After breakfast – it took some doing, but we managed to persuade the girl to make us some bacon sandwiches + a pot of tea – we were out on the road hitching, + soon picked up a ride. It was with a truck heading to Ipoh, a bit of luck for us as that was on the road up to Penang. There were a couple of guys in the cab, one Indian, one Chinese, but we threw our packs into the back, + squeezed in with them. They were chatty + friendly, buying us a cup of coffee when we stopped in Tanah Rata. At Ipoh, they dropped us off at the turn-off to the town by-pass, + tho’, as usual, we were assailed by doubts as to whether we were at the best place, it turned out alright. We had to wait for an hour in the bright sunshine, but were rewarded with a good ride, right to the outskirts of Butterworth, the town across from the island of Penang. Mind you, we had a couple of things to put up with. The driver scared the living daylights out of us on more than one occasion thro’ suicidal overtaking, + what was almost worse, we had to endure some appalling music, worse than a dept store lift, so we handed over our Dear Bjorn cassette as soon as we could. I don’t know if they enjoyed it – they spoke virtually no English – but it was much better for us. They played it very loud, + it was an excellent stereo.
From where they dropped us, it was but a short bus ride into town to the ferry terminal, + from there we simply walked on the next ferry. They operate a remarkably efficient system, with ferries every few minutes operating around the clock. On the ride over, however, we did discover that our camera wasn’t working, that the shutter was jamming open. Most distressing, especially when we thought it had recovered from its dip. I think this is a separate problem, however, not connected with that incident.
In Georgetown, Penang’s major city, we headed direct for Leboh Chulia, the street on which the cheap hotels are situated, + checked in at the first one that was reasonable. A more discriminating approach could be tackled tomorrow – today we wanted somewhere to put our bags, + give us the chance to look around. Which we did, in an ambling sort of way, managing to get lost in the process. Our evening meal was most unadventurous, Western food in a cheap restaurant, but tasty + welcome. After that we were ready for bed. I wandered out again a little later to buy a cold drink, +, was amazed to see how much the street had come to life, with street stalls selling all sorts of food.
On the move again, just a bit further north up the Malay peninsula, and good to get to our next destination, the island of Penang.
