Penang, Cameron Highlands...Malaysia

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It's been a wee while since I last wrote and I don't know where to start! Ko Phangan was so nice, had a ball there. I spent most of my time just chilling out on the beaches or by the pool at my hotel. It's a real party place so of course I just had to partake in one or two beach parties, well it would be rude not to! Met some really nice people there and was sad to leave but alas the traveling must continue. I left there one week ago and took an overnight train to Butterworth in the north of Malaysia. I thought it would be plain sailing as I had booked the sleeper train but of course nothing runs on time and it turned up at 2am! One I found my bunk I thought 'happy days' and was well ready for a good few hours kip. But of course we hit the border early and everyone decided it was getting up time at 5:30!! I was not a happy bunny! Eventually we got to the border stop, I knew my visa had overrun by one day ( actually 10 hours if we are going to be picky about it!) I was assured by several people that this would not be a problem as they would overlook one day. Not the case as it turned out, honestly you would have thought I was a drug runner they way they got on! They led me through the crowds to an office shouting 'come this way, you have over stayed your visa' .Everyone was staring at me and then they charged me 500B for the pleasure! So then after about 20 people checking my passport I got back on the train and arrived in butterworth a few hours later.I made my way by ferry to Penang and to the main city Georgetown. I took me a day or two to decide what I thought of Georgetown, where I was staying was the backpackers strip and was quiet dirty and run down. My hotel was fairly shabby but I soon realised that that was the standard. I did the typical tourist walking tour taking in Fort Cornwallis and Cheong Fatt Tze mansion,
http://www.penang-hotels.com/cheongfatttze/rates.htm
where you can stay overnight, well worth a visit. And also took the fennicular to the top of Peneng Hill where I had Devonshire cream tea. The view from the hill was lovely and a fair bit cooler than the town. It felt like sitting on the Cave Hill looking over Belfast on a sunny day. The cream tea wasn't all that though, the tea was like flask tea and the scones weren't really scones but it was nice all the same!
So this morning was an early start, 6 am pick up and a 4 hour drive to Cameron Highlands where a lot of tea plantations are. Plan to stay here 2 or 3 days and then head to Kuala Lumpar.
This is where my plans change quiet drastically. It turns out that it's going to take a lot longer than I expected until I can work in Australia so rather than going there and waiting for my tourist visa and/or my money to run out I have decided to come home for a bit, sort everything out from there, save up a few more pennies then when everything is ready go to Sydney. So that means I'll be home next weekend! Seems a bit strange as I hadn't expected to be home for a long time but it's not for long and it's not the end of my travels.
So unless anything really exciting happens between now and I arrive home this will be the last entry for now...but I hope there will be more again soon...

Lx

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