The Merchant Hotel Georgetown

Day 1- John and I flew into Kuala Lumpur (KL for short), the flight took a couple of hours then was followed with an hour bus ride into the city. Malaysia is definately more influenced by the english language. On the bus they were playing an english radio station! I know everyone at home is probably thinking "so what" but after 6 months hearing all different kinds of music it was a nice treat to listen to music from back home.

On the ...

... our way back we ate at a very local restaurant where we had one drink and two meals for 5 ringetts! thats about $1.50 for two people! The food was good, we had fried noodles, and some bizarre cake made out of pipine, the texture was great, it was flavored which shallots and dried prawns, Zac managed to eat them without being unwell, it is hard to determine whether things have fish in them or not here, and they tend to not understand when you say no fish either! but he has been ...

... conduct certainly belied his image.
Two ferries (the kind that take cars and just cross a river) later and we were on the mainland heading south. I chatted to a girl called Vic and two guys from the UK (one of them told me he was in Yorkshire once and he asked a barman what action there was - the barman replied "Well, if you go up the hill there's a windmill...").
Apart from all being charged 10 baht for nothing while we passed our bags ...

... stops along the way, but unfortunately only one of these was for our benefit the rest were to pick up or drop people off and on one occasion the driver even dropped a parcel off. (DHL). We had to change buses again before we crossed the border and we were told that the town we were in was bombed last year by terrorists. Just what we wanted to hear. There wasn't any problems and within 40 minutes we were at the border. The border between Thailand and Malaysia is over ...

... of “all good” or “good to go”.



Azhar explained that Line Clear was open 24 hours a day, and had been serving a fanatically loyal base of Penangites for almost fifty years. Spices were imported from India and prepared under a veil of secrecy. Pictures of Malay celebrities with the proprietors lined adorned the walls of the buildings Line Clear was ...

... to another store in order to get us two
tickets. Finally, after some stuffing around she said we could get on
(this lady was pretty funny and Kayla said afterwards that she was
'mothering' us). The tickets cost 60 ringgit each which we noticed is
the most we've paid for transport yet. A bit disappointing
considering the ferry trip is shorter then the one out to Tioman.
When we arrived at the backpacker's yesterday ...

... few historical buildings of interest. I embraced the multi racial nature of Georgetown, particularly with regards to my eating habits. Chapattis for breakfast, noodles and fried pork for dinner, sandwiching a relaxing cup of mid afternoon tea.

As these cities go, there wasn’t a huge amount to do in Georgetown with regards to ‘attractions’, and a number of people I know seemed to have been ...

... before our transit to Taiping. The other guys (lazy *******s) stayed at the guest house doing their final bits of packing etc. On arrival, the house's security gate was pulled to. I tried to go in anyway as I was definitely there within the attraction's opening hours. A man came up to me immediately and said "Sorry, they're having a meeting in the back room". He seemed reluctant to let me in at all but I persuaded him to allow me to look at the front room exhibit detailing a ...

... hard as we possible could. We're both tired, weary, dirty and smelly but we'd better get used to it because between here and england there's another 20,000 and at least a further 17 countries to cross. It's tough and everyday presents a new challenge but at the same time it's awesome. The freedom, the adventure, not knowing where the road will take you that day or what trials and tribulations will come your way. Quite honestly, I'm  loving every minute of it....

... Penang Muttiara where I stayed on my previous visit. Had an expensive coke next to the pool, then walked through the resort to the town. Went looking for the batik factory which no longer existed, and then up the road to the Forest Recreation Park and Museum.


Had a lovely walk through the forest before heading off back down to the town. Took the bus a short distance to the site ...