Malaysia

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So, Malaysia...actually, just want to sum up Thailand. We didn't have loads of time to explore the country and only saw a handful of places but I really enjoyed our few weeks there. It was weird, and at times we were bumbling around like the foreign idiots that we are, (in fact, that was most of the time) but the whole experience of being somewhere that's nothing like what we're used to was something that I would definitely recommend and will hopefully do again. It's good to get out in the world and make a fool of yourself and get things wrong and in Thailand, they seem to laugh along with you. Some of them just seem to laugh all the time for no apparent reason whatsoever! Loons!

Ok, Malaysia then. Our 1st stop was Penang, which is an island that's connected to the mainland by a massive bridge. 8km or something. Our minibus driver said that he used the ferry to get across because the bridge takes you 15km outside of the town centre. Seems slightly strange to go to all that trouble and expense to build such a huge bridge and then have it so it brings you out in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes over here you just need to stop trying to understand stuff...cos it will melt your head!

Got to our hostel, Hutton Lodge, and it was a well fancy looking building on a street of, well, not very fancy looking buildings. Pleasant surprise. 1st stop was to find a supermarket and to get some proper food into me to try and get me on the road to recovery. The "proper food" turned out to be peanut butter sandwiches and grapes. Not exactly what I had in mind, but it served a purpose. After the ordeal getting there, I was well set up for a long, uninterrupted sleep.

Well, I should have bloody known...the room was baking hot, there was another noisy road outside and the sheets were made of some weird cheap fabric that squeaked when you moved.

Took a trip up Penang Hill. It has the countries only funicular railway which was built in Switzerland or something. See, I'm not just swanning around enjoying sun and beaches and food poisoning, I'm learning stuff and educating you too! Had some time to kill before our train left so we wandered around the local streets sweating profusely. The train, even though it was something cool to do, was so painfully slow and the view from it was obstructed by trees and rocks, so not the most exciting journeys. The view from the top though was worth it. Panoramic views of Penang and the mainland. A bit spesh really. We will no doubt see many buena vistas such as this. What goes up must come down, so we walked down the other side of the hill which lead to the Botanic Gardens. This was a 5km downhill walk, which wasn't too bad as it was all on a road, but still...5km at any gradient is a fair way to walk...and in tropical heat too. It was here that we saw some of the biggest spiders. All just sat there in the massive webs, looking all massive and right above our heads too. Half way down we came across a group of rogue monkeys who, despite being small, were a bit brave and a bit viscious. A few of them made grabs for our bags and then they chased us off down the hill. Little bastards. As we were about 2km from the bottom we started to walk past a steady stream of people walking/jogging up the hill. Seems it's a popular thing to do round here, run up a very steep hill in 35 degree temperatures. They're all loony over here I tell you!

After 5km through the jungle we came out at the bottom of the hill and right next to the botanic gardens which we walked around too. Everyone here was running too! By this point, I could barely walk, so we trudged around the park, enjoying the beautiful greenery (and hundreds of monkeys!). Left the park in search of a bus home...this search took us all the way home cos the buses had stopped running. I think we walked 10km from the top of the hill back to our hostel. My feet were a mess, I was a mess, my stomach (still not fully recovered from the poisoning) had fallen out with me...but it was still good fun!

The next day we went to the Penang National Park which is the smallest national park in the world. It didn't bloody feel like that when I was walking round it let me tell you! After the bashing my feet took the previous day, I could only wear my flip flops, which aren't the best hiking footwear believe it or not. I managed though. The trek through the park (2.9km) wasn't too bad, it was just the jungle heat that was a bit tricky to cope with. Got to Monkey Beach which, surprise surprise, had monkeys on it. Thankfully these ones didn't bother us. Did a spot of sunbathing and reading on the beach while Gary went off in search of a lighthouse that was about 100 miles away up a very steep hill. Turns out it was closed!

Our bus trip from Penang to Kuala Lumpur was a rather luxurious one in comparison to anything we've had so far. A/C, reclining seats, TV, drinks, snacks. Took about 5 hours to get to KL. Once there, we wandered around looking for our hostel on the wrong street. Apparently here they think it a good idea to have 2 streets whose names are the same except for 1 letter. In most of Thailand and Malaysia so far we've seen 2 or 3 different spellings of places and street names so this didn't help matters! Only staying a night here so when we finally found our hostel, it didn't matter much that it was in a bit of a rubbish area and was quite basic. The receptionist was again a bit fruity...must be part of the job description over here. Soon as we got in the heavens opened and we were stuck in our hostel. Didn't do much here, KL seems a bit boring with not much to do other than wander around a big dirty city. The bus from KL to Singapore was a right nightmare. It's pretty much a free for all trying to get on your bus, even if you have a ticket. Seemingly random people off the street ask for your ticket, take one look and then try and usher you out of the station into a bus on the street. Didn't seem right to us so we asked a few times and it turns out that we had to "wait for a small boy to come to you and he will show you to your bus"! Our bus left, an hour and a half late and was a special bus in the fact that it didn't have any suspension. The 5 hours rolled by with us rattling around in the back of the bus trying to take in as much of the Malaysian scenery as we could before nightfall.

Our 1 night stay in Singapore was brief. I think we were only in the hostel for about 10 hours before heading to the airport. From what we saw though, Singapore looks like a really cool city to explore.

So that's it...South East Asia, tick!

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