Unfortunately after 3 days we had to leave Penang to collect my passport from the Embassy. We had to take a ferry over to Butterworth in mainland Penang and then take an 8 hour bus or train journey. As we prefer travelling by train we opted for that. For me, I like the fact that trains have a toilet on them (you have to cross your legs tight on buses) even if sometimes you have to close your eyes and hold your nose when you go in them. They have both western and squat toilets but many locals, even in the western toilet, stand up on the rim and squat down. This means that the toilet seats can be really quite dirty but nothing that a wee baby wipe can't fix. It's quite funny as there are signs on the toilet door with a picture of someone standing and squatting on a Western toilet, with a big DO NOT sign attached to it. For Colin, he just likes to travel by train because he is a train anorak.
We had a good travel plan sorted out. We would get the ferry at 7am to Butterworth, then get the 8am train to Kuala Lumpur. This would arrive at 2pm which would give us enough time to put our rucksacks into storage in the station and make our way to the Embassy. Once we got my passport we could go back to the train station, collect our rucksacks and go to the bus station to get a bus to Melaka. The next day we could post our passports back to the UK for our Indian visa application from Melaka. The reason we were sending our passports back to the UK, and not applying directly to the Indian Embassy in Asia, is that we wanted a 2 year business visa rather than a 6 month tourist visa. Because of the new rule that, if you have a 6 month tourist visa, when it expires you have to leave India for 2 months before you are allowed to return there, getting a longer visa would be much better. The travel plan sounded peachy but turned out pear-shaped!
The ferry journey went as planned and we even had another Malaysian helper, who saw us with our rucksacks, came up to us and gave us directions to the train station. We got to the station and, as 8am came and went, we realised the train would not be on time. How quickly we had forgotten that the long distance trains were a single-guage railway and that we had had a 7 hour delay on the jungle train to Kota Bahru!
The train trunddled into the station about 2 hours later. We were told that there had been a problem with the brakes that they had to fix - not the best thing to hear when you are going on an Indian train for an 8 hour journey. I was optimistic that the train would make up time (maybe I thought I was on an aeroplane with a good tail wind) but as Colin said to me 'don't be daft, we are more likely to encounter further delays'. A few hours into the journey proved Colin right and we reasised that we were never going to get to Kuala Lumpur in time for the Embassy opening hours.
A change of plan was required. We decided that we would stay in Kuala Lumpur for the night, collect my passport in the morning, post both our passports back to the UK from Kuala Lumpur then catch the bus to Melaka. On the bright side, it gave us another chance to go to Lot 10 in Kuala Lumpur and eat more scrummy food. We telephoned Christophe and Lee Sun, the owners of the Old Town Guest House in Melaka, to let them know that we would be arriving a day later. I felt a bit guilty as we had reserved a room with them for that night but they were very accommodating and told us not to worry.
We had a good travel plan sorted out. We would get the ferry at 7am to Butterworth, then get the 8am train to Kuala Lumpur. This would arrive at 2pm which would give us enough time to put our rucksacks into storage in the station and make our way to the Embassy. Once we got my passport we could go back to the train station, collect our rucksacks and go to the bus station to get a bus to Melaka. The next day we could post our passports back to the UK for our Indian visa application from Melaka. The reason we were sending our passports back to the UK, and not applying directly to the Indian Embassy in Asia, is that we wanted a 2 year business visa rather than a 6 month tourist visa. Because of the new rule that, if you have a 6 month tourist visa, when it expires you have to leave India for 2 months before you are allowed to return there, getting a longer visa would be much better. The travel plan sounded peachy but turned out pear-shaped!
The ferry journey went as planned and we even had another Malaysian helper, who saw us with our rucksacks, came up to us and gave us directions to the train station. We got to the station and, as 8am came and went, we realised the train would not be on time. How quickly we had forgotten that the long distance trains were a single-guage railway and that we had had a 7 hour delay on the jungle train to Kota Bahru!
The train trunddled into the station about 2 hours later. We were told that there had been a problem with the brakes that they had to fix - not the best thing to hear when you are going on an Indian train for an 8 hour journey. I was optimistic that the train would make up time (maybe I thought I was on an aeroplane with a good tail wind) but as Colin said to me 'don't be daft, we are more likely to encounter further delays'. A few hours into the journey proved Colin right and we reasised that we were never going to get to Kuala Lumpur in time for the Embassy opening hours.
A change of plan was required. We decided that we would stay in Kuala Lumpur for the night, collect my passport in the morning, post both our passports back to the UK from Kuala Lumpur then catch the bus to Melaka. On the bright side, it gave us another chance to go to Lot 10 in Kuala Lumpur and eat more scrummy food. We telephoned Christophe and Lee Sun, the owners of the Old Town Guest House in Melaka, to let them know that we would be arriving a day later. I felt a bit guilty as we had reserved a room with them for that night but they were very accommodating and told us not to worry.
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