considering it was a late night i got up fairly early to makethe most of the last day in penang and see some of the temples etc,. we ended up spending most fo the day at the oldest mosque in malaysia. what was supposed to be a fleeting vist turned into a lengthy debate with a women in the information centre. she sat us down while we waited to be taken into teh mosque and said to ask if we had any questions about islam and she would like to answer them because of all the misconceptions in the media. thought this was a really good thing to be doing so on the discussions began. honestly, i dont think she meant to, it was probably a language barrier and alot of what she was saying was interesting but as the conversation developed it seemed to get increasingly preachy. since im not particulaly religous and think everyone is entitled to believe what they want, it didnt really bother me, but it did get tot he point where there was more i wanted to do that day than siit and listen to her....so, i couldnt keep my mouth shut any longer. 'can i just stop you there, im not being funny but....' a massive smurk on the other three faces made me laugh, they later confirmed they were thinking 'oh here we go' haha! but it was fine, she probably didnt read that i was geting adjatated and overlooked one of the girl being practicly asleep in the corner and we parted on good terms. i took a couple of books away with me which have been most enlightening but i dont think i'll be converting to islam in the near future!

after that we went to the botanical gardens. mostly just a large city park with many people jogging and walking etc. the tropical plants and monkeys running around make it a bit more interesting so we had a wonder and then fell asleep for a while in the band stand, not before id read '20 most common questions about islam' of course!

made our way back tot he hotel for our bus to the perhentian islands.