including HOT shower!! yes!! Alcohol is quite expensive in malaysia compared to thailand!! That night we just hit a cafe opposite our guest house which was nice and read up on the penag leaflets we managed to collect! Penang is a heritage city and has loads of culture to it, may sound boring but its a nice change to white sandy beaches and aqua blue waters haha

The next morning we did our own little walking tour of all the buildings we wanted to see and guess what ......it went according to plan!!! All the buildings were quite impressive and it was strange to see english style buildings here because the english took over penang in like 19 whatever haha

We did this one tour of this blue mansion which was some chinese guys mansion back in the day and he went from water boy to one of the worlds richest men at one point, they dont know how much money he had but they said to give you an idea rockafella wanted 3million from chinese government to set up some bank but china could only get 1 million but this chinese guy give 2 million of his own money.....history lesson over! his name was chong Fatze or something like that. But the best bit was our tour guide, he was the most campest, queens english speaking asian i have ever seen, he was using words that i hadnt even heard of and im english!! (i bet some of you are thinking well thats not hard) lol

The next day louise started feeling ill, with flu like symtoms so she just lay in bed and rested and took paracetemol but that night she got worse so the next morning i headed for the pharmacy and got some antibiotics. But it didnt stop there i got her breakfast, lunch and dinner, and unlimited amounts of milo...... milo you ask?? ....... well its a drink that is massive over here and louise and me are hooked on it, all it is a hot choclate but they put ice in it and the bottom is hot when you use the straw and the cold is like a milkshake!! We also got some vitamin C tablets and strepsils and halls haha so we stocked up i started knocking back the vitamin C drinks like they were water and eating strepsils like they were smarties haha just to make sure i didnt get it!

i didnt really tend to stay in the room much, just to deliver food and check up every now and then, i just sat in the cafe downstairs talked to the locals and read a book, the cafe knew louise wasnt very well so they put everything in a takeaway bag for her which made it alot easier!

It took louise nearly a week to pull herself together but in that time i had discovered a mall just ten minutes walk away and it housed a Macdonalds haha so we used to get the odd macdonalds every day or two or three haha they were so cheap a mcchicken sandwich meal was only 1 pound 80p haha when louise was better we decided to go see harry potter at the cinema, but nobody told us that malaysians dont believe in trailers and when they say the movie starts at 8.30 they really mean 8.30 haha so we strolled in 15 mins late from Macdonalds lol but it was a nice change and we both enjoyed it!

The last day we decided to do botanical gardens in penang, which were pretty good its just immaculate gardens in the middle of a jungle type terrain and monkeys just strolling bout (visious monkeys that is) we met this malaysian man who was power walking around the park and we got chatting and totally out of the blue he let out this massive PUMP and kind of just wiggled it off as if nothing happened i had noticed and if i had noticed then louise would have cause she doesnt miss a thing so i turn round and louise is bright red practically in histerics hiding behind my back while this malay man is still trying to have a conversation with us lol and you know how it is when you know you cant laugh, it makes you laugh even more but i think i diffused the situation by suggesting we were laughing at the monkeys!! phew close one!

Next day we were heading for Melaka we were going to do cameron highlands but with louise being ill we couldnt fit it in. But we were both exited for melaka!!

love adam and louise xx