The islands

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part 1 - 10/5/2011
So, as Jan promised, a little bit more about what we did in Georgetown, Penang Island. It was actually my wish to visit Georgetown as I read so much about how amazing the remains of the colonial architecture are and that some buildings are under UNESCO’s protection, so I thought it would be amazing to see. We joined a German girl, Sandra, who stayed at the same dorms at Cameron Highlands, and went to the bus station to catch the early morning (8.00) bus to Georgetown. We were joined by another German, Mario, also our dorm-mate. 5 hours later we arrived to Georgetown, and to say it was hot is, well, it just doesn’t even begin to describe it. We separated in search of a hostel, as Jan and I found a cheap place, clean enough, but Sandra was not persuaded (later we heard that the dorms at our hostel were full of elderly men, waiting for their visas to return back to Thailand, hmmmm, ekhm, hmmm...well at least that is what was going on in my head? I am sure not all of them were in Thailand for enjoying the local “tourism” 😊. After settling in we decided to go out and about the town, but it was so hot, we progressed meter by meter. We did manage to see the main attraction, Fort Cornwallis, left there by the British. When I asked what part of Georgetown is the spot where all the colonial houses are, I got an answer that it’s all around me. So all the shanty houses we passed by are the “remains of the colonial architecture”? Darn it. Not what I expected. 😊 As we were getting tired we decided it was time to grab some dinner. We ended up that night eating at a huge food court – imagine: loads and loads of different food stalls to choose from (Indian, Chinese, Malay, Western...) surrounding a huge area of dining tables, packed with people, locals and tourists. There was also a stage there, set, as we experienced soon, for a one man band later on, entertaining the crowd with his musical talent, but it was funny. So much so, we visited the same place the next night – the first place we found that had the Arsenal vs. Stoke game on. They even had a big screen available to view the match. Jan was happy about that, with the final score...well not so much. But I am sure his love for Arsenal will go on and on and on?
We went back to the hostel, so Jan could watch the second match, Manchester United vs. Chelsea. As we sat there surrounded by the people staying at the same hostel, we suddenly started laughing as we realized that the people we were surrounded with were totally surreal. Old geezers, sitting at the hostel all day, drinking beer, not moving from the place at all; then there was this guy wearing a protective mask around his face, while using his laptop; another guy, in his late 50s I would say, who seemed like he literally lived at the hostel, almost conjoined with the building as we never saw him leave. There was this old American woman, who gave advice on anything you wanted, if you had 5 minutes to sit with her. According to her, as I am bilingual, I could get a job as a translator at the UN, if I just had any interest. She was drinking with a Malaysian guy who was saying how the Malaysian drivers are the worst, and that he drives better than anyone, even when he is drunk. “Like now,” he said and sat on his scooter to get some more drinks. After sitting with them for 10 minutes I joined Jan watching the football match. Oh, and an elderly couple, who I secretly suspect are waiting to go back to Thailand to continue eating the local children 😊 they were really spooky. So, thankfully, we left the next morning or night, 5.00, taking the mini bus together with Sandra, to take us to the Perhentian Islands. We loaded ourselves and the bags on a speed boat, which was awesome and fast – it took us less than half an hour to do a 25km distance - and finally arrived to the island.

part 2 - 13/5/2011
Coming closer to the island it looked like paradise, sandy beach, palm trees, jungle forest...and sun and incredible heat. We checked into our hostel – we got a small wooden chalet, standing a bit higher in the hill and the view from it was amazing. We got settled down and went to check the beach. Thankfully, as the island is really small and it was Monday there wasn’t too many people there, but we saw loads of girls on the beach, flipping themselves in the mid day sun, as if they were hamburgers , 5 min on one side, 5 minutes on the other, and so on. They really were tanned!!! Jan and I looked pale in comparison, which Sandra did not forget to mention when she ran into us on the beach.
We also met two Brits that Sandra traveled with before, Chris and Kay – a great group of people to hang out with. Monday was also the day when Jan finished his cleansing period (staying away from alcohol), as we sat down on the beach after dinner and had his first beer on our travel. Apparently it was close to disgusting?
It rained like crazy that night, which worked for us as next morning until late afternoon it was cloudy, still hot, but the sun hid itself a bit, allowing our pale buts to get some quasi tan, before our snorkeling trip that we planned for the next day. Also on that day, we decided to go with the island tradition and stayed on the beach to have some “monkey juice”. It was ladies night so Kay and I were drinking cocktails for free, and not minding it either, whereas Jan and Chris were making their own drinks, mixing it with the monkey juice. I guess you already got it that we all got quite drunk.
The next day, on Wednesday we decided to go snorkeling which was an amazing experience. We saw turtles, one of them decided to surface and Jan was really excited as he swam a meter away from it. Then we moved on to swim with the sharks (one of the posters on the island said they were “vegetarian”). They were small grey sharks (about a meter long), and it was so cool swimming with them. The next stop was the corals and the coral fish, then we stopped for lunch, where everyone, well the 4 of them (Jan and 3 more Brits – Robin and Becky from London and Daniel from Leeds) all had something local, whereas I wasn’t really hungry so ended up eating cornflakes...and it was yummy, so stop laughing. We then went on to our last 2 destinations, coral bay and an amazing secluded beach in the middle of nothing. We were lucky as there were quite a few boats full of tourists and our driver managed to get us first on all locations, so we had the beach to ourselves for quite a long time, before the boat, full of crazy Welsh girls stopped there as well. We all decided it was about time to leave. We got back to the island and we both felt so tired. But we managed to drag our sad arses down to the beach to meet up with the snorkeling group together with Chris and Kay.
Yesterday was another day for rest, and we were trying to decide whether to leave today or tomorrow and Jan managed to persuade me today was not a really good day to leave 😊 we walked across the island, all of 5 minutes, to get to the other beach, Coral bay, which was even smaller, but wasn’t as sandy as our beach, so we left really soon returning to our chalet, where (Jan insisted I mention this) Jan totally wiped the floor with me in playing cards. All I say is, watch this space.
Oh, we also ran into 2 Slovenian girls here, Petra and Nina, and it was great chatting with them this morning while on the beach, as we could speak Slovenian to other people, refreshing. We spend the day doing pretty much nothing, unless you call lying on the beach and cooling yourself in the sea every 5 minutes work. If so, it was a hard day?
We are going for another monkey juice night tonight. Apparently if guys dress as girls they can also get cocktails for free, so Jan and Chris are playing with the idea of dressing up. You will find out what happened in our next blog.

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Photos

Photo 2
George town

Photo 3
Had to take this pic, reminded me of my beloved Arsenal

Photo 4
Polona posing

Photo 5
On the speed boat. Damn the thing was fast

Photo 6
View from our house

Photo 7
Monitor lizard, a very small one. Saw one, about 2 meters long later. Didn't have my camera with me

Photo 9
Getting back on our boat after lunch

Photo 10
Snorkeling

Photo 11
Lovely...

Photo 12
Our own private beach