Thailand Trip Blog

This is our travel blog from our trip to southeast Asia in early 2008. We took some time in the morning a few times a week to upload photos and let our families and friends know what we were up to, and here are those posts. Let this be a record of our travels and maybe someone somewhere will benefit from our experience. Enjoy!

Farewell Southeast Asia

We're back in the US now after our last couple of days in Bangkok. The train ride back was longer than our flight time, almost 24 hours, but we actually got two whole beds to sleep in and plenty of sitting room so it was infinitely more bearable. The funny part is, this ride was barely more than a round trip train ride to NYC from Trenton. A great deal, especially with the train-station food service; that is, the vendors coming on to the trains with their cold fried chicken and sticky rice. As hungry as were come morning, it was delicious. They also had cold balut which was odd, as I hadn't seen it before in Thailand; I wonder if there's a sizable Philippino population in southern Thailand? Sadly I never saw it freshly prepared, so I didn't get to try it. Jenny probably prefers it that way.

This time around just lounging around the neighborhood proved to be a lot of fun, and most of all tons cheaper than it was the first time. It was a great way to wrap up our trip. Every weeknight in Banglamphu Park made for great people-watching, between the pre-sunset aerobics and children and families just playing together. Oddly there also seemed to be a lot of white people practicing for the circus for some reason. Perhaps juggling was just the fashionable thing to do while we were there? It seemed everyone and there mother was there in the evening, probably since the park is such a well-located respite from the horrible air throughout the city. Plus it's right on the water which keeps things cool, even if it does stink a bit.

To make sure we got to the airport early enough we woke up way before the sun and hustled 6km to make the first bus from the Victory Monument to the airport. Cabs could make that sort of thing a lot easier but we really were on our last few dollars. Jenny was miserable and we were both sweaty but we got to the bus and had no issues reaching Suvarnabhumi in time. In fact, we were super early and our long walk was pretty much entirely unnecessary. I'll just consider it time well-spent exercising. The Air Japan flight had great on-demand movie selection, the American Airlines flight absolutely did not, and my flip flop survived all the hiking for two months only to snap on the plane on the way home. I had to brave the very last leg of the (fucking freezing) trip home with it duct-taped to my foot, but I was just happy to be off the plane at that point.


And now we're home again. We've traded the heat for the cold and we already miss everything. The food, the people, the culture, the squat toilets. Still, we're very excited to be back with people we know and especially with our animals.

So what now? South America? Back to finish southeast Asia? Maybe eventually. First things first, gotta get jobs and maybe a gym membership. I lost a lot of weight over there.

Maurice loved his hoodie.

The Usual

We're coming to the end of our time in Malaysia, with our tickets purchased and ready for our train trip back to Bangkok. There's still a lot to do here but as far as tourists go we are very lucky to be able to spend this much time in one place, getting into the city's flow and getting to know its people. For our last days we've tried to do as much as we could without spending, with only a splurge for the War Museum.

DDR

This whole time in SE Asia, I figured I'd see plenty of DDR and could embarrass myself for fun whenever the chance arose, but it's actually been really tough. All of the mall arcades have this newer Konamix game where you dance using your feet and your hands between these sensors both at waist height and over your head and it's complete madness. I didn't even have the courage to try it, it looked so impenetrable. I will say one thing though, it looks a lot less like a seizure and a lot more like dancing than DDR. When I finally found a regular Dance Dance it was in the crappiest crap mall(in Butterworth, the place where the train goes so you can get to Penang), and it was only half in English so I couldn't figure out how to raise the difficulty from Easy to make it at all entertaining. Very disappointing, and uncomfortable on top of it all since we had just hiked up to the lighthouse the day before.

The Usual

We've really gotten comfortable in this city. We've come to know the streets and the buses and locations, and now we even know the people. It's comforting that we now have a "usual" at the coffee shop, a local coffee for me and a white coffee for Jenny. The proprietor was saddened to hear that we were going to be leaving soon, and we were sad to report it. Right down the street the "curry puff guy," as we call him, also knows us and seems to never ever have the tuna puffs when we stop in. At least he always has those delicious semolina cookies, which I find are a great morning snack after coffee. Finally of course there is the Indian place at which we eat nearly every night. I'm going to miss all of these places. They've become familiar.

We passed this puppy pretty much daily. He was very friendly.

A sign for the Songkran festival at a Buddhist Temple, which is a time for elbowing women in the face and making them spill their water.

