I woke up in George Town excited to start my first day in Malaysia despite having no idea what to do or where to go. The hostel gave me a map and told me to walk around. Clearly they’ve never seen me trying to navigate! But it didn’t seem like wondering aimlessly around was the same as being lost so I took the map and headed out the door.

It wasn’t long before I found little India, almost identical to the street I go to with Mum and Yogi when shopping for Indian weddings. The jewels are bigger and more sparkly than western jewellery and the outfits more colourful and intricate. Wafting through the air were smells of curries, spices and incense and it made me feel homesick for one of Mum and Yogis dals.

Along the way I started noticing the street art, the first really cool one was a picture of two children on a swing, next to them was another swing that you could sit on with the wood jutting out of the wall. Next to it was an ally selling handmade things. It was gift heaven! For the first time I found things people might actually want in their lives!

Next, I came to the dock with a lot of Chinese influence. There was a tree growing out of the ground and loads of stalls selling more trinkets and tourist crap. I still love me some gift shops!

I started to see more and more street art and noticed my map had small pictures on it detailing where each one was and what they looked like. I decided to use this as a fun way of seeing the town so I began to cross off the ones I had seen and search for the others. It was boiling hot as I trudged back and forth trying to find the missing art. When I would arrive at one, I would have to wait for ages while people took too many photos of their children. Just as one kid would bugger off a new one would instantly be there. Their parents apparently 'momagers' instructing them to pose this way and that. A Chinese girl in a little pony dress was the worst! She was cute and all but not fifteen minutes of posing on a bike cute! At times I wanted to give up and move away but then I would have failed my mission!

I decided to replace real food by eating ice cream and later having a milkshake, it was the only thing acceptably cold enough to deal with the weather! After finding as many paintings as possible I couldn’t stand it any longer so headed back to my hostel for aircon.