Penang- Malaysia Trip Part 3

And finally. Last but not least (in fact probably my favorite). Here's part 3: Penang Penang is a small island connected to the rest of Malaysia by a bridge. We took a very nice bus from KL to Penang. It took us about 5 hours of traveling before we arrived, but they served us Subway sandwiches and supposedly had wifi on board (although none of us had a computer to test it out). I think we all thoroughly enjoyed this leg of the trip as the bus was nice and it gave us a chance to just relax. Here's the closest thing we have to a group photo (everyone except Krystle): We stayed at a great hotel on the beach. We enjoyed a beautiful ocean view.

Even though it was beautiful we didn't end up spending much time on the beach. We stayed pretty busy trying to fit other things in while we were there. We enjoyed going to the top of Penang Hill, the highest point on the island. We took an old and very slow cable car up to the top. I think it took us about 30 minutes and we had to change cable cars half way up. They crammed a lot of people in together which made for quite a clastrofobic and uncomfotable trip. As you can see below we were the only white faces in the crowd. There was a great view from the top of the whole island.

Of course while we were in Penang we enjoyed some good food. We had a great dinner at an Indian restaurant one night with some staff from the international school in Penang that we met up with while we were there.

I think one of my favorites was the wet market that we went to for breakfast. It's a market with a bunch of food stalls that is only open in the mornings. We went because it was recommended by some friends that used to live in Penang. It was so good we had to wake up early the following morning to go back again before we headed to the airport to catch our plane. At the wet market we found a great Indian family. The husband fried the roti (bread) and the wife made the coffe and tea. Here she is pouring the thick, strong coffee out of her home made strainer. Then she adds sweeten condensed milk and pulls it to cool it down before adding ice to make it ice coffee. Oh so good! I want to go back just to get some more of it. :)

And lastly, we enjoyed an afternoon at Penang's butterfly farm. It took us awhile to get there and find it, but eventually we did (just a long bus ride and 3 km walk). Once we were there we saw a bunch of beautiful butterflies. But the highlight was getting a chance to hold some cool insects. Somehow I picked up quite an afinity for bugs and so I was excited to hold the different creatures they brought out for us.