The Gap Year Adventure....

hellloooo from Penang, its been a few days and a lot has happened so thought it was about time to write a quick update.

After Kuala Lumpur we went to a small island near Kuala Kangsar to live with a Malay family for 2 days. The family live on a small island in the middle of a lake which was created by the first dam ever bilt in Asia. We arrived on the evening of Friday 13th and were welcomed by a beautiful dinner of traditional malay food (such as rice cooked in banana leaves). we spent the evening playing traditional malay games and speaking to o ur hosts - Aziz and Asiah and their 3 year old son Azam.

Saturday saw us getting an early start to go across the lake to a local malay village where we were able to see traditional malay homes and the rubber tapping industry that these people survive on. Most of the trees in the jungle were rubber trees and it was really cool to see the pots attached to the trees and the rubber comming out. We carried on further into the jungle on a pretty hard trek to a waterfall. Due to the fact that it had rained most of the previous night and all that morning there were LOADS of leeches so we were given lemons to squeeze on them to get them off. They are the most foul creatures i have EVER seen!! They were all over my legs and i even ended up with one on my back and one at the top of my thigh :-( NOT good!! The waterfall was beautiful though, as was the jungle we had to walk through, so it was very much worthwhile despite the leeches traumatising me! We spent the afternoon swimming in the lake before we got dressed up in traditional malay sarongs to enjoy a traditional malay mean. This was all traditional malay food eaten whilst sat on the floor. You can only eat with your right hand as, ion their culture, the left hand is used for toilet duty! It was pretty hard to master picking up rice and sauce with only 1 hand, and messy too, but really really good fun!

On Sunday morning we left at 9am to go around Kuala Kangsar. we visited the Sultan's mosque which was beautiful although not as large as many others we have visited. We also drove past the palace and visited a street market next to the river which sold loads of wierd and wonderful local fruits. We then caught a bus and ferry to our next stop, Penang.

Tom and I were in a Taxi with another couple (trish and Nick) and the taxi driver decided that he couldnt remember the name of our hotel despite our tour leader having shown him a map and the address! this was a problem as none of us knew the name of the hotel so after driving round Penang for an hour on what was supposed to be a 20 minute journey we abandoned the taxi and trish and i sat in a barw ith a drink whilst the boys went on a search for the rest of our group. Luckily we had ended up only a 5 minute walk away from our hotel and found a cool bar selling mexican food at the same time! We spent the afternoonw andering around local shopping centre (its GIGANTIC!!) before goign to a local night food market for dinner. I ended up spending the grand total of 85p on my dinner which was roasted duck with noodles and a can of coke - the BEST duck and noodles ever :-D All od the weight i lost in tanzania is quickly goign back on - all the food here is so fatty and greasy and so so good! All the people seem to do here is eat!

After dinner we went back to the hotel and hahd a party in our tour leader's room as he had a penthouse room with a rooftop terrace thing. Needless to say everyone apart form myself got ridiculously drunk and had a great night!

It's now 12:55 on Monday and we are in an internet cafe after only gettiing up and leavign the hotel at about 11 - it was a really good night! Time to go now and explore penang before we leave for Thailand tomorrow.

miss you!

lou

xx