Sorry in advance for the photos being behind the highly outdated blog! Internet in S.E. Asia is painful - JF is literally about to use his crutch as a destructive weapon. No joke.

Anyhow, upon arrival at the amazing Hutton Lodge (cheers Gavo) in Penang we headed straight for the beach, desperately in need of a good splash after two weeks of the humidity and chaffage of city dwelling! The bus journey took ages as it didn't go above 3rd gear (it was painful to watch the driver try and squeeze out a bit of speed past the tri-shaws) and we were starting to think the beach wouldn't be worth it. How wrong we were! You haven't lived until you've seen women clad in full Burkha gear riding quad-bikes and jet ski's, and even paragliding!!

After much cool soaking and disbelieving people watching we settled on a place to eat - right on the sand with a maitre'd of questionable gender. It was a rather romantic meal. We had starters, mains, desert, beer and cocktails for about 10 quid! On our return to the Lodge we had to take a bicyle tri-shaw with a Chinese guy who didn't speak English, didn't know where he was going, and didn't understand the concept of traffic direction or generally driving at all. Rob then had to deal with the hotel manager, who it seems had taken quite a liking to him (he was a man by the way).

The next day we caught a bus to Penang Hill where we had to take a funicular railway (in other words an extremely steep train - literally about 40 degrees) which was built in the 19th Century. We later found that the day earlier the train had broken down mid-journey trapping people half way up the hill for half a day! At 800m up, it was a nice place to enjoy English Tiffin on the lawn (what the hell is Tiffin?!). We had a lovely more English than English lunch, with a couple of nice guys we met from London and lived it up like colonial masters.

After admiring the views of Penang we headed to Air Itam which is the site of the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia, the Kek Lok Si temple. It is an amazing place as the photos will show. There is a long winding covered market leading up to it selling every piece of tat imaginable, all in the name of Buddhism! We also had the pleasure of viewing a pool full of turtles (liberation pool) which the locals believe will bring a long and prosperous life, but to us it was just thousands of turtles comically clambering all over each other trying to get a piece of the sun. We ended the day sipping G&T's in the Eastern Oriental Hotel (with more free nuts) where we came to the conclusion that rich botoxed Americans have no manners, and resemble coy carp.

Penang was our favourite place in Malaysia because of its relaxed tropical feel with just the right amount of crazy hawker stalls, locals and traffic, combined with really cool Chinese and European influenced buildings. It was the end of the Malaysian leg of our journey. Next stop is the island of Phuket in Thailand - think less culture, more smut and wilder stories!

On another note this couldn't wait, we are currently in Saigon and have just been extras in a Vietnamese romcom!!