Day 27 Thurs 28 September Kuantan – Penang, Malaysia

A hazy day so we decided not to travel up the east coast but to cut back across country to KL and then up to Penang; a fairly long drive but as they had provided a freeway just for us, or so it seemed from the lack of any other traffic, not too arduous. We discovered that the lack of traffic might have something to do with the tolls, which were frequent and quite high. The total amount was the same as the 4 star hotel room in Penang, although to put that in perspective, we stayed in the highrise Cititel hotel in the centre of Georgetown for the equivalent of A$35 per night.

The route over from Kuantan crossed through thick jungle clad hills although mostly the area had been cleared for oil palm plantation, with serried ranks of squat spikey dark green trees, and occasional rubber plantations. There’s a fairly steep descent into KL past some spectacular limestone hills. Traffic in KL wasn’t too bad and we soon reached KLCC and the Petronas towers for the obligatory photo shoot. Shopping (and coffee and crème brulee icecream) fix in Suria KLCC the large multilevel shopping centre beneath the towers and lunch overlooking the park and fountains at what had once been KLs race course. The back out to find the road to Ipoh and Penang 360km north.

Spectacular sunset as we headed north through more jungle clad limestone hills near Ipoh and over the new (well it wasn’t there last time we were in Penang) bridge to Penang and checked into the hotel. Despite its low price (the guy at reception said we’d got a great deal) the hotel was fine, a business standard modern place and in the centre of town close to lots of restaurants. In fact we decided at these rates to stay another night and explore Georgetown before tacking the bandits on the Thai border.
Weather – sunny 30,
Distance today 649km
Distance from start 6592km
X5s today 1
X5s from start 8
CBs 1 (icecream)
CBs total 4