Dilarang Menakok! (Malaysia)

Actually means "No Smoking" and there was a huge ship with "No Smoking" (English) written across it's big control tower part as I watched from the ferry on the way to Georgetown. I'm now there, the second biggest city in Malaysia, having already visited Kuala Lumpur (or KL as it's known) and Ipoh (numero 3). Three top cities, one week! Woo travelling!

It's absurdly hot here all the time. Average temperatures throughout the year are around 30 degrees. I have mostly been sweating into my clothes and wearing them over and over again. Woo travelling! KL was super-cool, with trips to the very high Merara tower, a theme park (with amazing rollercoaster) in the biggest shopping centre I've ever seen (Times Square), the Petronas towers and a swimming pool on the roof of a hotel. KL has a monorail, complete with Air Conditioning (the greatest invention known to man). It's brilliant.

Ipoh was much smaller, with a taxi ride to, and very old-school bus journey from the Perak Tong temple near the city. Honeyed lemon ice tea should be more widely available in England, it's the most delicious thing ever. I'm currently drinking lots (especially mango juice and water, which is complimentary with everything: rooms, meals, train journeys...) Unfortunately the only way to sleep in Ipoh (when the market started up complete with banging music at 7am on Sunday morning) was to put the deafening, one-setting-only air con on as white noise and pull over the sheet, blanket AND duvet to stop oneself from freezing to death.

Georgetown seems nice. Very colonial bits, with old buildings and a lovely padang (green space, Ipoh had a nice one too). Also seems like acquiring some form of transport will be possible here too, as there are car- and bike- rental places all over (including in here). Unfortunately I didn't think through putting pictures from my phone onto the pc/blog, so there are none forthcoming at present. Maybe later though. For now, off to enjoy the cooler sunny evening and perhaps lots of liquids. I love the way all the roads here have been translated from English and re-named, although Jalang Buckingham, Jalang Farquar etc all retain a lot of colonial feel.

I'll try and write more soon, but that's a basic breakdown of what's happened thus far.

Liking Malaysia, it's a pot pourri.