We have now settled into our hotel - the Star Lodge, I got to inspect the room first before we took it. My checklist includes a/c, wifi, cleanliness, a western toilet and somewhere to plug my hairdryer next to a mirror. I asked the dour Chinese hotel owner if any of the rooms had a mirror and he wearily said "No, this is a budget hotel". Well...what do I want for £9 a night? As Chris said on the message board, we could turn this into a book - if we did there would be a long chapter on toilets. In Hua Lamphong station in Bangkok, I actually paid to visit their toilets. The floor was awash with filth and the only western toilet they had had footprints on the seat. Understandably, some asians are so disgusted at our western habits that they cannot bring themselves to sit down, so they squat at a great height. Today we took the Georgetown Unesco World Heritage tour. We visited the waterfront buildings that were mainly British colonial style, including the Town Hall, the clock tower and the courts. We then headed to the Clan Jetties, which are preserved and have been inhabited by the Chinese clans since the 19th century. They are a series of piers with tightly packed homes built on them (deceptively spacious), they have internet, wifi and cable tv - better facilities than New Brighton then... Georgetown is like a miniature and walkable KL, again very diverse and a real sense of community. Still around the Chinese area we visited two temples Cheah Kongsi and Khoo Kongsi, where they filmed "Anna and the King" with Jodie Foster. Apparently Thailand refused to allow them to film it there. Along our way today were groups of Chinese students who appeared to be on a treasure hunt around the heritage sights. When we were at the Kapitan Keling Mosque we were stopped by a small group of them who asked me if I could help them with one of their challenges, they had to teach someone a Chinese song and video it. They had written it out and taught me the tune. Paul was then asked to help out too, how were they to know he can't hold a tune? The mosque was having an open day today, we climbed to the top of the minaret for views of
Georgetown. Today was hot in the extreme, very humid. We relaxed back at the hotel this afternoon and planned the next part of our travels. We had hoped to get a boat across to Indonesia, however, we discovered today that the ferry service stopped last year. I was looking forward to a little boat trip, but I will have to wait. We have instead booked flights to Medan, Indonesia. This evening we went the Red Garden food paradise, which is a huge hangar-like area with seating in the middle and a variety of stalls around the edge, so you can mix dishes such as Malay, Indian and Thai. Each of the stalls have different coloured plates. I was feeling adventurous and went for a Koay Teow Soup set, which was a bit disappointing, flat noodles, vegetables in dishwater with weird tasting fishballs and chicken livers. Paul had fried oyster omelette and mango fried rice which I had to have a try of (pieces of peppered mango, roasted cashew nuts, chicken, tomato and peppers fried with rice). I wasn't tempted by the Claypot frog porridge (sounds lovely) as Angela and I had a bit of a 'mare with frogs legs once. Hope you enjoy the photos....