Hey everyone, it’s Ava again!! We had a really teary morning as we said our final goodbyes to our homestay families. Before we left, I got a fire breakfast of banana bread and an egg sandwich from Angah and her family, who have all been super sweet, along with a really nice T-shirt highlighting Taman Negara and Kuala Tahan. Angah and her family brought us to an area where the bus had parked, showered us with gifts, and stayed with us until the bus left, waving at us as it departed. We were all crying, they were all crying, and I said goodbye to an extra-special person: Nuha (Neil and Benjamin’s homestay sister). We received some letters from our homestay families, which we read on the 8-hour bus ride to Penang. 



The bus ride was so fun! We created a new card game and played lots of music through the portable speaker. We wrote down all the words we know in Malay now and journaled about our homestays and the Malay culture. We stopped at a few small rest stops, and then for lunch, we arrived at a huge rest stop near Kuala Lumpur that had a lot of American fast food chains like KFC, Dunkin’, Burger King, Starbucks, etc. They also had a lot of regional food. I got some mango mochi and a bulgogi triangle onigiri. 



Eventually, we arrived in Penang. We needed to be at the top of Penang Hill by 6:30 p.m. before it closed for the day, and there was a lot of traffic in Penang after crossing over the bridge to the island. So, instead of eating at a hawker center, Ms. Buxton’s friend Alexis (a former teacher at Uplands International School of Penang) brought us all char kway teow to the Botanic Gardens, where we boarded jeeps to the top of the hill. We met at The Habitat, a sort-of outdoor nature park and part of the UNESCO Penang Hill Biosphere Reserve, and walked to a lookout point where we had our picnic dinner at sunset. During the night hike, we went up this cool sky deck (Curtis Crest Tree Top Walk) and saw the sunset. It was beautiful, and I took photos for a lot of people. After viewing the beautiful sunset, we went on a night hike with our guide, Khadijah, crossed over a sky walk and saw primates (macaques and cute dusky leaf monkeys), scorpions glowing under UV light, flying lemurs (gracefully gliding), brown frogs, stick insects, a spider-like crab, huge caterpillars, and a green camouflaged non-venomous snake. 















We finished the hike by walking down a steep hill, and then we arrived at this really cute, century-old heritage bungalow that was converted into a 15-room guesthouse called the Hickory; it feels like my grandma’s house. Everyone really loved the cool air, the amazing view of the entire city, and the hominess of the place. We ended the night with some chocolate cake with strawberries and a vanilla cake as well, and then we played some games before going to bed. 







Tomorrow, we’ll continue to explore Penang, going into George Town for a mural scavenger hunt and taking a hike back up Penang Hill to reach our little retreat at the Hickory. See you soon!

--Ava


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