We left Tana Ratu early on Tuesday morning and travelled by bus to Penang, which was the first British settlement on the Malaysian peninsular. I almost left my passport on the bus but once the panic was over we got into George Town and booked into our guest house, The Red Inn on Love Lane.....unfortunately the walls here are paper thin and any love going on..(.people in the room upstairs I'm talking about you!!) can be heard all too clearly.
Georgetown is very hot and humid but we have done some sightseeing. The city is a world heritage site and it has a fantastic mix of well preserved colonial buildings, Chinese jetties and temples, Indian temples and lots of Malay shopfronts. What makes the place really special though is the street food- a microcosm of Malaysian culture on every street. We have had lots of fun tracking down different sorts of food, from otak-otak, chee cheong fun and our new favourite wan tan mee. jerome had one alarming moment yesterday at lunch when he was convinced that there was a monkey forearm in his noodles...it was a chicken foot!
Today we decided to escape the heat of the city and head to a beach for a swim. I did try to ruin this adventure by making us get off the bus too early and had to spend the rest of the day admitting that I had made a mistake....you all know that this can be quite difficult for me: in fact Jerome said quite casually yesterday.' you always have to be right don't you' and I realised that he does know me quite well by now and it's probably time he left.
I have also done some big serious planning about the rest of my trip, some of which I shall reveal now and some of which will be revealed later. I have decided that I've been passive for too long and that I need something to do so I've arranged to do some volunteering in Vietnam. I will be helping out at a centre for orphans with mental and physical disabilities in Ho Chi Min, more details later but I'm really excited.
Georgetown is very hot and humid but we have done some sightseeing. The city is a world heritage site and it has a fantastic mix of well preserved colonial buildings, Chinese jetties and temples, Indian temples and lots of Malay shopfronts. What makes the place really special though is the street food- a microcosm of Malaysian culture on every street. We have had lots of fun tracking down different sorts of food, from otak-otak, chee cheong fun and our new favourite wan tan mee. jerome had one alarming moment yesterday at lunch when he was convinced that there was a monkey forearm in his noodles...it was a chicken foot!
Today we decided to escape the heat of the city and head to a beach for a swim. I did try to ruin this adventure by making us get off the bus too early and had to spend the rest of the day admitting that I had made a mistake....you all know that this can be quite difficult for me: in fact Jerome said quite casually yesterday.' you always have to be right don't you' and I realised that he does know me quite well by now and it's probably time he left.
I have also done some big serious planning about the rest of my trip, some of which I shall reveal now and some of which will be revealed later. I have decided that I've been passive for too long and that I need something to do so I've arranged to do some volunteering in Vietnam. I will be helping out at a centre for orphans with mental and physical disabilities in Ho Chi Min, more details later but I'm really excited.
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