AT

10/11/11

We left the room around 0930 to get to the booking office, the plan is to get the night train from Penang to KL, arriving early in the morning and giving us a full day to look around. 10 am came and went but I was reassured by local people also waiting for the office to open, so bet bex breakfast on the opening time and we stood back to wait, sure enough at 1015 the staff member cooly walked up and opened the office, yes! Breakfast on her today!

The price for beds was 40 ringits each (£8) and the train staff said we had the last two, phew! He also told us to be at the ferry nice and early as the train leaves at 2300 and the boats are always late, warning noted.

We left the port and turned north towards a clock tower set in the centre of a roundabout. The tower was erected to celebrate Queen Victorias silver jubilee and during the second world war a bomb strike nearby had left it slightly on the tilt. The tower was well maintained and painted brilliant white, like many of the older buildings in Penang and newer ones too, some of which have been built to resemble the colonial period architecture.

A short walk from the tower is Fort Cornwalis, built by the British but at one time of another occupied by the Germans and Japanese. All that remains are the chapel and gunpowder store, but the outlying area still remains and you get some idea of the size from that. Entry to the fort is only 1baht per person so it's well worth a visit, even if it's just to use the toilets inside. From there we strolled towards the court houses and judges residence, again, it's a new building made to look old but everything is so clean and well maintained you would hardly notice the difference anyway. The temperature was rising again as we walked on towards "millionaires row" or the Penang version of, to me the only real difference I could see was the addition of air conditioning units, but apparently these have some of the highest prices in the city.

We reached our main destination of the kontour tower around lunch time, the tower has 60 plus floor and there is a public observation deck on the 58th floor. As we have found so many times on this trip, there were no signs! Nothing to point you in the direction of the entrance, so we walked up only to find we were at the back, or sides, but not where the way in was. Bex was melting by now so we headed inside the Kontour Mall to find some food and a drink. They had built the large mall we visited yesterday right next door to this one, so I had a bad feeling as we walked inside, and I was right, the place was full of vacant shops on all four floors, in fact the only shop remaining was a budget store selling everything, a bit like Poundland or the 99p stores. We quickly exited and walked across the road to the new mall and after finding fish and main meals for sale at almost every stall I relented and made my first visit to a McDonalds in well over 2 years for nuggets and a drink each.

After resting up and swallowing a completely tasteless batch of nuggets we ventured back out into the heat to try and locate the tower entrance, as this was pretty much the only thing left to do on our list for Penang. We walked around the entire tower base which took roughly 40 minutes and had all but given up when we spotted a lift with a desk next to it, no signs or notices, nothing to indicate this was anything other than a check in for the car park next door. As it turned out it was the right place, but our luck was holding and they were now on lunch for the next hour and a half! We gave up at that point and never got to see the view from the top.

After walking through little India, which apart from one Buddhist temple, was very disappointing we returned to our room and began packing for the train. We took the ticket sellers advice and arrived four hours early at the ferry port, just in case. Our fantastic luck was still holding and we practically walked straight onto the next free ferry, no queues, no holdups, no nothing and then we realized we had four hours until our train! The sunset view of Penang from the ferry was very impressive, full of burnt oranges and fire reds but this only lasted 10 minutes and them you had the typical skyscraper skyline you see in the photos or posters. By 2000hrs we were off the ferry and walking towards the train station, which is only 10 minutes away ( or longer if it's 30c and your bag weighs a ton) as we plodded along the raised walkways, we felt very alone, nobody was silly enough to arrive for the only train this early, except us of course!

Our hopes of a diner or restaurant at the station we shattered by the small Malay eateries which sold only fish and rice, fortunately we were slightly saved by a very small shop which sold pringles and drinks. The next 2 hours were very long, the waiting room was white with wooden seats and air conditioning, I can't add anything else because there was nothing else, at least we had books! I took a walk just after ten, mostly because I had finished counting the floor and wall tiles, and found our train sitting in the station, figuring it could be no worse on there, we boarded and found our bunks, now this is how I had imagined a sleeper train would be.

The train had 8 carriages with each carriage containing upwards of 50 bunk bed style bunks, the only drawback was the lack of luggage space, so anything you brought came with you on the bunk. Another drawback was the lack of legroom if you were over a certain height, which, of course I am, but Becky and I settled in, drew our curtains and waited for the train to move.

11/11/11

Today is a huge wedding day all over Asia as the date is considered very lucky and I had been tempted to arrange our wedding for 12/12/12 but that's another story.

Despite being on a train I slept quite well and woke up at 0530, an hour earlier than I needed to, but they didn't do announcements for the stations and I didn't want us to miss KL. Becky was still asleep so I left her to it and dozed on and off through the last few stops before watching the sunrise through the window. Typically they came through the carriages and announced the KL stop and I think everyone got off at the station, luck still holding then!

