Penang

Another photo overload!

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We had a good trip to Penang on Thursday. Penang is a small island which is part of Malaysia. There's a bridge between Penang and Peninsula Malaysia ... the kids were excited to cross it :-)

One of the many streets we drove through on our way around the coast to our hotel.
Which is right on the beach :-)
After we had checked in we headed to the beach and did a little exploring!
Especially Samuel ... he seemed to be VERY attracted to the water!
and then once he was well and truly wet came back and got himself covered in sand!
Aaron was very excited with his dinner that evening! Hahaaha ... his favourite meal!
At breakfast Friday morning.
Friday we spent just relaxing at the hotel. Maddison was grounded as far as swimming went for the day as her behaviour left a lot to be desired the previous evening!

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Samuel had a tug of war with my hair.
In the afternoon Maddison, Samuel and I joined Lyndon & Aaron down by the pool for an ice cream.
The kids have an awesome little "suite" in our room.
It has a pirate theme.
Samuel ended up just sleeping in our bed, although there was a trundler bed under the bottom bunk in the kids room. Even though he's the littlest one here he still manages to take up half the bed! He's a bed hog!
Sunset Friday night from a BBQ restaurant a little way down the beach from our hotel.
Saturday we went to Penang Hill on the cable railway. We couldn't believe how busy it was! The trains were just packed.
A temple at the top of the hill.
And a playground! :-) Samuel's new word for Saturday was "GO" ... he says it a lot with a twinkle in his eye! So every step he went up it was "go" and coming down the slide it was "go, go, go"! :-)
Very independent - didn't want any help and did it all by himself.
Go!
There was a lady up there making these awesome grass hoppers out of palm leaves. Very clever watching her make one.
Heading back down to the train.
This time Aaron managed to get a spot right at the front ... he was very excited about that.
That afternoon we were going to go to the butterfly farm, but Lyndon and I decided it wasn't worth the effort with the kids! So we headed to the beach instead. I will have to go to the butterfly farm another time.

Lots of tasting going on!
Large holes dug to make it easier to keep little boys away from the water hehehe

This afternoon Lyndon took Aaron & Maddison downstairs while Samuel had a sleep. Aaron played some table tennis.
While Maddison found some microphones from off the stage and was prancing around singing!
Then at 4.40pm our day turned to custard! We were all ready to go out and Maddison was climbing down from the top bunk and slipped and fell back to the desk in their room and made this huge gash in her head. Again I am amazed at how much head wounds bleed! What a mess!!

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The hotel was great though and arranged for a staff member to take us to a clinic. Unfortunately when we arrived Maddison just screamed blue murder and wouldn't let anyone look at it let alone touch it, so they politely suggested we go to the emergency department at the hospital. So we head out of the clinic to find that a car had driven into the back of the hotel's vehicle! Thankfully it wasn't damaged very much, but the guy that did it was incredibly rude!

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Eventually we ended up here.

Maddison still wasn't cooperating very well! But I managed to get her calmed down a little and at least she had stopped screaming! Once we were all checked in and the paper work done the Dr came to look at her and the performance started all over again! I think the Dr just gave up actually and basically told me that she would have to go to theater and get it stitched as she wasn't very co-operative!
Then Maddison decided she had to go to the toilet, so we deal with that and I have another chat with her and she decides yes she will let the Dr look at it (mainly because I had told her that if it wasn't fixed she wasn't able to go swimming!). But as soon as the Dr came and touched her head, off she went again! Aghhhhh ... I felt like yelling myself! I told the Dr that she's 4 years old, this is her temperament and we just have to deal with it and get the job done. But I think the Dr was scared hehehee So I gave up and came out and talked to Lyndon and asked him to talk to her because I wasn't getting anywhere - the Dr wouldn't even look me in the eye and just kept saying she would have to go to theater. Eventually, after much discussion between Lyndon and the Dr she agreed to try (I think Lyndon told her it was okay to hold her down and just go for it). So I stayed out with the boys and Lyndon went in with Maddison and I think they had 4 people holding her down while the Dr stitched her up (5 stitches) and the entire time she screamed at the top of her lungs calling for either Daddy or Mummy! What a performance!

When she came out of the emergency room's Aaron said to her "did the Dr stitch your brains back in?"!!!!! heheheeee

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How I am going to do her hair tomorrow is a whole another story I am sure!

