Monday 9th of February,
A Long trip to Kaula Lumpur to Penang. During a stop off met an Irish couple who informed us that there are new visa rules in place for Thailand - you can only get a 15 day visa if you cross the border by land, for longer you must apply and PAY at a Thai Consulate.
Arrived in Penang in the late afternoon and spent half hour dragging around with a rip off merchant taxi driver to find Boons Guesthouse as recommended by the Lie family. Hardly any of the guest houses are named so its no easy task. After been hauled out of the taxi at every potential "Boons" and being showed various shabby rooms to shouts od "you stay, you stay, very cheap, cheapest in Penang" and disgruntled "no I not boon" conversations we eventually found him, round a sandy track under the shade of a coconut tree. After a lot of haggling and pretending we had known the Lie family for years we settled into a nice basic double room complete with en suite and lizards and chilled for the rest of the day.

Tues 10th Feb
Massive lie in followed by a bus trip into Georgetown outskirts to try and sort out our Thai Visa's. A scorching hot mini hike and some broken English directions from various locals and we got there by the skin of our teeth to be told we have to collect forms and come back tomorrow. So after hiking back to town for required unflattering passport pictures it was back to back to Boons on an insanely crouded bus for beer time and noodles!!
Penang is crawling with Saga couples complete with sunburn and white linen but everyone is friendly and the food is lovely and cheap, so we eat out for every meal (there are no cooking facilities in guesthouses and food from the shopd is more exspensive)
We spent the rest of the evening outside our room playing cards and watching all the stray dogs and cats drifting past on the look out for food. Settled down for an early night as we had to be up at 6 the next day to get the bus to tje consulate to drop in our forms and passports first thing ready to collect them signed, sealed and delivered in the afternoon. Unfortunately sleep was impossible as the Indian family in the room next to ours were having a screaming fight as their daughter was refusing an arranged marriage. Made for interesting listening though and at least they were thoughtful enough to argue in English so we could ear wig : - )
A couple of hours sleep was then shattered again by the strangulated cat noises of singing being emitted from the megaphone on top of the temple next to our accomodation. Unfortunately we didn't know which way mecca was to join them in joyous prayer so we got up early!!!

Wed 11th Feb
Tired, hot and disgusted at the thought of having to pay to get in to Thailand, its back to the Consulate then into George Town to pass the time till our Visa's are ready to be collected. GeorgeTown is a world herititage site thanks to its bizarre mixture of foods, cultures and architecture. The left side of the road can be almost a shanty town and the right can be scattered with brand new white wash buildings and scysrapers. There is a deffinate charm here though with the small run down colonial buildings and little food hawkers on every corner.
Back to the consulate in the afternoon to pick up our visa's. 220RM worse off but with very pretty stickers in our passports we had back to Batu Ferringhi for some more (much deserved) beer time. Bouyed by the infectious smie of Boon on our return we make plans for a monkey hunt the next day as it is ours last day in Penang and the only day we don'y have errands to run.

Thurs 12th Feb
Ahhhhh holiday mode. A not to ridculously early start with an english style breakfast down the road then off to the beautiful beach just a seconds walk from our room.
We spent all morning lazing on the beach, reading, listening to music and frolicking in the bath temperature sea. Then a shower, light hawker lunch and on to the monkey hunt.
We didn't really know where to look so we headed away from town and followed the coast road for a while untill we spotted a scruffy hand written sign pointing down a dirt rack saying "waterfall". Perfect Monkey territory - surely. After a 20 minute walk we found the waterfall which was stunning and cool in the 35degree heat. We spent an hour or so there climbing and exploring but although we saw large lizards and a huge ammount of beautiful butterflies and dragonflies.......no monkeys.
The heat of the afternoon forced us the leave the waterfall and head back to town and just by chance Trish happened to spot some monkeys!! Yay!!! Our thoughts of monkey's in a serene setting by the waterfall were grossly missjudged, we found these monkeys scrounging on a tip but we were delighted non the less. Satisfied that our mission had been accomplished and we had taken a few good pics we carried on down the road just to spot another troop by the road side, given away by the ferocious swaying of tree branches in an otherwise still jungle (whoop whoop double whammy). High fives and more picture taking followed!!
We spent our final evening in Penang with a lovely dinner (pushed the boat out tonight and ate in a "proper restaurant". Delicious fresh squid curry for a trish and a spicy Penang curry for Adam followed by a lovely contented, chilled beer time evening.

Fri 13th Feb
Early start. Travel to Phuket -"7 hour journey" turns out to be 15 and air conditioned bus is a suspensionless minivan with the heater set to cool. 3 bus changes and an angry canadian later we finally arribe in the beautiful Phuket at around 9pm and meet Adam's friend and our accomodation provider - Dan in a bar in town (where else!)