Penang

We walked all day and stumbled across temples and catering companies and dogs on bikes. Pollution is a problem, we left Penang 11 days later with sore throats and were pleased to get back into some fresh air! Massive sensory overload! Constantly watching where you walk, holes in the ground

Making up a whole lot of Indian food in big aluminium pots nice..

We arrived in Penang do get our Thai visas and organise our Cruising permit for Indonesia
We parked our dinghy at the end of this historical jetty, It has a pretty cool pic on the side of one of the buildings,

many people stop to take photos of this

Walking around the historical area of Georgetown there are a few arty things on the wall like this one

One of the many temples in Penang

Snake temple, pit viper snakes, that have had their venom removed

The crafty art work in the temples were amazing! A few temples there is no explanation in english about them, so we kind of get bored. Would be nice to know about them.

Monks doing their thing..

Ahhh the sun is lovely says Mr Tortoise

We made our own fun

Didn't have a clue what all this was about.

This is what people put the burning incense in and prey to ??something

While we were in Penang there was a chinese ghost festival on and there were many things happening. people walking down the jettys throwing tiny home made biscuits and individually wrapped lollies into the sea and by everyones houses, all to please the ghosts. There were tables of food, chicken, duck, pig and fruit, and entertainment all for the ghosts.

these sticks burned away day and night

putting on a show to entertain the ghosts

Visa run to Malaysia

Anchored behind some Island on the way from Thailand to Langkawi

Thais pulling in their nets before a storm is about to hit them

So It was a bit of a fast passage to Langkawi, Baikal loves the storms and hoons in the strong wind, but when there was white outs because it was raining so heavily, that was a bit scary. However, it doesn't last long. There were so many floating logs and debris on the way to Langkawi, we had to be alert!

We enjoyed having these freshwater swims, refreshing!

Below is a pic of what you see along the beaches in north Langkawi, of course not the tourist ones. We saw needles and syringes on 2 different beaches! Fricken disgusting. Fisherman's nets and sooooo much rope, blocks of polystyrene, plastic bottles, you know, the usual really..

Always disappointing to see rubbish

As we were kayaking back to the boat, we saw this floating island of rubbish, fishing flag, bamboo poles, ropes, and so many bits of plastic! We saw a fish pot too close to the shore, we knew it must have washed in with a strong wind or something, so we pulled it up and we saw the most sad sight... A DEAD DOLPHIN, humans are pigs, no they are worse than pigs. Disgusting! And you know what was even more disappointing is that there was its tail left floating with meat still on it, there are no fish around to eat it, because the fisherman caught them all!

Floating rubbish, North Langkawi

Baikal anchored NE Langkawi

We kayaked up a mangrove river, where heaps of yachts go called hole in the wall, a cheap safe place to leave the boat while the owners head back home to work or whatever. There were many yachts that look like they've been there for years, a bit of a grave yard, sad really.

This is the actual hole in the wall, a long paddle up the mangrove creeks

Hole in the wall, many yachts moored

North Langkawi, nice cave

 We found some fresh water at this beach we anchored off, south of Langkawi, so all the washing got done, and we were showering and having baths 5 times a day! Was so good, nice and cool!

Duds enjoying fresh water bath!

Sunset at Kuah, Bass Harbour Langkawi

Tanya enjoying a fresh water shower

On our way from Langkawi to Penang, we stopped at Pulau Payar, some 15miles away from Langkawi. Payar is a marine national park, we took a mooring in 25m of water and ventured ashore, there were some awesome walks through the jungle to some nice views and also abandoned resort accommodation that was never finished, we had a look inside one, and saw nice hardwood floors and furniture. The jungle is taking them over. Apparently the owners of them never got a permit to have them there! What a waste! There's about 7 of them! Here we found beautiful clear water and heaps of fish!  There were heaps of small black tip reef sharks, but when we ventured out deeper, there were bigger 5ft ones who came at us out of nowhere, but took off again just as fast.

Black tip reef shark circling me

Only a little black tip, but there were bigger ones

These fish were hanging around looking for food