Penang

Back to Penang, where we had a brief one night stopover on our way out to Oz.
One afternoon whilst wandering over to the shoreline on Gurney Drive we are looking out to sea when David spots what he initially thinks is a snake in the water. Helen then also spots it and it's come to the shore line, but it's then clear it's not a snake at all. There's a local girl nearby so David asks her what it is and she replies 'it's like a small crocodile' – we couldn't have put it better ourselves – not sure it was though (but don't let the Chronicle & Echo know though, eh Tim?)
We hired another moped for a couple of days to get a bit further around the island – David got to play moped dominoes in a 'ped park. Neither of us would recommend it though and David ended up with a couple of purple toes - when they stopped bleeding. We did have more successful trips with it though and managed to get to the National Park to do a couple of what were quite challenging walks in the humidity of the jungle. Whilst walking down to Turtle Beach one day, the noises in the jungle were incredible and we saw, to quote the lady earlier another one of those 'small crocodile's. There were also plenty of (other) lizards, colourful butterflies and, when we arrived at the beach turtle tracks in the sand – but sadly no turtles to see whilst we were there. On a more positive note though, there were no leeches either! We did see plenty of monkeys though on both our visits and, perhaps unsurprisingly, on the aptly named Monkey Beach itself – if only those turtles could have been as obliging.




We also managed to get to Penang Hill to visit an impressive Hindu temple and mosque, but sadly for us at this time, the funicular is currently under refurbishment, so we didn't get to see some of the better views. We were told there was a footpath to climb to the top but we couldn't find it (although due to the humidity to be honest we didn't actually look that hard).


Malay cuisine is excellent and we visited many cheap but very tasty open kitchens in Batu Ferringhi, Gurney Drive and George Town itself with some interesting items on the menu – but the vegetable samosas from one particular street vendor must get a special mention as we frequented his stall on an almost daily basis during our stay. Being the old romantics that we are, we also broke with our own tradition over the past ten years of NOT going out on Valentines – thankfully it appeared to be just a normal night our restaurant of choice on the 14th, the prices normal and only one red rose in sight.




We also enjoyed a final Indian meal in Penang on David's birthday...