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Published: September 7th 2012
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It used to be a colonial mansion back when female dresses had to reach their ankles.
Since the start of our trip we have never really planned more than a couple of days at a time, so we decided to grab a flight to Bangkok with Dennis and Nicole from Ha Noi and spent a couple of days weighing up where to continue our adventure.
After saying goodbye to them after travelling on and off for around 5 weeks, our last trip was all squeezing into a tuk-tuk to take us to our hotels, we said goodbye and checked into our home for the next 4 days.
We spent our whole time going through different plans as to where to go, shopped for new clothes and caught the second state of origin match in between our research – which took us from India to the Philippines to going straight to the US, eventually we decided that we would like to see more of south east Asia and we finally decided on Malaysia/Singapore. We then booked a 24 hour train that would take us to Georgetown in North West Malaysia.
We have come to enjoy the night train, this being our 4
th trip using this form of transportation. Plenty of reading and looking
out the window, but it always goes quick and before we knew it we were waiting for the ferry to take us to the Island of Georgetown.
Our first 2 nights we had pre organised accommodation and after a 2km walk in the hottest part of the day we arrived, and realised it wasn’t the best area to experience the real Malaysia. We spent this time looking around our area, but it was mainly resorts and up market hotels, so after 2 nights we came across a guesthouse right in the middle of the action that looked like it used to be a colonial mansion back when female dresses had to reach their ankles.
Our first real sight was to head to Straits Quay on the local bus to check out a hip hop show as part of a month long festival held every year. The show is put on by local teenagers from all over Malaysia who had spent the last 10 days participating in workshops with 3 American dancers 12 hours a day; the show was amazing with so much talent.
Over the past week we had been trying get rid of a pile of
books we had with us in exchange for a lonely planet on Malaysia/Singapore but again today we had no luck and I am starting to feel I will have the books with me for good. With books back in our room we went to find a free tourist bus that shuttles around the area to see some sights and as it arrived it became obvious to us that all the locals take advantage of this service as well, couldn’t have fit a small child on at our stop – so instead we went and found an ice cream shop and caught our first rickshaw back to the guesthouse.
Today marks our 100
th day on the road, wow it has gone so quick so far before we know it I’ll be lined up at the unemployment line. We set out to see Penang Hill, took 2 local buses with no real idea where we were going but we managed to get to the front gate eventually, from here it was onto a tram that shoots you up to the top for a view of the island and right over to Penang, where we caught the ferry from.
This supposedly
amazing view was unfortunately blocked by smog and smoke, thick enough that we could barely see the base of the hill. We did spend a bit of time exploring the top before taking the return tram to the bottom then fluking the right bus stop to take us back into little India to check out Fort Cornwallis, certainly not the first fort we have seen, but each one has its own amazing history and this was no different.
Our final night in Georgetown was spent booking accommodation in Las Vegas for Marks birthday, we could have spent another week in this little area eating at little street side stalls having chicken straight from the Tandoor and strolling through little India, alas our next spot was calling us so it was an early night ready for our morning bus to.......
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