Tuesday morning we were up at dawn again to catch a bus half way up Malaysia’s West Coast to a town called Butterworth, where we could then catch an onward ferry to Pulua Penang, apparently one of Asia’s most fascinating islands. The bus was scheduled for half 9, so were arrived, bright and early, were given the typical Malaysian help with direction to the bus we needed – a waft of the hand in a vague direction, and a number ‘4’ – we did eventually find the bus after about a twenty minutes of being wafted around the station, so we were pretty glad we had arrived in so much time.

As it turned out, it didn’t matter. Malaysian buses are not up to the standard of the faithful chicken buses of Central America, in fact, they are absolute crap. After we had got used to the hugest most reclining chairs (there was no option to be even remotely upright) we sat, going nowhere, with the ‘air conditioning’ set somewhere in the high 30’s until almost 11 o’clock, until they had shepherded enough people onto the bus to fill every huge reclining chair.

We arrived in Butterworth hours after schedule having driven through monsoons, miles of traffic jams, and more toilet stops than anyone could possibly need, but thanks to our recliners and 3 metres of leg space we had all at least caught some well needed kip. The ferry bit was mercifully easy. It cost about 20p and was basically a floating platform with green metal chairs nailed in rows. Penang was nothing like we had imagined. I have come to think of islands as being small, slow, palm-tree lined beaches with no ATM’s and too many men with dreadlocks on bicycles. Georgetown, Penang’s capital, is sprawling; miles of skyscrapers, and multicoloured concrete shopfronts jumbled up with mosques, temples, dilapidated ‘churches’ (after seeing the ‘cathedral’ it is pretty clear that Christianity is not exactly top of Penang’s priorities – it is cordoned off because any moment it will definitely fall down). It was boiling hot, and definitely as smelly as Kuala Lumpur. We had opted to do a homestay for something a bit different and we couldn’t even find a residential area, let alone the house itself, so by the time we had finally sat down in our air-conned room we were all pretty fed up and at least 95% melted.

That first night we met the family who we were staying with, and headed out to find something to eat. Luckily for us there was an excellent hawker market just down the street selling all kinds of weird and wonderful Asian foods for pennies, so we filled up before heading to a beach front café for sunset and a well needed beer.

We spent one day doing a heritage tour of Georgetown, visiting all its religious and historical buildings, which was pretty fascinating, as the influences come from all over the world. The next day we did the nature bit, but thanks to another display of terrible public transport it took us 4 hours and 4 buses to get about 200m down the road. (This was also another case of being repeatedly ‘wafted’ in the general direction by locals, something we have to learn to stop doing.) It was worth it in the end, when we finally reached the botanical gardens sometime mid-afternoon. The hill-trek was no longer an option since it takes hours and hours and it was definitely no longer morning, so we took a jeep ride 5km upwards to the top of Penang’s biggest hill where we were able to get an amazing view out over the whole island as well as catching sights of some monkeys we hadn’t seen before out in the jungle.

Back at sea level but exhausted, we did a quick tour of the botanical gardens, which was essentially a tour of monkeys, and then mercifully caught all the right buses home.

Our next stop was Langkawi, a set of 99 islands off the west coast of Malaysia right up north by the Thai border. We caught a ferry from Penang but none of us had any idea we were catching a ferry to paradise – Langkawi came as a bit of a surprise, a sort of hybrid of many places we have been before, but, incredibly, with beaches where you are actually allowed to put on a bikini and do some sunbathing (often it is disrespectful to do this because of the predominantly Muslim community.) Only Lauren was disappointed as she is a massive fan of covering up in her Belizian boy’s swim-shorts and Nevis bungee t-shirt that turned grey in the wash – always an attractive beach outfit.

We have spent two days finally topping up the remnants of a tan, eating, drinking the cheapest beer in Malaysia, and generally doing nothing, feeling as if we are on holiday (except for the horrendously uncomfortable boiling hot nights.) Tomorrow the adventures start again as we try out long distance overnight train-travel (we are steering clear of buses) as we begin our journey South to reach Singapore before Owain leaves for home.