Early morning start at KL and we are both feeling a little tired after our late arrival last night. However there is no time to sleep in as we are back at the airport for a short internal flight to Penang, the culinary capital of Malaysia.

We enjoyed our brief return to KL and especially the Majestic hotel. It’s a fantastic place with great service and a real old world charm.

After leaving the hotel we jumped in a Grab taxi and experienced a 45min high speed chase, or that’s how it felt, as our cabbie drove like his life depended on it, cruising along at 140kph and with no seatbelt on.

Once at the airport we indulged in some tomfoolery, with Andy’s love for all things sweets, he headed for the M&Ms chocolates and Chupa lollies isles.

With time to kill before our flight, we dropped in on the Lego shop, checked out the Porsche Tag Heur watches and the Kinder chocolates – you just can’t beat airport shopping….

The flight up to Penang was only short, just 45mins in the air and then we were in a cab heading north via Georgetown to our hotel, Golden Sands Resort.

The hotel is right on the beach with views out over there the Strait of Malacca, only 65 miles south of the Thailand border. It’s a big old place, with north of 400 rooms, although relatively quiet as we are outside peak season.

Palm trees and pools everywhere and every water sport you can think of on offer. We plan to relax for the first day or so and get to know the immediate area before heading into the historic George Town famed for his colonial heritage history and more latterly the street art and food offer.

Like any place in the tropics, you’re never too far away from the local wildlife and Andy bumped into this little lizard on his way into the hotel pool!

After a wander around the hotel, we headed out into the local markets opposite and searched out a laundry, in order to get some much needed washing done, as most things have been worn and worn for several weeks.

We came across a street food offer doing their take on sourdough oven fired pizzas, and decided to go Western for a change. It’s fair to say they took a little while, much to Andy’s frustration as his hunger pains had kicked as we hadn’t eaten since our 8am breakfast. Anyway the good news is that the pepperoni pizza and Tiger beers were a great success, although it’s back to local traditional offerings tomorrow.