Are you sure it's Thursday the 13th and not Friday the 13th?

so, this morning started well, woke early, finished my sorting/packing for 2 separate trips, had breakfast, hostel called a cab to take me to the station, handed back room card, towel and locker key, got deposit back. Off to the station I go.

20 minutes into the 9.5 hour train journey I start wondering where is my bag of fruit for the journey, my clothes for tomorrow, my spare medication and my PASSPORT?? I know where, in the bl.... locker in the hostel, whoops!

Get off at the next stop, wait in the searing heat for the (very much delayed) train back to Bangkok, whoops.

Rush back to the hostel, all gear still in locker, no point or time to do planned adventure north east so ask to book 2 more nights: sorry we're full, whoops.

Back into the centre, dive into a Starbucks for tea, bun and wifi. Get served and start tea and bun, but obviously they're having trouble with their wifi, whoops.

Try to hook another hostel, wretched wifi system keeps going down so seem to have ended up booking for 4 people, whoops.

Rush back to station thinking I'd lose today's ticket, could get a refund on tomorrow night's and bring Saturday's forward 2 days, no chance, Train south today fully booked, whoops.

Cheer me up dinner did cheer me up, no whoops needed for that.

Off to the river to take a consolation Orange boat up to the furthest north, ah, they stop running at 7pm, whoops.

Now in a new hostel counting my mozzie bites and reflecting on the very red to the point of scarlet light district I seem to be in, whoops, well never mind, tomorrow is thankfully another day.

It's jolly exciting this flashpacking malarkey as you can tell!

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Over energetic followed by under energetic!

For my first full day in Penang I decided (for reasons that still escape me) that a trip to the Botanical Gardens was in order so that I could tackle the climb up to the Penang Hill Station. I read up on it and it mentioned that the first 1+km was steep. Ha, I laugh in the face of steep, I bet it's not as steep as they say! It's not, to be fair, it's considerably steeper than steep. I should have been alerted to this from the very beginning as each 100 meters warranted a distance check. I cannot remember ever in my whole life having to stop several times in each 100 metres and I'm not going to justify this by telling you that the heat was unbelievable even though it was. I'm not sure at which stage I made the decision that being intrepid was all very well but my heart rate seemed to be climbing even more alarmingly than I was and I was rapidly running out of water. Enough I thought, I'll turn back at 2.5km. Turning a sharp corner at 2.35km put paid to that ...

Sometimes it's better to remember things as they were

Today my goal was to revisit Batu Caves, just under an hour outside KL. these caves are considered a major tourist attraction as well as being the sight of a very important Hindu shrine. From my last visit what I remember most is the all encompassing blackness of the Dark Cave, the most extreme lack of light possible according to our guide. As someone who has always been afraid of the dark it is this aspect of Batu Caves that is most imprinted in my brain. Now the Dark Cave is closed for the foreseeable future, no reason given but I wasn't planning on going back in there anyway, once was more than enough! But I remember the massive cave shrine kindly, and I definitely recall that my companion and I were the only ones there the day we visited. Today the hoards were there en masse. The first shock comes in the walk from the train station to the entrance to the caves. There is an overwhelming stench of excrement and urine, and the hawkers and stalls and piles of rubbish do nothin...

And so it begins: the long journey home.

It didn't take me long to pack, I'd brought just the basics with me and left my suitcase stored in the hotel in Penang. This meant that I had plenty of time to have a good final stroll around, this time heading east as I'd covered all the other directions during my time here. I walked through the gardens on my way to the ferry terminal, having one last look at the Eagle mascot, then headed up the hill towards the eastern shore. I passed a pretty row of coloured houses (are you allowed to call them that any more?) and carried on for about another 1.5 km until I was stopped by a security guard at what amounted to a road block. It turned out that this was the entrance to the Westin Hotel and only hotel guests are allowed to pass! So this is a proper road, the shore is to my right, I have no other way of progressing along this road other than here, is that right? Yes, I'm told, private road, no passing, not allowed. This was repeated several times until it was obvious th...

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