Georgetown, Malaysia

Leaving Ton Sai I grabbed a boat with the lady from the Ting Tong coffee house, who's coffee machine had broken from our overuse (she was getting a repair in Au Nang). I got a tuk-tuk to Krabi and hopped on a bus to Trang to catch a train into Malaysia. I woke up on the bus WAY later than my expected arrival time in Trang. I got up and explained to the conductor and in a second the bus has stopped and I was on the side of the road. The bus ditched me at the side of the road. I crossed, stuck my thumb out and started walking. Within 5 minutes a little car stopped containing a man, a woman and two kids (who eyed this big ugly beardy man with much suspicion). The father was most interested in practising English so we spoke of countries and football most of the way until a police checkpoint meant he had to swap driving positions with his wife, as he had no licence. At Trang we exchanged email addresses (as you do) and they waved me off. I then found out that there's no train from Trang to Penang. My research was slightly wrong. I booked a coach for the next morning. I decided to have a look around a busy food market but soon wished I hadn't when extreme tiredness kicked in, and people looking, smiling and trying to talk to me went from being entertaining to a paranoid nightmare. I went straight back to the hotel and slept.

Next morning an 8am bus took me to Hatyai where I changed to a minibus at midday. The border was painless, although an eyebrow was raised and a chin scratched at why I had a 30 day visa stamp, but he realised it could not possibly be my error and set me loose into Malaysia. The three-lane, left-hand drive, raised motorway with metal barriers, hard tree-lined shoulder, European/Asian expensive cars and light rain dramatically reminded me of England. The only thing that brought me back to reality were the three Indonesian kids singing twinkle twinkle little star to me.

Someone recommended Penang to me. I had no idea what to expect when I got there; I had no hostel booked; I didn't even know the currency. The bus dropped me off and I found an ATM. I took out 500 Ringgits as it seemed like a good amount! I then found wi-fi and checked where I was and where I could find a dormitory. I was fortunately very close to  the old area of Georgetown. I strolled up Love Lane in ridiculous heat, noticeably hotter than Thailand. I had a good feeling about a hostel called "Red Inn" and I was greeted by a beaming receptionist called Lyn. When I was there the whole place was being run by three staff: 1 day reception, 1 night reception and 1 cleaner / breakfast cook. The Chinese owner didn't give any recognition of their hard work. He had CCTV and could monitor the staff from his cell phone, occasionally calling if something wasn't right or he thought the staff should push beer and snacks to the guests!

The lovely Lyn, pushing beer!

There's tons to do in Georgetown anyway, but with a week of music, arts, performance, street shows and food stalls under the banner of  the Georgetown festival, coupled with all of the great people I met, I ended up staying for two solid weeks. The food, oh the food! I'm dribbling at the thought. I don't even know where to begin with it. Georgetown food is so good, and varied, that you can actually get a (slightly confusing) food map. Me and my good Russian friend followed this map to come extent,  slurping delicious Chinese noodles, scoffing chicken tandoori's, munching Malaysian Laksa and topping with spicy samosa when peckish.

Fire!

At the Ros Mutiara tandoori restaurant the garlic naan tandoori set is second to NONE!

Urban sketchers were in town

Family photo at the Myanmar temple

Between the scorching sunshine it rained... a lot

The beautiful houses of Bangkok street and the Thai temple

The Manganiyar seduction at the local theatre - amazing!

Circle of Sound

Prizes if you can name them all

The most famous street-art in Georgetown

My birthday this year was particularly worldly with attendees from Russia, The Philippines, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Switzerland, China and Japan. On the menu was some Chinese rice with some Malaysian satay, washed down with some chilled (Lyn insisted it should be chilled), imported French red which was reserved for this occasion, even though I had to pay for it. A drunk street artist from Singapore very kindly gave me a great little picture he'd painted on his phone and printed. From the Chinese wholesaler behind the hostel came some rum and brandy, which, for soaking-up purposes, forced a 3am rainy raid on a burger trolley called "Old Trafford". Keeping with the tradition of football related meat outlets there wasn't really any meat in the burger, and what meat there was looked highly suspicious, but with more alcohol than blood in the pipes it was a damn fine burger!

Rice, satay and chilled red wine

Antique bicycle

Beautiful lantern

What? LAP SAP?

Postcard artist - maybe there's one winging its way to you? ;)

Breakfast: Omelette, toast and the internet

Amritsar, India

Punjab: home of tandoori chicken. Ahh yea! Rudely woken up at 5am we're ushered off. The four of us bleary-eyed are immediately surrounded by eager tuk-tuk drivers, do these guys ever sleep? Fighting our way out and trying to work out where we are from the lonely planet map we head off down the road to the "tourist lodge hotel". We wake up the night person, who agreed that it's fine for me and Bryan to sit in a room for two hours until the manager came in, which we did. The room hadn't been cleaned from the previous people, we sat around reading then got changed, into exactly the same clothes.

Twins

After some discussion we decided not to take a room for that evening, and head straight out after sightseeing. When the manager arrived he wanted to charge us the FULL amount for the room which we'd only sat in until he'd arrived. We eventually agreed on paying half the amount stating our annoyance at the night-staff who said it was fine for us to relax for an hour. 

We went to see the amazing golden Sikh temple - very very beautiful. We hit this temple on a Sunday and it was SO busy. There were people everywhere. To get into the temple (which is in the middle of a lake) we squeezed into a bottleneck with thousands of Sikhs for 2 hours! The prayer is maintained 24/7 from within the temple where there's almost a full band, and some holy men. Out the back we "drink" some holy water then head back to the mainland past the still queueing hoards. 

Golden temple

After a quick stop in cafe coffee day (India's premier western style coffee house) tandoori chicken enters the hunger arena. A policeman highly recommended the Hotel Anand, a very quick tuk-tuk drive away. A soul less dark air-conditioned place but the chicken was absolutely fantastic, with a garlic naan and beer on the side. 

After some investigation we realise we're not going to be able to get a train/bus out of Amritsar today so we get tickets for tomorrow. We also realise that we're going to have to go back to the hotel and tell them that we are now staying - which was fine. We ended up in a dormitory to ourselves, however we weren't able to get him to knock off what we'd paid for the room earlier. Nil points for customer service.

There's a hilarious India/Pakistan border closing ceremony every day around 5pm. On either side there are huge seating arrays, thousands of people, massive sound systems and even a cheerleader man to whip the crowds up into a frenzy! It's like being at a football match. Once the dancing and cheering is over the border guards come out and march to and from the border - someone likened it to the Ministry of Silly Walks. The Indian and Pakistani border guards taunt each other with fighting stances, the flags are lowered and the border closed. Quite a spectacle!

Indian guard kicking self in the head

Trying to get a bus back a tuk-tuk already full with 6 people stopped and gestured us to get in. Bryan sat next to the driver and me and an Irish guy we'd met jump in the back for the 30km journey to Amritsar. Everyone on the road was in party mode: cheering, waving, honking and generally driving dangerously! People on bikes, tuk-tuk's and cars would come so close we could put our feet on their front bumper and swap drinks. The funniest thing was overtaking Mimi and Steve who'd decided a cycle-rickshaw would be a good mode of transport to travel 30km!?!?

 

The next day was spent lazing about in the hotel garden drinking beer and discussing quantum mechanics, waiting for our respective overnight modes of transport. This is where me and Bryan parted company (for now)

You can see all of the photo's here