Tanjung Bungah Beach Georgetown

... to chill and get ready for the day's flight to Bangkok at 5.25p.m (that's the time of the flight, not the time I decided to chill). I slept well, munched a nice enuff English-style breakfast (missing some home food a little) met Ian and Vic, bought some discount Malarone (Malaria pills of the highest order, with the lowest side-effects) off Vic and got my sh*t together.<br>I was still using my Citronella mozzie spray, but I think that on the ...

... utter lack of seatbelts.<br><br>Approaching Penang is rather surreal; knew it was an island but as you drive across the causeway from Butterworth you see around a hundred skyscrapers which I just didn't expect. The trip across took around ten minutes, and soon I was dropped off at the agency's hostel, which I was pleased about as it was recommended in my RG. I got a cheap single room the size of a shoe box, and after sorting my ...

... by reminded me of a Eastern influenced Las Vegas. It was madness! Scoping the goods at the night market. Shopkeepers were hawking their wares with gusto. You could buy literally anything, including: - Sunglasses - T-Shirts - Toys - Handbags - &#8220;Real&#8221; DVD&#8217;s and CD&#8217;s - &#8220;Real&#8221; software Then there was one table we walked ...

... of my curry-eating life. I could never replicate such an expressive palette of flavours in my own kitchen. I could never hope to find such a fiery yet smooth taste in the restaurants I haunted back home.<br><br>This was as good as curry could get, and I had to savour every bite. I fought to keep back the tears and ordered a second plate, just as delicious as the first.<br><br>Feasting on ...

... and time to hit the town for the evening meal. We had selected two or three places from those that had been recommended, and having failed miserably to have located our first choice one, whilst the two adjacent building street numbers were readily identifiable, the actual number of our restaurant given in the guide book just did not seem to exist, it was a road between the other two, most odd. So we settled on Chinese at Mays.<br><br>A leisurely ...

... re only staying for a day or so because our real destination is Indonesia (we're going to do Malaysia on the way back to Thailand after Indonesia). I'm really excited about Indonesia. Especially Lake Toba, the largest volcanic lake in the world.. and in Sulawesi we're going to the Togian Islands which have fantastic white-sand beaches and gorgeous coral reefs with tons of multi ...

When Chinese sailors first discovered Penang in (I think) the 15th Century, the island was uninhabited except for some monkeys. People settled here almost 200 years afterwards. So it's not like so many places on earth where the Christians have ruled for 2000 years and newly-arrived Muslims are tolerated, or vice versa, or plug in Hindus,Buddhists,.... what have you. Penang belongs to ...

... is regardless beautiful and even warmer than that in Singapore and wish we'd set off early enough to reach the more distant fishing village in the north-west which promised sands devoid of humans and loved by monkeys. Thing we've found about Malaysia is that everything takes a lot longer than we're used to - the bus driver will generally stop mid-journey for a meal and a chat or two - so all plans need to be equated to at least twice the estimated time - which of course ...

... their prayers. I stayed in Georgetown which was a fascinating place to wander around with all the old colonial buildings and the different communities. Also the choice of food was amazing ...

... lunch, looked at the shops, then took a taxi to the Kapitan Keling Mosque, and walked to the Sri Mariamman Temple, St George's Church, and Penang Museum. Discovered that there was a free tourist shuttle bus visiting most of the sites (no thanks to the Sheraton!) so we hopped on and visited Koo Kongsi, the clock tower and the old Fort. Eventually ended up back at Komtar, and walked back to the hotel via a Nonya restaurant for tea. Bit of the Australian Open tennis before sleep.