Malaysia (Penang) - Georgetown

We decided to head straight to Malaysia after the full moon party as we only had a few days left on our visa which wasn't really enough time to see the west coast like we planned. Both of us were tired and wanted a change after island hoping for 11 days with the lads. They left us to go home and we need to get back into the travelling attitude, moving on every 3-4 days, slumming a bit and generally not being on holiday.

We had booked our tickets to Butterworth in Malaysia then we intended to catch a ferry to Penang for a few days. After catching the early ferry from Koh Phangan to the main land, we then got picked up by bus and driven to the bus station. We then got told to get in the back of this pickup truck to take us to the bus to drive us to Malaysia, we did as at this point we didn't suspect anything foul. We were driven to another travel agents where the bus was going to pick us up. On arrival the women firstly said we could pay a little extra and the bus would get on the ferry and take us to Georgetown, we did again pay as we had no reason not to believ her. After that she then said we needed to have 200RM per person to show to immigration in order to get our visa, alarm bells were ringing! She even offered to take us to the cash machine to get out Thai BHAT which she would then change at a very very poor exhange rate for malaysia dollar. We refused after confirming that this was bullshit. We were then told to get back in this car where they would take us to the bus, hold on firstly she said the bus was coming picking us up from here! We got in and were taken to another bus station, the bus we were supposed to get on was set to leave at 11:30am. We ended up not leaving until nearly 1pm and then had to change to another minibus after a few hours. What actually happened here is we were kidnapped to be scammed, we never ended up going to Butterworth and were drove straight to Panang, we never needed the 200RM pp for immigration, we missed our actual bus at 11:30, we then were driven around and passed between companies until we eventually arrived after nearly 17hrs of travel. Not a great way to start our Malaysia trip and definitely put a dampener on Thailand, it was one of the longest and stressful bits of travel we had done to date.

Malaysia straight away seemed ultra developed with great infrastructure and transport, something neither of us expected. Penang was pleasant and we stayed a total for 5 nights. Georgetown where we stayed offered lots to see and do and all with walking distance. I liked the fact it was a old British coloney, retaining some of old England and you could actually get a cup of English tea and fresh scones and jam which was amazing! Penang is said to be a place of food and it certainly is, on every corner small food stalls selling Malay, Indian, Chinese or a fusion of them all at cheap prices, mostly all delicious, however the curried octopus wasn't the best. We did a lot of touristy things, visiting Penang Hill via the tram, visiting the beach and butterfly garden, visiting fort Cornwallis and the museum, all in all a good few days.

We ate out at this local food court two nights, the court was surrounded by micro kitchens and food stalls. You get a table, walk round until you see something you like, order it, tell them you table and they bring it over within 5-10 mins. We tried several dishes in total, it ends up being a bit of a taster meal with several small dishes. We also visited little Indian which was underwhelming to be honest however the onion bhaji things we had for lunch that day from there were good. We ended up doing a lot of eating in Penang which makes sense as they say the main hobby for people from Penang is food. Next we head inland to Cameron Highlands to see some tea plantations.