Day 17 Perhentian Islands to Penang

Our last night on the island was restless to say the least. I have never experienced more than 50 mosquito bites on my arms & chest, something I can add to my list of "hopefully never again"...oh and mum there is no Malaria on Perhentian so don't freak out. We boarded the 8am boat back to Kuala Besut and crossed our fingers and toes that we would make our 11am bus in Kota Bharu to Penang. Fiona, CP, Mike and I jumped in our 1970 Mercedes with our taxi driver Zoul and made our way to Kota Bharu. There was a little confusion about the location of our bus stop but thank goodness for technology and google maps however our trip was still destined for a series of unfortunate events. Once at the bus stop we were told there was no 11am  bus and the next one wasn't until 10pm. Zoul our taxi driver was very concerned about our wellbeing at this "middle of nowhere" bus stop  and decided to stick around and ask everyone he could if there was another bus departing for Penang before 10pm. Thank goodness he decided to stay with us as we were back in the cab and at Central bus station in the middle of Kota Bharu in 20 minutes. It was distressing to realize that our research had failed...there was indeed no 11am bus as so many internet sites informed us. It was either wait in Kota Bharu for 12 hours or hire a car and drive to Penang. Kota Bharu can be explained in a sentence "A place that none of us ever ever want to go back  to or be in for a second  longer". So hiring a car it was and the boys somehow had the confidence to drive in crazy motorcycle Malaysia. Zoul amazingly was still sticking around to save the day and took us to his friend who knew were we could hire a car. He became increasingly chatty & had suprisingly good English which he told us he learnt at night school when he got the job to drive tourists around. Later on we discovered his friends directions were wrong and there was no car hire place in sight, this really put him in a spin with his head lowered and shirt wet with perspiration he was devastated that he had wasted our time and couldn't stop apologizing. We were happy that we were safe in his taxi rather than on the streets of Kota Bharu but doubt started to enter our minds to whether Zoul knew that there was no 11am bus from the very start. We decided to go to the airport to rent a car and Zoul kindly drove us. We obviously gave him quite a bit more money for all his effort and there were even hugs and handshakes all round. Its nice to believe that there are actually nice people in this world like Zoul who will go above and beyond the call of duty to help strangers & I suppose we will never find out if he took us for a real ride knowing there was no 11am bus in the first place. After saying goodbye to Zoul things just got so much better...we found out there was  a 3 day minimum to hire a car and a hefty interstate tax, we even looked at flights. After a while we admitted defeat, we would be catching the 10pm bus. We were over the moon that we would be spending the day in Kota Bharu with our packs in the heat, and a night of paid accommodation in Penang we wouldn't be enjoying. It  was a day of killing time thats for sure and I am glad there were four of us to lighten the load and bring some humor to our situation. We spent 3 hours in KFC because it had Aircon and plugs to charge our electronics, 1 hour in the shopping mall, 2 hours walking the streets, 2 hours trying to figure out which hawker food wouldn't make us sick, 2 more hours in McDonalds for the Aircon, bathroom and Wifi, and an hour at the bus stop. I have never been so happy to start a 7 hour bus trip in my life, and at 5.30am after a couple of hours of fitful sleep and dressing like Eskimo's because of the Aircon we arrived in absolutely awesome Penang alive just 12 hours late...