Penang

Kuala Lumpur is a shopping mall on steroids, and we were a little concerned that Penang might be more of the same. In fact, this city ended up being one of our favourite places in Southeast Asia so far.

The city is split across both sides of the Penang Strait, with the old British colonial centre of George Town on an island just off the coast. This is the food and culture capital of Malaysia, and you can feel the difference to KL as you walk around. It's full of street art, carved balconies, cosy cafes, craft vendors, ornate wooden doors, bars and restaurants tucked in side alleys. In the evenings the old town comes alive with neon signs, plastic tables and wafts of smoke from the food carts. Chelsea has decided her new favourite dish is 'char kway teow', although she has failed to pronounce it correctly even once (much to her chagrin).

On night one we risked some chef-recommended desserts from a local café. Dan's 'see guo tang' was a syrupy soup with lychee, jelly and tapioca bubbles, which was... fine. Chelsea ordered 'ice kachang', which had a scoop of ice cream, pink shaved ice and peanuts (all plausible ingredients so far), plus black jelly lumps, kidney beans, and creamed corn. Not so great. You can see our reactions in the montage photo.

The next morning we took a food tour—our new favourite activity—and stuffed ourselves full of local delicacies with a proper guide who could tell us what would actually taste good. We've started a ranking system for which country has the spiciest food, and Malaysia gets a 7/10, with its Sichuan Chinese influence pushing the score up. We'll update as we go along. After five courses in three hours, we just about managed to waddle around town for the rest of the afternoon.

The next morning we got up early to beat the heat and hike up Penang Hill. The 2.5km distance is deceptive; this is all uphill, mostly on unrelenting flights of steps. We were very proud to blitz past hundreds of other hikers on the way up, although it was extremely sweaty work. Reaching the top, we realised how delirious this effort had made us: Chelsea burst into uncontrollable laughter at a café menu with the phrase "egg on bed". Is this really a side-splitting joke? Let us know in the comments.

Our last activity was the most scenic, as we walked over to Kek Long Si temple. We fed the resident turtles, wandered around the beautiful shrines/shops (there is clearly less of a distinction between religion and commerce in Buddhism!), and picked up a small souvenir of our time in Malaysia.

We're very happy with our budgeting since Singapore. Our five days in Malaysia have cost us just £86/day total, largely because we haven't taken any flights or expensive activities. We're hoping to maintain these cost savings over the next three months in Southeast Asia, which will leave a bit more leeway in the budget for Japan and Europe later. Happy to discuss how we've managed the money with anyone interested.

For now, we're blasting along the national highway in a rogue minibus at 140kmh on our way to Thailand. See you soon!Läs mer