Ludwig's Odyssey: August 2015

More often that not and has can be agreed by most travellers I suspect, the part we like the least about travelling, is the actual travelling from one place to another.

Sometimes it’s a nice and easy journey, but on other occasions it’s a long and wearying journey with varying levels of comfort. This is what we experienced moving from Koh Tao to Penang.

Our Initial concern was the night boat to get off the island and get back to the main land to Surat Thani, we thought it was going to be a long and unpleasant journey but it actually turned out to be comfortable and the sea wasn't too rough.

Next came a tuk tuk transfer to the mini bus to take us to Hat Yai, that was fine but the minibus was not! Four hours stuck at the back with no room to move and our heads touching the ceiling, One of our worst journeys yet in these ten months of travel. Luckily there was a stop half way for a few minutes so we could stretch our legs. Once at Hat Yai we changed to another minibus to take us to the border and that was much better and far more comfortable. Once through immigration, another minibus awaited us for the last leg of our journey to George Town on Penang Island, this one not too bad and the journey made all the better due to the motorway built to western standards.

After nearly 24hrs, we had arrived at our guest house and were glad to stop moving!

So, another new country and another new set of basic words to learn so we thought but just like Nepal, India and Sri Lanka, English is spoken very well in Malaysia so it’s all too easy for us.

There is a real mix of demographics in Penang and the Cameron Highlands (as i’m sure there is in a lot of places on Peninsular Malaysia) Indian and Chinese whom are both descendants from original immigrants and Malay people working side by side, so of course to communicate, they speak in English.

Of all the colonial towns we’ve been to, George Town is perhaps our favourite. Lots of pretty buildings, lots of fun street art and lots of great street food to be had we particularly enjoyed Koay Chap, a Duck Noodle Soup which according to the owner of our guest house was a Penang speciality as the dish used Duck rather than Pork, we knew it was going to be good when we turned up and there was a big cue!

A good way we found to see the town was to follow the street art map as the art is spread all over the town so you get to see the architecture and other interesting places too. We also saw the Clan Jetties which is where the original Chinese immigrants settled and also the Cemetery where the ‘founder’ of Penang, Francis Light is buried as well Thomas Leonowens who was the husband of Anna of Anna and the King/ The King and I fame. Apparently, this cemetery is older than Père Lachaise in Paris and Highgate in London.

The only thing we did that with hindsight wish we hadn’t was to go up to Penang Hill on the funicular. We had just visited Kek Lok Si Temple (yet another Temple..) which was very colourful, then as the funicular was only a short walk around the corner it made sense to go but we had to wait for around 1h30 to get to the top of the hill to see the views over Penang. No sooner did we get there that it started to rain heavily, we managed to get a couple of photos but it was a frustrating experience, we also had to wait about another 1h30 to get back down the hill again. Well that will teach us to go on a Saturday, during School Holidays and during the wet season!

After spending five relaxed days here and enjoying some great sleep for some reason we couldn’t understand, we went off towards the Cameron Highlands.

A nice and comfortable journey took us through the mountains where we got off at a place called Tanah Rata where we would spend the next five/six days in the comfort of cooler temperatures, in fact it was a bit too cold for me, 16c at night, brrr!!

Having been on the road for so long, you sometimes miss the little things from home and here in ‘Little England’ you can find some of them.

There is a real strawberry theme here, and eat them we did. We enjoyed a couple of nice walks in comfortable temperatures which makes a nice change although they were hard work in places as we climbed up to 1800 metres or so (about a 400m climb). Our reward was cream teas with delicious local strawberry jam and scones, one of these cream teas was in the most pleasant setting of a mock tudor house/pub that looks just like it belongs in the south of England, you could eat fish and chips, bangers and mash, roast lamb and the like if you so wanted, the only thing missing was a pint of ale!

It is a pretty place to relax and we did just that in the setting of the cute little garden of our guest house. The sun shone early in the mornings which was perfect for breakfast but usually by the afternoon, the rain came but it didn’t dampen our spirits (sorry couldn’t resist the pun).

We also visited a butterfly (and other insects) garden on one day which was around 8km out of town so we got a taxi then treated ourselves to strawberry cakes before walking back to our guest house.

I think Wendy’s Auntie Tricia would be proud out us eating all this cake!

Off to Kuala Lumpur next but only for a couple of days as we want to move on to Tioman Island. We will be returning to KL on a few occasions so the blog for this place may not be the next one you read.

Penang