Today we have reached the halfway point of our trip – five weeks gone, and another five to go. It seems more than five weeks since we left home but I suspect the second half of the trip will feel much shorter.
We have been busy since we last updated the blog. Everyone was well enough to thoroughly enjoy our last day in KL at the Sunway Lagoon water park. We went down all the water slides, and most of the fair rides as well. There was some random height measuring going on. The official height restriction was 1.1m for all the rides, but at some rides Susie stood well over the marker and at others a good 10cm under. In the end, after some debate, there was only one she was not allowed on. We arrived as the park opened, and left as it closed. We all slept well that night. Phil has taken some footage with the waterproof camera but video is proving difficult to edit and upload so it may not be seen until we are home!
The following day we caught our bus for Penang. Ramadan caught us out again – the six hour bus was broken only by a toilet stop and not the expected lunch one! The kids thought all their Christmas’s had come as they ate bisuits and crisps for lunch :-). We made it to our hotel on Bayu Ferenggi by about five pm. A quick dip in the pool and off to look for tea. It turns out there is an excellent hawker centre ( well Penang is famous for it’s food) nearby which we have frequented every night. The sweet rotis with cndensed milk have been a hit, as was Emma’s oxtail soup!
While we have been here we have visited Georgetown where we took the opportunity to buy our 20 hour overnight train tickets to Bangkok for later on. The lovely lady behind the counter informed us all days after ours are already booked solid due to the end of Ramadan but also told us that one or two days a week the train is cancelled on the day! Fingers crossed it is not ours….. We enjoyed walking around the city, looked at Fort Cornwallis and the museum as well as taking in the architecture and soaking up the culture. At lunchtime we stopped in Little India at a small restaurant where we liked the man cooking rotis at the front. We sat down and when asked for our order mentioned rotis. “only lunch menu now” we were told. We looked hopefully for a menu but none was forthcoming so we asked “what’s on the lunch menu?”. “banana leaf set”. So that’s whar we had, and very tasty it was too!
We have also visited Kek Soo Li temple, been up Penang hill and played in the Youth Park. All good fun. Now we have to pack up again, we are off to our third country – Indonesia – with a flight to Sumatra tomorrow.