Hong Kong & Penang Part 4

Sorry for the delay but here is the next installment

The day after we went to see the orangutans we had decided to spend a day by the pool, but God had other ideas and decided to let the heavens pour the moment we had got settled on a sun lounger and all oiled up
 


We quickly ran under an umbrella to shelter and started talking to the other group hiding under there as well, they had just arrived, we were talking about a trip we had booked to go snorkeling the next day, we later found out that they spoke to the staff at the hotel and booked on the same trip as us 

After 10 mins it was clear that the rain had set in for the day so we raced up to our room quickly changed and then ran to catch the bus into Georgetown, the capital.



Georgetown

The people we had been talking to, who I have to say were a lot younger than us were amazed as they only just managed to catch the bus before it left and was sure we would have missed it, but there we were sat there on the bus already.

As we were going into the town my friend decided she was going to need more cash so took her bankcard to get money out of the “hole in the wall” (atm)

We went to the shopping centre first and if she wanted to buy anything she was borrowing cash off me until we got to the bank, so when I had run out of cash we made our way to find the bank

After the first attempt to get cash the machine said she had put the incorrect pin number in, after shouting at the machine, telling it that it was stupid she had entered the correct number, she entered it again, by this time I was nearly wetting myself laughing at her shouting at the atm.  It then again came back wrong pin number, I managed to stop her trying again telling her she would lose her card if she did, so she then decided to find a person to shout at.

As she was waving the card in the air I glanced at it and, HORROR, I realised it was MY CARD……. She then tried to crawl out of the bank as everyone was looking at her

The one thing my friend wanted to do in Georgetown was go to this posh hotel that served high tea, cucumber sandwiches the lot It is called the Eastern Oriental hotel I think, so we decided to get there in style by going on one of the many rickshaw type taxis, but the bike was at the back and you sit at the front looking at the view.





This would have been very nice but I think our driver had a death wish…. We were going along quite nicely until there was a queue of traffic in front of us going our way, so, he pulled over to the other side of the road !!! There we were sat on the front of this thing with traffic hurtling towards us and we are on the wrong side of the road.

Luckily this traffic swerved and missed us I say luckily as the driver of our contraption had no intention of veering from his course, we spent the rest of the journey with our hands covering our eyes, deep in prayer, thinking WE ARE GOING TO DIE…..

We finally got to the hotel and leapt out of the seats in record time, we later found out that these people do not need to get licenses or pass any tests to drive these on the roads. 

So we arrived at the Hotel and made our way to the tearoom to have high tea. It was really nice, I felt like I was a lady of the old British Empire



Then we came to pay, bearing in mind my cash had all gone and we had no money from the bank, my friend had said she had her credit card so would pay for the tea. She gave them the card and they came back saying they could not accept it. She started saying “but I have plenty of credit on it”, once bitten twice shy I checked her card she had produced and this was her debit card to get cash from the bank….

It was a good job I had my credit card on me to pay or we would be still there now washing up trying to pay off the debt.

 

When we came out the weather was much brighter so we decided to walk back to the hotel we needed to get to for our bus back. I have quite a good sense of direction so using that we wound our way through the streets to get back. It was nice because we were out of the main touristy part and it was very pleasant.

At one point a man came running out of a shop yelling and shouting obviously unhappy about something and took his shoes off and hurled them down the street, with people having to duck out of the way to avoid them, I think he was drunk… but as he seemed to pose no threat to us we just watched what he would do next, but he just wandered off still shouting.

All the way back through the streets those bike/taxi things kept stopping and asking us if we wanted a ride, we politely declined the offer. We then finally got some money out of my friends account and came back on the bus.

After the day we had. we decided to treat ourselves to a seafood meal that night, in a nice restaurant we had seen. WELL we sat down to order the food and I happened to mention money to my friend and she went pale… she had taken the cash out of the bank and put it in the hotel safe so yet again she had no money on her.

I said that in that case we should go to the hawker market as I did not have enough cash on me to pay for both and they did not take credit cards.

At this point the waiter, who also seemed to be part owner .saw us getting up and came over, we told him we would be back the next day. He then said we could order what we wanted and pay what we could and come back the next night and pay.

We couldn’t do this so we finally agreed that we said how much we had got and they would give us food and drink to this value. What we had came well over the value we paid, so we said we would come back in 2 days to have lobster from them, and they were going to order it in specially.

more later