Blogs from George Town, Penang, Malaysia, Asia - page 47

Our trip to Georgetown (which is on the North East corner of Penang Island at the top of the Malay pennisula) was something of an event in itself. The actual coach journey there was painless, but we arrived in a bus station on Penang that was as close to Georgetown as those dodgy EasyJet airports are to the cities that they claim to serve. Being now fully accredited backpackers, we decided that we should really find a local bus into Georgetown rather than pay some (locally) extortionate fee to a taxi driver who believes his meter is really just an attractive in-car sculpture. After asking some western looking bloke who told us he'd arrived on a bus from a road somewhere vaguely over there. This was almost entirely helpful. However, this approach to directions in ... read more

We left Suka Suka at 12:45 and arrived back in Kula Kangsar where we had 3 hours until our 4:15 bus to Butterworth. We spent the time looking around the market and then sitting in a restaurant which was air conditioned as the heat is getting unbearable. We arrived in Butterworth at about 5:15 then caught the ferry to Georgetown and then checked in our hotel Hong Ping, We then went for dinner into little India, As I have been feeling unwell for the last 2 days I took the option of a pizza. following this I returned to the hotel and the rest went out drinking. After I got back to the hotel there was a large firework display not sure what it was for.... read more

Day 285, 12th March Georgetown It felt great to spend the night actually sleeping and not having to think about wild animals and gunmen attacking me in my tent. So, I got a lie in…. Today was the inevitable ‘Lazy Day’ doing virtually nothing apart from wandering around town, buying food, getting stamps, eating food, writing letters, eating more food…and so on. All that weight I’d lost cycling over the last weeks, I piled back on in a few short hours! There were a lot of interesting travelers back at the hostel, most of which had interesting stories about Indonesia which made me want to go in a way. Lake Toba in Sumatra sounds a great place to chill-out for a while. Maybe from Singapore I could carry on through the Indonesian islands by bike and ... read more

We made it to Penang just after 5pm on Sunday and we only needed to walk about a quarter of a mile from the pier to our accommodation. The road was closed and there was lots of food stalls and marques there, when we enquired what was being celebrated and we were told it was the last day of Chinese New Year, I hadn’t realised they celebrate for fifteen days. Wouldn’t it be great if we did that, think of all the time of work! Once checked in we went straight back there to see what was happening. In one marquee there was some large buckets of water and people were throwing oranges into them. A lovely Chinese man informed us that in China when they want a husband or wife they throw an orange into ... read more

Decided to check out one of the main shopping plazas in Penang. It's about 7 storeys high with the usual mixture of shops. I bought a few more books and that was about it.... read more