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Published: March 8th 2007
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We arrived in Penang just after 5pm & headed for a hostel that we had seen in my book, it was only a short walk away but it was extremely hot, especially as Claire & I had managed to spread our belongings to three bags instead of the usual two. It was really busy around our street & we soon realised there was a festival on, when we checked in the man advised us it was a Chinese Festival just for the day.
We dumped our stuff & headed straight out to explore what was going on. There was a stall in the middle of the street with four big tanks of water in & people were throwing oranges in to it. Rich started talking to a Chinese man, (Rich would talk to a lamp if it talked back to him), the man told us that it is a Chinese tradition for young men & women to throw oranges in the sea & that it will bring them a husband or a wife. Rich asked the man if he should have a go & the man said what would he want to do that for, he would end up with
Men pole dancing
(well not quite) a Mother-in-law which we all found very funny coming from someone who wasn't English.
A couple came & asked us for some money as a donation to a medical unit & Rich gave them some money; they gave the three of us an orange each to throw into the water, which we did; another man told us to make a wish, which we again all found rather funny.
We had some Chinese food from some of the street stalls, we all had some Wontons, Claire had some corn on the cob, Rich had a soup & I had some noodles. We sat at one of the tables in the street & got talking to a Chinese couple who advised us the celebration was the last day of the Chinese New Year & that there would be a celebration at 7pm.
We had a walk around the Chinese Temple on the street & watched the people, worshipping & laying incense sticks. At 7pm we went back into the street to see the celebrations which included people balancing big poles on their heads & passing it along a line, traditional Chinese Dragons & lots of old people dancing.
We walked from Little India to Chinatown where we found what the locals called a market but was actually like a car boat sale without the car boats. Items on sale included out of date passports, human hair & other weird things! We walked through a large part of Georgetown & managed to find an Indian Restaurant for Claire to get a glass of wine to celebrate her 1st anniversary of Mike & her being together. Rich & Claire had a curry, then we walked Claire home so she could call Mike in peace. Rich & I watched several acts sing & dance on stage which was very funny considering the only words we understood were 'Thank You' in Chinese at the end of each song.
The crowd all just sat there, nobody cheered or danced or looked like they were enjoying themselves, Rich & I looked like we were having more fun & I think we were the only western people there. It finished about 11pm when we went home & the three of us played cards; we went to bed about 1am but as the room was so hot non of us could sleep so we got
up again & played more cards till about 2am.
None of us slept very well because of the heat so we had a lie in on Monday morning, we got up, showered & headed in the direction of Singapore Airlines for Rich to change his flights. We stopped for lunch at an English looking pub & then Rich went to find the Singapore Airlines office while Claire & I went on the internet & priced up buses to the Cameron Highlands. Claire & I had a beer & then went back to the room at 7pm to meet Rich.
He had no joy in changing his flight & so had to go back the following morning. We went for dinner at a place that Claire & I had our beer in, Rich spotted a rat run across the floor so I spent the rest of the night with my legs on the chair for fear of being bitten & contracting Rabies.
After dinner we went home & had a few beers whilst playing cards & listening to music. I was determined to get up early on Tuesday & not just waste the day as we had pretty
much done on Monday. We left the room at 10.45am & Claire & I went to collect our laundry & went for breakfast while Rich went back to the Airline Office. He came to meet us but still had no joy changing his flights so Claire & I booked our tickets to go to the Cameron Highlands on Wednesday morning, took our laundry back to the room & headed out, (without Rich). We walked to the point on the map where the man on reception had told us the bus station was & had to ask a lady for directions as the bus station was not there. We found the bus station & several people offered us information on the bus number we needed & when the next bus was. We waited about 30 minutes & got a bus to the Snake Temple.
The Snake Temple was not what we had expected; I had pictured walking across pits of vipers to get to a beautiful temple. We got there & there was a temple, (nothing special), with a couple of pythons & vipers asleep in a glass cage in the entrance hall of the temple. The man said they
had there fangs & poison removed & asked if we wanted to pay one million dollars to have our photo taken with them, Claire & I both declined. We went through the temple & there was a side door marked snake farm. We went in & there were lots of snakes in glass cages, there were two 23 feet long Pythons which the man came & opened the cage to & said we could go in & take photos. Claire being braver than me went in & took a couple of photos, I stood well outside the cage taking photos through the wire, it was enough for me to hold the python in Vietnam, never mind getting in a cage with two that ate live & dead chickens.
We also saw a King Cobra which was in a wire cage, the man was making him angry, (I am guessing the snake was a male) & he was dancing around like in Indiana Jones, I didn't like that either, much to the amusement of the men that worked in the snake farm. We got the bus back to Georgetown & went for a walk around a Mall before going back home to pack for the following morning. There was no sign of Rich so we left him a note & went out, he met us at 8pm & had managed to change his flight. He later booked a bus ticket & was able to come to the Cameron Highlands with us. We had dinner in a lovely little cafe, (I had some nice pasta), then we went to Level One Fun Pub. We weren't really feeling any fun there so went to 7/11 brought some beers & went back to our room to do what, that's right play cards. Rich had invested in Uno so we now had three different games we could play!
We got up the following morning & checked out. We got the ferry at about 8.15am from Penang to Butterworth & had to wait until 10.30am for our bus to the Cameron Highlands. We sat in a nasty cafe & had a cup of tea while waiting for the bus.
I haven't really enjoyed Penang as much as the other places we have visited recently, I wouldn't plan on going back & I wouldn't really recommend it. I was happy to leave the city & head for the beautiful countryside of the Cameron Highlands.
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Andy
non-member comment
Hiya - i'm intrigued, what did u wish for? X