It was raining quite heavily early in the morning, and I waited until it eased off before heading to the ferryport, so it was around ten o'clock by the time I reached Butterworth. As expected, the next bus to Kota Bahru didn't leave until nine that evening. Nothing to do but hang around the Butterworth bus station all day. This wasn't as bad as it sounds, as I had several books to read, and as well as that bought a couple of local newspapers and updated this diary.

Had a chat with the little girl who worked on the newspaper stand. I suppose it's a sign of the times in Malaysia when even the newspaper stand girl not only speaks excellent English, but also has her own email address.

I got talking to several people from the various bus companies, and my own bus company employees later asked me to join them in watching the World Cup final in the restaurant next door. I later joined them there, and as the game started a foreigner passing by was also invited to join us. He turned out to be Irish, Aengus from Sallins, Co. Kildare. He was finishing off a year in Australia with a few weeks in Thailand and a trip down through the Malaysian peninsula to Singapore. As everyone knows by now, Brazil achieved a well-deserved win against Germany, 2-0.

The bus departed at 10:00. The roads were surprisingly good, at least what I saw of them after leaving Butterworth, because shortly afterwards it started to rain very heavily, and visability became very bad. What with the constrictions of the seat and the bouncing of the bus, I didn't get much sleep.