The bus from Singapore to Melaka was uneventful. While on the bus, Jen read about how we could take a bus directly from Melaka to Penang. We had wanted to visit Penang because we had heard great things about it, but we didn't know if we would have enough time to do it justice. When we got to Melaka we found out that a bus was leaving to Penang at 10pm (4 hours later) so we decided to do a crash visit to Melaka, and head up to Penang. Melaka was a cute coastal town with a small city atmosphere. At the bus station we met this Israeli backpacker who decided to join us in our tour of the city. Melaka had a Dutch and Chinese influence that could be seen in many parts of the city. We saw the Town Square and the Cheng Hoon Teng, which is the oldest Chinese temple in Malaysia. Afterwards we went for an Indian chicken curry, said goodbye to the Israeli and caught the overnight bus to Penang.

We arrived in Penang at 6am the next day and settled into the Oriental Hotel (a 2 star hotel not to be confused with the 5 star EASTERN & Oriental Hotel). The hotel was well located in Chinatown and we took a few hours to relax and catch up on some sleep. After lunch (and a great piece of chocolate cake) we saw a number of Chinese temples and mosques. Since we were right in the middle of Ramadan, the mosques were quite busy and the food stores seemed a little empty. We went to visit Khoo Kong Si, which was a clan house, temple, and stage of the Khoo clan that dates back over 200 years. The historical site was impressive and the workers were kind enough to point out a number of interesting items (for instance the temple was assembled without any nails).

Afterwards we took a bus to visit the Snake Temple which was supposed to be an old temple filled with live snakes. To our disappointment the forest behind the temple had recently been cleared and all the snakes had disappeared from the area, including the temple. 5 small snakes were kept at the temple for the tourists, but that was about it. That night we went for a great north indian dinner in the basement of our hotel.

The next day we caught a bus to Penang Hill which is a mountain that overlooks the whole island. We took a furnicular to the top and got a chance to see a tea house, a mosque and a Hindu temple. The sites were interesting and the view was spectacular. We then made our way to the newly opened canopy walk, which was a few kilometres from the main tourist area. The canopy walk was a pathway made of netting, wood and ladders strung high up through the trees. The canopy walk was about 200 feet above the ground and creaked and swayed as we cautiously walked across. The view was great and we had lots of fun taking pictures of each other as we cautiously walked across.

We left the canopy walk and started to make our way down the hill, passing a number of beautiful and expensive houses along the way. When we reached the bottom we took a bus to Air Itam and went to see the Kek Lok Si temple complex, which is the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia. To get to the temple, you had to walk past a pond filled with hundreds of turtles. The temple itself was a combination of a number of buildings, each containing a number of Buddha statues. We climbed the Ban Po Than Tower and got a good view of the nearby area. After the temple we went back to our place, changed, and headed out for a Western style dinner as a break from all the Indian food. On the way it started to pour and a kind man that owned a local bar offered us his umbrella. We went to a restaurant called the Pintail Cafe which had great food and then went to see the Eastern & Oriental Hotel. After agreeing that it was nice (and definately out of our budget) we returned the umbrella, had a drink at the bar and retired for the night. The next morning we left for KL, glad that we had decided to visit Penang.