Penang (Georgetown)

Penang was somewhere I was really just going to get the boat to Sumatra, but there's only one boat a day so I had an afternoon and evening to spend there. It was quite pleasant, a former British colonial outpost with grander buildings than the almost village like Dutch structures in Melaka. I visited the fort which, was pretty good, and had some Mina birds I was tempted to teach to swear in Scottish. I aslo went to the museum, which unfortunately I only had 30 mins in before it shut. It was surprisingly good as it was so cheap and only about Georgetown (the main town on Penang Island, also sometimes called Penang). I had good cheap Chinese and Indian meals here too, as like all town in Malaysia it comes with a Chinatown and a little India. I bought my ticket for the boat to Sumatra the next morning, and was a bit shocked at the price, it would probably have been cheaper to fly. Next morning after a lot of waiting around to clear customs I finally left Malaysia about 10am (though I had finally left mainland Eurasia the day before!).

Photos:

Can't remember who he is, first governor probably.

Replica of first camp, inside the fort.

Colonial Building.

Jaisalmer

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The evening after seeing Bikaner fort we arrived in Jaisalmer. This is the golden one (with Johdpur being blue, and Jaipur pink). We arrived in the evening in time to drive out to see the town at sunset from a viewpoint (see photo). Our hotel was very fancy on the outskirts of town, but had just been built and there seemed no other guests. I went for a swim in the pool, and when Sarah went for one later on I accompanied her to keep watch. This meant the six or so young waiters who were standing doing nothing in the restaurant stood looking the other way while stealing the occasional furtive glance across. The next day we had a local guide who showed us the old town: many people still live inside the fort among the narrow streets. He was very informative and we learned how to tell married from unmarried, Hindu from Muslim, and various castes apart by their dress. One of the highlights is the Jain temples in the old fort (see photo).

The old town itself is very dirty with open sewers and wild cows and dogs wandering everywhere: I found the smell overwhelming at points. There were also more havelis, in a less painted, more carved style, some close encounters with bats... and the obligatory uncomfortable trip to the carpet shop of the guide/drivers childhood friend/relative.

Bikaner

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First thing we did from Bikaner was go to the Karne Mata rat temple. As may or may not be immediately obvious, this temple was full of rats, holy rats, worshipped by the locals. Apparently there also dwells there a white rat, a sighting of which will bring you amazing good fortune. Unfortunately, it didn't show it's face, but given the amount of rat poo everywhere (you had to take your shoes off to go in!)
it might have been hard to tell it from the others. It's lucky if the rats run over your feet, and apparently it's also lucky to take some of the food that has been offered and now has rat salica on it. We did not partake. Anyway, here are some photos of rats in the temple. The rat temple was also the first time we experienced indians asking to take our photo. They came up and asked if they could take one and whipped out their camera phone. Not what we expected, but this was off the main Rahastahn tourist route. This was a taster of what we would experience later, especially Sarah!

After that we went to Bikaner fort. This was essentially to see the inside on a guided tour. The guide did his best to flatter/impress/pick-on me as he for some reason thought I was a good bet for a tip. Here's a photo of one of the lavish rooms we got to see, along with various deadly weapons and an old fashioned bi-plane indoors.