So now we have learned that in fact, Chinese New Year lasts 15 days from beginning to end! So when we arrived in Georgetown on Saturday pm we were greeted by a familiar problem - lots of hostels were already full!

In the middle of our search for hostels we randomly ran into Dianna, who we met on the Stray bus in New Zealand! Small world hey?! She told us about a movie which is being filmed in Thailand at the moment, and that they were currently looking for westerners to be extras. She had spent the last week doing it and forwarded us the contact details of the guy recruiting. So we wasted no time in getting in touch with him and sending us pictures, so now as soon as we arrive in Thailand we are being whisked off to do a 'night shoot'. We are both so excited!!

ANYWAY, whilst all this was going on, Justine managed to find a nice room for the 4 of us, only to be told once we got all the way back there with our bags that someone else had taken it in the meantime! Luckily though, they had another room which we managed to haggle down the price of, and although it was a bit like a conference room it was luxury to our last room in Langkawi!

Once we were settled in we wasted no time in cracking open the bottle of vod we bought in duty free, which was the start of a pretty heavy night which didn't finish until 4am!

Whilst Jonny watched the derby, Justine Nathan and I went to tear up the streets of Georgetown which were alive with huge celebrations of Chinese New Year (this is what we had been expecting in Singapore). We had a brilliant time watching the lion and dragon dancers as well as talking to locals and getting them to share their umbrellas with us. I also accidentally agreed to go on a motorbike tour round the town with this Thai guy from Bangkok the following day - needless to say I never honoured the commitment! The highlight was definitely us all dancing on the podium, much to the amusement of the locals who were pointing, laughing and taking pictures!

So we saw in the year of the rabbit in style, and all of us agreed that the night more than made up for all the hassle it has caused us during our time in Asia!

Unsurprisingly, we were all feeling a little delicate the next day, but Jonny and I still managed to had a fairly productive day working out how we would get to Thailand and booking ourselves into a hostel for Valentines Day! So having this sense of achievement we did not at all feel guilty for taking a much needed nap before heading out for some food in atmospheric Little India with Justine and Nathan (maybe not the best place to go when you've all got dodgy stomachs but still). Then we played lots of Yhatzee back in the hostel where both Jonny and I had our first victories!! Wooop!

Monday morning arrived (Valentines Day) it was time for a nice romantic trip to the Thai Consulate. As we had decided to go overland to Thailand we needed to apply for a visa because you only get 15 days at the border otherwise! That took up most of day along with moving hostels and doing a whistle stop tour of the sites of Penang (a few chinese temples and mosques), as well as trying the national breakfast of nasi lemak - basically dried fish with fish chilli sauce and nuts - it was not a favourite of ours!!

Penang has a a really good vibe to it and we really had the feeling we were experiencing the real Malaysia and not just the touristy part as we had done on the islands. It is well known for it's 'legendary' cooking, but unfortunately due to us feeling a bit off colour we were not able to make the most of it, which upsets me greatly! Also, pavements do not seem to be their strong point and at times you feel like you are taking your life in your hands when walking down the street!

After all that was done, and we had booked our bus to Thailand for the next day, we headed out for dinner. We ended up in a Chinese restaurant, which involved choosing what dim sums you wanted off trolleys that are pushed around! It was all very confusing and difficult to know what was in everything! At one point Jonny tried to clarify, only for the lady to reply to him in Chinese. At which point, he turned to me, repeating word perfect what she had said, expecting me to understand?! Obviously neither of us had a clue but the lady seemed to approve of Jonny's chinese! But she still seemed to avoid our table after that!

It was a really good meal in the end, even if there were a few spurious items, and we were not put off by the luminous colours of some of it!

Afterwards we went to meet Justine and Nathan for a drink as we were going our separate ways the next day after a week of travelling together.

Penang was our last stop in Malaysia and whilst we were sad to leave as ever, we were also ready to move on, and especially looking forward to the start of our movie careers!