Penang is an island in the north of Malaysia. We got a minibus from Koh Lanta in Thailand to Georgetown, Penang.

Georgetown is not very clean. We saw rats running about in the streets.

The first hotel we looked at I liked but Katie said it was "a bit grotty". The next 5 hotels we looked at were either too grotty for Katie or too expensive for me. By the 7th hotel we looked at we were fed up and we settled for it even though it was both expensive and grotty.

I had my first Indian meal since leaving home. It was from a street stall and it was 4 curries and rice. I think one of the curries was goat curry but I didn't like to ask. Katie had a cheeseburger. She thinks it's wrong to eat goats because they are cuter than cows.

We went to an English pub to see what it was like. It was overcrowded, expensive, and very sweaty. At one point the Chinese DJ said "Hey, sexy ladeee! Wassssuuuup". We sat outside.

It was the start of chinese new year and they started letting off firecrackers in the street next to us. We were a bit worried but the Indian landlord came out and told us not to worry. They do it every year and it is perfectly safe. Then the firecrackers fell over and started shooting off in all directions, some of them were coming straight towards us. When it was over, we noticed that the tourist in front of us was bleeding from his head. We also noticed the pub manager was hiding underneath our seats.

All the shops and most of the restaurants in Penang were closed because of chinese new year so we were a bit bored.

I had curry for breakfast, lunch, and dinner one day.

It was a 2 hour wait to get the fernicular railway to the top of Penang hill. The views on the way up were nice but the views at the top were obscured by shops selling tee shirts and a mosque.

We were packed in like sardines on the train and some chinese girls kept on laughing at us.

Penang was really really hot.

We went to the best Indian restaurant ever! We can't get enough Indian food because all we ate in Thailand was Thai food.

We went to a floating Chinese village where we found an enormous lizard creature (see photos). It was bigger than me and it was living in the sewers, just like the teenage ninja turtles. It had brown goo dripping out of its mouth.

Aidan.