My Time in Penang Pt.2/2

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Intermission Day

Day 9

Today was the interval when we did nothing, or at least very close to nothing. Waking up was annoying. The usual was undertaken first, breakfast. Pancakes, French toast, orange juice, as usual. As I am writing this I am thinking of the intermission in 2001: A Space Odyessy (A 5 minute intermission on a DVD, WTF?) .

As I said this was the intermission day, the day of hardly anything, the wait, whatever you want to call it. A rainy day it was, perfect circumstances for an imtermisson day. Most of the day up until about 2 or 3 pm I was writing this blog, part 1. I watched a movie on Star Movies (TV channel). If I were to be stuck in a deserted hotel room with nothing but a TV, and an invisible door (so I couldn't get out) I would probably die. But before that I would most likely watch Star Movies. It has a huge collection of movies that are broadcast each day and it is perfect to just lie in bed to at 10pm at night and watch a movie. It's also good to watch BBC World News once in a while if those weird TV shows with stuffed up plots get annoying.

Back to the main topic. So eventually we went outside and it was wet, slippery and dirty. The sea was a disgusting industrial grey and you couldn't tell where the water met the mud because they were the same colour. The mini waves (it wasn't a beach) were different shades of grey with some black there too as opposed to those white bubbles that you usually see. Since Penang is in the tropics there are only two types of weather, hot and dry and hot and wet. We were in the hot and wet season I'm guessing. After looking at the waves I started looking at the rocks and I saw a Water Monitor (now we all know what a water monitor is ). It was sitting in the grass and ran into a sewerage pipe once it saw us.

We walked some more and eventually went into Gurney Plaza and had post-lunch at Nando's. The last time we explored the plaza we ended up taking the escalator up into the carpark (we were trying to get to the cinema). We did get to the cinema on this attempt and decided to go and see Toy-Story 3 (In 3D). It was a really good movie with a great plot and a brilliant comedy (I'm 13). I would recommend it to everyone.

After this I had a look in the book store and bought 'Hacking for Dummies'. From here we went to the Coffee House/Place (IDR) and had some late snacks. If you have been following my travels you would already know the ending to this day. Yes we went back to the hotel and went to bed.

Recall

Day 10

Today we actually did something. We had Breakfast of course but today we decided to rent another motorbike. We went to Batu Feringhi and strolled along the beach as our first activity. After doing this for no apparent reason I became bored and we walked back. Then we went to the national park again. Thankfully that Security woman wasn't there like last time. (man she was annoying).

The decision was made to go to Monkey Beach. It was, according to the sign, a 3.5km walk or one and a half hours, one way. My Dad bought some snacks beforehand since there were no places to eat when we got there.

So we set off walking. After about 15 minutes we surpassed the previous record we had set walking along this trail (we didn't really set a record it was just the place we stopped the previous time). I know, we didn't get far. Nothing much happened until...deathly silence.....we met....the monkeys (duhn duhn duhhhhh). They were evil and angry and vicious and we were chased by one the size of a guinea pig. So we abandoned the walk and turned back. Then we decided to give it another try, this time with big sticks, but they weren't there.

After walking for ages we finally got there. And there were no monkeys! At monkey beach, ???? I had some food then my Dad told me that there were swings and stuff further u the beach, so I went ahead. I fell in quicksand, or what felt like quicksand and short-circuited my iPod Touch. After this, my Dad tried to jump over but he fell in too and tripped and fell flat on his face (lolz!). Anyway, the 'other end' of monkey beach was way more interesting. It had swings, ropes to swing on and hammocks. There were also picnic tables and people there (yay human life). So we swam and played there for about 1 1/2hrs before going back to the park HQ by boat.

Following this we went on the motorbike back to the hotel. I barked at a dog on the way and it turned its head and barked back. There were also two extremely large cows just walking on the road causing a riot amongst the traffic. At some point after we had passed them, they even crossed the road through the traffic. This was at 5pm, peak hour.

So when we got back to the hotel my Dad returned the motorbike and we took a taxi into town to a Chinese night market. It was pretty cool. We were watching the Brazil vs. Argentina match and listening to the karaoke music in the background. My dad thought it was karaoke but it was actually a professional guy playing a keyboard. I had some MILO, some duck soup and some BBQ Stingray. For desert I had a Waffle with Chocolate Ice-cream on top. The food in the market is very high quality I thought. I had a lot of fun just going oHHHH and Ohhhhhh at the appropriate times during the match.

You know what happens next. Caught a taxi back to the hotel, went to bed etc.

Last Day-The monkey encounter

Day 11

Today was my last day in Penang and I was going to catch a last glimpse at the monkeys down at the Botanical Gardens, at the bottom of Penang Hill. We had breakfast and caught a taxi there. There was no need to buy monkey food since we still had a bag of nuts for the invisible monkeys at Monkey Beach (Sadly they did not eat them). Although the stocks had been depleted due to my hunger.

Anyway the monkeys, to start with, were not in their normal place, or where i had seen them before. So instead we went somewhere else in the Botanical Gardens and found some. I didn't see the sign that said "beware of aggressive monkeys". When I did find one, I gave it one nut and about 8 more came out of the trees. They chased me for nuts. I couldn't hand out enough at a time so I just dropped the bag and ran away. When I came back later I found that there were no nut shells there. There were also some people who had a bag of nuts and only 4 monkeys came to them. When they ran out though there was a small monkey and it was sulking!!. It was so cute and funny.

When we got back to the entrance the monkeys were back along with loads of other people with nuts. My Dad bought me another bag. I described the circumstances as heaven for monkeys. Everyone was throwing them nuts from all directions. An average of one nut every 2.5 seconds was being thrown and 50%!w(MISSING)eren't even being eaten. Because of this I threw a few then just collected all the non-eaten ones on the ground. I then repeated this as the first time I had wasted all my nuts. After this we went back to the hotel and had a swim.

It was only on the way to the pool that we discovered the sauna and jacuzzi. Ignorance (not knowing) is not bliss in this situation because it is just plain annoying. We got like 20mins in the Jacuzzi out of 6 whole days!! I was very annoyed. After this we left to go to the airport with plenty of time to spare, unlike last time.

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Photos

Monkey beach
A tough hike

Comments

[Irmeli Goller]

Penang
I just love the way you write Liam. "the sea was disgusting industrial grey..." What poetry!!! You do have a gift. Don't ever stop writing. The older you will be the more you will have to write about. Your dad writes well too, so it sure runs in the family. I wish you would write about your experieces my country one day...

[Mum]

OMG
The OMG trees are saying that cos they can't believe how many times your dad can lose something!! PS where is the Jacuzzi in the Evergreen. Did it have an age restriction?? Love Mum