Penang

I left the Cameron highlands on a high, but that disappeared as soon as the mini bus left our hostel … the road down from the highlands is sooo windy and bumpy within minutes I was really suffering from car sickness, it didn't help that the car had leatherette seats which had me sliding around the whole time - I sat there imagining myself in dragons den presenting the idea of adhesive shorts to combat such problems,"It's a stupid idea and I'm afraid … I'm Out!" ok so maybe there's not much of a market but I would have killed for a pair of sticky shorts and a car sickness tablet right then.Our drive over to Penang was cool; we entered across a bridge and found ourselves in an odd looking part of the town named George Town, the home of the backpackers.The sun was shining on the little roads and as soon as I got out of the car the feeling of heat soaked my skin and immediately I felt a lot better.I was walking along the road and a possibly drunk if not then completely senile Malaysian man started shouting me saying I was "GOING THE WRONG WAY!!!" I ignored him and confidently kept walking only to find I was actually walking the opposite way to the hostel area - apparently drunks are actually more informative than Tourist Information (the idiots). I walked over to him and he kindly pointed me to a hostel which he swore blind is not only the cheapest but by far the nicest one around and again he was correct - a dorm bed in a large room for next to nothing and it was in this dorm room that I met some cool people including a girl who loves the challenge of eating pure chilies, a hairdresser who saved my image and a brother and sister like ying and yang he was a hippy fire thrower and she was a security specialist that talks down jumpers from buildings by yelling "OI are you gonna jump or not? Because I just left an amazing cup of coffee in the office and I wanna get back before it goes f***ing cold" (the guy didn't jump).Penang was limbo in many ways it had things to do which we did such as the biggest reclining Buddha in Malaysia, the night food market which sold frog porridge and had a mime act on who kept forgetting the words to the songs and a rather impressive bridge.Apart from that it was the other backpackers that made it fun.

One night me and kim went for tea and on the way back decided to go for a quick chang beer in a bar near the hostel, we walked in, ordered and then made camp on the only 2 available seats in the place.It wasn't until we got comfy that we looked up and realized someone had multiplied the Hulk and put the 25 clones in the bar we had unknowingly plonked our selves in the middle of, little did we know it was the Australian Paratroopers official drinking spot when ever they trained with the Malaysian army.Simply for the fact we had the balls to go in and sit with them (they still don't know it was by accident) we were welcomed with open arms and a crazy night followed including the boys demonstrating their paratrooper skills by jumping off the bar and doing commando rolls to the acknowledgement of the Serg, people throwing each other over tables, spitting drinks in each other's faces and arm wrestling.It was the weirdest experience to get a glance at the army boys break from work, they go nuts when they are let loose and even with the appearance of the army police they didn't hold back, if I wasn't with them I would have been intimidated by them - but really they are big pussycats (don't tell them I said that).I got a few things out of that night, a beer soaked dress (kim and tristans fault), a love for the word 'Schwoooo' and an almightly hang over. The following day the owner of the bar, a lovely Malaysian woman named jenny (please say her name in your heads in a forest gump accent) called us in and gave us t-shirts for being such good sports the night before.

Like I said before Penang was a kind of strange experience, I raced peddle tuk tuks around the town centre, had a hair cut in a bar at 2am, drank with the crazy ozzy army and spent a tipsy evening writing on walls, chairs, windows and people whilst watching tom do one of the best dance moves I have ever seen.

Penang = random fun.