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Published: October 15th 2006
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The boat trip from Langkawi was about 2 and a half hours long. We'd been on the boat for less than 10 minutes when the wee man that organised all our bags and stuff told us that we could move outside now that the rain had stopped. What he actually meant was that it was blazing sunshine outside. So out we went. Perhaps naively, we had assumed that we would be indoors for the duration of the journey, and that it would be raining, so the old factor 25 had been safely stashed away in the big rucksacks, which were in turn stashed under about another 40 rucksacks below us.
We managed to find ourselves a nice wee spot at the back of the boat and soaked up the rays for the remainder of the journey. Now I got a wee bit burnt on my arms, nothing too serious though, it was brown by morning, Lee on the other hand managed to get herself burnt round her face. Now it wasn't seriously burnt, honestly folks, but Lee had kept her sunglasses on for the whole journey and when we got to our Hostel in Georgetown I had to break the
news to Lee that she'd managed to get the best "shades marks" I've ever seen. Photographic evidence has been provided below (Lee has of course provided consent for the use of this photo !!).
Georgetown is the main town on Penang, it was a complete culture shock to us from the chilled out, peaceful atmosphere of Langkawi. It's an amazing place to be honest, so much going on and it was all on our doorstep. We checked into the Golden Plaza Hostel (only a third of the name is accurate by the way), got ourselves a nice wee compact and bijou room for about 50 ringott ( 7 of your Scottish quids ) for a couple of nights and headed out into downtown Georgetow.
There's a magic atmosphere to Georgetown, you have the fairly small Little India that is almost totally surrounded by Chinatown which is in turn surrounded by the Malay areas of the town. They are all completely different and unique areas of the town, with their own rituals and ceremonies and festivals, but no-one minds each others, it's completely respectful. We had a walk through Little India on our first night and had an absolute
Wonder Woman
The perils of wearing your shades on a two hour boat trip with no lotion !! ball, there were stalls everwhere, music blasting out from trucks on street corners with guys selling all kinds of Indian gear, Dehli Boy if you like, and you had your pick of street hawkwers that sold all your Pakoras, Bhajis, Samosas, Deep Fried Fish, the lot and you could get your dinner for about 70p for the two of you. If you fancied a sit sit down meal, nae worries, you just parked yourself in a corner cafe and you had an authentic indian curry at your table in minutes and it cost you the same as half a pint back home. We could have gotten used to it to be honest.
Chinatown has its moments, but as it's larger, it can be a wee bit intimidating, but you still get the great chinese equivalent hawkers for your fried rice, noodles and satay requirements to be taken care of.
On day two, we'd had a look at our Bible (Lonely Planet) and decide to take in the sights of Snake Temple and Penang Hill. Snake Temple was our morning trip as the advice was to get Penang Hill for afternoon and evening when the sunsets would be best
appreciated.
Now Snake Temple gets a good write-up in the Lonley Planet and the wee book hasn't steered us wrong so far on this journey, so off we popped to see it. Apparently it was built in honour of Chor Soo Kong, who was a priest and healer back in the day, and by all accounts, pretty good at priesting and healing. You wouldn't have thought so thought so though when you see the Temple. It's a bit small to be honest. If I was the good priest Kong and I came back to see how I'd been regarded, I'd have been a bit miffed in a kind of "Is that all you thought of me guys, did I no get rid of your lumbago Mr Chan and your farmer giles Mrs Kwok ?" kind of way. It's basically a room with a table in the middle, and an alter behind the table with a god on it with incense burning from every orrifice. There are three Pit Vipers that curl themselves around the various offerings that people have left and they do nothing. The story goes that their venom is now harmless due to the amount of incense
they have inhaled. Lee and I reckon they are bored, simple as that.
It's free to enter the Snake Temple, but you are asked to leave a donation on your way out, no big deal, a couple of ringotts might help spruce the place up a bit. Then the hard sell hits you. Instead of leaving, you are ushered through a wee side entrance where these two snake wranglers are waiting with another four Pit Vipers and they basically throw them at you !! After about 2 minutes of me standing going "aw no, aw no, aw no" you get used to them, they just curl round your hand a crash out basically, then he sticks one on your head and it just curls up and it's actually quite cool to be honest. The second boy jumps out with a camera and goes "say trees" and bang, thank you very much, they relieve you of 30 ringotts. Now it's only about four pound fifty to be honest, but that get's you dinner and a nice cold Tiger beer out here, it's a bit of a sting, but that'll be why it's free to get into the temple. They also
have a snake farm, which is another 10 ringotts and to be honest it's only worth seeing for the 24ft reticulated python that sits in a cage and does hee haw.
Penang Hill is wicked. Full stop. You get to the bottom by walking up a road from the bus and in between all the houses is this massive temple, looking totally out of place, but this happens all over the place. At the bottom you have to get a ticket for the 'fernicular' (to use the vernacular) railway. Takes about half an hour to get up all 821m of it and you have to change halfway but it's worth it. There are monkeys sitting at the side of the railway watching you go by and loads of little villages built into the hillside that you can see on the way up, and when you get to the top, you have brillliant views of Georgetown and the surrounding area, really spectacular. There are a few shops at the top but not tacky, overpriced, tourist-trap shops. There are folk who live up there and this is where they shop so it's all nice and cheap.
The other thing is
Hot & Sweaty @ the top of Penang Hill
Hot & Sweaty from the walk up 800m of Penang hill...yeah right !! Tram for us !! the temperature at the top, it's a good 5 degrees cooler at the top and the humidity is virtually nil compared to the bottom so you can just coo, off and relax while you are up there.
They have a really beautiful Hindu temple right at the top too, the top of the hill is extremly quiet and peaceful which makes it a good place for a temple. It's quite small, and well worth a walk round, although I reckon Lee and I disturbed someone in the middle of whatever they do behind those curtains while we were in there. Ssssshhhhhh !! Again, you had a Hindu temple and Mosque about 20 feet from each other and everyone just went about their business.
We had a few beers at the top of the hill and I watched Lee planning the next stage of the trip, ripping her hair out at the realisation that we would have an 8 hour bus trip to get to Kota Bahru and the Perhentian Islands on the other side of the country. We were really surprised by how much we liked Penang as we kind of thought we would be beach bums all
the way round Malaysia, but we're not so sure now. And Penang decided to give us the best sunset we'd had on the whole trip as well.
Next stop, the Perhentian Islands..Lee's dream destination since we started planning the trip, can't wait.......
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Lesley Jawas
non-member comment
Hi both. Great to talk to you. Really jealous you've been to Raffles and I never have, but would love to. Your photos are lovely, and journal makes really good reading. The jokes haven't improved tho. Glad your having such a great time. XXLal