Island Hopping and Exploring Penang

Hello again, as promised, we're in Malaysia for this blog - how exciting, another country! We've got a fair amount to catch-up with, but hopefully it shouldn't be too long a blog (maybe).

MONDAY 4th June

In the evening on Sunday we didn't really do anything. We'd spent the afternoon having lunch at Cafe89 and then trying to find an ATM and last of all we booked a day trip to go Island hopping on a speedboat. We then went back to Cafe89 to watch Pirates of the Caribbean 3, it was very exciting stuff!

So, onto Monday. It was our Island hopping tour today. We got picked up from the hotel and dropped off at the beach to wait for the other people coming on the trip and then we all loaded onto a speedboat for the day. We made a couple of stops at beaches in the morning, but each for only 30 minutes, so we didn't get a chance to explore - not that that was a problem on the second beach, as they took us to where they filmed some of the movie The Beach, so it was just packed with tourists and covered in litter! So we were glad to leave that one! Unfortunately though, from the way the leaflet was written, we were expecting to make a few more stops to be able to get out and explore. But instead when we came to the caves, Monkey Island and the lagoon, all we could do was look at them from the boat. We had an inclusive lunch on Phi Phi Island (so glad we didn't end up staying there - it really isn't that wonderful at all), it was a pretty simple affair, but it did the trick of getting us filled up. After lunch we made 3 stops to go snorkeling, but again, unlike as stated in the literature, they didn't provide any fins, so it was a tad awkward at times, but it was still cool getting to watch the reef life. I was gutted though - I'd just got back onto the boat when Steve saw a 'real' Nemo fish (like in the movie), he said it was really vibrantly coloured and cool, and it even had a baby Nemo with it - but he'd run out of film in his camera! After all the snorkeling in the afternoon, we were taken back to shore (it was a pretty soggy affair, as it had started to rain so there was lots of water coming into the boat) and then dropped back off at the hotel. It was quite a good day, I'm just not sure it was worth as much as we paid for it.
Once back at the hotel, we got freshened up and de-saltified and then headed back to our usual haunt, Cafe89, for dinner and another movie! There were loads of people there that night, so although they started to put on The Departed, everyone wanted to watch Pirates of the Caribbean 3, so once we'd finished dinner and had a drink, we left and went back to the hotel.

TUESDAY 5th June

Today, we decided to do our own beach thing and so decided to make our way to Railay Beach. Unfortunately we just missed the 09.00 longtail boat and so had to wait an hour for the next one. But it gave us time to put on suntan lotion and read our books for a bit. Once we were finally on Railay, we went straight to East Railay Beach, and once there, because we were so hot, we sat straight down in the shade of a tree and read our books for an hour or so! We still weren't cool enough, so found a, rather overpriced, place to have a couple of cold drinks. We then felt ready to do some exploring on the island. We went to the Inner Princess Caves first. They were pretty cool, although it was slightly eerie, as it was dingy, had loads of bats in places and we were the only 2 people in there! But there were some really cool limestone features, like flowstone and stalactites and stalagmites. We wandered around some more and made our way to the Princess Caves, which had a small altar in it, as well as a lot of phallic-shaped offerings! The island still has remnants of the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami, some parts of the island are derelict and full of damaged buildings, rubble and rubbish etc - there were certainly plenty of stark contrasts. After seeing the Princess Cave, we went back to East Railay Beach for a late lunch. Steve wanted to find the lagoon, and so we went to West Railay Beach, where I sat and read my book and Steve went off for a death-defying walk/climb up to the lagoon. The path was rather treacherous and he only just made it back in one piece! He was also disappointed, as it wasn't a nice as he was expecting it to be, so wishes he hadn't bothered with the strenuous effort of getting up there in the first place! Once Steve was back from the lagoon, we caught another boat back to Krabi Town and made our way to the hotel for a shower - but the water wasn't working, so we had to go to dinner (yes you guessed it, at Cafe89) whilst still being all smelly and sweaty! We got to request a movie tonight (well, actually I requested it and Steve whinged about it) and we saw The Holiday with dinner!

