We set off from Tanah Rata in the Cameron Highlands along the same winding roads we'd taken to the tea plantation the day before. Our driver was young and drove pretty quickly, taking the sharp curves of the road so that we'd lean this way and that, and overtaking cars whether he could see if the road was clear or not.

We hung on as we descended from the Highlands, through more fantastic scenery similar to that on the way up, with the driver's eclectic playlist as a soundtrack. I eventually tired of the music, which segued from Metallica to the Corrs to mid-90s dance tunes and stuck in my own headphones, soon falling asleep despite the swerving back and forth.

After an hour or so making our way out of the hills we stopped at a petrol station to use the facilities and pick up some snacks. We immediately noticed the heat as we stepped out of the van, having gotten used to the cool refreshing air of the hills.

We carried on north on the more level highway towards Georgetown, passing first between steep jutting outcrops of reddish stone topped with jungle before flatter terrain as we neared the coast. Eventually we reached the long bridge which crossed to Pulau Penang, the island on which Georgetown lay, and was the main town.

We got a view of the city laid out along the coastline of the island to our right as we crossed the concrete causeway, with apartment tower blocks stretching into the distance. Behind the town we could see the interior of the island rising in low green hills of jungle which were blanketed in thick cloud.

The overcast sky didn't cast the city in the best light as we approached, but we weren't put off, having heard Georgetown was worth exploring and had both a rich colonial history as well as a fantastic food scene. Our minibus took us at our request to the main street in Chinatown, where we hopped out and had a look for some accommodation.

We wandered up the street until we found Stardust, a little guest house we had read about. We found they had a huge room on their top level with air con for around £8 a night, and although we would have to use the shared bathroom facilities they were spotless. The staff were also really friendly.

We dropped off our bags in our room and then went out to find some food. We didn't walk far before we found the familiar Chinatown congregation of food stalls set amidst a forest of plastic tables and chairs alongside the road and spilling down alleyways. We were immediately lured in by a fresh juice stall where we got some icy passion fruit juice. We had a look around the food stalls and ordered some sort of noodle soup which looked appetising, as well as some deep fried delicacies from another stall like spring rolls, sausage and a kind of sausage thing we had had in Singapore which I though was a bit like a cross between white pudding, a samosa and a sausage.

Our noodle soup was brought to our table and we tucked in, finding it delicious. In amongst noodles in the flavoursome pork broth were little wontons, pork scratchings, slices of roast pork and some greens. We slurped our way through this and munched down our fried goodies, washing it down with another glass of passion fruit juice.

After our feast we walked back to our guest house, stopping to try one more local delicacy, cendol. This consisted of green worms apparently made from pea flour, mixed in with shaved ice, coconut milk, palm sugar and the red beans ever-present in Asian desserts. This odd-sounding mixture was served to us in a clear plastic bag with a straw as we ordered to-go, and we slurped on it as we walked up the road, pleasantly surprised to find it was also delicious.

Back at the guest house we finished off the last of our cendol with a bowl and spoon helpfully provided by one of the staff, before heading up the steep wooden stairs to our room. Here, we chilled out and checked in online, then had a shower and returned to read before going to sleep.

In the morning we had a lazy start, first eating some breakfast in the guest house before heading out for a wander around the historic areas of Georgetown.

We walked through Chinatown with its colourful and crumbly colonial-era buildings, up Love Lane past a large imposing white church, the grand-looking white, pillared city hall and other official buildings, before cutting up a street to a promenade along the north side of the point the city is built on.

We walked along this promenade past more grand, official-looking colonial buildings, with the sea on our left and across it on the mainland a huge port with big yellow cranes and container ships sailing to and fro. We soon came to Fort Cornwallis, an 18th century fort built on the north east corner of the island. We explored the overgrown compound of the red brick fort, finding some cool old cannon including one magnificent one dated 1603 and engraved with the Dutch East India Company logo and decorations featuring lions.

After looking around the fort, we walked down through the main streets of the old town near the waterfront, all lined with large and decorative smart colonial buildings, painted in various bright and pastel colours. We made our way out to the main ferry jetty where we knew we could catch a free bus which would take us through the city.

After waiting for a driver to turn up for a bus, we crammed on with seemingly half the population of the city and were driven back through the old town, to be dropped of at the Komtar Kompleks, a big shopping mall at the foot of a large office tower.

We had a look through the shopping mall for some clothes for Lucy, then wandered back up through the streets of Chinatown, underneath paper lanterns strung across the street, between colourful buildings with wooden shutters which housed traditional Chinese medicine shops and fireworks shops amongst the regular outlets.

