Penang

Penang is a small island about two and a half hours south of Langkawi. We took the floating tomb or as the locals called it, the ferry, to Georgetown the main city on Penang. The sea was quite choppy and the boat wazzed it along at very high speed, so that it seemed that the boat might turn over at any second and considering that we were below deck with another 100 passengers with no quick means of escape, we were slightly scared. The small matter of most of the locals throwing up around us didn't help speed our crossing. We won't be taking any more "ferrys" in future.

Our primary motive for visiting Penang was to get a bus across to the eastern side of Malaysia to get to the Perhension islands. I know I said Penang was an island, but its joined to the mainland by the longest bridge in Asia, hence the bus route being possible. On getting to Georgetown, we discovered that we wouldn't be able to get the bus until the Monday evening (night bus) as it was the Kings birthday (selfish) and all the buses were already booked solid. This meant either a very expensive taxi ride across Malaysia or hang out in Penang till the Monday. We stayed and lucky for us we did, because Georgetown was an interesting place and the food was unbelievably delicious.
After looking at various nightmare hotels, including one that had a bed with just the mattress on it, no sheets, pillows etc, we settled on the 'Hong Ping' with its a/c, tv, hot water and all the other comforts of home. Basically the four of us spent our time, you've guessed it, looking at....temples (some cracking ones in Georgetown), discovering a bit about the history (former British colony) and eating our way through the many Malaysian, Chinese and Indian restaurants.

One particularly impressive temple was 'Kek Lok Si' which is the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia (not that hard, cause most of the country is Muslim). There seemed to be dozens of small and large temples within the overall structure, culminating in a giant statue of a female Buddha. Walking our way through the hot, narrow market at the foot of the hill of temples we came out into an enclosure which featured a small pond with a bridge over it and in the pond were hundreds of turtles, which people were throwing lettucie type greens to. We spent a good 2-3 hours wondering in and out of the fantastically coloured buildings in the intense heat (Thats Andy at the base of the statue).

That was Penang, nice place, lots of Asian hustle and bustle and some of the best Asian food we've ever had! Amazing Dim Sum and the tastiest Tandoori chicken this young chap has ever come across.

Next time on the Andy and Sam blog....close encounters of the shark kind :)