Travelling through Penang

I'm so sorry if anyone was expecting a post whilst I was travelling, but it wasn't to be. The internet wasn't playing fair where I was staying and I'm without a Malaysian SIM. The other reason (excuse) is that I've been travelling for the last couple of days (today's 10th Dec.) Oh well, I'm back now.
I'm writing this after arriving in a city on the east coast of the Malaysian peninsular called Kota Baru. It should be a good stopping off place for some scuba diving in the nearby islands. Much more in a later post.
Going back a day, I came from Langkawi island to the mainland, but found there were no direct buses to Kota Baru for the next 3 days. So I decided to take a different route via Penang (highly recommended).
The attached photos are all in/around Penang.
To get here, the only route in is to get to a non-place called Butterworth, and take a ferry to Georgetown on Penang island.
All things considered, it worked out not too badly.
However, that was yesterday. Today's journey was too long even for me: 9 1/2 hrs on a bus - comfy but long.Read more