Day 2: Why travel for half a day when you can take a whole day!!

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Day two of our adventures was much like day one...a lot of travelling!


Looking back the day was probably doomed from the beginning...when I ventured to have a shower. Unfortunately it appears that Malaysia is yet to grasp the term shower, and their “showers” lack the two key elements - pressure and heat. I therefore wish to re-name every shower in Malaysia a trickle (that completely stops when you’ve just finished smothering soap all over yourself).

As mentioned in our last entry we decided to take off for Penang. Now, the day before in all our infinite wisdom we decided that of-course we would be the only two people in KL that wanted to go to Penang on a Sunday, so why bother booking tickets. Big Lesson! Having eaten our first Malaysian breakfast (dry toast and a hard-boiled egg), we decided that with two hours until departure that, although it was a bit eager, we would mosy on over and book our tickets. Unfortunately, there was only one ticket left for the entire day to Penang...wwoppps!! One mistake we are never ever going to make again.

Because we were still determined to make it to Penang we decided to head to KL’s biggest bus station (Puturaya) (by budget taxi of-course) to try our luck with tickets there. It was there we got our first real appreciation of PEOPLE, and lots of them. There must have been 40 ticketing stations (each for the different bus companies) and us little whities had to negotiate our way through this. Eventually after trying several booths we found two tickets at 11.45am to Penang for 33 ringit each (pretty good for a five hour bus ride). The only downside we had two and three quarter hours to entertain ourselves with packs on our back. This is when we became very familiar with the bus station. And sat on the floor outside the trinket shops playing cards (an old guy took much interest in this), reading, I even got James playing pee-knuckle. All while being looked upon by the hoards as aliens!

At 11.15am we decided to make our way to platform number four to board the bus. All fool us. On the platform we were met by another sea of people, a few conductors shouting orders that again we could not understand and a thick mix of exhaust fumes from about 80 buses spread over the 40 platforms. After 11.45am and five or so buses had come and gone, we were beginning to get quite anxious. Thankfully for us, Malaysian people are lovely and those who could speak a little English let us know they were in the same boat. When eventually the guy next to us started to move so did we, and move we did. Getting on that bus was the biggest sense of relief we both just laughed and didn’t have a care in the world. We finally left the station at 12.30pm.

The trip up was beautiful - Malaysia is lots like NZ with tonnes of beautiful forest, just minus the kauris and plus palm trees. The road itself surpassed NZ’s pitiful SH1, with two to three lanes the whole way and plenty of fancy rest areas. The four toll booths we passed through meant the trip was slowed considerably - the bottleneck at one meant that we were in crawling traffic for at least 30 minutes. Finally at about 6pm we arrived in Penang and dropped at a derelict bus station. With no idea where we wanted to go and no information centre around, our only option were the beckoning taxi drivers. Thankfully these guys helped us out and we ended up outside two hotels in Georgetown. We decided on the whitehouse, again adding another perspective to its name. But at only 45 ringitt for a double a night and really helpful staff we love it.

After dropping off our stuff we ventured out on to the streets and realised we had finally made it! Our little walk took us down Penang road - the night life spot in Penang with an odd collection of clubs and bars, past a soccer game at the local school, to the sea, and then through some of the quiet back streets where we saw a family of rats getting their dinner. We loved every second of it. We finally decided on somewhere for dinner and ate our first real meal (after living off two bags of chips and some imitation M&M’s all day - not trusting anything at the manky bus station). The meal, an assortment of curries, while a little hot, was good! By 9pm we were both a little tired and we decided to call it quits for another day.

That was our day, while the trip took all day we’re not complaining in fact we’ve decided that, that’s the adventure of travelling.

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