Bridge Over Troubled Waters

The blessed version of Sean and Adrienne
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We boarded the bus in Tanah Rata and were surprised to hear: "Hello Adrienne. I danced with you", coming from one of the seats. After being reintroduced, Adrienne was relieved to find she hadn't been drunk the previous night. Dave and Jos from Christchurch were on the bus, and Adrienne had danced with Dave while learning swing. We hadn't spoken to any Kiwis on our trip since leaving Keren in Seoul but it doesn't stop there. Two more Kiwis were sitting nearby, Derek and Christine from Wellington. Sean had seen Derek around. Derek and Dave also happened to be mechanical engineers, which meant Christine, Jos and Adrienne were bored by the conversation.

Adrienne loved the saris
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A tyre on the bus lost a piece of tread about an hour from Butterworth (the city on the mainland closest to the island of Penang, on which Georgetown is located). We didn't have to wait too long before we boarded another bus that would take us the rest of the way. Adrienne wasn't happy, having to sit next to a guy so fat one of his feet was resting on her foot rest!

Hello Adrienne. I danced with you.

We expected to take the 20 min ferry ride from Butterworth to Georgtown, but the bus driver insisted we stay on the bus because he would take us there. The traffic going to the 13 km long bridge was horrendous, and we were starting to get annoyed at the time we were losing in Georgetown. In the end, we got dropped off at the bus terminal near the bridge, not near the ferry terminal where we wanted to be, and had to then take a taxi! All-in-all we must have lost about 1.5 hours for the sake of a few ringgit. And we had to leave early in the morning.

Detail on the mosque
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We stayed at 75 Traveller's Lodge, paying RM20 for a double room. It's a very clean and tidy place. From there we booked our ferry to Langkawi at 8:30 the next morning (RM55 pp including taxi to the port).

We took a walk through town, trying to get what sights in that we could after 5pm. We walked passed Fort Wallis, took a look inside the hindu temple Sri Mariamman and all it's amazing colours and decoration (we had to pay RM6 for a blessing and walked around for the rest of the evening with red spots on our foreheads), then found a not-too-interesting market selling, well, bags.

A cool mosque
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For dinner we ate chappati (wholemeal roti) in Little India and had milo roti for dessert (highly recommended!). We finally found some cheap crocs (ugly, lightweight, rubber shoes) for Sean. They were only RM15 compared with $50 in NZ, a bargain that meant he could throwaway his fast thinning jandals and his stinky sandals.