After the cool climate of the Cameron Highlands we headed to Penang where we wandered around for a few days sweating and trying to find places of relief as we had lost all energy as it was just so hot! That explains why we can tell you more about the shopping centres in Penang than much else (bring on the air con!)...
We weren't that bad - we did manage to find a local food market to get amongst. It was the heat of the day and so we decided to get some relief and catch what they call a 'trishaw' (basically an enlarged pusher with a push bike attached where the driver sits) to the next station of relief. 
So as usual we bartered the price - starting from 10 ringitt we got him down to 4 and hopped in quite pleased with our decision. We then found ourselves turning crimson as the 95 year old or so driver peddalled us spring chickens in the steaming heat for about 5 kilometers at a 'slower than walking' pace whilst yelling at the top of his lungs to any passer by something like 'five ringett, five ringett' followed by a string of Malay that we could of course not decipher and a huge hysterical fit of laughter. We thought that we were going to kill the poor man in that heat and so gave him something that resembled his original price in the end. Who knows if he was gloating about the price or commenting on how tight we were being! 
Here is a pic of our lazy feet kicking back - note the lovely DIY nail polish...
Another reason that were absolutely exhausted this day too was our disaster of a start to the day:
Try this: being awoken by some extremely *inconsiderate* individual in the room next door praying and chanting in what seemed a very angry manner on the dot of 6am... waiting waiting waiting, "clare what the hell is that?", "tell me about it, it's driving me mental, hurry the hell up!"..... waiting, waiting... "my god it's quarter past and he's STILL going! what is that beeping noise anyway?", waiting, waiting, waiting, "he could at least turn the light off...now he's doing something with a plastic bag or something"................silence waiting waiting, door open, door closing, door being locked........... "hey ok he's gone let's go back to sleep..." ...........................................................................beep beep beep "my god that thing could go off all morning in his absence, we're outta here!". So we enjoyed an unusual and unwelcome early start to the day that day. We changed rooms to one equally *special* with a bed that was shaped like a banana. Beggars can't be choosers. Clare was lucky enough to be able to hook her leg over the edge to keep from rolling into the middle where she would have had to spoon hot and sweaty Kristen who had the side next to the wall and so justified snuggling into the cosy dip all night.
We decided to catch the night bus to our next destination and after learning that it was booked out had a look online to see if we could get a flight! We got one for about 10 dollars more each and booked it and by that night we were on our way to the Perhantian Islands! We arrived at the domestic terminal with our bulging backpacks patting each other on the back for finding such a great alternative to the bus when the lady at the check in counter informed us that domestic regulations are such that 15 kilos is the limit and that we weren't even close to that. We were in fact 270 ringgit (100 AUD) away from that limit. (How money makes it better we can't work out...)
This obviously created quite the predicament, and after minutes of scratching our heads we found ourselves with our ever so carefully packed backpacks sprawled out on the airport floor (with the usual gathering of interested onlookers) shoving all heavy items into our carry on luggage. Back and forth from the scales we went until we reached the perfect weight of 14.95 kilos with 10 minutes to spare (of course all the extra weight was essential purchases)!
In Kota Bharu we seemed to have no luck as we trekked around all day in the heat to a cultural centre to see some kite making and were turned away as it was the only day that it was closed for the week (typical) and then spent the night searching for a market that doesn't exist! We did however come across an awesome food market where we trialled some of the local cuisine including chicken skewers (could have chosen between 'nuggets', 'liver', 'wings/necks', and 'body' and strangely enough went with 'body' hoping that didn't include any chewy bits), noodles, and an interesting array of Malay desserts (strangest one being what looked like a piece of watermelon but was like jelly and has the weirdest texture in the world and tasted nothing like the fruit)
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They have all these weird but wonderful drinks over here - this is Kristen trying her luck with one (after pointing at a picture). It was amazing - tasted like musk with little black jelly pieces (weird texture) and a big dollop of icecream in the middle, yummmm
