Penang

Day 96 - 29/08/2010 - 22:55 - Georgetown, Penang Island, Malaysia

So we've had our full day in Penang today, although it wasn't as full day as it could have been for two reasons - us getting up late and attraction closures! We overslept big time today - no alarm and no breakfast for our body clocks to be tempted by and ended up crawling out of bed at 11am - although to be fair this was 10am the previous day!

After we'd had our pastries bought from the 7/11 on the ground floor we headed towards Penang Hill. No tours, just us and the local public transport. It felt good! We got to the bus station with no problems whatsoever and got on the bus heading for Penang hill (no problem again). We told the bus driver Penang Hill and he said something about it being closed. We still bought a ticket there, as he said there was a temple nearby although had no intention of seeing the temple - purely thoughts of Penang Hill. There was another foreign couple on the bus and when we were told to get off by the driver (as they did too) we asked them if they were going to Penang Hill. They said the same, the driver had told them it was shut. We nonetheless followed signs for it - in the other direction was this impressive looking temple - the one the driver had told us to go to instead. We started walking to the hill when we saw another foreign man walking back towards the temple. We asked him if he had came from the hill. He said he had and that the Funicular railway that saves a 3 hour hike (each way) is closed until next month. We were gutted. Like him, we turned around at that point and headed for the temple. To be fair it didn't disappoint, it was a very impressive Buddhist temple, with lots of water features (complete with fish and turtles) lots of viewpoints and statues, including a massive one from on top of the hill it was perched on. Impressive.

We spent about 3 hours there, it was massive and then headed back to Penang centre. From there we decided to get a bus along the north coast of the island although by then it was getting late and we had no real purpose or want to be there. We stayed on the bus as it passed town after town, including the beach town we'd told the driver we were going to. We stayed on the whole way until we came to a dead end, he stopped and turned around. By then it was just me, Laura and an old, western man who were on the bus. We all headed back to Georgetown. The bus route maps online showed that the bus route went past a nature reserve to a town inland. It didn't do this. Very annoying. It just stopped at a dead end, and turned around. We got chatting to this man on the way back to town. His name was Norman and he was British, although had lived in Australia for most of his life. We found out he had a lot of family in Birmingham, including Bournville. He was a very nice man, very chatty and we got on well with him. Turned out he was staying at the same hotel as us too, the extreme budget one. In the end we ended up going for something to eat with him, at a restaurant just down the road from the hotel, we didn't get back to Georgetown until 7pm. We ate at a local restaurant and the food was absolutely amazing, despite being a little pricey (for Malaysia). The restaurant was beautifully, yet traditionally decorated inside with an old colonial style. We stayed there chatting for several hours as well, about everything and anything - mainly though about the craziness of south east Asia and giving him some places (websites) of information for train travel as well as links to the places we stayed in Vietnam (barring the crap hotel we stayed in Hoi An!)

It was a weird but wonderful last night of our time on our own before heading to Singapore tomorrow night. It kind of epitomised the trip, meeting someone on our travels, sharing experiences with someone new. It's certainly something I will really miss and has been a highlight of the whole travel experience. Our last day on our own tomorrow. By 10pm we'll be in Singapore with Laura's family (barring a plane delay of course). It will be strange being with other people for a longer than one day period!