23rd July Penang

We kept the fan off and we had a slightly better sleep, was woken about 5am with a huge thunderstorm and rain crashing on our corrugated tin roof, but by the time we had got up the sun was out. We didnt get going nearly as quickly as planned. I was delighted my muscles didn' hurt after yesterday. For breakfast we went off to try the roti cana. Its so odd sometimes if you go to these little side stores you just get given the food, not really any choice and you have no idea how much its going to cost. This was like an egg roti with some spicy red sauce, we declined the chicken leg and asked for poached eggs as we saw some oe else had them, it was nice and different and dirt cheap with coffees about £1 each.

We then went to find 101 Rapid Penang bus again and did almost the same journey as before but a few km's further to Penang Nationl Park. We had to register at the park as we were going on a hike through the jungle to the turtle sanctuary and Keraktan beach. We also negotiated a boat to pick us up to Monkey beach as we didn't fancy the hour and a half back. Some French peple asked if we wanted to share the boat and split the cost, so that was a good thing. So we bought 3 litres of water and some biscuits and we set. Within 100 yards we had seen monkeys I had never seen before and something like an asian squirrel. The trek was quite hard in the heat as we had to walk up and over a hill, but the scenery was great and path well marked. Dominic was always running on ahead. Marcus saw aa horrible looking spider but otherwise apart from an ant over 1cm long we didn'see much more wildlife but could certainly hear it. When we finally got to the beach it was quite beautiful. Its a beach where at certain times of the year the turtles lay their eggs. The sand was grainy and boiling hot. There was also aa almost dried up fresh water lake. We poped into the sanctuary to see some baby turtles

At about 2pm our boat was waiting for us, a long tailed wooden boat, and the driver took us to monkey beach, which was really beautiful, white sand and palm trees and we had a lie down and swim in the sea but it was a bit annoying as little things in the water kept nipping us. We couldn't swim at turtle beach as there were lots of jelly fish apparently.

We stayed about an hour only as we wanted to get back to go cycling but we are learning fast(remembering in my case!) you can't do anything quickly in asia! The bus took forever to get back. We had to changes buses at one point, god knows why. We then ended up not getting off at the right stop, but it was a blessing in disguise as we decided to do a detour around George Old Town, down Little India and it was just like being in India with noise, sights and smells. Picked up a couple of snacks to keep us going until supper and then went back to the GH. We showered and sorted our stuff out and I went to pay the room bill, and it was more than I had expected. I forgot I had to pay for an extra bed. Definitely alot of money for what we got. But Kent was nice.

We decided to go back to Tekson restaurant again as we enjoyed and Marcus really wanted the the same meal again We decided to try a local juice but wished we had Marcus's lime juice as that was yummy.. We played a few games of cards back at the Guest House and trotted off to bed about 11pm as we had an early start.