We knew Singapore's sophistication was lulling us into a false sense of security as to what the rest of Asia would be like (although think we had a fairly good idea!) but don't think we were quite prepared for the madness of Malaysia! We are on the last day of our stint here - fitting in a whirlwind visit to both Kuala Lumpur and Penang Island. Managed to see the Petronus Towers in Kuala Lumpur and enjoyed escaping from the heat of the day into the air conditioned Pavillion Mall (several floors tall - half of which containing expensive designer stores with nobody in them except bored shop assistants!) We gravitated naturally to the busy food court in the basement, along with everyone else, locals and tourists alike, where you could get every kind of Asian & Western food imaginable at very cheap prices and, more importantly in a clean and hygenic setting! Yes, I know everyone says to try out the local hawker stalls in the streets but when you see them setting out and preparing their food right next to stinking open drains it does tend to put you off a little! Call me unadventurous if you like but my stomach is very thankful I can tell you - and so far so good!! We are staying at a lovely little hotel at the moment in Georgetown on Penang Island, recommended by our favourite website tripadvisor.com! It's a family
run hotel and, although basic, is very clean and breakfast is included every morning on the roof terrace which sets us up for the day so we don't need to eat until the middle of the afternoon! We booked on a tour of the main sights here in Penang and soon realised that we were the only ones
on the tour and in fact had booked a private taxi plus driver (Stuart!) who drove us round for a few hours and took us on a tour of some of the historic buildings and temples (and there are a lot of temples believe me!!!) and filled us in on the points of interest etc without getting us too "templed out" (at least until later in the day!) He was so interesting to listen to (apparently!) that a small boy tagged along behind us at one particular temple everywhere we went, listening intently to every
thing he was saying! You can see him standing just behind CK on the photo of the Dragon doorway! I decided to have a photo taken beside one of the many Drago
ns, being as, as far as the Chinese calendar goes, I was born in the year of the Dragon! Kek Lok Sei Temple, where CK is waving in the foreground, was one of the more impressive ones and we climbed up to the top of the Pagoda to get a great view of Penang Island. We spent our last day today at the Tropical Spice Gardens which is an oasis in the midst of all the heat and humidity! You can smell the spices as you wander along
and it's an assault on your senses in the best possible way! Every now and again we came across pools, waterfalls, a giant wooden swing big enough for two where you could swing through the trees, and cool off at the same time in the breeze! Great fun - at least until 2 small children came along and stood by impatiently waiting for us to get off so they could have a turn! Then we followed a bit of a jungle trail and ende
d up at a cafe run by a group of Indian ladies who served us up some speciality spiced tea as we relaxed on the deck and looked out over the ocean! You just had to remember to say "no sugar" before they served the tea, as if you don't, then all tea over here seems to have an extremely heavy handed helping of sugar! Not to mentioned the condensed milk that's often poured in as well for
good measure! Probably a good bit of work over here for anyone in the dental trade I should think! But being as neither of us fancy having anyone work done on our teeth in this part of the world we are trying to keep the condensed milk and sugar factor to an absolute minimum! We've been eating our evening meals most nights at a little cafe across the road from our hotel called the "Nice" Cafe. It has great food, friendly staff and cheap prices and the owner Kelv
in informed us last night that he also has another business which is a plastic surgery clinic! We didn't see that one coming! Seems a strange combination of businesses to us but he assured us that he keeps both businesses entirely separate! Glad to hear it Kelvin! I was going to get a photo tonight of Kelvin and the guys but we have just noticed that the cafe seems to be closed today so looks like we will have to find somewhere else to eat tonight! Anyway, think that's all from Malaysia. We fly to Bangkok tomorrow, just for a couple of days, and then we go on to Cambodia so more news from there ... !
Our first stop in Cambodia was the capital, Phnom Penh. The drive from the airport introduced us to the crazy crazy traffic! There are millions of motorbikes zooming around, some of which serving as the cheapest form of 'taxi', should you be brave enough to hop on the back of one! That's when they are not being used to transport every family member all at once of course! The most we saw was four people on the back of a bike but came across this photo on the
web that manages to top that! (Photo courtesy of parishwithoutborders blog) Then there are the tuk tuks, the next cheapest form of transport and relatively safe as long as you shut your eyes when they squeeze through a particularly narrow gap in a busy intersection! Cambodians drive on the right (most of the time!) although we did spend some time on both sides of the road on several occasions! There are few tra
ffic lights and most intersections are just a mad scramble with traffic from all directions beeping horns and trying to get across or make turns. Nobody waits for a clear gap - everyone just moves forward at once and hopes for the best! We were amazed by the large items carried on the backs of motorbikes over here!
Or dragged behind on trailers! From huge gas canisters to large sacks of food, ladders, mattresses, boxes piled high and (our favourite!) large pigs fresh from the market! This was a common sight in Siem Reap where we spent the second half of our week in Cambodia. Passed several of them on our coach journey from Phnom Penh, along with baby piglets altogether in a basket on the back of a motorbike! Due to the speed of our coach and the speed of the motorbike my photos were rather blurry(!) so again this one is off the web (courtesy of worldhum.com) We spent three days in Phnom Penh and visited the Royal Pal
ace. It was very busy but we learnt afte
rwards that it was the Queen's birthday that day! We seem to be doing a bit of a royal tour here in Asia as we arrived in Kuala Lumpur on the King's birthday too! Siem Reap was full of temples of all kinds! We did a half day touring the main ones, in particular the famous Angkor Wat temple complex which was huge. After looking round
at least half a dozen different sites we were "all templed out!" so the next day we went on a very different kind of a trip to Kampong Khleang - the largest floating village in Cambodia. We hired a tuk tuk driver for the day and the drive to get there which took over an hour was a treat in itself (if a little dusty!) Seeing the village was certainly the highlight of our visit to Cambodia. This particular village doesn't see a lot of 
tourists so there were no tacky souvenirs or anything and we got to see the village and the people as they went about their daily activities. As you can see the houses are all on stilts as alt
hough it's only the start of the wet season at the moment, in a few months when the lake rises up the only way the villagers can get about is by boat! Some people actually lived right on 
top of the lake in floating houseboats. We felt almost like royalty ourselves as our tuk tuk made its way through the village as all the children came running out to wave and say Hello! We walked through the village and popped our heads in at the local
school, but decided against trying the popular local delicacy of fried crickets! Yuk! We saw them everywhere - huge piles of them! Apparantly they also eat fried spiders too but I am glad to report we didn't come across any
of those! We went for a bit of a boat trip to view the houses on stilts and also witness the daily fish market! Our driver as you can see was considering purchasing a rather large fish! He eventually came away with a big bag of water snakes to cook up for his dinner! Mmmm! Now doesn't that sound delicious eh?! We finished off our stay in Siem Reap with a visit to the Angkor Night Market where I decided to try a Dr Fish Foot Massage! You sit on the edge of this big pool and tons of these hungry little fish come up and fee
d off the dead skin on your feet! It really tickles at first til you get used to it but then it does actually feel like your feet are being massaged by all those tiny little mouths! Can't exactly say that my feet were as smooth as a baby's feet afterwards but it was an interesting experience! CK was going to join me but decided instead to wait for the luxury foot massage experience she knows she can get in Bangkok! One that lasts at least an hour and often has a free head and shoulder massage thrown in for good measure!
