Today we flew to Penang, Malaysia!

The border crossing in the airport was simple enough (SO much easier getting out of Thailand than into it!).

The flight went well and from my research on the Internet we knew to catch the 501e bus to Georgetown from the airport.

From talking to people on the bus we figured out which stop actually was Georgetown and upon arrival we used the free map from the airport to choose a direction to head in and try and find a hotel.

Georgetown is mix of old and new and has a similar humidity to Saigon (though not as bad).

It was a tough wall with our kit on and Rob found a hotel in our budget after but it was only free for one night.
We agreed it was worth looking around to see if there was anything suitable for all three nights and headed onwards.

After a short walk we saw a nice place but discovered it was £91 a night!
We put our plan into action with one of us staying with the bags and the other heading off to find a hotel (my plan involved Rob doing the searching, his plan was for me to do it! :0 )

As it would soon be dark I told Rob to come look for me if I wasn't back in 25mins and off I went in the hope of a fruitful hotel hunt.

Unfortunately each hotel I can across was either a pit or out of budget. I ran over 25 mins and met Rob as I walked back (lucky Rob was refreshed with a chilled water at the hotel he rested at - nice hey?! ;0)

We then agreed it made sense to go back to the hotel that was available and then find a hotel without our bags.

Having checked in, freshened up and dumped out stuff we headed off to continue our hotel search and to grab a bite to eat.

Now, considering it was almost New Years it was hard to find a place, though we were super lucky and found an adequate room at the Peeking hotel (hurrah!).

We reserved a room and then went back to a nice looking restaurant we had passes on the way.

Now, this little restaurant in a in down road in the back streets on Georgetown was a real find.

If you ever go to Georgetown, be sure to check out Sri Malaya. It is clean, quaint, has a great menu, friendly staff and a sweet soundtrack plays in the background covering songs from Katy Perry to Adele.

Having asked the waiter for a recommendation we both tried the local Malaysian dish of curried coconut milk chicken and rice.

To say it was beautiful would be an understatement. My taste buds giggled in happiness with each mouthful and I can honestly say it was one of the best meals of the trip so far.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel (which has an English TV channel!).

As we lay in bed I counted an alarming number of bugs crawling the walls.
Rob whacked a few as he was up and as he is not bothered at all by bugs (despite being bitten a lot) I took matters into my own hand and flip flopped the heck out of as many as I could whack!

Tomorrow is New Years Eve and we plan on exploring a bit and then ensure we welcome 2012 with a decent bang!