Mar 25, 2010 - Penang, Malaysia; March 25, 2010

Hotter than hot & almost 100% humidity, the "sisters" are doing a number on the length of time we can stay outdoors or in the sun, making touring or exploring uncomfortable. Millions of people live & work in these climes & seem to adapt to the extremes we find uncomfortable and unbearable.........but us "wimpy" tourist are not adjusting well to the equatorial climates. We arrived in Penang by 08:00 & was able to offload by 09:00 for the 1st tours. Ellie's day in Kuala Lumpur was enough to make her want to stay in the comfort of the air...

Feb 14, 2010 - Penang

Happy Chinese New Year and Valentines Day! Everyone wore red for Valentines Day and there was red everywhere you looked for good luck on Chinese New Year. People put red cloths outside their windows for good luck and there were very many other red decorations. There was a lot of traffic, even though it wasn’t a work day, as we made our way to two templeshttp://www.mytripjournal.com/images/text_bold.gif: the Temple of the Reclining Buddha and another temple right across the street. The first is beautifully painted with pictures depicting the...

Feb 5, 2010 - Georgetown, and civilization

We finally extracted ourselves from Pangkor, after one week, and headed north to another island, Penang and the large town (massive compared to Teluk Nipah) of Georgetown. It was too much! We figured the next town after 8 days on the beach would be tough. And Georgetown was tough. But then we met a woman from North Carolina traveling with her two kids, while her husband is in Iraq doing military things. We had lunch with them our first day, traded travel stories and then saw them walking on the street the next day. "How are things...

Jan 23, 2010 - Penang, Malaysia

Up early and off to the border..outta Thailand into Malaysia.....all good. Drove to Penang(Penang Island connected to mainland by a 13.5 km bridge), not a very nice city where we were staying at least. We are at the Mingood Hotel. Dark and dingy streets, not a very safe area. What was GAP thinking? Steven our day guide picked us up for a city tour of Penang 1. Fort Cornwalis- built when Captain Francis Light first landed on Penang, this ancient sentinel of Georgetown stands guard over the Island's cape. 2. Queen Victoria Memorial Clock...

Jan 3, 2010 - Penang

From Langkawi We stopped off in Penang to get our 2 month Thailand visa's and visited a restaurant called Daddys. We were recommended this place.. sorry highly recommended this place by a Guy we met in Singapore. Well as you can see it didn't disappoint, The main man Vernon remembered the guy we met and proceeded to show us a great time as well. First night just had a lock-in and danced and drank but the next night more like minded folk turned up and we all went down the local pool hall and bar 10 of us.. what a riot! If you ever find...

Oct 24, 2009 - Penang

We said our good byes to the staff at Jungle Hut and got a ride to the pier to catch the overnight boat. At first glance we wondered if this was really the vessel that we would be spending the night on, travelling across the dark waters. Yep! This was the boat. As we considered that people travel this route daily our confidence increased a little bit. We boarded the boat and as had been described by Susie there were two rows of endless mattresses along either side of the boat on two levels. We picked our spot and settled in for the night....

Oct 17, 2009 - Penang, Malaysia

Hi! As Monica said in her message, we are now in Penang, an island in northern Malaysia. We left early Friday morning and have spent the weekend here. We rode in this awesome deluxe double-decker bus that had leather recliner seats and they even served us a Subway sandwich midway through the trip! A 5-hour luxury bus ride, with food, there and back for about 30$. Once we arrived on the island of Penang, we took a 1-hour taxi up to the north to the beach town of Batu Ferrigni where we were staying the first night. We spent the afternoon on...

Oct 17, 2009 - From Hong Kong to Penang Malaysia

Hi all, I'm finally going to make an entry on this site. Finding Internet access is not always easy when travelling, plus, we are having way too much fun to be waisting time on the Internet :) For the sake of friends and family who want to know what we are up to...here goes... My time in Asia started in Hong Kong by myself. It proved to be a challenging and rewarding experience. My first challenge was when i realized my friend had booked the wrong hostel for me...Dragon Inn instead of Two dragons...it turned out to be a real dump and test...

Jun 22, 2009 - Penang

Die Fahrt von den Cameron Highlands nach Penang ging problemlos vonstatten - aber schliesslich hatten wir auch einen Super-VIP-Bus (so heisst die luxurioesere Busflotte in Malaysia wirklich!) Super-VIP bedeutet in dem Fall: breitere und komfortablere Sitze mit Beinstuetzen und Air-Condition (Super-VIPs muessen wohl die ganze Zeit frieren - kein Wunder sind die immer so schlecht gelaunt!). Zusaetzlich gabs diesmal einen grottenschlechten Film (Anaconda), den niemand wirklich schaute... Von Butterworth gings mit der Faehre auf die Insel nach...

May 8, 2009 - Penang, Malaysia

Penang was a three day stop. Malaysia is a Muslim country with three main cultures - Malay, Indian and Chinese - that make up the distinctive cuisine and traditions. Penang is an island that pays homage to all three cultures. While there we toured the Cheong Fat Tze mansion - one of several homes owned by the Chinese millionaire. The tour of his home was a fascinating introduction to traditional Feng Shui and the guide was a really funny Chinese woman who told a lot of corny jokes and shared some great background on Penang architecture and...

Apr 24, 2009 - Malaysia

Damn Malaysia is nice!! We didn't expect to like it so much so we havn't left much time to see it which we are a bit gutted about, it's a lot more developed than we expected it to be but in a good way. Anyway it was a grueling journey to get here we had to get on two different boats and three different buses. The passport control at the border took forever as well but so far it has been worth it. We are staying in a really nice hostel which is the center of all the good stuff and it is cheap as chips like everything else here. The first day...

Feb 21, 2009 - Georgetown, Penang, a UNESCO Heritag SiteWit

With only one full day to spend in Georgetown, Josh and I decided to make the most of it, arming ourselves with the Lonely Planet map and heading out. We plotted a route through Georgetown via all the interesting heritage sites, many of which were religious buildings. Georgetown was first colonised by the British (and the East India Trading Company) in 1786, and since then has expanded into being such a multi-cultural town. Before being taken over by the British, the Malays, Chinese and Indians were already around! The town is just an...