Thank you, Bob

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We finally made it to Malaysia after a fairly long and pretty bumpy ride across the border from Krabi.
Our first impressions made us feel quite home sick given just how British the whole place looks. Driving towards Penang we could almost have been driving down the M4 back home just looking at the roads, the types of cars and the familiar road sign formats (ignoring the fact that the cows had an enormous monitor lizard for company in one of the nearby fields).
Georgetown was equally British looking and, given its colonial heritage, this is hardly surprising.
On our first day there, having checked into the SB guesthouse in the backpackers area between Chinatown and Little India, we had a walk round fort Cornwallis and took in some of the early colonial history. We also headed over to the botanical gardens resplendent with some beautiful flowers, bizarre trees, cheeky monkeys and massive monitor lizards.
The next day we were greeted by a business associate of Linz's, Bob, who gave us a tour of his printing plant and then, along with the rest of his colleagues, took us out to dinner at a local seafood restaurant. There we sampled many of the local aquatic life including sea-snails, hermit crabs and mantis shrimp (probably the ugliest thing I've ever eated but also one of the most tasty). Once suitably stuffed by Bob and co. we were informed that the director of their company had insisted that our present accommodation was not at all appropriate and that we were to move to a new hotel. Whilst at first this seemed a little bit of a hassle we were comfounded to find ourselves at the swanky Evergreen Laurel hotel at Phoenix press's expense. This definitely wasn't backpacker accommodation but the amazing room (you could have played tennis on that bed it was so huge), lovely pool and eat-till-you-drop breakfasts were definitely appreciated.
Also appreciated was Bob's tireless carting of us around from temple to temple the next day. Bob truely was a star (if seemingly on a mission to eradicate any and all possible signs of hunger that we may have) and thanks to him we saw many sights of Penang that we may not have seen otherwise (and we certainly wouldn't have tried the smelliest fruit in the world, the Durian, which, for some reason, the Malays seem to love).
After grudgingly parting ways from the Evergreen Laurel (not before a massive breakfast and farewell swim in the pool) we headed over to the bus station and caught the five hour bus to Kuala Lumpur, where we returned to our more accustomed accommodation. Boo! 😞

Take care all and we'll blog again soon.

Bri and Linz

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