Well I really did a poor job of publishing this one!

SELAMAT DATANG!

I am having to rely on my memory, not a good idea at the best of times, and my notes 😊

In July I had needed to travel to Malaysia for work, I had a management course in Kuala Lumpur for three days. It seemed a waste not to extend the trip and look around for a week bit. Keeping in mind that I had only been back in NZ for three weeks after our amazing round the world trip.

Oh well, its hard to keep a good woman (stretching the term a little) down, or in one place.

After asking around for good options I was told Penang is the place to go. Its not far from KL, the weather is nice, the food is amazing, the people lovely, the food amazing, close to great snorkelling, and the food is good too, apparently.

I wanted to maximise my time in Penang and KL whilst minimising the leave I would need to take. Not an easy task.

The best option was to take Air NZ from Wellington, Christchurch, Singapore, KL, Penang, if you can be bothered to look on a map, not the most direct route in the world, but that was my option.

Several reasons for this, I did not want to travel with Malaysian Airlines. I know, get over it, they just suffered bad luck, blah blah. But in the back of my mind I did not want to do it.

Any hoo! This was possibly the longest day of travel I have done in a long time, including our round the world trip. Nearly 20 hours.

My last flight from KL to Penang was with Air Asia (I know, with fresh information I may not have flown with them either ha, ha).

When I booked this particular flight I asked for all the extras including a meal, but by the time I was on the flight and seated I was aboslutley exhausted and slept. So the lovely staff put my meal in a takeaway bag, yeah really, and I took it with me.

Penang at midnight is much like any other place at midnight. Dark. But, unlike NZ when I left, it was warm and there were lots of palm trees.

I managed to figure out the taxi system, kind of, after a lot of confusion. You go to a counter inside the airport, tell them where you are going, pay them there, get a voucher, and then give it to the taxi driver who promptly takes you there. Well apparently I got the address slightly wrong, or the guy spotted a sucker, and the driver told me I had not paid enough and needed to pay more.

So tired, I just did it. In reality it was not a lot of money, and maybe he needed it more than me 😀

The ride to my accommodation was interesting. The lines on the road, which normally indicate some sort of lane system, apparently are strictly for decoration – a mere inconvenience if you like. The driver spent the majority of his time tail gating those drivers irresponsible enough to adhere to the speed limit (how dare they) and travel along the middle of the road.

Why pick a lane when you can use two.

I must admit I didn’t really care, I was tired so the sooner I got to bed the happier I would be!

I had booked an apartment close enough to town. It had a massive pool, several bedrooms, a kitchen, and laundry, everything I needed.

Anna, my accommodation contact, was waiting at the apartment building for me. To make sure I got in and paid the necessary deposit (in the event of a wild party or out of control curry cookoff).

She was lovely, all checked in, all sorted, so tired, quick shower (I will describe that particular experience later) and into bed. What a long, long, long day.

Very excited though.

Sleep time!

Day 1 – Penang – Curry Up and Have Fun

God bless the thoughtfulness of the Air Asia staff, my dinner from the night before was my breakfast. And what a freaking lovely breakfast it was. Nasi Lemak, and none of this mild nonsense. An awesome way to start the day.

For my first day I had booked a full day tour, this included visiting an orangutan sanctuary, forest walk, lunch, charcoal factory (yep). This was going to be an 8 hour tour. Turned out it was all for me. My own driver, see the world does revolve around me.

As I did not know where I was going the lovely Anna picked me up bright and early and drove me into town, it really was not that far, but she insisted. Based on my insturctions she dropped me off at the Q Hotel – well F me, who would have thought there was more than one!

After 20 minutes of waiting and hovering I finally asked the lovely doorman (Morpheus from the Matrix) he kindly pointed out I wanted the OTHER Q hotel, so off I run.

Made it, all sorted.

Orangutan Island and Mangrove Forest Day Trip from Penang – Private Tour with Lunch

My driver, we shall call him Jose, was very chatty and educated me in the way of Penang and Malaysian politics, marriage, life, and love. I was thoroughly entertained. I think he was a little disturbed by the fact that I was married and traveling without my husband.

At the end of our day together he did the maths, using my birthdate and Jason’s, apparently Jason is a very, very, very unlucky man ha, ha, ha. Don’t tell him.

Anyway, I did love Jose’s approach to speed limits! Similar to me, he did not seem to think they applied to him.