When we got back to the area around our guest house we decided it was time for some lunch, but found many places closing after their lunch service. However, we did find one hawker stall still open, serving Char Keow Tuay which we really wanted to try. We took a seat at a plastic table inside the tiled shop area behind the stall and ordered some fresh lime juice, and two plates of tasty flat noodles fried with prawns, egg and some other stuff in a dark soy sauce.

We ate the amazing noodles, then wandered back to the guest house to chill out, literally, as it was really hot wandering around the streets. I ended up falling asleep for a few hours while Lucy did some research online for our future destinations. When I eventually got up it was evening, and we nipped downstairs to meet Jeroen and Linde, the couple we'd spent time with in the Cameron Highlands. Before sitting down in the little restaurant area open to the street, we booked some tickets for the ferry to Langkawi island in a couple of days.

We had some beers with the guys and chatted for a couple of hours, before an odd group at the next table tried to start up a conversation. Between the annoying drunk Australian who couldn't seem to say anything without being rude or insulting, and self important old American who only talked about himself and his 25 year around the world trip, we were soon very keen to leave.

We wandered down the road to the hawker stalls but found most of them closing up, as it was quite late. We grabbed some burgers and chips from the Old Trafford burger stall, one of the few places still open, and took them back to our guest house after saying goodnight to Jeroen and Linde who had to get to bed before a 5am pickup the next day.

After muching on our fast food dinner, we pottered around online for a while before getting off to sleep rather late.

With our strange sleeping patterns over the previous day or so, we didn't get up until around midday the following day. We decided to head out and get some food, and made a beeline for Jit Seng Duck Rice, a hakwer stall with a seating area a few streets away in Chinatown. We ordered some fresh lemon juice and sugar cane juice, as well as 2 plates of duck rice. We were soon served with 2 plates of rice soaked in a kind of soy sauce, a little bowl of chilli sauce and a bowl of soup, along with the centrepiece, a big plate of sliced, crispy-skinned roast duck with plum sauce.

We tucked into our feast and thoroughly enjoyed everything about it, apart from when the stall holder tried to rip us off when we paid, because we were white and therefore obviously rich and there to be fleeced. This racist attitude was starting to grate and we left disgusted after paying.

After eating, we walked back to our street then had a wander around some more of the old streets of George Town. We walked from Chinatown into Little India, and around some of the back streets. It was fun wandering among the colourful shops and houses with their arched windows, wooden shutters and covered tiled porches, but we soon realised we were still very much in lazy mode and made our way back to the guest house via a fruit juice shop.

Back at the guest house we sheltered from the heat in our room and did some more online research, before heading out again in the early evening. This time we walked back through the old town to the promenade, where we had seen a big outdoor food court full of hawker stalls on our walk the day before. Then, the stalls had all been closed but now we found them open and the two seating areas packed, one with Malay people and one with Chinese.

We took a seat at a table in the 'Chinese' area and ordered a beer, then decided to get something to accompany it. I went and picked out some tasty looking morsels from a nearby Pasembor rojak stall, including a kind of doughy onion fritter, a big peanut prawn cracker and some sort of sausage, which the stallholder then fried, chopped up and topped with a mixture of julienne cucumber salad covered with a spicy sauce with peanuts.

We wolfed down this amazingly tasty mixture as we sipped at our beer then, with our appetites whet, headed through to the 'Malay' area where there were a lot more people in traditional Muslim garb sitting. Here, we ordered some Penang laksa from a stall and some more fresh lime juice. The laksa was a thick, red soup containing noodles and with a taste that was both very fishy and also slightly bitter due to the addition of tamarind.

I wasn't as blown away by the laksa as by the rojak, but still enjoyed it, though Lucy found it delicious. After our laksa we ordered some more Chendol, this time in a bowl rather than a plastic bag. After dessert we walked back through Little India then Chinatown to the guest house, avoiding huge rats which squeaked from beneath bags of rubbish by the roadside and occasionally slunk into the open drains running down either side of the road.

Back at the guest house we read and relaxed before getting off to sleep, although that happened later than hoped thanks to the strange sleeping pattern we'd established over the past few days.

At 7am the next morning we got up, chucked our stuff in our bags and went downstairs for some breakfast. After wolfing down a bacon sandwich in Lucy's case and a bowl of muesli, yoghurt and fresh fruit in mine we hopped in the guest house owner's little car and were communicated in short order to the ferry terminal.

At the terminal we plodded with the hordes through some corridors, checked in and got a boarding card, then proceeded to a floating pontoon where the sleek high speed ferry was waiting. In due course we were aboard and seated in the air conditioned cabin of the ferry with around a hundred others, and we were soon underway, bound for Langkawi.