Ambling back down the west coast!

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Hello everyone,

Last weekend I took the ferry to the island of Langkawi at the North-west tip of Malaysia. I didn't actually see much of the island as it is difficult to get around without hiring a car, so I spent most of the time idling in the luxury of my small resort http://www.bontonresort.com.my). All the "rooms" were actually individual traditional wooden Malay kampung houses, so my room was in fact bigger than my flat in London! It was the best place I have ever stayed - beatiful furnishings, beautiful grounds, beautiful food in the restaurant (expensive compared to street food, but cheap compared to the UK!). It was very peaceful, although I burnt my legs while sunbathing at the pool and consequently had trouble sleeping for two days! They also had an animal rescue centre on site so I had an almost-permanent-resident cat in my villa who was my buddy for a couple of days.

I then headed back down to Penang for another couple of nights at the start of this week. I think I was rather unfair on Penang last week when I said it wasn't very attractive - what city doesn't have hectic traffic and lots of garish shop and hotel signage?! Also I was just a bit pissed off when I had arrived the first time, as (1) I had again found another Express bus station had moved out of town so I had an expensive taxi, (2) HSBC told me they had blocked my credit card and I would have to ring every time I want to use it e.g. to guarantee hotel bookings etc, and (3) it was raining!

I stayed at a fabulous indigo-blue Chinese mansion built by an early Chinese entrepreneur (http://www.cheongfatttzemansion.com). It's actually still like a museum but with B&B rooms (you're not even allowed to take photos inside), and the tour was really interesting. I then went out to Penang Hill on the outskirts for a bit of greenery and a view over the city.

I headed back to KL on Wednesday afternoon - rather than wait around for the overnight train, and ended up staying at a little place on Jalan Alor, which has fabulous food stalls in the evening. Yesterday (Thursday) I had a fully-fledged tourist-y day, heading to Merdaka Square where independence was declared 50 years ago (unfortunately there was a constant deluge of tourist coaches pulling up for photo ops so I found it hard to get decent photos without hundreds of tourists in the way!). I then went to the Islamic Arts Museum, which has some fabulous domed ceilings in the building itself as well as all the displays. Then on to the bird park - thousands of birds roaming around including magnificent indian peacocks, toucans, hornbills, brahminy kites and other eagles, ostriches, emus, flamingoes...

So yesterday was my official arrival date for my project, and this morning we were met and taken off to a bit of an orientation. There were three other people starting projects today, all aged between about 18-22 and working on a couple of orphanage projects near KL so I'm not actually sure if I will see them again after today! I then got dropped off at my project at the YWCA (I will be living in a room there too), but my project co-ordinator at the site is away for a few days, so someone else will meet with me tomorrow morning to tell me what to do. So right now I have no idea what I will be doing, and it is a little bit scary! Anyway I am looking forward to at least having a base now for the remaining 8 weeks, and not having to lug my main backpack around anymore... this will be my 22nd new bed to sleep in since I left the UK!!

Hope everything is ok back in the UK (I am just starting to miss it!). Thanks everyone for your messages x

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