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Published: October 14th 2006
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Well, just thinking about leaving Malaysia to head to Thailand!
Spent the last few nights in Penang...which has been interesting to say the least.....we arrived to be dropped off half way down the island in the middle of nowhere, to be informed that they had built a new bus station and to catch the bus over there.........which we managed fairly successfully! Got off at (yep you guessed it) a shopping centre - although not quite so well AC'd as we would have liked.....then hotfooted it through town to China town to find oursleves a hostel and got ourselves a base!
Next challenge was naturally dinner..........meandering around the streets looking pretty lost, an Australian couple took pity on us and asked if we needed help.....and recommended a Chinese place just up the road (failing to mention that it was a fish restaurant though!) We tootled off there and sat ourselves down. We found ourslves surrounded by Hawker Stalls and not really too sure what we were supposed to do! Fortunately some chap materialised with a menu and we guessed our way through the available options..... However, whilst waiting for our food a little something caught my eye......a RAT!!!!! Literally about
3 feet from our table - you can imagine how impressed I was, feet now wedged fairly well up and under the table, our food arrived and we hadn't actually done too badly! However whilst eating a WHOLE rat family apppeared! Lovely! I suppose that's just how it is over here - no one else was too perturbed by them, so I just went with the flow!
Morning broke with beautiful blue skies and we opted for a trip up Penang Hill. (ALthough this was after deciding to go up Komtar Tower, only to arrive to find that it was to cost us! Not quite the free Petronas towers - (it would seem we don't have too much luck with these things!) We caught a not so AC'd Bus (well not at all ) to the bottom of the hill, where a rather scary bus chap shouted at us that this was our stop and all but threw us off!!! Where we found oursleves nowhere near the hill - not quite what we were expecting...however some lovely Malaysian lady saw our rather bewildered expressions and told us to 'hop in' she was heading that way.....EXCELLENT!!! From there we caught
Me and a weird fruit!
Which we have since learnt is called a Jack Fruit - VERY interesting! a 30 minute Funicular to the top of the hill for some pretty spectacular views over the hill and a rather lovely temple! HOWEVER this wasn't the temple we were expecting.........the biggest temple in Malysia - Kek Lok Si temple is described as near Penang Hill....so that's where we thought we were! ooooopppssss!
Not quite! In fact the temple is about 2 valleys away, that's 3 mountains! Sooooo after some photos of the views and a meander around (as well as some scary monkey encounters) we headed back down, to find oursleves back in the Shopping Centre! Where we opted for an evening at the Cinema - at a whole 1GBP each we felt we could splurge slightly! BUT.....wait for it......about half way though The Devil Wears Prada, floor level movement caught my eye (sometimes peripheral vision is not so much of a blessing!), i looked around but missed 'it' - Imagination now in overdrive I decided there was a rat about! Feet up (but not saying to Jen - thinking she would think I was paranoid) I continued to watch, not thinking too much of it.....that was until she suddenly leapt into action.........I think I may have been
right! Needless to say we watched the rest of the film suspended between the seat rows!!!!
Our next day in Penang saw rain and bucket loads of it.........deciding that a walk down to the ferry port was in order in the morning sun, we had set out earlyish without any thought that a coat may be in order..........strolling along the waterfront the clouds began to roll in and driving rain appeared on the horizon.......unfortunately we were half way between buildings and the inevitable happened...soaked to the skin!!! Looking like a pair of numptees we took shelter on Beach Road (naturally we used the situation to our advantage and were able to appreciate the local architecture there!) and waited for the bus! To.........yep you may gave guessed! the shopping centre......where we bought some odds and ends and admired the cheapness! (for the girls out there.....i found really good (pretty) bras out here for 1.50GBP and jewellery that is 3 items for 1.50GBP!) Self control did win the day and we didn't spend too much money! Deciding to brave the outdoors again we found the rain had ceased and we were able to catch a bus to the beach night market
on the north west coast....where we found bargain after bargain...(though still didn't buy anything!).......OOOHHHHH and the COLLEST fish restaurant - check out the pics - you could choose which fish you had and watch it be fed, swin about and then......have its head chopped off (obviously that wasn't quite so good - but it did mean that no fish were killed unecessarily!) We were also able to get hold of some Peking Duck for the first time....mmmmmm-mmmmmmm and tried some amazingly good dim sum!
The final day was started early...aiming to actaully make it to the Kek Lok Si temple.....which we did....AND without ANY problems! Amazing!!!!!! Pretty amazing temple.......check out the photos! Sampled yer more local cuisine at some AMAZING hawker stalls which are just hives of activity and fascinating to watch!!!! One major disadvantage with that is that we generally have no idea what we are ordering - but hey, it makes things a bit more interesting!!!!
We also managed to book our ticket out of here - next stop Hat Yai, Thailand before heading on to Krabi for a spot of sunning oursleves - although last reports say that the forecast is set to be thuderstorms
- Whoooppeeee!!! Can hardly wait!
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Oh my goodness
Hey girlios. Certainly sounds rather eventful. Think I would have had a mild heart attack if I had seen the rats. Quite rightly so to be slightly concerned that they were wandering around. Sounds like you are having an eventful time though. Keep up the good work. :)