Penang, Malaysia.

Whilst wanting to stay on Koh Tao for the next forever, we realised that if we want to see more of SE Asia we'd better get going again. We considered other Thai islands, but decided that they would be very similar and a bit over our budget. So we took a night boat (very cramped but ok for sleeping) and about five different minibuses to get to Penang Island (Western Peninsular Malaysia). The first impressions when crossing the border included surprise how clean and developed the country is! No rubbish by the roads, most buildings are modern and well-kept, and everyone seems to drive a nice car (instead of a pick-up like in Thailand). And how everyone here speaks fluent English!

The last bit of minibus drive from Hat Yai in Thailand to Penang had a nice twist, as the minibus broke down on the 14-km long four-lane highway bridge leading to Penang. So we sat by the roadside waiting for our rescue (the driver didn't exactly communicate with us what was happening), which turned out to be a towing car and another minibus picking us up at the other side of the bridge.

We've been staying in the old area of Georgetown, which is a world heritage site and quite beautiful although in some state of disrepair. The population of the island is a mix of Malays, Chinese and Indians, with some European, Burmese, Javanese, and many others thrown in. In the old city there is Little India with some great curry houses (for example Kapitan's) and a more Chinese area with Clan houses, jewelry shops and dim sum restaurants. On one of the streets there are a Catholic church, a large Mosque, a Buddhist temple and a Hindu temple... so quite a melting pot!

Yesterday we did a larger tour of the island and visited a beautiful Burmese temple with impressive woodwork, another Hindu temple, a Chinese Buddhist Snake temple and apparently SE Asia's largest Buddhist temple (Kek Lok Si) with a 30-m tall Bronze statue of Goddess of Mercy. The tour also included a visit to Botanical Gardens where we took the opportunity to walk a bit in the jungle, and ended up with visits to Batik factory and a chocolate shop!

When we've been asking people what we should do in Penang, everyone always answers: "Eat!" So we have! We acquired a map of the Penang food trail (in Chinese though), which handily shows pictures of all the local specialities and where to find them. But as the map is in Chinese, I really don't know the names of the dishes too well! We've had soup noodles, dry noodles, fat noodles, thin noodles, medium noodles, egg noodles, rice noodles, green noodles, and some rice-based dishes and Indian curries! Almost all of our food has been bought from hawker stalls, each selling only one or two different dishes, and eaten on the street. Very cheap and very delicious!

Although Georgetown is about half a million people, the backpacker area and historical centre are quite small. There are not too many travellers here, but enough for the guesthouses to exist, and we keep running into the same people again. Makes it feel like we know this place! And as small as the world is, we also ran into a university friend of ours last night at Kapitan's, leading to a fun night out with his entourage and lots of travel stories being told.

Tomorrow we're maybe headed to Ipoh (about halfway from here to Kuala Lumpur), but that's still uncertain. Obviously not a lot of pre-planning goes on here!