Jungle Railway, Kota Bahru, Penang

Location: Georgetown, Panang Island
Weather: Hot and humid, as usual in this place

After desperately searching for Pekeliling bus station, which is on no maps of KL or even on the Internet, I eventually found it thanks to a woman at one of the train stations and this very helpful Chinese bloke who even helped carry my bags. Considering it is the only bus station that goes to Mentakab - the Jungle Railway trainstop, this was very useful.
Stayed a night in Mentakab, yet another small town, where the people were genuinely helpful and the hotel I stayed in pretty good. They also had a reasonable market and shops and the train station was only just down the road. I've even drawn a map of Mentakab which I'm going to sell, because the useless Rough Guide doesn't have one.
Anyways, despite the doors hanging off as you're going along, I enjoyed the Jungle Railway and unsurprisingly it is mostly through the jungle! lots of palm, tea and rubber trees, a few mountains and some brown coloured rivers. It stopped many times at the various jungle villages and it was interesting to see that they are a mixture of ramshakle tumbledown huts and brand new houses. The seats on the train weren't fantastic (100% plastic), but I didn't find them too bad for the 11-12 hours it took to get to Wakaf Bharu station(far north west of Malaysia) and my whole time on the train was very pleasant. I then got a taxi to the town of Kota Bahru. Stayed at the Ideal Travellers Guesthouse - ideal if you like mosquito infested rooms(which also have bed bugs, allegedly), although at least the staff were good. Ended up staying there 2 nights running because the buses to Penang were all full up. So visited a couple of rather good museums, including the Sultan's Palace - where the Sultans used to live and the Royalty Museum. Also ran into my Dutch friend Kara and her new travelling partner Mark from Malaka again!

After forgetting to pick up my laundry the night before, I had a bit of a rush to retrieve it and then get to the bus station for 9am, but as it happened the bus wasn't even there. Had to wait another 20mins or so for it to turn up. Anyways, after a reasonable journey of 8 hours I finally arrived in Penang. Penang is an island, but is connected by a 8km or 13km long causeway (dunno the real figure because it various on different maps). Anyways, after being dropped at the Komtar (a hexagonal shaped landmark tower in the middle of town) I lugged my backpack to the Blue Diamond hotel and stayed there for one night. The rooms in this place were huge, very clean and even had a wash basin, but parts of the windows were missing, which is not good in mosquito land and the bathrooms were harrowing - I'm sure they haven't been altered since the 1930's. I went out for something to eat that night and ended up chatting to a friendly northern couple and they told me about a good hotel down the road. So the next morning I moved there, this Western Oriental Hotel place was much better. OK, so the room was smaller, but they even had a hot shower! which is virtually unknown in this country. Also they served the best breakfasts with real bacon!

So Penang...well in the town there are some old buildings from the colonial days - HSBC & Chartered Standard banks and Fort Cornwallis - the British fort (we used to own the island) which isn't bad for a look around. One day I hired a motorbike and drove to a huge Buddist temple in the hills, which was good, then after getting lost I found the Snake Temple which had live green snakes living in it. I also took the bus to Batu Ferringi which is a famous beach and saw some Muslim women wearing their full veils on the beach, it must've been over 30degrees that day, they must be nuts.

My nights in Penang were mostly spent hanging out with that northern couple and Kara & Mark who I met up with again in a couple of bars around town. Walking back to the hotel was always fun because just past the 7-11 on Love Lane(a few 100m's away from my hotel) was where the various hookers hanged out (yes, I thought it was very illegal in Malaysia as well), I say 'various' because most of these women of ill repute were actually men dressed as ladies, some of them so blatently men that I think Eddie Izzard does a better impression of a woman. My mind boggles at what kind of a person would pick one up.

My last highlight of Malaysia was a daytrip to Langkawi island - which is a 2.5 hour ferry journey. This was a nice place, but I got rather wound up there. Even though it's a prime tourist spot (it's a duty free island), there aren't any buses and because there isn't any information anywhere, I stupidly didn't hire a motorbike and therefore ended up wasting tons of cash on taxis. I did have an excellent trip on their cable car though, which must be one of the steepest in the world and gave spectacular views of the coast, I had a foot massage up the mountain as well to relax me a bit. BUT this didn't prepare me for getting mugged for my food by a gang of monkeys on my way to some rock pools. It was unBOLevable - they jumped out the trees and walked threateningly towards me, especially this big one who took no notice except for scowling when I almost smacked him with my bag. The only way I could escape without injury (I'm talking seriously here, in all the years of wandering the streets of South London after midnight, I've never been so concerned for my own safety as with these monkeys) was by chucking my crisp packet at them! They all then ran after that and left me alone. Talk about dangerous.

By JamesReed on 28.01.05 @ 05:02 AM GMT