First stop! Orangutan Island – http://www.orangutanisland.org.my/Orangutan%20(home).html

We stopped at, what looked like, an abandoned theme park. It was so quiet. The set up was undoubtly theme park-ish. But obviously this was not their peak season. Very weird, eerie, and no queues! Wahoo.

Once you have walked through the Lost Boys theme park you are greeted by the most beautiful lake. It truly is stunning, see photos. Across the lake is the orangutan island. A quick 10 minute boat ride and you are there.

I must admit it was not as overwhelming as I had expected but they clearly do an amazing job here, rescuing and raising orangutans in order to save the species. And these guys are definitely saved and happy.

Some of the orangutans have been bred there and others were rescued and relocated. The staff are quiet and clearly devoted. The tour, which consisted of me and one family, took just over an hour but it was lovely. Only feet away from these strangely familiar animals as they ate, lazed, burped, and misbehaved like teenagers. Very, very cool.

The three juveniles, seriously just a bunch of teenagers doing what they wanted, came when they were called IF there was food involved and they put on a right show for us. Once the food was finished though, so were they.

We took the boat back to Lost Boys and then back in the car, more driving to be done. This time, on to Taiping.

We were booked into the Dragon Phoenix Chinese restaurant for lunch. I am not entirely sure how many they were expecting but the amount of food was ridiculous. Luckily, I was able to convince Jose to eat with me so at least we were able to finish about half of it.

One dish had shell fish, a no-no for me, so they went off and made me something else, despite my protests that we had enough. And, to top it off, I didn’t tip them! Didn’t realise that I needed to and had no cash, and FAIL.

I rolled myself into the car and off we went to the next part of the tour.

Mangrove Forest Walk!!

Only about 40 minutes down the road is the mangrove forest walk, it has been set up as a learning and tourist experience, Jose did not feel the need to accompany me, in fact no one did.

The walk was lovely and very peaceful, the weather was perfect with hot sun and a little breeze, so I started along the boardwalk. A boardwalk that leads through the mangroves, snakes, squirrels, snakes, trees, snakes, birds, snakes, and lizards. Funnily enough I did not even think about the snakes. I just thought it was pretty. So off I went.

The boardwalk itself is a Jo accident waiting to happen. Missing boards, nails sticking up, whole steps sunk into the water, hand rails missing or non-existent, fun all round. Luckily I am very conscientious about this stuff – nope, never, not ever.

It was quite a lovely walk actually and I spent a lot of time watching squirrels and birds. At one point I stopped and walked down to the river. Stooping as low as I could to get some great photos. There was noise of birds and nature, but the noise I heard down by the water was somewhat different.

I stopped, looked, started to move towards the noise, kneeling down, getting really close the bubbles in the water, then decided not to investigate and finish my walk instead.

Jose was waiting for me, in fact he had started to do the walk to look for me. Hmmm. Apparently he was a little concerned about how long I was taking. There are large snakes in this area and people are on the menu. Not looking for the source of the noise was probably quite wise! Well done me. OMFG!!!

We leave here, as I continue to quietly give thanks to my intuition, and head to the “charcoal factory” why?

Charcoal – What is it good for? Absolutely everything – as it turns out!

I am unsure how I thought charcoal was made, maybe I thought it just was. Just always there. Apparently no.

They have these massive ovens that they block off, start a fire, put the fire out, put the wood in and let the wood smoulder. You want it smouldering and not burning otherwise it is ruined .I learnt a great deal that I never wanted to know. But it did show me that when you complain about your job, think about the poor people, usually young ladies, whose job it is to stack, pack, move, and rate charcoal. A bloody awful, hot, stinky, dirty, and (no doubt) unhealthy job.

I opted out of purchasing any soap, honey, pencils, etc and sited boarder control, but seriously I just wanted to leave as the place had all these dogs – and they were miserable, unkempt creatures, not right!

That was the end of the tour options and it was time to head back to Penang.

About 1.5 hours away, that meant we should have gotten back at around 4pm. What else could I do with the day (so I did not waste it).

I decided that I wanted to walk up Penang Hill. I had read that it did not take long and the view, especially at sunset, was amazing! I convinced Jose to drop me at the bottom of the hill, he dropped me by the tram refusing to believe I did actually intend to walk, and waved me a fond farewell.

Now the fun begins!