Nigel: We booked tickets on the island, which encompassed both the ferry over and a"VIP" bus. It was an early start as the ferry was leaving 7am and we were getting picked up at 6am, so again no lie in for us. The boat was completely different to the one that had brought us to the island and on reflection this was an indication of what we were to expect. The boat was a long, narrow, rickety old thing, that if we came up against some heavy winds we would probably had started to go backwards. Luckily this wasn't the case and we docked back on the main land after about 3 hours. On approach to the jetty we noticed this sparkling, new double decker bus which had VIP written across the front. We collect our bags and settled in to ours seats thinking we should be able to manage the 11 hours journey down to Malaysia. We must have been driving for about 20mins before we entered a bus depot and was told to leave the bus. That was the end of our VIP experience. We were then herded in to one of the smallest mini bus we had seen (the size of a VW camper van) and was told that this was going to be our transport until the Thai/Malaysian border. So with the mini bus nearly full and our bags crammed in to the back we were on our way. The journey has to be the worst we had done so far. The roads are either really bad or the bus had no suspension as we felt every bump along the way. Not pleasant. We did make several stops along the way, but unfortunately only one of these was for our benefit the rest were to pick up or drop people off and on one occasion the driver even dropped a parcel off. (DHL). We had to change buses again before we crossed the border and we were told that the town we were in was bombed last year by terrorists. Just what we wanted to hear. There wasn't any problems and within 40 minutes we were at the border. The border between Thailand and Malaysia is over a stretch of water that is classed as no mans land and in recent years there have been many shoot outs between rival gangs. It must have been our lucky day as there was no bullets this time. From the border to the first place were we're staying was about 2 hours so our journey was still not finished. We eventually got in to George Town at around 10:30pm, very peed off and very tired.

Alison: George Town is on Penang Island which is connected to the mainland by Malaysia's longest bridge. It is very culturally diverse as it has been influenced by several countries in the past including India, China, and Britain. As our guest house was situated very close to both Little India and China Town, we noticed this diversity immediately. The area was dotted with many mosques and temples. Muslims have prayer time several times a day and at these times a slow wailing type of song is blasted out from each mosque. It is almost a spine chilling experience walking through the town at this time because the 'song' is so slow and eerie. It was something we got used to though because this is common Muslim practice which occurred throughout Malaysia.

Despite arriving late from Thailand, we were starving so headed straight out to try to find a 24 hour curry house we had heard about. We followed the directions but were not totally sure on distances. When we were on the right street we saw pictures of food at the top of some stairs and presumed it was the right place. We went down for a closer look. There was an obvious restaurant that had aready closed but there was also a rather fancy looking lit up door to the side. We peeped in and could see cosy little tables in booths but it was very dark. Something didn't seem quite right but we were hungry so we decided to see if it sold food. We walked in and were welcomed very warmly by a group of Malaysian girls. An older lady then asked us with a smile what we wanted. It was only when Nigel's question 'are you still serving food?' was met by giggles and shakes of the head that we realised we were stood in a brothel!! We made a very sharp exit out of there! We did manage to find the curry house in the end and it was well worth the search though we were unable to get the beer we felt we deserved. Since Malaysia is a predominantly Muslim country, alcohol is more difficult to come by and is usually more expensive when you do find it. We prepared ourselves for a detox!

Whilst in Penang, we saw a few of the tourist attractions. Penang Hill was quite good. The tram ride up was very similar to the tram we got in Hong Kong but the view of Penang at the top was nothing compared to the view we got of Victoria Harbour in HK! We visited the fort which was a little taste of home as it was not dissimilar to some parts of Portsmouth. On our last day we went to the Snake Temple. The temple itself wasn't as interesting as we were led to believe. We were told there were snakes everywhere but that we would be safe as they are all drugged up on incense sticks. We were imaging all these massive snakes slithering around as high as kites but all we got were a few tiddly things on a tree in an enclosed area. They didn't even look real. Nigel went as far as to reach over and start shaking the branches but they still didn't move!! The best part of the temple was when you got to have your picture taken with a big python. We thought we would be brave and get one. When we arrived there was just a very dormant python which he draped on us. I was ok with that but then he magicked up 2 rather more active snakes and flung them on which I wasn't so happy with as they kept trying to get in my mouth!! The pictures came out quite good. You would never know I was actually screaming through my teeth!!