PENANG ON HALF DAY CLOSING

Stop poking me! There's nothing ruder than a train conductor just thrusting his fingers into your back to wake you up. Having just re read that sentence I suppose there is something ruder.

We got up and moved to the carriage that was going to Butterworth, we tried paying off the conductor on that part of the train, no dice. We would be stopping here for about 10 minutes so I jumped off and legged it to the ticket office. I got the tickets no problem, which makes me wonder why I couldn't just buy them back at Surit Thani, there were other people on this train who came from Koh Phangan and they seemed to get on no problem, maybe they were organised and booked in advance. Losers.

I made it back onto the train and we set off for another 7 hours in to Malaysia. After these journeys the 1hour and 50 minute journey from Euston to Crewe is going to seem like nothing. I slept for a bit, but couldn't really get comfortable. we got to the immigration control which was a bit of a joke. We go off the train, went through passport control, walked around through customs and out through the same door we came in, and go back on the train. If wed just hung around on the platform we could have avoided the customs. Which were also a bit of a joke, I was going through and the guy said “can I see inside you bag please”, I said no problem, he then asked me if I had anything to declare i said no and he thanked me and off I went, all before I could even take off my bag to open it for him, they're very trusting over here, especially for a country that has really strict penalties on drug trafficking, although I'm not sure they'd kill you for smuggling anti histamines, but you never know.

we arrived in Butterworth at about 2pm, and had to wait until about 9.40 for our next sleeper to KL. So instead of waiting around the station we got the ferry to Penang. A small island off the north west of Malaysia. There's a bridge going across which is the longest bridge in asia apparently, the penang bridge. I found out that they are building a second bridge, called The Penang Second Bridge. The ideas department must have had an early lunch the day they came up with that name.

We walked around Penang, found a guest house where we could have a shower, get changed and dump our stuff for the afternoon. We went for a wander to try and find something to eat, everything was closed. No exaggeration, everything. After about 2 hours of wandering, and Matt ducking into every available bit of shade to stop his bald head turning an even more pleasant shade of crimson, we found ourselves back at the guest house. we still had about 2 hours to kill so we ate at the cafe next door, there were quite a few back packers around, which is usually a good sign. I spent an hour on the internet just messing around, and then we got a cab to the ferry port.

Once again we were horribly early for our train, which once again was delayed. We were at the station by about 8pm and the train didn't leave until after 9, and I hate being early for things at the best of times. The train decided to arrive at about 10.30pm, and left at about 10.45, i was really ready for bed, i was exhausted, after the previous night of very little sleep and a day of walking around in the sun, I was up and into bed before the train doors had shut.