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Tomorrow morning (early) we are heading to the ferry to Langkawi, so we are looking forward to that. I sure hope we don't have any repeats of this afternoon though!!!!

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Thanks for visiting.

Cameron Highlands

Before I start ... WARNING ... photo overload!!!

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Tuesday we left for Cameron Highlands for a couple of nights. We hadn't been there before but had heard how nice it was. It's a very beautiful & interesting place, but words alone can't describe it and even if the words are accompanied by photos, it still doesn't do it justice. I shall do my best! :-)

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We ended up driving to Ipoh and then back down to Cameron Highlands - mainly because of the road (which is very narrow and winds up the mountains) and Maddison and her Mummy get carsick hehehe :-) Maddison did really well though and was only sick once about half an hour before we arrived at our hotel.

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We past a few marble quarries.

And one stretch of the road had a lot of these little stalls on each side ... some seemed to be "resting" spots for numerous young men (I have no idea what they were up to!), others were selling things (we think honey and some type of vege - not sure exactly).
And then there were the tunnel houses! I knew there were a lot of them, but I wasn't expecting this sight!!
Acres of them stretching out between the valleys taking up every available bit of space. There hardly seemed to be room between some of them to drive a vehicle. The ground that didn't have tunnel houses was terraced and had plants growing. All land that could be used was!

Then we came to a little township ... and we spied the Land Rovers! HUNDREDS of them! I wished I could have got an aerial photo to show how many there were! Lyndon and I were laughing and decided it was the place to dump old well-loved Land Rovers!!
Watching them drive around the corners were interesting - they drove round on the wall of the tires the suspension was so good! ;-)

I told there was a lot didn't I!
And then obviously when they can't go any further you park it up, take off the wheels and use the deck as a rubbish dump!
This seemly dilapidated building housed stacks upon stacks of cardboard boxes. I presume it was a "shop" where the farms purchased their boxes to pack their produce for sale. (I think you would have to wipe off several layers of dirt & dust before you could pack fresh produce in them!)
Once we had arrived at the hotel and unpacked we decided to order room service for the kids dinner (hot dog & chips!) and when they had finished we all went to a steamboat restaurant next door and Lyndon & I had our meal.

If you haven't had steamboat before ... basically it's a soup (we had the non-spicy one ... chicken) and pile in all bits you want from the accompanying plates and cook them in the soup. Greens, mushroom, eggs, seafood & chicken.
I had no idea what half those things on my plate were ... but I ate them anyway :-)
Wednesday we piled back in the car and stopped at this place where there was every conceivable type of cactus you could ever imagine!

And in amongst the cacti were other flowering plants & "Christmas Trees" of all things! :-)
Then we went to a Strawberry Farm. This one was on the way to the tea plantation we were going to and the signs looked great! Great advertising is all I can say heheehe
Entrance to the "animal farm" !! Lets just say that the signage was most excellent! ;-)
Inside ... there was a cage with hens & roosters, one with 3 geese, another with one rabbit and one with 3 rabbits, and then the piles of wood and of course the washing line! hahahaa At least the animals looked clean & healthy.
So we picked strawberries ... well Aaron & Maddison did really.


They had lots of fun :-)
The man that was helping the kids was VERY keen to take a photo of me. I had no idea why and then he asked me to hold my hands up palms facing him! Then he held up the strawberries! Ahh now I understand hehehe
Strawberry ice-cream with fresh strawberries was next of the agenda of course! :-)

I was most amused at the dish washing station!! This photo is especially for my NZ readers hehehe (I was kinda glad I saw him doing this AFTER I had eaten my ice-cream!) ;-)
Next stop was the tea plantation.
Some pics of the road in ... The ferns reminded us of the West Coast in NZ.

Acres and acres of tea.

We walked up a steep track to the cafe.
There were several men along the way harvesting the tea. They cut the leaves with the shears and then tossed them over their shoulders into the basket on their backs.
View from the cafe. There was a little settlement for the workers of the tea plantation. They even had a school :-)
Thursday we left Cameron Highlands and headed to Penang. But that's another post in itself! I will be back :-)

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Oh and I have to add that it was about 12degs C colder than back in KL. I know ... I shouldn't complain at 23degs when it's snowing back at both our parents place in NZ heheee

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Thanks for visiting.