After our tour of KK, we got a bus to a place called Butterworth, which I think sounds like a made up place but kind of cute all the same - not the place as we weren't there long, the name. Oh dear this is a confusing start isn't it? Anyway from here we took a ferry crossing to get us to Pulau Penang (which is more widely referred to just as Penang) and stayed in a place called Georgetown. We did all the boring stuff to begin with - laundry etc, then we walked to a big shopping mall where we had lunch at a Malaysian restaurant, which was pretty good for the price, although I don't really rate the Malaysian food as it doesn't seem to be it's own and instead is kind of cross between Thai, Indian and Chinese, but I've had nothing so far that really stands out (apart from maybe the homestay food, but I think that was just because Asiah was such a good cook!). The first night we were supposed to be going out for a group meal, but after our late lunch we both passed out at the hotel and were woken by a phone call from Scott at 8pm to ask if we were coming - whoops! So we skipped dinner, although did go looking for some, but James had to make a sudden rush back to use the facilities!!!

The next day we went on a tour of Penang Island, where we saw Fort Cornwallis (where the British Fleet landed on 16/07/1786), then went to a reptile farm where James and I both held a lizard on our shoulders and James held a little snake in his hand! The guy said it wasn't poisonous, but after Matt held it he had a really weird rash come up on his forearm and a small mark on his hand that could easily have passed as a bite. The rash has got progressively worse too, but he seems healthy enough, so I don't think it's life threatening! A bit nervewrecking for him at the time though! There were also monkeys here, but I found it really cruel as they were chained up and got sick of seeing them like this, so we left! Next to the reptile farm, there was a snake temple which was just like most other temples we've seen apart from there were snakes just sitting in branches (free as birds) inside - nice! We also went to the largest buddhist temple in Malaysia (Kek Lok Si Temple), which would have been pretty spectacular to look at if it hadn't been in the middle of quite a big refurb job. We looked round it for a bit, but then headed to a food court so I could eat, as I was getting tetchy because it was about 1pm and we hadn't eaten since lunchtime the day before - I was absolutely hank marvin! I had some very average pork fried rice and James just had a coke! I don't think he's keen on eating in the street food courts after the rat story?!

Tonight we had drinks on the roof terrace of our hotel before we went out then we made up for the lack of eating and went into Little India for a fantastic meal. We had a tandoori set meal each, which was a huge tray with a massive peice of tandoori chicken, large naan of your choice, several sauce / dips and an onion salad - it went down a treat and we weren't even put off that we spotted a rat in one of the open gutters just outside! We must have been hungry! The streets here are not the nicest . . . there are huge open gutters that are large enough for a grown man to fall into and the cars and motorbikes fly about within inches of you - apparently the last Intrepid group Scott took there, someone had their foot run over! Look out!

This place was ok . . . I wouldn't rave about it, but it would be worth a look if you want to see the real Malaysia!