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Published: March 14th 2014
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Sunday morning, we woke, had breakfast, then took the KL monorail to the bustling Petaling Street, which is part of Chinatown. Malaysia is a melting pot, where the three main cultures, the Malays, Chinese and Indians, all live together. It is therefore quite diverse in it's culture, architecture and cuisine. Chinatown, particularly Petaling street, is a fantastic place to go to grab some bargains and sample some great Chinese food. Ian was looking for some shorts, no luck this time however.
Right around the corner was the amazing Sri Mahamariamman Temple, the richest and oldest Hindu temple in Malaysia. At it's entrance, it has an impressive 5-tiered tower, or
Gopuram, which is surrounded by over 200 statues of various different Hindu gods. We had to take our shoes off to enter. The ceiling of the main prayer hall was ornately decorated, with a shrine to Sri Mahamriamman at the front. As we walked around, we noticed yet more statues and shrines to various gods, with lots of little oil burning lamps dotted around. It was an incredibly quiet, relaxed and and peaceful place.
We exited, got our shoes back, and headed to the Taoist temple. In contrast, it was
quite busy. People were buying bits of paper, then taking them to the shrine to be burnt as offerings. There were also many jossticks being lit. The Taoist temple was very ornate and bustling, Sri Mahamariamman, in contrast, had been much quieter.
After visiting the temples, we went over to the Old China cafe for lunch, where we ate the most delicious beef rending, prawns, and rice.
We then hopped on the monorail and went back to Bukit Bintang, where Ian took me to Low Yat Plaza, a huge IT mall. 5 floors of computers, phones, laptops, tablets, digital cameras and IT equipment - a techie's paradise! We got a case for my laptop. Ian was looking for a new ergonomic mouse, but no luck.
We returned to the hotel for a rest, then one final visit to Bukit Bintang, where we had dinner at an Italian restaurant called Ciccio's. We had planned to eat elsewhere originally, at one of the places recommended in our guide book, but for some reason the ones that we fancied the sound of were closed that night.
After a good night's sleep, we checked out of Aloft in the morning,
both sad to leave. We had a drink of their fabulous Aloft Potion No. 9, a delicious, cool, sweet non alcoholic drink (definitely a must have if you are at Aloft.
We then started on the next leg of our journey to Penang Island. We took the busy coach to the Low Cost Carrier Terminal (the LCCT), where the budget airlines operate from. There, they had a very strange bag checking in system. Before queueing at the check-in desk, you had to take both your hold and carry-on luggage through security. we boarded our plane to Penang, which, for such a short flight, was quite full. At the end of the flight, they played an Air Aisa song, that I got stuck in my head and was humming after we left the aircraft. Ian was humming Sun Street by Katrina and the Waves.
Penang island is just off the West coast of the Malaysian peninsula, and was occupied by the British in the late 1700s. Ian and I took a taxi from the airport to our hostel in Georgetown, Syok on Chulia Street. The British colonial influence is evident in Georgetown, with many lovely old buildings, and British
street names. Ian was keen to get to Batu Ferringhi, and to a tailors to get a suit made. Lovely Jubbly tailors was named after the phrase used in Only Fools and Horses -the owner was obviously a fan, as there were posters of the show everywhere! Ian was measured up for his suit, and I also decided to get some trousers made to measure.
We then hit the beach at Batu Ferringhi to watch the sunset. There were a few people around enjoying various watersports: paragliding, jetskiing, kayaking. Ian then took me to the Batu Ferringhi night market that was in full swing. There were many stalls, selling a wide variety of different items such as clothing, leather bags and purses, jewellery, souvenirs. i tried out my haggling skills and got a purse. Hungry, we stopped at the Long Beach Food Market, which was a bustling open air food court with many stalls selling a wide variety of Asian and Western food. Even before we'd left the UK, Ian had been talking about how amazing the seafood was here, in particular how large and fresh the prawns were. He wasn't kidding! We went to a stall that did
the Most incredible tiger prawns I've ever tried!
Tummies and tastebuds happy and satisfied, we returned to Georgetown, where we went to the Soho free house, an English style pub frequented by locals and westerners, and had a couple of beers and a game of pool, before going back to the hostel and to sleep.
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Maria
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Picture Needed
Where is a picture of Ian in his new suit?