Georgetown, Penang, Malaysia

The bus ride to Malaysia from Krabi was quite uneventful thankfully, and the border crossing easy too. Not sure what to expect from Georgetown but it had a faded colonial rustic charm which we liked. We had travelled from Krabi on a minibus with 3 Chinese/American girls and they were really nice. They hadn’t booked any accommodation but asked if they could tag along with us and check out where we were staying. Of course we said yes so we all set off on foot together across Georgetown. We found our guesthouse - The Love Lane Inn on Love Lane and looked okay ish from the outside. One of the girls went to check out a room she was offered but when she came back down she politely said no thank you and we said goodbye to them. That should have set the alarm bells ringing for us. We went 3 flights of stairs up to our room and just stood quietly trying to take it in. Everything was grubby and old. Bryan went for a shower but reported that the bathroom was the same standard. We peeled back the sheet on the mattress and nearly threw up. It was filthy and badly stained, there was no way we were going to sleep on that! We left our bags there and went for a walk - intent on finding somewhere else. We crossed the road and there were some beautiful guesthouses but they were all full. One of them recommended their sister hotel a bit further along. We went there and instantly we liked it. Big beautiful rooms, cool and airy and a lovely contemporary look. Beautiful wooden floors and designer furniture. They showed us a room and the showers. all had been refurbished in the last 3 months and felt lovely and clean. We haggled the price and got it for just £2 a night more than the Love Lane Inn was charging us. Amazing! So we went back to fetch our luggage and we very politely told them we had decided not to stay because we didn’t like the room. Well they had personality flips then. They were shouting at us telling us they were going to call the police. We ignored it all and stayed calm but then the boss came out. He started yelling at us too - telling us to F*** off to a 5* hotel if that’s what we really wanted and yelling and swearing all the time. It was at this point we wished our new guesthouse was a bit further away and not just across the road!! We got to the Red Hotel - only to find the American girls too! so we had a bit of a giggle about it then. There are some beautiful buildings all around the town but all a little run down and a lot of them now taken over by Little India area. We found great food - mainly Indian/Chinese and most people met were were very friendly & helpful. Apart from eating, we really didn’t find much else to do. The docks were for ferry/cruise passengers only and unless you are really into mosques and chinese temples, then that only left the Shopping Centre. Good for software though! We checked out some tours of Malaysia a bit further afield - like the elephant sanctuary and the jungle trekking but decided it was all much easier to organise from Kuala Lumpur. So, next stop - Kuala Lumpur ....again! Love Lane Inn Room rating: 0/10 disgusting Location: 7/10 - good for most things Staff: 0/10 - abusive Value for Money: 0/10 50RM a night (£10) - £10 too much Other comments: this was worse than Hotel Carter Stay again? Not on your Nelly! Never, ever, ever - even if it was the last place on earth Red Inn Room rating: 7/10 nice room, no bedding though. shared shower rooms which were very nice. all very clean Location: 7/10 good for everything Staff: 8/10 - very helpful and friendly Value for Money: 7/10 - RM60 (£12 for 2) included breakfast Other comments: only 50 yards away from Love Lane Inn but a million miles away in terms of standards! Stay again? probably not as walls very thin and we didn’t get much sleep because of noise Overall city experience: 7/10 - we did like Georgetown but 3 days was enough to see everything. We believe there was more to see to the island of Penang if we’d had more time/money