Food and filth in Penang

Penang is our first taste of Malaysia - and it tastes fantastic. It's a very mixed place, lots of old English colonial style buildings in amongst classic Chinese and Malay architecture. Most people seem to be either Indian or Chinese and all run restaurants or hawker stalls.

Our first impression was very different - we were dropped off at a guest house (recommended in Lonely Planet) that was an absolute dump, so instead we checked into one over the road that was slightly better, but still pretty grim, but bearable for 6 quid. After dinner we were dreading going back to it so we decided to look for something better for the following night. After we left the ladyboy prostitutes, open sewers and rats of the Lonely Planet's recommended "good guest house" street we found the rest of Penang to be full of decent, but reasonable hotels. We checked into one straight away and only went back to the ghetto to collect our ruck sacks - even though we'd paid up front!

As I said we spent most of our 2 days in Penang eating. Here's some pics of a posh hotel we went to for a posh Malay Buffet, and at the other end of the scale here's me at a Bombay Mix stall in Little India and here's Gav enjoying a curry at a hawker stall next door - they just slopped all the different bits of curry onto a bit of banana leaf - delicious.