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The journey from Singapore to Penang (a tiny island just of the north-west coast of Malaysia) was pretty long (12hrs) but sound enough - the coach was not too cramped and we managed to get a bit of kip! When we arrived in Penang, we had a bit of a mare. - It was 7.30am and we had no cash on us to get to our guest-house. We were shattered and wanted a bed asap, so I found out where the nearest ATM was - a half hour walk away - and went to find it while Sar stayed with the bags at the bus depot. It was really hot and humid, even though it was still early and when I finally found it Sar's cash card didn't work! So, I went all the way back and then made the whole trip again to use my card which again didn't work! (i am fully aware that it would have been much more logical to take both cards the first time I trekked up but I was tired, alreet?!). When I got back to Sar we put some credit on the phone and contacted the bank, who informed us that both of our cards had been blocked! Nightmare! Anyway at least it was sorted, so we jumped into a taxi (which we couldn't really afford to do) and went to the guest house via an ATM. - Drama over :)
We were staying in a little village called Tanjong Bungha, which was on the north-east coast of the island. It was a very quiet little town, which was just what we wanted as we planned to chill out for at least a few days - after all our hard work in Africa, the busyness of Singapore and all the travelling, we felt like we deserved it! The guest house was lovely, very very homely and the owner, a fella called KD, was an absolute legend! A proper nice guy who did anything and everything he could to help you out, the man even came along in our taxi when we left to say goodbye!! We were only about a minute walk from a small but beautiful, deserted beach which was spot on so we just chilled out there most days. Except for one day when we thought we'd take our chances and bowled into the five star hotel up the road and pretended we stayed there so we could use the pool! It worked and so we got to spend the day at the beautiful pool literally overlooking the ocean!
The food in Malaysia was much better than in Singapore. We were about a 2 minute walk away from a cracking little food market, which had about thirty different food stalls at insanely cheap prices! There was Malay, Indian, Italian, Japanese, Western and so on. I loved it there!! Sar got a bit sick of the amount of grease in the food at lunch time (when only the local stall was open and so choice was limited) but in the evenings we were spoiled for choice so we couldn't really complain! Although I think we were obviously missing our home food as we ate at the western food stall for at least the first four nights!
So Penang was generally just a relax week. When we weren't sunbathing and eating, we were chilling in our room watching Grey's Anatomy - which we got massively into, and which is probably one of the main reasons we ended up staying in Penang for seven nights instead of three! Lol. Sarah went to yoga early one morning with a girl that was staying at the same place as us and was training to be a yoga instructor!She enjoyed a lot but could only afford to go once! :) and on our last day we went into Georgetown (the main town), where we just had a look around and spent a bit too much on food! But like I said we just wanted a chill out and that was what we got! So although we didn't do or see much we had a lovely time and recharged our batteries ready for Thailand!!
- comments
Alice I just love the way you write Kieran - such a good read - I google -earthed the island & i think I found the deserted beach - maybe??