Kath & Daz's World Tour Part Deux: Penang (Georgetown)

Well it was hassle getting to Dabong and, you guessed it, hassle leaving it too! We decided to get the local bus which according to some locals may or may not turn up between 7.30 & 8am. We sat waiting at the bus stop, just us and a cat who was probably thinking 'what are these stupid people doing here?'. The train station was just across from us and we saw the 7.30am train arrive - very, very slowly and then sat doing nothing so we were keeping everything crossed for the bus making an appearance. Sure enough, just struck 8am and over the hill came our bus!! We've never been so glad to see a rickety old bus but this was getting us out of this backwards town so on we clambered with all our baggage taking prize seats at the front with our new friend the driver. We passed through several small villages, saw some guy with a pet monkey on a chain (the new trend?) and in an hour we arrived at Jeli to connect with a coach to take us to Penang.
The coach was with Mutiara and was the best yet - a double decker with our seats on the top deck which were big comfy ones with leg room. Just as well because it was a 6 hr journey in the end.
Penang is very tourist friendly - lot's of things to do/see, plenty of restaurants including universal fast food chains (KFC/McD's) and a very handy free bus service around town.
Our hotel was in Georgetown and not far from the famous street art area, it was called Hotel Mingood but we renamed it 'Mingegood' for a giggle. It was a bit dated but our room had a kettle and fridge plus tv with HBO movies so we were happy enough. Even better was the breakfast which included Cocopops cereal, eat as much as you like toast and, wait for it, MARMITE! Yes 3 big jars of it!! It also had an endless supply of Coffeemate sachets which we pilfered every day so we could add to our stash of tea/coffee making supplies. After staying in alcohol dry Dabong, we were pleased to find we could easily buy booze here and chill it in our own fridge too!
We arrived a day earlier than expected because of how crap Dabong was so we booked an extra night at the hotel which we were glad of as it was going to be alot easier and more comfortable here.
We spent the first day booking our ferry to Langkawi (as we were due to travel on a national holiday so beat the rush) and looking around Little India/Chinatown. The next day the rain came down so we didn't go out till the afternoon and took our trusty Nepalese brolly with us. We checked out the street art which is scattered around the old town, here are some pics.........

Daz was desperate to earn some beer money.......

Kath's netball skills came in handy.........

Daz became a kid again after a few sherberts

Dinner was mainly at a small vegetarian restaurant around the corner from our hotel which did a tasty buffet self service with most meals only costing just over £1! Booze could be bought from places all over town but wasn't as cheap as we hoped for so we shopped around and used our fridge storage.
One day we treated ourselves to a reflexology session which was done by blind Malaysians. Well, it was different........ We were sat in big reclining chairs with foot stools and in waddled 2 blind 'ladies' (although they weren't very lady like!). Burp, burp, fart, fart, burp - whatever they had eaten was still alive and trying to get out obviously!!! As for the relaxing massage - no way, discomfort bordering on pain at times as they pummeled our feet for an hour.
We visited Penang Hill one day but it started raining and didn't ease up so we took shelter with some lunch (after first trying to walk up a road to some caves which had become more like a river!). The rain eventually stopped and we got on the funicular to the hill top with some great views over Penang. We walked around the forest road and spotted loads of giant black squirrels but no monkeys plus something which resembled a leech on the path (a hammerhead worm). We decided to leave as it was getting late and the queues to go back down on the funicular were growing.

It's big, it's black - it's a giant black squirrel!

Another day we visited the largest buddhist temple in Malaysia - at Air Hitam. It's called Kek Lok Si and involved having to walk through an alley full of tourist tat stalls (Kathy loved it!) until you came to a shop which had a small lift/car system you paid a few pence for to go up to the level where a giant statue of buddha awaits (called Kuan Yin). There was a tranquil big pond with loads of Koi fish in it so we bought some food for them but were so well fed (the fish not us!) that it was a wasted effort. We took some pics then walked back down to catch the bus back to our part of town. We did stop on the way to take photos of 2 giant transformers statues outside a pub called The Beer Factory (which was closed!). Anyway, all good in Penang and after relaxing here for 6 nights it was time to move on. Next stop Langkawi!