We bought a couple of drinks and got a taxi to our hotel, fortunately they had a room available so we were able to check straight in and as it had just past 7am breakfast was now being served on the rooftop bar/restaurant. I had my fill of pancakes and Becky had toast, these being our standard replacement for chicken noodle soup, which even after 2 months of travel, is still plain wrong for breakfast in my book. Showered and refreshed we headed out into KL just after 9am armed with the usual tourist maps and the knowledge that the Petronas Towers were closed for renovation and wouldn't reopen until next month, so one less place to visit. The walk into the centre from the hotel took about 20 minutes and to be honest really didn't pass anything spectacular as it followed a main dual carriage way until it turned off left into a main street, across another main intersection and into the heart of KL. Our first stop was the massive Pavillion shopping complex. Like Penang they seem obsessed with shopping and to make matters worse the Christmas decorations here were even worse with the entire ground floor of the shopping centre set out like a winter wonderland, do these people not know it's only November?

After sitting in Starbucks listening to "let it snow" in 34c heat ( the mind struggled with that) and checking emails we moved on to find the towers, which even though closed, would still make a good picture and the grounds they were built in have now been made into a park. Another 15 minutes and we reached the towers, it would have been quicker to use the sky walkway linking the centre with the towers area but this was closed so we had to go the long way around, which, was not well planned as they have removed all the pavements to make the roads wider, so it was back to playing frogger with traffic. The towers are two huge shiny constructions in the heart of KL, to me they are more impressive than the empire state in NY because they are the tallest buildings around for miles where as the Empire State is the tallest building amongst other tall buildings which kind of reduces the impact.

Underneath the towers they have, yep, you guessed, a shopping mall, slightly smaller than Pavilions but still containing the same shops with a few added designer labels as well, but outside is where they really impressed. They set aside 100 acres for the towers and surrounding area and have created a lush green parkland with fountains and trees for people to relax in. Apparently the running track is 4km long and at the end of the fountains is a swimming area along with sculptures of whales jumping out of the water. Whilst walking around you come across a wooden bridge spanning some of the fountains, it's here that you get those iconic shots of the towers along with the walkway between. There are plenty of trees to give you shade from the intense heat and maps and notices giving photo suggestions as you stroll around, all the time the towers are in sight, catching the sun from different angles.

From here it's another half an hour to little India, which, until you reach the square is just a disappointing mish-mash of discount stores and local restaurants. The buildings around the square have all be preserved in their original state and all look very impressive and grand. The square was the area used when Malaysia declared independence from British rule and the malaysian flag has flown here ever since. The square itself is a grass area the size of two football pitches and the only thing I felt was missing was a cafe or eatery so people could sit down and soak up the history.

Further south from here is the city park, which unfortunately they have also built the city mosque next to the entrance. Prayers has just finished and there were thousands of people all milling around or making their way back to work or home, unfortunately this made Becky very uncomfortable and she wasn't the only one, I could see a couple of western females getting some grief a little further down the road when they chose to stop in the wrong place. I find it amazing how tolerant we are in the western world ( most of the time anyway) and how intolerant people are here, especially when they build the mosque next to the only entrance to the public park!

By now the heat had got to Bex and we got a taxi back to the city centre and back to the pavilion. It was a good job we did as a huge thunderstorm started just after we arrived and neither of us fancied being caught in that. We wandered around the shopping centre until the storm cleared and then walked back to the hotel, fortunately for Bex the storm had cleared some of the humidity out of the air so it was a slightly nicer walk. That night we walked around the night market a few streets across from the hotel, it was tightly packed with hardly space to move, but you could still buy the usual fare of rolex watches, sunglasses and authentic fake shirts and trainers. I'm starting to get a bit disappointed by the night markets, its probably because I'm the only person who would like to buy local products and so far every market in every town or city we have visited has been geared towards fake goods and tourists!

12/11/11

For breakfast we decided to head back into the centre and Starbucks, I know there was no imagination involved in that but we only had a couple of hours to kill and they had Internet that worked!

The taxi to the airport was comical, although at the time I couldn't see the funny side! There are two airports that serve flights from KL and Air Asia, who we were flying with, use both, but only depart from one of them, This of course was not the airport we were at! As I walked up to the information desk the woman behind just said "air Asia?" before I even spoke, something tells me we were not the first to do this. Another short taxi later and we were at the correct departure terminal and I relaxed a little.

The flight was uneventful and we even got our pancakes, which was a bonus although there was hardly time to eat them it was so short ( another wonderful money making scheme by Air Asia). One good point that we hadn't had for a while was metered taxis so at least we didn't have to haggle the price to the hotel. I had booked this hotel long in advance and it was a step up from our usual class, my thinking at the time being us traveling through Malaysia from Thailand without stopping in KL. As far as I know it was only a 3 star, but when we walked into the room it was more like 5. Although small by western standards the bed was a queen size and quite possibly the most comfortably I have ever slept in, the shower room was also compact but the shower was dual head and very powerful ( I think I removed 2 months worth of travel in the first shower) mini bar, not a free one and to top it off aircon over a 32" screen TV, Becky was in heaven!

Showered and refreshed we checked out the pool on the roof, although it was closed due to the storm that had just passed through and I ordered room service which we shared. Star Movies on the TV we settled in for what would hopefully be the best nights sleep yet!