Eastern And Oriental Hotel Georgetown

The Royal Australian Airforce (RAAF)has a base located in West Malaysia and many of the ExPats and their families are in our building and surrounding buildings. I know what you're thinking if you're in the US...they sure do treat the AirForce well in Australia. We are amazed at how high class and well treated the RAAFs are. We went along with our friends from the RAAFs Ben and Belinda, of course Alex and April the A As had to go with the B Bs;-) Ben is actually an Officer in the Royal Austral...

Tuesday,30th July we arrived in Hat Yai at 6.30pm after quite a pleasant 7.5 hour journey involving a taxi, a ferry and a coach. On the coach we had met a very nice couple from Essex, Tom and Rachel, who were travelling for 6 months, as usual we compared notes and decided on a hotel together as then we could share the cost of a taxi and possibly get a cheaper room rate for 2 rooms. The first hotel we looked at was okay if a little dark but the room rate was quite reasonable and it was getting...

So, with the roads so good, and the lack of chaos as seen in Indonesia, we decide to get a motorbike the first day in Pinang. We got one for only 15 Ringit/day for our entire stay, which was till the 8th. 15 Ringit is about $4.50 :D. And what a good decision it was! Even though you can pass each other any which way and that, Mathew drove us around like a pro - which he certainly is becoming to be. If we didnt get that bike, we wouldnt have seen 1/4 of what we saw! We roamed all around the cit...

ITALIANO A FONDO PAGINA: We are in Malaysia! Penang is hot and busy but sooo interesting. Founded at the end of the 18th century by the British (who else...) as an open trading post, as stopover on the silk & spice route in between China and India. Chinese traders flooded in, and Indians as well and the city today is fascinationg mix of three major cultures - Chinese buddhists, Indian hindus and Malay muslims. Xenophobe Europeans - it clearly CAN work. And it's serious fun. A guy in a Chi...

After the lovely resort of Krabi we took a minibus to Khao Sok NP for a sleepover in the jungle. We shared a bamboo hut with 100's of creepy crawlies, load crikets and frogs (Andy lept out of his skin when he saw a giant millipeed). Our attempts at a night safari ended up being a washout and we returned to the bar we'd left 5 minutes earlier drenched to the bone. The next day we went elephant treking through the jungle although the elephant did'nt like walking through the puddles. On the way ...

Sara writes: We are in Malaysia!!! We flew in from Laos and landed in Georgetown, on the northwestern island of Penang. Malaysia is officially a Muslim country, but there are three major populations here: Muslim, Indian (Hindu & Seeks) and Chinese. So everywhere you go there are hints of all three. Really interesting. Malaysia gained its independence from Great Britain in 1957 and there are 13 states ranging from island, to big city, to beach, to small village, to mountainous highlands. W...

  First off, Georgetown is a city on an island off the western coast of penninsular Malaysia.  That being said, the town itself is much like that of its Malaysian counterparts, in that it is generally cleaner than towns in Thailand, but still a little dingy in spots.  Of course the main attraction for many here is the ocean, which I will admit is a very nice addition, as well as the ammenities that come with a place that has been heavily influenced by British colonialism.    We arrived on Chr...

Pheww!!!!!! two internet cafes and two photo shop centers later, I managed to salvage most of my pics. I only lost 6. (Compared to 300, I can take the loss!) I'm really glad I had burned some pics to a cd already while I was in Bali, so I wouldn't have lost EVERY pic i'd taken since I left home! Now I have 3 discs of pics for all you wonderful people. Maybe tomorrow I will attempt to put a few on this site. It's just a big pain to upload them to my online photo album because the pics are high...

After our not so great evening in Ipoh, we got an early bus to Penang. Penang is a small island off the coast of Malaysia which was an early British outpost for the East India Company. There are a lot of colonial buildings, as well as temples, mosques and churches to see.
Anyway, we had decided back in the UK, to book the Eastern and Oriental Hotel to stay in and got a great rate through the internet. We arrived from the bus station in the smelliest taxi ever and we're handed lovely coolin...

From Phi Phi we caught a boat back to the mainland, and then a minibus direct to Penang from Krabi. The border crossing was very straightforward (no-one charging for stamps!) and we arrived in the old British Colonial town of Georgetown (now called Penang!) around 9pm that evening. Booked ourselves into the very dingy Western and Oriental guesthouse, which had rooms like shoe boxes and the toilets were vile, although the one upstairs was nice, but they didn't tell us that when we checked in. ...