Though tired we were very hungry too. The hotel door was opening in front of the famous china town market. Which was all bustling with tourist buying cheap imitations of Rolex watches and Nike shoes. But it was impressive. Found McDonalds in the corner had chicken burger meal (at that time there was Bird flu scare all around south east Asia, so people were avoiding eating chicken!). After feeling our bellies with potential bird flu infected chickens, , we went around window shopping in Chinatown market for an hour, where Hiren bought his sunglasses. I was looking for some souvenirs but didn’t buy anything at all. Went back to hotel at around 11:00 pm. Went to bed straight away. Within 1 hour we both were freezing…
the AC duct above our bed was blowing like hurricane wind, 100 miles per hour!! And there were no controls to adjust it!! After struggling to find a switch or something to slow down AC, Hiren went downstairs to ask the manager if he can turn down the arctic wind in our room. He came up angry and with lots of newspapers in his hand!!! I asked “what’s up dude, why do you want to read the whole weeks newspaper in one night???” he said, “This is the only solution my friend, and started covering the AC duct with the newspapers… I’ve started laughing hysterically… he joined in and we laughed like anything for about half an hour, before going back to sleep, as the AC has now very much in “control”. Woke up in the morning got ready and went to catch bus to Langkawi, again bought tickets in same fashion, but now were expert in pushing and punching, so it was easy. Boarded the bus to Pulau Penang (Pulau means Island). It was around 6 hours journey from KL to Penang. The plan was to reach Penang by 3:00 pm and then take ferry to Langkawi Island and stay in Langkawi for 2 days and explore the island and it’s white sandy beaches and amazing wildlife. We reached Penang as expected but there was slight problem, the ferry to Langkawi leaves only 8:00 am in the morning and there is no other ferry leaving from Penang to Langkawi during the day!! We were disappointed that means, we will be wasting 1 precious day in Penang. But there was more, me and Hiren lost each other in a shopping mall. We were looking for each other for more than half an hour before finding each other, it was tiring and frustrating as we were carrying our heavy backpacks and going up and down and round and round in the mall. But we found each other. Decided to buy ferry tickets for next morning and get a hotel room to dump our heavy burden. Hired a paddle rickshaw, and traveled in lightning fast 1 km/hour speed to our destination. I was so embarrassed as everybody on the street and road were watching us like we were some novelty item in some lame museum exhibition. The travel agent from where we bought ferry tickets and also our Penang to KL bus ticket for next night told us that, “Chulia Street” is best place to stay in Penang if we want to enjoy the real Penang, as it’s the hub for the backpackers around the world. Chulia street it is. We after leaving our supersonic ride we decided to walk from hotel to hotel to find cheap deal, finally found old, un-restorable, fractured from every side ancient Chinese pagoda type hotel, in just 30 ringgets.
To our surprise our hotel was a hangout for the backpackers, around 7:00 pm the “restaurant” in front of our hotel was full with travelers from all around the world, Americans, brits, aussies etc. the pool table was full too. we decided to play pool. After a game we went out for dinner in another Indian restaurant, it was not as good as the other but was alright and it was next to a cinema hall which was showing some Kamal Hasan starrer Tamil movie!! We wandered around the street and found one bar, it was small but the music was good and it was full of beautiful people stayed there for an hour, had drink (me coke, Hiren beer I think…), came back around 11 pm. Straight to bed. Next morning, got up early to catch ferry. We decided to leave our baggage in the hotel and took only essential stuff as extra t-shirt and swimming shorts etc. Took local bus to ferry terminal, the bus was really old and noisy, felt like it will going to break down in any second, but reached the ferry terminal without any problems, only to find out that the Terminal we thought was for Langkawi was for big commercial ships and Langkawi ferry goes from another terminal, which was 10 minutes walking distance.
Next: Langkawi the paradise Island!
https://mouthshut.com/diary/gfcgrrrt/Chapter-5Langkawi-the-paradise-Island
