Heading Over To Malaysia

  Penang, Malaysia
Friday, June 9, 2006

Woken up at 6am by woman banging on hotel door,mini bus was waiting outside and had only 4hours sleep.Had to dash out,chucking stuff into pack,no wash,shave even clean teeth and then got into back of tiny mini bus made for kids crushed into back for 5hour bus ride,hungover,tired to Hat Yai.
After getting to Hat Yai decided to use the same travel people to get another mini bus onto Georgetown,Penang as only another 250baht.
Another 5hours cramped up and after getting in and out 4times to cross the border.Literally spoke in thai one side of the fence,then went over to a girl selling fruit and went to pay in Baht,till she looked at me funny and realised the 20foot wed just walked meant we were in a different country,and I only had Thai money on me!An Australian girl on the same bus had got talking to paid for me,and then spent 5 hours on back of bus till we finally got to Georgetown,Malaysia.Was sad to see back of Thailand but had seen most of things to see and was looking forward to taking my time through Malaysia before flight to Bali.
Dropped off in middle of downtown Chinatown and into Stardust G.H for 20Ringhit-about 3
quid.Place not as friendly as Thailand and lots of muslims,indians.On crossing over border had noticed how you didnt see any Wats anymore,but more mosques instead of buddhas just in space of a few miles.
Went out to watch Germany match in the blue diamond bar and watched with about 4 rats running around our feet!Meals really cheap here,at night all streets full of hawker stands with people cooking stuff up on portable stoves at side of the road,had a chicken masala and rice with nan and water-all for 4ringhit!(about 70p)

komplar kompleks

Had a good lie in as was shattered from night before and long jouney and just wandered around,walked to Komtar Kompleks-a massive shopping mall with about 10stories of wall to wall shops swarming with teenage malaysian girls buying everything.Walked to Fort Kornwallis,the lighthouse point where Lord Light landed from Britain to take control of Penang,apparantly firing silver coins onto the island from the ships cannons to invite his people to settle there and protect the people.On way round walking came across the malaysian version of Julian Clarey,a fat bloke who waddled up to me with his arms like a t-rex as camp as can be..."oooooooo englishman your tatoo so nice!.....cheers!then carried on flicking hair that wasnt there and talking about how the men in england were soooooo nice to him!?and how up in sheffield thats where the lower class people lived?haha!he said it,jamie!

At the top of the tower!

After that decided to go to the tower in the middle of the malls,a 70story building where you could go up and have a look round.the lift took about 3minutes to get to the top,and walked out into a restaurant overlooking the whole of Georgetown!was realllllly tall,the old legs started to wobble,what a wuss!
Made my way back to the room and to chat to the owner who was really nice and full of maps and advice on how to get around the city.Watched England scrape a 1-0 against Paraguay at night with a lad from Canada who adviced me if i'd seen thailands best beaches already I wouldnt be impressed with the Perhenthian Islands and so my plan now was to forget making my way over to them,and instead maybe pinch a flight to Cambodia and the temples i'd meant to visit from Bangkok.

Koh Lok Si Temple

Waited about an hour for the bus,eventually got dropped of at Koh Lok Si Temple,set into the mountain and the biggest of its kind in Malaysia,taking 20years to build.Massive sprawling temple set over different levels,walked up to the 120foot statue of Buddha,made of solid brass and not even finished yet!Walked all way up pagoda tower,got a bit of a sweat on!
Walked another couple of miles to Penang Hill station,where you can get a railway car/cable up to the top of the hill to look over Georgetown and Penang from 600metres above sea level.Took about 30minutes to get to top,lots of monkeys resident around the station roofs pinching food off the customers.

View from Penang Hill

Eventually got to the top,and started to queue with the other 200people.Only problem was one cart up,one down and after waiting in Alton Towers style queue for an hour,conductor comes out to tell everyone theres been a power cut!This is at 6pm,with the cart the only way down,or a long winding 2hour walk down the mountain!People were like animals,nearly rioting,trying to take over jeeps that passed,offering to pay people for lifts,so I started to jog the long way down as realised it was gonna take ages to get everybody into cars.Half way down managed to swing a ride on the back of a ropey old motorbike from one of the workers.After 20minutes of hanging off the back,get dropped in the middle of nowhere,the other side of the mountain.Walked for about 3miles finally managed to flag a taxi down back to Chinatown for 12ringhit,just as ambulances and vans started to scream past heading up the mountain!