We arrived in Penang after a longish coach and minibus journey, but were highly excited to see what Malaysia was like after our long stint in Thailand. The first thing we did was walk to an ATM for money. There were hardly any pavements, but rather partially open sewers that stank. We also saw a giant rat sniffing around rubbish that was lying in the road. Nice. The second thing we did was look for a place to stay. The minibus had dropped everyone off outside a hostel and other travellers were being ushered inside to pay for rooms there. Feeling well-travelled and wise, we suspected that this hostel was probably a bit more expensive as they grabbed people out of the minibus stop. The hostel man confirmed that a room there was 50 Ringgit. So we walked a little way down the road to ask somewhere else and sure enough, the next hostel gave their room rate as only 20 Ringgit! Feeling smug and slightly superior, we paid and lugged our bags up to the room. Only to find a room so small that the double bed could hardly fit into it. There were no sheets and the mattress and pillows were yellowy brown with some unsightly stains. There was no glass in the window, only a few bars, leading out onto a dirty chimney thing. Oh, and finally, there was a shared toilet with a shower in it that looked disgusting and was designed for a very thin person who doesn't need to move much.

With our bubble well and truly burst, we walked past the original hostel that we had rejected. It now looked very inviting and clean, with a pool table and bar on the ground floor. All the other people from our bus looked happy there. We dejectedly walked on to explore the area, and within minutes found ourselves standing in the lobby of the Oriental Hotel, booking a room for that very night. We were too ashamed to return to our hostel to collect the bags and sneaked back the next day to check out, after a very comfortable sleep and a hot shower....

Hostel adventures aside, we had a lovely time in Penang. Initially, it looks like a dump of a place. But the further we explored the more we grew to like it. The first night we strayed a few roads down and found ourselves in Little India. The streets and markets there are thick with incense and Indian music, the shops colourful with cheap clothes and jewellery. Finally, we sat down on a street corner and ate one of the best curries we had ever had. The second night, we ventured over to Chinatown and ate in a large food court where you can hardly work out what is on the menu. We ordered the most appetising looking noddle and chicken dish, but it turned up with a little bowl of fish-head soup. Yum! We then made our way to a bar where we sniggered at the elderly white man sitting opposite us, as he had a younger Thai bride with him. Somewhere in the course of the night we ended up chatting with him and spent the rest of the night getting on very well with him and getting increasingly drunk. It turned out he lived in Bali and offered to show us around and give us a place to stay... did we feel guilty when we thought back to the beginning of the night!

Our thrid day in Penang was scooter day... we hired a cheap scooter and drove round the entire island. There were some nice beaches with big waves that were just about deserted so Clout cracked out his Speedos and went for an all-over leg tan. Driving around the nd after that, we saw a mountain waterfall, a massive lizard road-kill, and we somehow ended up driving past huge numbers of high-rise buildings comprising entirely of tiny,grubby-looking flats. It seemed that this was the main living area of Penang, tucked nicely out of the way but accomodating thousands of people in cramped conditions. At some point on the scooter journey it got very hot so Clout took his T-shirt off. The reaction we got was so bad (fist shaking, shouting, whistling, disapproving looks) that after I while I begged him to put it back on. Much of Malaysian people are devout Muslims. They don't approve of any skimpy clothing, many villages/towns don't sell alcohol anywhere. Almost everywhere we went, there were mosques with loudspeakers that amplified a solitary voice singing Islamic prayers. These were done five times a day and they didn't seem to have any set times. Sometimes the singing would begin in the middle of the night and wake us both up, but it was nice to be subject to such a strong part of their religious culture.

Our last day in Malaysia and we got up early as we were due to catch a ferry to the neighbouring island, Langkawi. After packing our bags and showering, we suddenly had a terrible thought.... Clout's phone alarm had woken us up and hour before our ferry. But Malaysian time was an hour ahead and he hadn't changed the time on his phone. Sure enough, we found a clock and we had well and truly missed the ferry. It was impossible to catch another one that day, so we duly booked a night coach to the Perhentian islands and spent the day playing pool against other travellers and drinking ice coffee. Eventually, we made our way to the bus station and settled down for a long night travelling to the opposite coast of Peninsular Malaysia.... Until the Chinese lady in front of Clout reclined her chair so far back that it literally squashed him in. He was not happy. It was going to be a long night.....