Cameron Highlands to Penang

bed count: 11

I was a little sad to leave the Cameron Highlands, and a little nervous. We'd finally found somewhere we really liked, what if everywhere else was crap?

The trip down was much more relaxing than the trip up. We took a different road down to sea level and our bus driver managed to slow down for corners, stay in the right lane and, when we got to towns, stop at red traffic lights...

We got the bus down to Butterworth (via the apparently seedy town of Ipoh) and then took our first ferry of the trip over to Pualu Penang (Georgetown).

We'd heard various things about Georgetown - many people had said not to stay in the city itself, but I can't see why. We walked up from the ferry, through Little India to our hostel in China town and I thought the place was quite beautiful. (Pics to follow).

Our hostel is fantatsic. Standard double room with private bathroom (38RM / c. 6GBP), but the staff are so friendly and amazingly helpful.

We saw a little notice in the cafe next door about an outdoor Chinese Opera being put on in a local Chinese / Malay village by the clan temple next door and decided to go along.

A local guy called Ang met us and took us by local bus out to the village where he proudly showed us 'real Malaysia'. We were the only white faces in the village and were quite an attraction. There was a whole carnival atmosphere and the whole village, form the oldest to the youngest, seemed to be out for the Opera.

Ang took us backstage to see the players and all the girls wanted their picture taken with me (they were too shy to have their picture take with Alec) and they wanted to touch my pale skin telling me, through Ang, that they thought it was beautiful. I was very red and sweaty at that point and feeling far from beautiful, especially stood next to the players with their fantastic costumes and make up.

The whole experience (pics and video to follow) was great and Ang was able to tell us so much about Malaysian culture. We felt so comfortable with him that I was able to ask him a question I had been wondering about ever since we were in KL.

Malaysia has 2 courts - the general law court and an Islamic law court. If you are a Muslim you can be tried in both courts for any 'offence'. There seem to be laws which apply to Muslims that don't apply to others - for example - a Malaysian Muslim can be arrested for drinking and gambling, but not a non-Muslim or a Muslim from another country.

But what makes you a Muslim? Do you decide yourself?

Ang was telling us (as I suspected) that you don't get a choice - if you are born into a Muslim family you are a Muslim and can get tried in the Islamic court. Under Malaysian law, if you marry a Muslim you have to convert and any your children would be classed as Muslim.

As Ang said, not many non-Muslims in Malaysia are keen to have Islam imposed on them and so there is very little cross-cultural marriage in Malaysia.

All in all it was a really great experince and I am so glad we got to go off the beaten track a little.

Better go now as we need some food and Alec wants to go clothes shopping.

Thanks to everyone who has left comments on the blog or emailed me. It's reallhy good to know that people are reading this. Hope you're all well.

Kxx