WEDNESDAY 6th June

It wasn't a very exciting day today. We had to get up really early so that we had time to get checked out and have breakfast before catching the 07.00 bus to Penang. We were on a minibus the whole way there. We stopped in Hat Yai around lunchtime and had to wait for a second bus to take us the rest of the way to Penang and from then on it was straight through, apart from the stop at the border for immigration control and customs. It was a pretty easy journey and when we got dropped off in Penang we were only a 2 minute walk from the hotel we wanted to stay at!
It was quite late and we hadn't had a proper lunch, so we went out for an early dinner. We ended up at a shopping centre place and had dinner there and then decided to watch a movie in the Cinema upstairs - we got tickets for Shrek 3 and when we got up to the screen - there was a movie still running, we presumed it was just finishing, so waited outside. A security person then ushered us in and showed us to our seats. Not wanting to see the end of the movie first, we left and decided to wait for it to finish properly before going in, but we then realised what the problem was! We'd forgotten to put our watches forward and so had missed the first half an hour of the movie! So we had to buy a couple more tickets and wait for an hour or so to watch the whole movie!

THURSDAY 7th June

Today was a tad frustrating at times! We decided to go to Penang Hill today, but wanted to pop to the Tourist Information Office first for some maps and info etc. However, when we finally located them (after some very iffy directions from people), both of the offices were closed! So we wandered around the bus terminal looking lost, as we couldn't find the bus numbers we needed to get, but finally came across a different one that could get us there as well. So we were finally on our way and were dropped off about 5/10 minutes from the train station which would take us to the top of the hill. We went to buy our train tickets, and as it was so busy, found we had to wait for 2 hours before we could go up! So we sat and had a couple of cold drinks and then whiled away the time being rather bored in the waiting room and finally we were packed into the train like sardines, and on our way up!
At the top we decided we wanted to do one of the 'well sign-posted' trail walks, but soon found after half an hour of wandering, that the trails are not clearly sign-posted, if sign-posted at all, so we had to give up and accept defeat and headed back on ourselves. We did manage to find the temple mentioned in the guide book and so had a wander around that. It was really ornate and also being renovated, so it was a bit of a shame, but it was still stunning. By this time it was getting relatively late on in the afternoon, so we went and had a couple of drinks and then had dinner at a restaurant, with great views over George Town. We then decided to make our way back down to the bottom of the hill, but as on the way up, it was so busy that we couldn't catch the first train that came and so had a bit of a wait to get down, but again we were packed in like sardines, so it wasn't the most comfortable of trips. Once back we had to wait for the bus to take us back into town and back to the hotel for the night.

FRIDAY 8th June

Today has been much more successful than yesterday. We actually managed to find an OPEN, yes, open Tourist Information Office and they were really helpful. We got a map of a couple of Heritage Trail Walks around George Town and decided to mix the two together to create our own super long walk! We started off at Fort Cornwallis, which was kind of strange to wander around, as although you read about all the colonies Britain had, it's weird to be there and actually see the effects and 'aftermath' left behind from it all. The walk was really nice, although it was VERY hot today and it was hard work not melting! We even got invited into a couple of the Temples we went to see, which was really cool and we expect that not many tourists have ever even bothered to go to them. We had a really great lunch of scones with jam and cream - yum (today's really reminded us of home, what with all the English architecture and having scones for lunch)! But soon our Heritage walk was over and we started the new journey of trying to find a bookshop, the post office, an internet place and also some dinner. We managed to find the bookshop and the internet place, but will be working on the rest after blogging!

We think that's about it for now though folks. We're off to see the Kek Lok Si Temple tomorrow and also the Dragon Boat Races as well, should be cool and then we'll be heading off to the Cameron Highlands on Sunday - bring on the coolness of being at higher altitude! Thanks for all the messages, we're still really enjoying them. We can't believe that we're half way through the trip now, it's crazy - it feels like yesterday that we were being dropped off at the airport, we'll be home before you know it now! Missing you all.

Sam - Sorry I didn't read your comment before we chatted on MSN, hope everything goes well with planning and getting money together for your dive instructing - let us know where you go and when (although we might be back in the UK by then).

Nan and Grandad - Thanks for the post, we're really glad that you're enjoying reading it (sorry it's so long at times, we just like you to all know what we're up to). We did both use up a LOT of oxygen when we saw those sharks - I still can't quite believe I've done it!

Jason - You have done the bloggy thing right! Glad to hear you're following our travels, hope you're enjoying reading about it all. We're really looking forward to being able to get back and share our photos with everyone! No worries about the postcard. Take care of yourself and say "hi" to all at your end and pass on our love.

Mum - We have to agree the down-time has been really nice. I don't think we notice just how much we do and so when we get down time it feels really luxurious! Also do feel kind of lazy, as it feels like we should be off seeing things all of the time, but it's not humanly possible!