Our intro to Malaysia was a bit hurried as we were already overdue on our Thai visas and were forced to flee the country prior to really being ready to move on. My first impression of Malaysia was that there is bit more money here, but the culture was different and with the stronger Muslim presence made me feel uncomfortable in my normal beach/summer wear. We arrived in Georgetown, Penang after nearly 12 hours in a mini-bus and were not too impressed with the ride as were told it was a one-bus-all-the-way deal. Instead we got dropped off at some little office in some little city and told that there’d be another bus to take us the rest of the way. But it provided a chance for lunch and we made it across the border after paying our overstay fee of 1000 baht/day. Georgetown is an old city with some nice old temples/mosques/churches etc. but not too much to do really and the accommodation options were generally run-down & generally dirty.. We spent a day to plan our next moves and decided to fly to Sabah where we could experience some of the wild nature that Borneo has to offer, thereby skipping mainland Malaysia and the popular Taman Negara (a grand National Park filled with wild jungle). Andrew had a friend in Kuala Lumpur who was not available for a visit which also persuaded us to head to Borneo. We did spend some time touring the place, taking a “funicular” to the top of Penang Hill for a great view of the city.
The East Indian fellow at the hotel desk was quite excited to see Westerners “after seeing us in the movies” and was eager to show us the town. We ended up getting carted around to the sites and it improved our view of the town. We tried some Penang cuisine (Andrew liked the char koay teow) and then flew away early the next morning.
-Julie
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