Malaysia: Penang Island and back to KL

Kuala Lumpur (KL) was fantastic. The first 3 nights I stayed with Alvin, a Malaysian friend who I met in Ireland in 2000. And everyday he introduced me to more of his friends. We enjoyed great conversation over excellent food, including a very tender sting ray and delicate Japanese tofu.


After a few days, I met up with Maya, a Malaysian friend from high school. She let me tag along to her night job as a DJ for Traxx FM, the only government-owned English language radio station. She played some great music for the Thursday night Alternative show and I even got some air time reminiscing about being in a high school musical with Paul Banks, the lead singer of Interpol. For the record, he was one of the leads in South Pacific and I was but a lowly nurse. Maya and I also did a shoutout to Rosanna (another friend from high school) who was listening online in the States.


After hanging out in Kuala Lumpur for a few days with Maya and Alvin and friends, I decided I needed to see something other than KL. I took a bus to Penang Island. The nice lady sitting next to me on the bus helped me get the right bus that took me into Georgetown. I ended up in the dormitory at the Crystal Guesthouse (dm RM15) on Jabah Chulia because it was clean and had lots of light.


Some DJs from Traxx FM were doing a show at the club Slippery Senoritas in Penang, so Maya encouraged me to stop by. After another Indian food fix, I headed to the club with Dan, the only other person in the dorm at Crystal. It was definitely a chic scene complete with bottle juggling bartenders and we had fun with it. The band had 4 lead singers and a guitarist who I'm pretty sure was faking it. They covered popular dance-friendly music (Beyonce, PCD and Gwen Stefani). We had a good time hanging out with the Traxx FM crowd and later in the night listening to DJs Nikki and Double D spin and rap.


It turned out that Dan had just come from all the places I was going. We spent the next day wandering around Georgetown, talking about Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam over night market food and then discussing management strategy and public education over Jaz beers at Banana Guesthouse.


Monday (April 7) morning I took the bus back to KL and ate some more Indian food and then left for Vientiane, Laos early the next morning.

Note: Sorry for the lack of photos. I'm having technical difficulties. :(

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