Penang

Ok I'm getting a bit over this food poisoning malarkey now. It has been a week now! Going to Penang for the weekend was just the ticket - there was lots of lolling around in a five-star hotel getting spa treatments. I was very warmly welcomed by all the gang who were there for a wedding on Sat night, including the bride and groom themselves and invited me to all the 8 course Chinese banquets! Air Asia was great - I travelled in a brand new plane with leather-look seats. The cleaner in the airport toilets (pictured) was so amused about our height difference!

Like Kuala Lumpur, Penang has good night life and we had a lot of fun dancing to old classics like "Uptown Girl" in every nightspot. I'm trying (with huge difficulty) to get used to people smoking around me again - inside!! How quickly I got used to waking up without smoky clothes and hair. I had a fun trishaw ride home from the club on Friday night. One of the crew from Perth persuaded the driver to let him pedal us home. It proved to be pretty hard work! Another trishaw driver stopped halfway back to the hotel and dropped off 2 of our crew saying they were too heavy and had to catch a taxi!!!

Finally someone pointed out to me what the arrows on the ceilings in the hotel bedrooms are. I thought they were pointed towards a safety device (emergency exit?) but of course they are pointing to Mecca (NOT Macca's as the stereotypical blonde in me misheard...) to assist with prayer time!

Coming back to KL after a weekend away felt surprisingly like coming home. Viknes the taxi driver is such an angel-in-disguise...it was lovely to get picked up at the airport by a familiar face and know that I wasn't going to be white-knuckled or ripped off during the 1hour journey!