Penang

Well after a long but uneventful day on the bus, we arrived in Penang, a beautiful city and apparently the oldest of the British settlements.  The bus terminal and the ferry over to Penang island are right beside each other so it was very convenient.  The ferry only cost 35 cents, and the fresh air was a nice end to our journey.  We went in search of a place that was recommended by my travel book (on Love Lane...ha ha), but unfortunately they, and the hotel next door were all full, so we were recruited by this guy on the street who encouraged us to check out a room at his hotel.  The first room we looked at wasn't that nice, but for an extra 2 dollars a night we got one about 3 times the size with a window and air conditioning!  So we feel like we are in a suite...it's wonderful.  We then headed down to the hawker food centre by the water to get some supper.  We spent the next few days walking around the city, which is really really beautiful.  The architecture here is just so charming.  We went to the Penang museum which I really enjoyed, and it had a lot of information on history and Malay traditions and customs.  And today we ran into Nora (my friend from Germany that we met on the Perhentian Islands) so that was a really great co-incidence!  We took the ferry across to the mainland this afternoon to go to this bird park, then quickly realized when we saw the admission fee that we might not have enough money to get back!  So we hoofed it to a nearby mall and managed to get a new supply :>)  Tomorrow we plan to rent a motorcycle and Dan wants to go the war museum and me to the Botanical Gardens, so hopefully we will have time for both!  Then the following day we are off to Thailand!  We have a flight booked from Penang to Phuket so once we arrive in Thailand we will work our way up to Bangkok.

Here are a few recent pictures:

Lovely buildings in Georgetown, Penang

This lady was having a coffee on the sidewalk and feeding the stray cats - she had a bag of cat food on her lap.  The one curled up onto her lap after I took this picture.

I think the umbrella in this picture really is a nice touch :>)