Langkawi: Day 2

Another day of being carted around like the tourist I am. I paid up $RM35 for a morning tour of the islands, starting with Pulau Dayang Buntang.

They have monkeys there.

Bad Monkeys.

They also have a freshwater lake, which is nice and relaxing on a hot day. I apologize for all the foot photos but I'm travelling alone, you see, and I don't trust strangers with my camera.

Biology 101

This, ladies and gentlemen, is where cockroaches (blattella asahinai) come from:

(Drain hole next to the toilet, Hut #118, Green Hill Resort, Malaysia). Discovered when going to the bathroom to brush my teeth. This roach scuttled out into my room when I turned on the light. It refused to die, even after taking four direct hits from my sandal. I gave it a burial at sea (flushed down the toilet);

This is where they go to die:

(Under the bed, Hut #118, Green Hill Resort, Malaysia) Discovered when my bed collapsed last night.

Langkawi: Day 1

Until yesterday, my t-shirt area hadn't seen the light of day for close to 17 years. It's now all crispy, red and painful.

Surprisingly enough, most of the shops in Pantai Tengah don't carry calomine lotion. A restaurant along the stretch had a small aloe plant growing in its flowerpot so I nicked some when nobody was looking (badass). I found some calomine lotion later in the afternoon and felt really bad about it.

Being unable to play on the beach, I had to stick around indoors so I opted for a day at the Underwaterworld Aquarium near my resort instead.

Old penguin ignored by the younger ones.

Silly hat day for the crabs:

*insert theme from frogger*

Travel Day: Langkawi

I caught the ferry for Langkawi at 8:30 this morning, meeting Keith and Bev on the lower deck. We split a cab to Pantai Tengah where our hotels are located. Unfortunately, their place is quite a distance from mine so meeting up for dinner was out of the question.

My hut near the beach, from the outside, looked rather well maintained so I didn’t hesitate when I checked in. I should’ve taken a look inside before I agreed to anything. That was mistake #1. Unlike my previous accommodations, this one has an ensuite bathroom, which sounds fancy on paper. Problem is, it hasn’t been cleaned in a while. Actually, I don’t think it’s ever been cleaned. The sink was for decoration purposes only – the drainage hole lead directly to the floor. It was the only place available within my budget so I guess I can’t really complain.

My shower - the wall's peeing on me.

The beach itself is a beautiful, quiet stretch, with lots of starfish bits and seashells floating in with the tide. I caught sight of a couple of jellyfish washed up on the beach too (I went in the water anyway. I’m badass like that). The resort set up a little hammock under a tree, which I took advantage of before wandering down the beach with my shirt off (mistake #2).


They probably had the right spelling the first time round.

Dinner time took me down to the neighbouring beach of Pantai Cenang for a nice romantic dinner of satay while watching the sun set on the Indian Ocean (by myself).

I don’t think my sun burns have completely taken hold yet – tomorrow should prove interesting.

CWD's

At about 5 PM every night, a couple of “girls” set up shop directly in front of the hotel for, ahem, pay services. They are like regular girls except you get a bonus wing wong with each purchase.

Their um… boss shows up every so often on his motorbike to chat with his “ho’s” when business is slow. Maybe I’ve watched too much television, but, I was expecting the guy to have a bunch of gold teeth and some chains or something. Maybe a purple hat with a feather in it or a gold cane. This guy only had a mullet

Penang: Day 2

I had originally intended to get my laundry done today, but the laundromat hadn't opened yet. So instead, I wandered off for a Dim Sum breakfast and subsequently forgot my errand when I stumbled on a few temples in Georgetown (and got lost). By the time I found my way back to the guest house, it was too late to bother with laundry - it wouldn't have been ready in time for my 8:30 ferry to Langkawi tomorrow.

The next order of business was to find Snake Temple, which nobody could find yesterday. With firm resolve, I made my way to the Komtar bus station. All said, it took me close to three hours to find/get on the bus and finally get there. It was quite a letdown considering the amount of time and effort invested into finding it. There were only two snakes in the temple proper. There were more in the adjoining snake farm but it was nothing special. I was there twenty minutes. Tops. Bah!


Our group met up for the last time over some curry and drinks. Keith, Bev and I are heading out in the morning for Langkawi. Jillian, Justin and Ladis are sticking around for an extra day.

Random pictures from today:

They obviously go hand in hand:


Derelict shop houses:

Penang: Day 1

The original plan that Jillian (the Australian I met on the bus yesterday) and I had for today was simple: Rent a couple of scooters and check out the island. The traffic that greeted us this morning changed our minds pretty quickly. Yesterday, it turns out, was no indication of your typical day on Penang roads as it was a public holiday.

I started my morning early to catch the town at sunrise.



After a quick breakfast, we agreed to split a car rental to see the sights. This alone took half the morning because Hertz was fully booked. They pointed us in the vague direction of another rental place but we couldn’t find it. We ended up lining a car up through a hotel we passed along the way. Again, vague directions were given and it took forever to find it. The street wasn’t even in our map. It was close to noon by the time we finally took possession of our white (and air conditioned) Proton Wira. Jillian took the wheel because of her experience driving a standard right hand drive vehicle. I took the role of navigator.

Though I had bought a couple of maps, I wasn’t quite prepared for the confusing road systems here. See, your typical main road here consists of a one way street with segments going in the opposite direction inserted. This, I assume is to make things interesting for stupid tourists like myself. As and when one of these direction shifts was encountered, I had to quickly re-plot our route, which often made things worse.

The street names here are also sketchy. For example Jalan Kapitan Keliling is also referred to as “Lebuh Pitt.” Also, Lebuh Farquhar runs parallel to Lebuh Farquar. Malay words for street and lane are also interchanged with their English counterparts for added confusion.

Also, “Jalan Sehala” is not a popular street name, as I had initially thought. It means “one way street.” Don’t bother looking it up in a map.

I’m glad Jillian is a good (and patient) driver.

We finally made it up to Penang Hill for a ride up on an old tram car. We grabbed a bite to eat, caught some shots of the view and visited a Hindu temple at the top of some stairs. The cooler weather at the top of the hill made the trip quite pleasant.


Our next destination was Snake Temple, near the airport, but after an hour of circling a bunch of roads, we cut our losses, topped up our gas tank, bought a better map (it marks which direction the roads go) and headed to Batu Ferringhi for a nice sit on the beach. By the time we got there, we were too stressed from the day's driving/navigating to properly enjoy ourselves.

We met up with the group for a nice Italian dinner and shared our day’s stories. Keith and Bev (the Irish/British couple) couldn’t find Snake Temple either so I didn’t feel so inadequate.

Travel Day: Penang

On the advice that I get on the earliest bus to Penang possible I splurged an extra $RM3 on a Super VIP bus ticket for 8:00. Rumour has it that there's a bike rally on today and they're shutting down the main road later in the morning. The later buses are being rerouted, adding an extra hour to the travel time.

Our bus pulled into Tapah at around 10:00 because the brakes needed changing, putting us behind schedule by an hour. A couple of hours later in Ipoh, a police cavalcade blocked us up for another hour and a half. The rerouted buses probably got there before we did.

The bus finally arrived, though not on Penang, as I had thought, but rather, Butterworth, which is on the mainland. My guess is, they didn't want to pay the toll for the bridge across. Our newly formed travel group (1 x British couple, 1 x Irish/British couple, 1 x Aussie girl, 1 x me), hauled ass up a couple of flights of stairs, a couple more ramps and boarded a ferry to the island.

We're meeting up later tonight to discuss our plans over drinks later tonight.