Saturday 16 August

View from the car ferry from Penang to the mainland

We made a lot of progress in our journey today. Had fresh scrambled eggs for breakfast and set off with William at 9am promptly. He surprised us by taking us onto a car ferry from Penang back to the mainland at Butterworth. We enjoyed the views from the boat.

Then we drove through lush greenery and sandy soil towards the east of the peninsula of Malaysia. The road took us quite close to the Thai border. Richard saw a group of monkeys by the roadside but we were going too fast to stop. We didn't stop until the small town of Gerit where we had a Chinese lunch of noodles and tofu, plus egg. William bought us four cans of beer for the next few days in the Malaysian rainforest.

On the ferry

We arrived at Belum Rainforest Resort on the island of Pulau Banding, which is in a man-made lake approached by bridge. Our room was up several sets of stairs but was very pleasant. At 3, we went along to the jetty to take an hour-long boat trip on the lake. Eerily, there were no birds or any other animal sounds. We had a guided tour from a young Muslim girl and a local Orang Asli boy drove the small boat.

Our boat pilot on the lake cruise

Dinner was a buffet in the Hornbill restaurant, which wasn't as nice as promised. In our room we could hear birds and insects screeching. It went on all night but we managed to sleep.