Welcome back to sweaty Malaysia!

We have left the cool climes of the Cameron Highlands and low and behold we are in the back in clammy clasp of humidity! However i shall finish with the highlands. We left you at our first day of [insert any different type of farm] sightseeing and enjoyed a pretty relaxed time. As ever we spent a lot of time deciding over what to eat, especially come breakfast time as the option of real bacon was bought into the equation, and to add to that real baked beans! We were spoilt for choice! The evenings contained lots of newly aquired (from India) card games and scrabble in the social bar / restuarant / film / internet / reception and generally multifunctional space of the guesthouse. We did however manage to see a few more sights!

We went on another organised trip to visit a local village tribe further down the hills. This mainly involved target practice with a blow pipe, and its fairly safe to say it wasn't Natalies forte! The guide was insistant that she would carry on doing it until she at least hit the target! After the target was hit we headed inside for a bit of traditional music and dancing. By music I do obviously mean four people hitting bamboo poles onto more bamboo simulataniously, which was accompanied by stamping around in a circle on a less than sturdy floor. The trip to the village was followed by a short walk to a waterfall where poisonous spiders and vegetation were pointed out to us. And after a few more posed photo oppertunities we were back up the hills ready for some more scrabble and card action!

The next day we had a walk through the jungle on our own and went to another waterfall and were on the constant look out for the lethal plants we had been shown the day before!

So now we are in Penang, or George town to be precise, which is suprise suprise another town steep in colonial heritage! And as ever other town we have been to so far there is a China town and little Inida, which was described oh so well by a young Miss Wheal as, "like being in India, but smaller!" The place we are staying at the moment (Cathay Heritage Hotel) is quite a bizarre place, its a HUGE building with HUGE rooms and run by two elderly Chinese men who are maticulous in their cleaning. When we were being shown to our room we were constantly stopping because of sporadic cleaning stops to remove the smallest specks of dust, but i guess that isn't a bad thing! Certainly a place that would have been pretty amazing in its prime.

Penang was rated in the top 10 places to visit by timeout magazine due to its food choices which from what we have encountered is understandable, however what it has done has rediscovered our love for Indian food rather than the more traditional malay cuisine.....opps! Due to the humidity problem days haven't been particulary action packed, but it has allowed us to get a few things sorted for later in the the trip.

Anyway tomorrow we are heading off to Langkawi island, a 3hr ferry ride away, and are planning 6 days of SUN SUN SUN SUN BEACH SEA SUN!!

Chris and Tally

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