travelling allrite

Our Penang quest for food starts at the resort with another buffet breakfast. This one caters to a range of visitor tastes. There are local guests, Malay, Indian and Chinese, those from China itself, from Western countries and from the Middle East. Lots of ladies in chadors and men in designer sunglasses. The buffet is good, the roti canai much better than yesterday's and some really tasty beef rendang, full of spices. We follow food with a swim, joining the few out early. The hotel shuttle bus drives us along the winding coastal road and past the condominiums of Gurney Drive back down to Georgetown, terminating at the Jen Hotel. Adjacent to the hotel are a couple of shopping malls, welcome for their air-conditioning rather than their goods. They have floors selling electronics and IT goods and it is interesting to see the penetration of Chinese mobile phone brands in the Malaysian market. Leaving the cool comfort of the malls we continue towards the old town. B...

Sitting in the Golden Sands Resort at Batu Ferringhi in Penang, a childhood haunt of B, feeling rather full after a large meal of seafood by the beach. Despite changing hotels, today was not a travel day. It was nice to be able to sleep in with the only timetable being that of breakfast and a midday checkout. A buffet breakfast is part of our stay and we enjoy nasi lemak, curry, fruits and pastries, though not the roti canai which is particularly poor. The problem with included buffet breakfasts is that you feel the need to eat plentifully, reducing the stomach space for other local delights. We have some business at the bank to complete and, as usual, it doesn't go completely smoothly, though it is resolved thanks to Chinese practicality as opposed to certain other community members' intransigence. Meanwhile Alex and I play hangman and wordfinds, needing only papers and pens to amuse ourselves. Hopefully that is the last business we ever need to do in Malaysia. Ro...

This is the second Georgetown we've visited this month. It's not like the British were great at coming up with new names, at least not interesting ones. In this case there's no space between the name and the description, but like George Town Tasmania this one is on an island. Modern Georgetown, like Singapore where we have just come from,  is a consequence of the British East India Company, a trading outpost and a Straits Settlement. There is a lot of history in this city. From the window of our hotel room I can see rows of run down shophouses, walls of stained concrete, and the terracotta roof and white shutters of the Penang State Museum below. When we arrived there was a huge cloud looming above, threatening the huge tropical downpour that we experienced on our previous visit this birthplace of B. It didn't happen, but it was why I was feeling nervous flying in. I wake this morning feeling unsatisfied with a lack of sleep, but needing to finish my writing...