Hi guys, here is our journel entry from Penang.

We arrived after a 10 hour bus journey from Thailand which actually went pretty quickly. It is so hot here, even hotter than Thailand, so on the first night we were hungry and thirsty and decided to walk to town to find somewhere to eat. However, we discovered that our hostel is really far from the town and that Penang doesn't really have a town centre, just loads of streets so we ended up wondering down loads of dark alleys! In the end we jumped in a taxi and the driver took us to some backstreet place which actually did really good Nyonya (Malay/Chinese fusion) food.

Breakfast was even more random! Our hostel's cafe is called Birds Nest Heaven and is a cafe which only serves the chinese delicacy of Birds Nests! Fortunately, breakfast didn't include Birds Nest but it consisted of 2 eggs, 2 toast, chicken nuggets and frozen mixed veg! On the 2nd morning it was the same but with 2 fish fingers instead of the chicken nuggets!

On our first day we did loads of sightseeing. Penang is such a mixture of different cultures and religions. Wondering round the streets there are crumbling old colonial style buildings, chinese temples, hindu temples, mosques and chinese shop houses. All of these old buildings are mixed in with brand new hotels and sky scrapers.

We started off at Penang Perankakan Mansion which is a 19th century chinese style house and shows how they lived as it is still furnished as it was back then. Just walking round the streets we saw loads of temples including chinese temples where they burn incense and a hindu temple. Next we visited Khoo Kongsi, a chinese clan house. This building was beautiful and it was so interesting learning about the history of this particular clan and their secret societies. Then we went to Penang mueseum and art gallery.

In the evening we ate at the Red Dragon Food night market which is basically a square with loads of tables and chairs surrounded by hawker stalls (which people sell food from). You can pick whatever food you want from as many stalls as you want and they come and find where you are sat. There are so many cuisines on offer, Thai, Philippino (not sure how to spell!), Tawain, Malay, Chinese, Dim Sum, Japanese and there was even a western stall! The food is so delicious and so cheap.

Today we visited a Thai Buddhist temple with a 33 metre long reclining Bhudda and a Burmise temple. Then we went to the Botanical gardens where there were different types of monkeys running around and huge butterflies and dragon flies. It was really peaceful with lilly ponds and lots of tropical greenery. On parts of the walk it felt like we could have been in the jungle.

We're off to KL tomorrow but it's only 4 hours on the bus this time!