Hey All

We left Langkawi on a catermaran, very similar to the one that we didn't feel very well on when travelling to Ko Tao. Fortunately the sea was like a mill pond and the 3 hour crossing was very smooth. We arrived at the port in Georgetown, Penang and decided to get a taxi to our hostel since the directions we had were a little vague and it was very hot. We arrived at 'Hutton Lodge' - our base for the next four days exploring. It's a lovely restored colonial bungalow (although on 2 floors and quite big), very pretty and immaculately clean which was nice. We settled in and decided to get some dinner. We were starving and soon passed a shop front where a guy was cooking some kind of noodle/soup dish. After standing for a few seconds, he asked us if we would like food. We said yes, expecting a menu, but were instead told to 'sit down, it will be ready soon' We weren't too sure what we were getting, and were a bit worried when the only question we were asked was 'spicy?' It was take-away, so we paid our 80p (for both of us) and headed off to find somewhere to eat and discover what we had bought. Of course, we needed some cutlery, the best we could find was a party pack for a pound in a local shop. We unwrapped the newspaper covered bundle and found a delicious chicken and pork noodle dinner which we were both happy and relieved with!

On Sunday we got up early, before it became too hot and walked towards the Penang Museum. We walked through china town and some of the heritage parts of Georgetown. There were beautiful temples, mosques as well as lots of the old colonial style buildings. We arrived at the musuem and walked round the exhibits - they show the history of Penang and how all the cultures that are there came to be. After that we headed back to the shade of the hostel before venturing out again in the afternoon, this time to visit Penang hill. We took a bus ride there and saw some of the real daily life around Penang. When we arrived at the bottom rail station, we bought a ticket (80p each!) for the 25 minute journey up the hillside on the funicular railway. We arrived at the top to a lovely view across Georgetown and the surrounding bay all the way across to the mainland. Holly made friends with a very cute stray puppy who was very interested in finding food off all the visitors! As it was about an hour before sunset, we had a nice cool drink and a wander around. There were some quite big spiders hanging from the electricity cables so we avoided these and kept an eye out for snakes which are apparently also very common here! We watched the views change with the onset of nightfall and saw the city come alive in thousands of tiny lights. It was lovely. After dark we caught the train back down after which we headed back to town and had a brilliant indian meal. We had banana leaves instead of plates and the food was delicious, one of the best meals we have had whilst being away. After stuffing our faces we headed home to bed!

Monday morning, and we decided to do some chores and some shopping. We took our laundry (everything but the clothes we were standing in) to the local laundrette. After dropping them off, we headed to a local shopping plaza to have a wonder round and get some souveniers. The shopping centre was huge, much better and cheaper than anything we found on Langkawi and we spent ages looking around. Pete eventually bought a replacement camera as his was playing up and we know you cant be without lots of pics!! (not that Pete needs any more cameras or reasons to take pics!!) It was lovely and cool and we managed to avoid the heat of the day as well. In the evening we picked up our fresh clean clothes (when you only have a few its lovely having them all freshly washed to choose from) and then went to a restaurant next door to the hostel. It prided itself on serving westernised food and Hols favorite - lobster. So... Hol had lobster and Pete had steak. It turned out it wasn't so great, Hol ended up with tummy ache later that night, enough said!

Tuesday morning and we decided to visit Fort Cornwallis, the point at which Penang was founded by the British. It was a 30 minute walk away, back to next to where the port was. On the way we walked past loads of the old heritage buildings (Georgetown is designated a world heritage site) which were really pretty and tried to avoid the dangers of open drains and oncoming traffic from any direction, even on one way streets! We arrived and entered the old brick built fort over the wooden drawbridge. It was a really interesting place, alot of the walls have been restored and there are cannons and old buildings, including a cellblock (which Hol locked Pete in - best place for the boy :p) and a gunpowder store. There was also lots of information on the founding of Penang and its History. After a cool drink and an ice cream, we decided that it would be nice to have a wander to another of the shopping centres on the island. Unfortunately the map scale was a bit off and it was about a 3 1/2 - 4 mile hike to get there... We eventually arrived looking like we had just taken a shower and sought the refuge of the air conditioning! After cooling off a bit we wandered around window shopping and came across a Nando's. That was dinner sorted, or so we thought. We did eat there but the service was terrible, they didn't seem to want to serve us. When paying the bill, the waiter was standing so close to Pete as he got his wallet, he may as well have been in it! Pete ended up paying, one 'bill' at a time as the guy snatched it out of his hand. Tired and a bit shocked by this point we caught a taxi back to our hostel and packed for our bags ready for our bus journey to Kuala Lumpur.

Next blog from there.

Pete and Hol

xXx