As soon as you cross the border into Malaysia, you notice the difference from Thailand straight away. Instead of road-side vendors selling fish-ball soup from the back of a cart, you get Esso Garages selling Oreo's from a shelf. Moped's become superbikes, Tuk-Tuk's become Mercedes and roads are lined with tree's and grass instead of sleeping dogs. It was all very Western and we were beginning to think it would be a bit too Western until we discovered that Malaysia has it's own take on what is Western, and a lot more to offer than McDonalds and KFC.

It was odd to see road signs, not just in a familiar alphabet but a lot of the time in English. Even thought they are neighbours, the Thai's and Malaysians have a very different grasp on English, and our Thai bus-driver knew this. When he was pulled over by the Malaysian traffic police for 'speeding' (like many places in Asia, the police have a habit of finding fault with something, calling it a crime, and then forgetting all about it once you've made them a little richer) he pulled the old 'pretend to speak no English and laugh like the village idiot when the nice policeman tries to explain what a bribe entails' trick and it worked like a charm. The policeman simply couldn't be bothered to explain and sent us on our way, much to the delight of the driver!

We had decided to stop in Georgetown on the island of Penang, close to the border, for a couple of nights in order to break up the journey to Kuala Lumpur. Georgetown is a former British trading post, and there a many remnants of British rule. The Town Hall looks like a Grand Hotel in Eastbourne, they have a clock tower to honour Queen Victoria and there are plenty of churches and roads with names like 'Macalister' and 'Kimberley'. We stayed in a Guesthouse in Chinatown, where most backpacker places can be found, and for the first time had to share a bathroom - actually a lot less scary than it sounds. Janine wasn't too keen after seeing what looked like mouse poo on the floor though!

After wandering around the old colonial district of Georgetown, we hired a taxi to take us to Penang Hill - an unimpressive name for what is actually a pretty big structure that looms over the city. We wandered around the botanical gardens at the foot of the hill (another legacy of British rule, and full of monkeys) before chartering a 4x4 to the top. There used to be a cable-car to the top, which cost less than a pound, but they're currently in the process of upgrading it so the enterprising locals have spotted a gap in the market for those too lazy to trek the 3-hour walk to the top (us) and charge about 10-times that price to hire a car and driver. Luckily we got chatting to a guy from Colorado in the US, Yankee Bob, and he shared the car with us. The view from the top is awesome, when we first arrived we were above the clouds but as they parted, the city revealed itself below and you could see for miles to the Penang Bridge we had travelled over the previous day (they are very proud of their bridge and there are pictures of it everywhere - it's long, very long, but ultimately just a bridge and it's got nothing on the 'big guns' of the bridge world like Tower, Sydney Harbour or San Fransisco, so you kinda wanna tell then to get over it!). Once we returned to the base we decided to take a local bus back to the guesthouse as it costs about a tenth of the price of a taxi and is actually a good way to see the city.

That evening we made our way to Little India, to a legendary local Indian restaurant called Kapitans where we sat and ate some of the best Tandoori Chicken I've ever had whilst Yankee Bob told us about his travels. Yankee Bob has also been travelling for a while, but stopped in Georgetown for a couple of weeks because he loved it so much. As a consequence, he knows all the locals and they welcome him with open arms and free food in the bars. Yankee Bob was a good man to know in Georgetown.