If you stay in Penang then you absolutely have to stay at the travellers lodge (75 Muntri st). The reason is the owner, Mr Loh, is quite possibly the happiest guy on the planet. Whether it is the first time you walk in or the 12th time you wander in from a day exploring he has a smile for you (all three teeth of it) that seems to be trying to split his head in half. From bending over and waving frantically at the floor to show how to pronounce his name (my name Low, you know *wave at floor* LOW!) to demonstrating how the hallway is so long you can jog up and down it for fitness (he reckons he does 50 laps a day) he is always quick with a joke and jollier than Santa.
I don’t have any shots of him unfortunately, nor many of Penang at all, but I do have a pic here of an incredibly ornate Chinese temple just a couple doors up from where we were staying. The whole surface of the temple was that grey stone and every inch of it covered in beautiful stone carvings:
And another spectacular sunset that we experienced after nutting out our way through the twisting streets to the ocean:
