Hoppity Hoppity goes the Harry and Steph Bobbity

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Leaving Kuala Lumpur our plan was to, slowly, island hop our way into Thailand thus having a great deal of fun going to various different islands, and avoid the issues of being blown up in the conflicts around the South of Thailand,

Our first stop was Georgetown, on the island of Penang. Whilst there were a few ways to get there the easiest way is simply by coach from Kuala Lumpur and out across the bridge that connects the mainland to the island.

The coach trip was rather comfortable, though not as nice as the trip to Melacca but the time passed quickly and we were soon on Penang. Alas, despite what we were promised we were not in Georgetown, but slightly south of the bridge. We therefore had the joyous wait for a bus to take us to Georgetown however, fortunately Penang is blessed with a good public transport system – according to our guide book. In my post London world, waiting about an hour for one bus does not equate to a great bus service.

However, the bus eventually arrived and we were on our way over to Georgetown. On the way we got talking to one of the locals who had been working in the UK for sometime before returning to Malaysia. For some unknown reason he came to the UK from Malaysia and decided to stay in Northampton. He was not impressed.

However, we were impressed when we arrived at our hostel in Georgetown. We were staying at the Hutton Lodge, a lovely looking colonial style house. Clean and spacious rooms and breakfast to boot made the place one of the best we had stayed in. Alas, it had one downfall. It was noisy as it was close to the road, which is actually a main road due to the one way system, and the shutters did not keep out much of the noise.

The next day we headed out to have a look around Georgetown. It was a lovely place with an interesting mixture of architecture from the Chinese mansions to the British built colonial buildings. We had a look in one of the restored mansions and ended up being given a free guided tour of the building and the items on display. It was very interesting as they explained a fair bit about not only the family who had lived their but also about Chinese building traditions and principals.

We also picked up a walking tour guide from the heritage trust which had in it a few walks around the city, and also some of the eateries that needed to be tried. Needless to say we headed over to an Indian hawker in order to try some of the great range of food on display, all of which were lovely.

Indeed the only unfortunate incident of the day was when some crazy guy kicked Stephanie as she walked down the street. I'm not entirely certain what happened, as I didn't quite see it and, at first, I thought that she had slipped on the ramp as it was wet. Instead it appears that the homeless guy sitting nearby kicked her in the leg and then stayed there and did nothing. Steph had a few grazes on her leg and it was out of keeping with the rest of Malaysia where everyone has been very friendly and welcoming.

The next day we started to do the walking tours looking at some of the myriad of different temples and mosques in Georgetown. We also had a good look at the outside of some of the churches and cathedrals in Georgetown, all of which appeared closed. We had a few more of the local snacks, including apom, a rice flour pancake with egg cooked on top of it, and teh tahrik, a blended tea with condensed milk which was a lovely mid morning snack on the walk.

In the afternoon we headed over to another of the Chinese mansions, previously owned by the Rockerfeller of the East. It was a very interesting building though I think the tour we had of the mansion the day before was a lot more informative about the traditions of the Chinese people at the time and about the articles you were seeing. The tour guide for the previous mansion was also sane, and I'm not sure the same can be said about the person who guided us around this house.

In the evening we just packed up ready for the next island on our trip, Langkawi. Langkawi is the last island in Malaysia before we reach Thailand and we only planned a one night stop off before heading on to Koh Lipe.

However, when we arrived the weather was so lovely that we decided to stay in Langkawi for another day and then extend Koh Phi Phi and not go to Ko Lipe. The hostel we stayed in was pretty basic but it was relatively clean and did have the benefit of being very close to the beach.

We spent the rest of our day relaxing on the beach. It was much needed as we had been running around quite a bit trying to fit everything in and it was beginning to get quite tiring so it was nice just to stop and have a bit of downtime.

Alas, not everything goes according to plan and, the next day, we woke up to find that it was raining constantly throughout the day. This meant that we made it on to the beach for a little bit, but did not manage to make it for the parasailing that we wanted to do.

We also spent most of our relaxing day trying to plan the rest of our trip. This ultimately meant that we decided that we should probably cut out Laos. Whilst we both wanted to go, we don't quite have enough time for it and we were going to be spending most of our time in the country traveling from one place to the next as opposed to exploring the areas that we would be staying in. We also heard very bad reviews of Vientienne which made it sound like it might not be worth the effort. This did however, give us the time to extend our stay in Thailand and in Cambodia and have a better look around there before heading in to Vietnam. With our minds made up we went and booked the transport that would take us away from Langkawi and on to Ko Phi Phi.

The last action of the day should have been packing the bags, however, Steph decided that she wanted a massage so, leaving her in the capable hands of the masseuse, I packed our bags to go.

It should all have been nice and straight forward, but some things just aren't meant to be. Steph had a lengthy wait for the masseuse to turn up and eventually gave up waiting and went for the male masseuse who was already at the parlour. This ultimately meant that she had to cut short the massage which brought its own unique problems...haggling. Clearly now that she was not having the full massage she would not pay full price and Steph eventually agreed a reduced rate. Unfortunately this then undid all the relaxation of the massage itself as she analyised her haggling again and again and decided that she did not get enough money off the deal. Some people are just never satisfied!

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