It was wonderful seeing my parents. We've had a great week's holiday together, and I've probably grown accustomed to nice hotel rooms as a result...

They liked visiting KL and the Cameron Highlands, but it wasn't until we got to Georgetown that I think they were really enjoying themselves.

They found KL a little too familiarly modern, the Cameron Highlands too holiday destination and twee - I hadn't realised before but what they wanted was 1. lots of shopping; 2. being amongst the bustle, the everyday exoticness of in Asia. A busy Indian restaurant, the different races of Malaysia chatting and lounging; hawkers shouting and the red lanterns of KL's Chinatown; browsing in strange shops - these seem to interest them the most. Once I had worked this out, I knew they would love Georgetown.
I think Georgetown (in the island of Penang) is my favourite place in West Malaysia. It just seems full of character and vibrancy, a heritage half preserved and half in somewhat dingy functional use. It is exciting to walk around, a sense of being in an "other place", a bit dodgy with the obvious prostitutes, black rot crawling on the historic white walls, and its quickly dark nightime. And the old Chinese streets are as unchanged as I think one can find anywhere in the world (certainly, few buildings like Georgetown's remain in mainland China, Singapore or Hongkong). The little India quarter is loud and mesmerising, with restaurants that always seem full. Plus, Georgetown has the wonderful and unique house of Cheong Fatt Tze's to stay in.

I wrote about the blue mansion on my first time in Georgetown - I proposed it to my parents as soon as they had decided to visit the area. It was a bit too expensive for us to rent two rooms for the three nights we were staying in Penang, so they paid for my room in a backpackers' lodge a street away. I didn't mind at all; it gave me great happiness to have picked out such a place for my parents. I am on holiday for a year plus, they were on holiday for a week - this was their time not mine.

And anyway, each day I had breakfast with them in the mansion (they paid), and spend an hour or several relaxing there during the afternoon and evening. So I got the best of both worlds. It is a very well run hotel, and the people managing the building are usually around to chat about their work maintaining this private restoration project.

The house seems cooler than the outside air even in the rooms without air conditioning, few sounds from the outside penetrate the thick walls, even though a modern multi storey car park and busy streets are nearby. When it rained, in Georgetown's unpredictably torrential way, water pooled in the mansion's five small stone courtyards before draining off. One afternoon I sat reading in one of the lounge rooms: cream walls, chairs and shuttered windows of dark teak wood, a fan spinning on the high ceiling, while some old jazz played softly from the little cd player set up in the courtyard. It was an experience of timelessness - not that it wouldn't end (clearly it already has), but timelessness in the sense that during those moments, time no longer seemed in power. I could take breaths without counting them. It was a moment I have since returned to several times already for solace.

Being with my parents was a lot of fun. The heat and humidity in KL was a bit exhausting for them, as it was for me a few years ago when I came to Malaysia for the first time. I admired their enjoyment in observing Malaysians just going about their daily business - my dad especially liked sitting in the open to the air diners watching the world eat around us. They were also quite willing to eat in simple Indian places that I suggested to them - a confidence many backpackers don't have.

Being with them was funny because they (quite understandbly) brought along the values of British life. In one Chinese restaurant, my mother frowns, "There are no manners here, are there"? She means by this how people pick up their rice bowl to eat. I try to point out some of the manners that Chinese people do believe in, such as never touching food with one's fingers - this does not convince her. Equally though, they assessed many things in Malaysia clearer than I do. My mum read the agony aunt pages of Malaysia's The Star newspaper - she pointed out the letter of a twenty something woman having an affair with her 49 year old (married with kids) teacher, and how the agony aunt's advice is all about what the young woman should do. "The paper should say, "He's a bastard" - abusing his position to have an affair with her", she pointed out, "maybe attacking the man's behaviour isn't easily done here". I mentioned to my dad (a life long journalist), as he took his turn to read The Star, that I've heard there can be a lot of political control of the Malaysian press. He looked at me as if I've just told him the earth revolves around the sun - "Of course there is! This paper's full of "government speak"". He began pointing out individual stories to me, muttering "terrible journalism".

My parents are pretty good travellers, I discovered. It was very sad to say goodbye to them.

Daniel, 16 August, Bangkok