Happy New Years Eve! Today we woke up relatively early and took our bags to our new hotel (man did it feel like a long walk with all out stuff!). We then took a bus to Penang Hill which is a famous landmark here 735 metres above sea level. Thankfully there was a train that took you to the top and back. The queues for the train were long and confusing. There seems at first to be a semblance of order, though this soon dissipates into chaos once your ticket is ...

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. ...

So, the next couple of days have been all about our Open Water PADI. Weds 28th, was our first day on the boat. Thailand Divers has its own and today was especially busy with every slot (for your air tank) taken. Today we head out to Phi Phi Island to dive which is a 2.5hr boat ride away. It was pretty choppy and Wayne gave us sea sick tablets just in case. That said, we took them just as sea sickness started as we sat downstairs going through our test for Cha...

Today we went to the monkey cave where, surprisingly, there were lots of monkeys! They group together outside the cave which has a large sleeping Buddah inside and wait to be fed by the tourists. My favourite part of this visit was when one of the Russian girls in our group started drinking a coconut with a straw and a monkey climbed up her, over her shoulder and started drinking from it! It was hilarious and she handled it really well :0 We then drove to ...

Boxing Day and our first day of the Open Water scuba diving course! Today we met our instructor, Wayne. He seems like a really nice guy who took up diving about 3 years ago. He is Canadian and our classroom sessions go well and he is easy to understand and very patient with all our questions! The afternoon we spend in the pool learning about our scuba equipment and doing some water skills. Going underwater and breathing for the first time was very strange a...