Woke up, down to breakfast and here we are docked in George Town, on a small island off the Malaysian mainland. It was an old British colony.
We decided to go out to the town to get some lunch and have a wander; as soon as we left the boat we thought it might have been a bad idea, it was stinking hot. Despite saying it was 26C, it seemed a lot hotter.
As we walked out of the terminal building we were accosted by hundreds of blokes offering taxis, but before we got to them there was a woman at a stand explaining that there was a free hop on hop off bus that went around the town – much to the annoyance of all the taxi drivers. Walking out of the terminal up the road there were still more of them – “Taxi sir? Taxi? Tour? 2 hours, 3 hours?”. We ignored them and just kept walking, it was a bit cooler in the shade.
We waited for a few minutes at a bus stop and got on the free one, it took us around (and actually for some reason went in a circle before heading out). We’d decided to eat at a place Song’s friend recommended, someone who spent some of her childhood here and visits often, so I fired up Google maps and kept an eye on the bus location. We got off near the restaurant, only to realise it was around the corner from where we got on the bus.
Followed the map, got to the restaurant but we couldn’t see it so asked a local – they said we were standing in front of it, but it was closed with shutters, even though Google said it was open.
It turned out that today was the day they shut off all the water to Georgetown for 4 days to replace the pipes, so most of the places were shut.
We found an open air food court doing street food, but thought these places have dodgy hygiene practices at the best of times, let alone when there’s no water, so we walked back to the boat which wasn’t too far. I also discovered that a zebra crossing here doesn’t mean the same thing as everywhere else in the world – I started to cross on one expecting the cars would stop but they didn’t, I nearly got hit.
There are lots of colonial buildings, both the grand, like the Town Hall, all columns and windows painted a bright white; plus the old unmaintained with peeling paint, broken shutters and cracked, but all have character.
Had lunch on the boat, it was very quiet since most people were ashore. I also reckoned the swimming pool would be quiet, so went up and had a dip, I had it all to myself.
Went back to the room, got changed and went for dinner in the private restaurant, then decided to head out again hoping it was cooler, since all we’d done earlier was go round in circles on a bus.
Georgetown is famous for street art, so we wandered around and Song took some photos of that. There were some restaurants open, but about 90% were shut.
Went back to the boat and sat in the cafe for a while, had a drink and I went for a poke around, ended up in the theatre where there were 3 blokes singing Michael Buble songs for some reason.
Back to the room, watched a bit of TV and then slept.
Might go back into town tomorrow, but it’s going to be hot so we’ll have to think about it.