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9th December
Time to leave Thailand :(
As we still had the quad bike we ferried our bags to the tourist office where we had booked our transport before handing back the keys.Our ferry wasn't until 2pm so we wandered about for a bit before meeting Lynne and Elaine for a goodbye lunch.At 2pm, we were picked up in another 4x4 and taken to the dock.From there we took the boat to Chumphon where we had a 40 minute wait before a minibus transferred us to the train station, about 45 minutes away.We arrived there with about 4.5 hours to wait, so went and found a small restaurant for our last meal in Thailand.
The train also turned out to be nearly an hour late, so we didn't end up boarding the train until about midnight.We had also booked two top bunks as that was all that was left, which were right at the end of a compartment, with a door that wouldn't close, meaning we didn't get a good night's sleep at all.
10th December
At about 11am we arrived at the Thai side of the border.We all got off the train and went to immigration.There were no problems whatsoever leaving Thailand or entering Malaysia, so after only a 30 minute stop, we were back on our way.About an hour and a half later we pulled into Butterworth station, and made the short walk over to the ferry port.After about 25 minutes on the ferry and 24hours in total travelling time, we were in Penang.We disembarked the ferry and went to find somewhere to stay.We checked out a few places which were in the backpacker area, but after Laura got back from checking out the rooms, she was distinctly unimpressed.Some of her favorite comments were "they should be shut down" or "I wouldn't let a tramp sleep there", so we carried on walking for ages until we came across huge, modern hotel and decided to check in there.
We had a quick nap as neither of us had slept on the crappy train journey then went out to get some food.We stumbled across a big shopping mall and found a McDonalds before having a wander around some shops.When we got to the top floor, we noticed there was a cinema, so thought we'd see what was on.We had both forgotten that Malaysia was an hour ahead of Thailand so after a bit of confusion we decided to watch Twilight: New Moon.We both thought it was ok, but not brilliant.It was quite nice seeing a film in a cinema though as we hadn't been for months.It was also dead cheap, for £5 we bought two tickets, popcorn and coke.....Bargain!By the time that had finished it was past midnight, so quickly strolled back to the hotel for some more sleep!
December 11th
In the morning we quickly changed hotels to a cheaper one that we had seen the previous day which at the time had no spare rooms.After that we walked to the bus station to catch a local bus to the Kek Lok Si temple.This was a massive temple on the hill which gave spectacular views over Georgetown.We spent a good 3 hours looking around this place with all its little temples and statues and ponds, some which were filled with hundreds of turtles which were pretty cool.After getting back from the temple, we went for a walk around Georgetown.We quickly checked out a museum for about 15 minutes before it closed, before heading over to see what was left from a fort built by the British when they had taken over.After that we went for a nice curry in the Little India before heading back to the hostel via an internet cafe.
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