Penang Part 2...

On Day 3 we took a trip up Penang Hill, 2750 feet above sea level- there is a tram type thing to take you up-its surprisingly quick and smooth but so very steep!! The views from the top were great and there was yet another Hindu temple, however storm clouds rolled in which we could see over the lower lands and soon the tempertaure dropped and it was raining heavily, we sheltered in the cafe at the top and had some really nice Char Koay Teow-what would become my favourite dish...

A little friend we met along the way

Clouds over Penang

Day 4 and we went to find Wat Chayamangkalaram, a famours Thai Buddhist temple which housed a giant slkeeping Buddha stautue, we hadnt yet seen a Buddhist temple and it was really nice, peaceful and  beautifully decorated-alot of work and respect went into building it. We also visited the Burmese temple across the road. Later in the day we took a quick trip to the botaniucal gardens where we saw yet more monkeys!

Food!! Penang Island is know for having some of the best food in Malaysia-I totally agree with that! I enjooyed pretty much everything we ate and we made a special effort to try specific Penang dishes includine Mee Goreng (Noodles), Chee Cheong Fun (Steamed and rolled rice flour), Penang Laksa (Noodles in Fish based broth), Char Koay Teow (My Favourite-Fried noodles, Garlic and Prawns), Roti Tissue (Dessert of very thin roti and condensed milk-yummy) and the desserts of Cendol (coconut milk and ice-ok) and Ice Kachang (horrible!!) The final 2 evenings we spent in a Hawker court where you can have all these dishes and more (Beth had some great Chicken and Coconut Soup) for really cheap (8 pound between 2 got us starter, 2 mains, 2 desserts and 4 drinks!!)

                                       Char Koay Teow...













                                       Chee Cheong Fun...

                        Chciken and Coconut Soup...

                                   Ice Kachang and  Cendol...










Hawker Court...

Overall I loved Penang and would go again just for the food alone let alone all the other stuff and apparantly theres loads more to do so maybe another trip will be taekn... in the meantime however lectures start proper tomorrow and got lots of work to get done and not much time to do it...still we plan to take a few weekend out to visit Langkawi, Tioman and Singapore and hope to take a week to go to Borneo!!






 Still missing home and everyone there but feeling alot more settled and confident in life here-next exciting trip however will be to tesco tomorrow for some much needed supplies!

Penang 12.02.2013 - 16.01.2013

Sooo we had a week off for New Year and so we decided to take off and head for the Island of Penang-famous for its amazing food!! We took the overnight bus arriving at 6am-a very sleepy day followed!! First day we spent getting lost as its much bigger than you think so getting places takes a good hour on the bus! Also the Malay people are lovely but you ask them directions for exmaple, instead of saying they dont know they will give you some...so you could end up anywhere!! Anyway on day 1 we took a quick trip to the beach which sadly got rained off but was still warm enough for us brits!!














 Day 2 and we decided to head to the National Park for the day-One of the smallest National Parks in Asia! We hiked for about 1h 30 through the forrest/jungle to the beach-a very welcome site!! Here we saw some baby turtles and chilled in the sea before drying off on the beach (yes I got sunburn!) We then took a boat woth a crazy guide who had incredible eyesight-he pointed out eagles and kingfishers in the trees we couldnt have hoped to spot! He drove us to 'Monkey Beach'- which only had 2 monkeys on it!! The hike back was tougher and more Jungle-y, and we got chased by some angry monkeys with a french couple! Still we got back very tired but in one piece and had a great day!

My Clothes drying from a coconut tree!!

 

Kingfisher

 

Batu Caves 12.02.2013

We took the short train journey (just RM1!!) to the famous Batu Caves. Here you find one of  the largest statue of Murugan (hindu god), a very steep 272 step climb up to a huge limestone cave containing Hindu temples and icons and a lot of very cheeky monkeys! This was a really nice place with lots of people just visiting but also many praying. The scenery was amazing and its really hard to describe the cave setting properly! The monkeys ran free and were being fed by tourists both voluntarily and by stealing their food-they certainly knew how to put on a show for the cameras! We only needed a couple of hours here but was really good, we then headed back to KL and had some cheeky cocktails in Hard Rock Cafe KL in order to quench my HRC obession :P

Chinese New Year

So last weekend (10/11th Feb) marked chinese new year-Happy Year of the Snake everyone! We spent all weekend in KL shopping and seeing all the amazing decorations which are up everywhere! The celebrations were a little lacking as most chinese people go home for family reunions across this weekend but non the less we had a great time, saw some great Lion dancing and secured our own prosperity for the year by tieing coins to the bridge in the Pavillion, and had some good food. Despite the lack of celenrations the atmosphere in KL at night was buzzing so we still had a geat weekend...

Hi everyone, this is my new blog-moved over as Tumblr just wasnt working for me! Should hopefully be blogging regularly on here now without boring anyone to death!!
Btw old blog link... http://mariaswannmalaysia.tumblr.com/