'Peace in Penang'

Fort Cornwallis...sorry, couldnt resist
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21st Oct

With the help of earplugs and sleeping pills, i managed to sleep on the train even though i was bear-hugging my luggage with the implicit fear of losing it all! Still, there's something about being awake before sunrise and at 5am when we got off the train. After a long walk in some decent heat, we boarded the first Ferry heading for Georgetown, Penang at 6am. Still in darkness when we arrived, we were touted by a pleasant local into a taxi to look for SD hotel picked out of LP. When we found out that it had ceased to exist :S the driver was helpful at suggesting another and suited it to the price-range we were after; for RM7 this was some premier service.

'after leaving KL's stench of cars, mopeds and touting; we were refreshed by the friendly and genuinely helpful Penangians...'

Writing Journal on empty picturesque Batu Ferringi :)
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Thus we arrived, before check-in time of course, at Waldorf Hotel and after a tiring wait in reception, the nice porter showed us to a super deluxe double twin! with bathroom shower fan and aircon all for a measly RM57.50/2 around RM28 each. i was like 'yes'!. After a refreshing shower, the sun rose and we booked a tour, with our driver coming at our convenience once we had found breakfast. Our immediate impression is that everything is a lot more chilled here compared to KL and indeed Melaka.

Stunning Botannical gardens; crawling with monkeys...
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As you may have guessed, our driver was nice/pleasant and uber-helpful and was able to converse in a lot of languages incl Cantonese. cool. expecting others to join the tour, it turned out to be a personal affair as we were chauffered in his own car to all the sights. By the way, the ladies at the cafe we had breakfast in were also outstandingly helpful, and when they asked where we wanted to go that day, they set down in writing the many different bus routes and trains that could lead us to the main attractions. unbelievable hospitality...wouldnt have got that in KL.

Outrageous Clan house
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SO, Danny Lee our guide,in the course of 3hrs, took us to Fort Cornwallis, the sight where Brit Francis Light seized Penang as a colony; and incidentally where there are still cannons pointing to Thailand! A few thai?! temples later, we were ushered into Pewter, Tea and traditional herbal medicine shops in the hope that we would part with our ringgit. We were then onward bound to the stunning botannical gardens which were inhabited by some plain aggressive monkeys...snatching food like 4-legged seagulls. We were discussing how we would cross into Thailand as the prospect of another long train ride leaving Butterworth to Hat Yai at half 5...yes the same line/train service...was less than enticing. we decided to fly and on hearing this, Danny offered to take us to the thai airways office in town!! and when it was closed, he took us to a nearby internet cafe to book tickets! even though lunch wasnt included, he took us to sample the world renowned 'Penang Laksa' - a v spicy sour fish noodle soup, which was lush in the small mouthfuls i was taking interspersed by breaks to handle the raging flames in my mouth. Anyway, i have Danny's number if anyone needs it! obviously comes highly recommended!

My bed for the night
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Next mission under our own skin was to Penang Hill via public bus (130). we were ushered on despite the fact the bus already had standing passengers and i ended up spending the entire journey sitting next to driver on a rather hot gearbox :) luckily he'd been taking english lessons and was keen to converse with me and we had quite an interesting chat. I found out that bus drivers actual rent the buses from companies for around RM300 and have to try and make this up and hopefully more to make a living, which explains why we were packed like sardines in all our Malaysian bus journeys... i explained how much easier it is for English bus drivers where the traffic/pedestrian population were infinitely more polite. As a result, i think Malay bus drivers are legends in their own right. Despite the abysmal traffic that they have to contend with, they still have time to chat to brits like me, have a smoke, take the obligatory phone call and incredibly, park close to another bus going in the opposite direction to chat and exchange cigarettes! gone are the days of just raising a hand to acknowledge a fellow driver...the fun lesson to learn is that is that you dont have to find the bus - it finds you with a tired beep.

Sitting beside driver in overcrowded bus...
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Awesome views at the peak of Penang hill, which took ages to ascend with two separate sets of cable cars. we could even see the causeway in the distance connecting Penang with Butterworth on the mainland.

22nd Oct

Laid in till 11 as it was raining buckets. Our plan was to take a day trip to the first beaches of our travels at Batu Ferringi. Went back to the helpful coffee shop for instructions on getting there and on a budget of 3 quid which is what i had left, we got there and back + a cantonese dim sum and later a Japanese Bento set dinner! Positively on a shoe string in our last day in Malaysia. Luckily the rain calmed a little and was just spitting when we arrived at a beautiful strip of beach which was covered in resorts though not many peoplewere about. i spent much of the afternoon writing up what id done with the sea breeze in the background. Though the sun wasnt out, the respite and views were pleasant enough. Took a stroll in the warm water and saw some watersports happening as well as pony rides further up the beach; must have been the resorty bits. Spent remaining ringgits on cakes from the same coffee shop for the journey to Phuket 2moro... a pretty uneventful but necessarily chilled day and im finally starting to relax into and feel at peace with my travels.