The journey to Penang from Koh Samui was alot longer than we initially thought. We arrived in Penang after a 24 hour journey which included a 6 hour wait in a cold bus station at 2am! While in Penang we have been staying with Rajpal and Shindhi who are friends of Harri's grandparents, they have been so hospitable to us and have been great tour guides!

Over the past two weeks we have seen so much of Penang and have been on a few road trips to mainland Malaysia with Rajpal and Shindhi - which usually consisted of Rajpal driving, Shindhi directing and the two of us passed out in the back! On our first weekend we went to Kuala Kangsar where we sampled the markets along side the river and saw the Sultan Azlan Shah museum and gallery which was very interesting. We also drove past Malaysia's very own Buckingham palace which was really beautiful. Another interesting building there was the old palace completely made out of wood without using any nails! On another day we drove to northern Malaysia to Alor Setar and went up the Alor Star tower. We had an amazing view of the city buildings and traditional mosques with the mountains in the background. We also went to the Padi (rice) museum which used to be the main income of the city which had an amazing panormic display which showed the process that the padi farmers went through.

Rajpal and Shindhi have been great at showing us around the different Buddhist, Hindu Sikh and Taoist temples and various Mosques in Penang. We have found this fasicnating as we've never visited many of these religious buildings before. It is especailly interesting because some are really quite similar whilst others can be completely different. We really enjoyed the Snake Temple in Penang which is a Chinese Buddhist Temple with snakes slithering around inside and outside the temple. They seemed completely unaffected by the humans and it was really cool to see them all there.

We have sampled alot of the Malay style food inlcuding Banana leaf where the food is supplied on a leaf instead of a plate and you use your hands to eat the food (although we've cheated and always used knives and forks!) There is a large mix of Indian food here (north and south) which we have found very yummy. Britt has even been dragged to vegetarian Indian restuarants and secretly loves it TOFU mmmmm. There are also many street stalls called 'hawkers' which are good for buying a snack such as a somosa.

Georgetown is the capital of Penang and has many old colonial buildings. We spent a day here looking around properly and I think we saw the whole of what Georgetown has to offer! It did not start off too well as a bird decided to poo on Britts head and needless to say she was not too happy about it despite the locals insisting it was good luck.. But after a long stop to clean up in the toilets we headed to Fort Cornwallis. This is where the first person supposedly landed on Penang and shows the history of how people got here. We then headed to the many jetties to see all the boats and the view of the mainland. We also wanted to take a look around the old houses on stilts in the water which we found really fasicnating. We then went to Penang Museum which is quite large and really well informed so we spent a long time here looking at all the artefacts and admiring the paintings of old Penang in the gallery. We then went to Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion and had a guided tour throughout a tradional (and very large) Chinese house. It was quite similar to Peranakan Mansion which was also owned by a very wealthy Chinese man. We liked to look at all the traditional furniture and their personal possessions, especially all the jewelery!

One of our favourite places in Penang was the Butterfly Farm as it has loads of beautiful butterflies flying everywhere. They also didn't mind the humans at all and so we managed to get some really nice photos. They had lots of other animals there too though which was a pleasant suprise. We saw cute turtles, a giant sea lizard, lots and lots of snakes, giant scorpians, ducks and huge fish! They also did an animal show (which only us showed up to!) where a lady brought certain creatures for us to hold. We didin't mind the stick insect and really enjoyed the butterfly on us and the gecko which was really cute crawling up our arms. But we weren't impressed when she tried to put a large centipede thing with over 3000 legs and a praying mantis on us (especially after admiting that it can and will bite)!

We also visited Penang Hill which is 830 metres high and you have to take two very steep trains to reach it. Once up there we visited the market, a Mosque and a Hindu temple. We also enjoyed the stunning views of Penang. There was also an English restaurant where we felt completely at home enjoying delicious scones. Although Britt didnt entirely enjoy having to unscrew the door hing off the toilet after getting locked in! Unfortunately all the trails around Penang Hill were closed for maintenance so we hopped on a bus over to Guerney Plaza which is a large upmarket shopping complex. After tiring ourselves out window shopping we decided to go to the cinema and see Seven Pounds which was really good even though it left us bleary eyed!

Yesterday we had a lazy morning but in the evening we all decided to go for a hike. We climbed up through rainforest and along the way we saw lots of monkeys! They were all really cute eating berries from the trees and playing with each other. The baby ones were so small and looked really funny swinging in the trees. We were suprised at how close they got and wished we had taken our cameras. When we finally reached the top we were pleasntly suprised to find there were volunteers handing out free noodles and drinks. After relaxing for a little bit we headed down getting wet from a little bit rain.

We feel like we have done so much whilst being in Penang and we can't thank Rajpal and Shindhi enough for how welcoming and hospitable they have been. It has been lovely to spend in a couple of weeks in a home environment and just chilling out! They truly seem to know EVERYTHING about Penang and have always been able to answer our never ending questions! We are sad to leave but are also looking forward to seeing Kuala Lumpur.