Football makes me literally sick!

People i met here who contributed to, and improved my trip: Julia (Russia)

Leaving the ferry in Georgetown, we bumped into a nice American bloke called Ken, who we had also very briefly bumped into in Pulau Weh and went in search of a hostel with him. Settling on 75 Travellers Lodge, which has possibly one of the nicest guys ever running it, we went into its attached cafe to grab our Dinner. To burn off the calories a short walk around the city was called for, which had some prettily illuminated buildings and seemed so westernised after all the time we had spent in Indonesia. The architecture showed clear signs that the British had colonised the area and there was also plenty of Chinese, Indian and of course Malay influence on show, all intermingling and making the city a cosmopolitan delight.

The night was to be memorable for one thing however, a make or break Euro 2008 football qualifier between Russia and England, which obviously caused some tension between Julia and myself :) Some beers were bought, my first in several weeks, from the local shop and we sat in the hostel with the owner and a few other guests watching what happened. In brief, England took the lead in the second half, only for a penalty to be awarded to Russia, which really was never a penalty. After scoring this, Russia had a good spell and grabbed a second goal, which proved to be the winner. I was obviously disappointed to lose, but even more so in the fashion that it happened. I went to bed feeling glum, but this was better than how i would awake!

On Thursday i couldn't believe how bad i felt and at first put it down to having not drunk for quite a while and then having a few beers - although i didn't think it was this, as i hardly drank anything.

After forcing some lunch down, we went for a walk around the city, but i was soon in a hot sweat and feeling pretty terrible. To make matters worse, it began to rain, so we made our way back to the hotel to have a lie down. For the next 2 days i had a fever and couldn't make it out of bed, but florence nightingale (Julia) was on hand to bring me food and drink and look after me.

I eventually made it out again on Saturday and got the chance to have a proper look around Georgetown in the daytime. I still wasn't feeling on the top of my game, so we didn't go too far from the centre. Interesting sights that were visited though, included Chinatown that had the Cheong Fat Tze Mansion and also the pretty little Hainan Temple, Little India, the lighthouse (which we climbed), Fort Cornwallis, the Esplanade and several beautiful colonial buildings including the town hall.

The following day i was feeling a bit sick again, so spent much of it in an air conditioned internet cafe and at the hotel. In the evening, it was the final race of the F1 championship with rookie English driver Lewis Hamilton looking likely to secure an amazing championship victory. Within the first few laps it all began to go wrong, as he had a number of mechanical errors. It ended up with Finn Kimi Raikonnen taking the race and championship  to my great disappointment. To round off a dreadful week for English sport, the Rugby World Cup Final was played between England and South Africa. And you guessed it.... we lost AGAIN! This really wasn't doing much for how i was feeling :)

I still wasn't a hundred percent on Monday, but we got news from Markus that he was in Kuala Lumpur, so we hauled our baggage down to the bus station and took the bus 4 hours south.

I was sad to leave Georgetown without really enjoying it there, due to been sick, but what i did see of it was really beautiful, clean and friendly. If nothing else, i was mighty pleased to be back in Malaysia :)