hello from malaysia!

we had a long travelling day yesterday, but not as long as we expected. After our 4 hour bus journey to Hat Yai, our plan was to get the train down to Penang, however, we found a bus that took half the time, so we got to our destination a lot sooner. The trains in thailand and malaysia are so slow, hence why buses are the quicker option.

Penang is an island off the west coast of malaysia, very built-up with skyscrappers etc. Actually, what we have seen of malaysia so far is a lot more developed than thailand, no tin shacks yet. Having arrived late afternoon, we checked in to the hotel (which is good), and headed out to explore and find some food. There are no restaurants where you can order off a menu, it's all street vendors and food courts, with traditional malay or chinese food. Eventually, we opted for the closest thing to a restaurant which was a buffet with raw meats which you collect yourself and cook at your table! Being quite confused by this, we had lots of help from the waiters, who kept bringing us more and more food to try. We actually had a great meal, apart from getting sprayed from hot oil from the frying chicken.

This morning we had a well deserved lie in until 9.30, and got a taxi to the main tourist attractions. We then discovered malaysian time is an hour ahead from thailand, oops! So we just skipped breakfast and went to lunch! For lunch we had a malay dish consisting spiced rice with either egg or fish, wrapped in a banana leaf. We visited about 15 tourist attractions, including Fort Cornwallis, the first military base of the East India Trading Company. We think Colin and Ian will be proud to hear we visiting historical sites.

We have not got much else to see here, so we are heading to Kuala Lumpur (the capital) tomorrow, again by bus taking 4 hours.

Speak to you from KL!

Lauren and Ally