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Lotte and I spent today walking around the Georgetown (Penang) area. The "China Town" and "Little India" areas where the highlights.

Walking around China Town really gives your the feeling of stepping into the past - rundown old buildings peopled by equally rundown old men trying largely in vain to offload their ancient wares. Little India was quite amusing, it was like stepping into a different country - bad bangera music assaulting the ears at every turn and animated mannequins provding much amusement.

Given our less than pleasant stay at the hotel hong ping, Lotte and I decided to treat ourselves and try the Shangri-La hotel. The Shangri-La is a luxury hotel chain in Asia and I must say that it's unbelieveable! Our room has a couch, minibar, fridge, amazing view and is perfectly air conditioned. The ensuite has a shower, bath, toilet, phone and even has speakers so you can listen to the tv while you're on the john! We also get gym, pool and internet privelages as well as a gourmet breakfast and dinner. All this for $60 each! We considered not leaving the hotel, but we decided that while we were in Penang that maybe we should actually try to see some of it. So we reluctantly pried ourselves from the perfectly controlled air conditioned comfort of our room and stepped out into the bustling and humidified state that is Penang

We spent our time in the hotel hong ping - the hotel where you can smell the "culture" in the building (but pay more not to), hanging out in the "Cafe Hong Ping". We ended up chatting to 2 european guys now living in Thailand. One was a 50 year old Swedish guy who took in stray animals (mainly cats) off the street and kept them as pets, and the other a 40 year old Italian Pizzeria Owner who was bragging about how he recently aquired a 21 year old thai wife who doesn't speak much English - and no Itialian. They came to Penang so they could get their visa's "renewed" - ie leave thailand and re-enter it with fake passports, thus giving them another "tourist" visa. The Swedish guy was complaining about how the price of getting their visa's "renewed" had gone up quite substantially in the 6 or so years he had been there while the Italian guy was entertained us with a story about how Slash - the guitarist from Guns and Roses - once frequeted a bar that he owned in Thailand. It was an interesting conversation to say the least.

I've always wanted to immitate David Beckham, so here's the first chapter of MY book; my side (on holiday with a Dermot). First i must make the boring admission that he is not THAT bad, yeah i know aaaahhhhh, but he can be pretty annoying so listen and shiver...
Before we went away we did not see each other that often and that to start with is a big change - going from a few hours a day with dermie spermie to over 24 hours with D.S. We used to have breakfast on the weekend at the same place in leederville (greens or 130). This may seem a futile announcement for most of you but it is of great importance to understand D.S' annoying behaviour...

Lotte and I had a change of heart and decided to go to Penang, which is an island just off the north coast of Peninsular Malaysia. It was a 7.5 hour bus ride from Melaka, which went supprisingly quick (Lotte disagrees - probably because she had to put up with me for 7.5 hours ;). We got to see some of the beautiful landscape in Malaysia on the way - the rolling hills in this country are amazing.

Anyway we are staying at the "Hotel Hong Ping" - where the roofs of available rooms have the refreshing aroma of painted mould (by Calvin Klein). We'll probably stay here for a few days and then fly to Bangkok.