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With a late get up to the day shamefully around the 12pm mark, I shot out the hotel as quickly as I could to try and catch the rest of the day light. First plan was to check out the other half of the town, the part going towards the ferry port. I trotted off down Chulia street within the Indian quarter, towards the old part of town. It was quite a bustling street, with people rushing around, old buildings holding a multitude of different businesses, food stalls, traffic. When I hit the pier near the car ferry and jetty where some of the poorer people of the town had built houses over the sea, I trailed around towards Fort Cornwallis. This is an old British Colonial fort that had turned into a mundane tourist attraction, not much to see, a few cannons and some ramparts, we've got better one's on top of Portsdown hill anyway.
Stomped through the more governmental section, with the magistrates courts and council buildings before grabbing some lunch. My plan for the second part of the afternoon was to grab a bus to go to the tram, which would take us up to the top of Penang hill. Like most buses in Malaysia, all of them are just pennies to take. Took a little while, and I was beginning to fret that my timing would go out of wack, as I wanted to get on top of the hill just as the sun was setting and receive a great vesta across the island. At one point 4 travelling girls got on the bus confused as to which one they should be taking, seemed like they were all in their early to mid 20s, and I pondered whether to say hi to them seeing as though they looked like they were heading in the direction of the hill. But they got off to go on another bus passing the other way, so opportunity missed maybe.
The tram was about 40RMs to get to the top, and packed with tourists it took about 20mins to get to the summit. It was a very picturesque ascendance, being surrounded by rain forest and watching the landscape grow larger as we went upwards. At the top we all bundled out hoping for a those famous views over the area, but bloody luck would have it, mist had come along and blocked the view. Hoping that this wouldn't be a wasted journey, I waited til the sunset and looked in awe at the lights that brought out the outlines of the dramatic landscape below. Very mesmeric stuff, and I was thankful the trip to the top had been reconciled.
Whilst waiting for the tram to take us back down the hill again, i start chatting to an family group of grand parents, a couple and their two kids, as it was taking a pretty long time to get it's arse into gear. Said that they've been living in the Indonesian side to Borneo for the last year or so and they're just taking a quick break with the their grandparents to see Malaysia. By the time we got to the bottom of the hill, the heavens opened up and it looked like i'd have to be stranded for a while hoping the buses still came up this time in the evening. But the older guy in the family came up to me and offered a lift back in to town in the people carrier they had. On the way down I told them what i was doing in Malaysia, and where I was working from. Talked about my documentary involvement about how western influences are taking over and destroying old cultures in the south Asia, then find out they're all Christian missionaries going around this part of the world trying to convert people within these old cultures, wondered why they turned all awkward and silent for half the journey. HA! Escaped from the car pretty quickly when they arrived at my hotel.
I scrubbed up and went out to discover what other digestable delights awaited me. Went to the food court next to the hotel, had more cheesey but good singers wailing out through the night. Had a fish head stew which was massive and a bit more expensive than usual but tasted great! The girls from the bus earlier on sat down on the table next to me, what a coincidence. When they got up to get desert, one of the girls, who introduced herself as Liza, said hi and we chatted for 10mins on where we were from, she was from Bavaria and was off to Langkawi the next day and couldn't go for a drink. Bit of a shame, miss opportunity maybe.
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