Speaking of the usual, we're really going to miss the food here. Apart from a really disappointing century egg(I think it was over-cured?) and durian ice cream(puke), every day has brought some new exciting food item for me to try. Most recently we walked to an old bakery for roti bengalli, a very chewy and light white bread, sold by the slice from giant loaves which we smeared with local coconut jam. Then there is this chinese noodle shop right around the corner from our guesthouse which we discovered way too late in our visit. As much fun as all the noodle dishes there are, my favorite thing is the choice of rice porridges for breakfast, particularly anchovies and peanuts porridge. Even eating the same old thing can be really fun, like how the other day Jenny was out of dry clothing and we couldn't go out to eat... so I brought the standard indian home and we ate off of newspaper on the floor, with our hands, out of bowls made from halved water bottles. It was a very MacGuyver moment.

Botanic Gardens

After some (lots of) waiting, we managed to catch the infrequent bus 102 to the Botanic Gardens. We made an attempt to find the waterfall at the gardens, which seemed fairly straightforward from the map at the entrance... two hours later, we had succeeded only in finding a very large set of stairs that definitely did not lead to the waterfall. Jenny pooped out after about an hour and we turned around so Jenny could limp back to the bus stop. It turned out that the staircase of doom actually led to the top of Penang Hill, which we had wanted to visit via funicular railway and instead went halfway up by foot trying to find a waterfall. To make ourselves feel better after that failed waterfall expedition, we got mangoes(which a monkey stole) and ice cream next to the bus stop. Durian ice cream. It was the worst thing I've ever tasted in my life. Could not finish it. The real shame is, it was sharing the cone with some decent purple yam ice cream but that had become tainted by the evil that was durian. I would later get to have the fruit fresh which, while not delicious, was at least inoffensive. But godamn that ice cream was vile.

The bus continued to be an issue since it never actually came to go home, but as another testament to the kindness of strangers in southeast Asia the parking lot attendant was just getting off of his shift and said he could drop us off on his way home. It turned out we were totally out of his way, but he was happy to do it and make conversation on the way. What a totally decent dude.

War Museum

Our last hurrah in Penang was probably the most expensive attraction we visited our entire trip. It was the Penang War Museum at Batu Maung, all the way on the southeast corner of the island. They really have a great thing going there. It's an old British colonial fort atop Batu Maung hill which had been deserted for decades. The story was that the locals considered it haunted and it was pretty much a no-man's-land except for a population of homeless drug addicts. A few years ago someone bought it and he and his wife cleared out all the jungle and set up a paintball field and voila, they had a museum. They really didn't have to do much to make it interesting, it was great just to explore all around the bunkers and tunnels. That alone would have been worth the price of admission. I got to crawl through escape hatches and find bats in all the corners, and there was all kinds of stuff to climb on and views of the water from the watch tower. How can static, boring displays compete with that? We came back filthy and tired, but it was just a great time seeing all that stuff just like it was nearly a century ago.

Jenny in the Soldiers Quarters

View up from the bottom of the ammo chute


A view down to the ammo depot which unfortunately was closed off... Jenny wouldn't let me explore :(

A diagram of the booby traps used around the fort, next to a sign telling you not to cross the rope because of the booby traps. Won't see that at home

Ammo holes

This is actually in the paintball area. A shame to exploit history for something as goofy as paintball but hot damn that would be fun

A painting by POWs kept here by the Japanese when they took over

That's what I hear

That little doorway on the left was about hip-high and contained bats. It went all around the building underground and was scary as shit between the bats and darkness

Next up, a stop in Thailand and then a trip home.

Monkey Sex

We had a particularly satisfying day recently. We rose early, got coffee and noodles(Jenny has recently mastered the noodle-spoon soup-ingestion technique), and took a bus to Penang National Park. Just past Batu Ferringi and taking up the whole north-western tip of the island is the smallest national park in the world, a wonderful collection of hiking trails and beaches where we spent a long day but could spend several more just exploring. Best of all, it was free! The office hands you a map of the trails when you arrive with some spiel about the park and conservation and then you're on your way. All around the beginning of the hike are boat operators, trying to get you to ride their boats around to the most common destination, "Monkey Beach," which would skip an hour or so hike there on foot. And really, where would the fun be in that. We set off around 11:00am for the light house on top of the mountain at the very tip of the island, around 8km round trip.

The first leg of the trail ran close to some rocky beaches which allowed for some fun exploration en route to the first destination, a research complex situated on a beach. After here was where the hiking really got fun, and where we ran into a family of monkeys just hanging out on and around the trail... and we'll have to let the video below speak for itself.

Monkey Sex!


Looking for creatures in the rocks

Surveying for monkeys

Then we reached Monkey Beach, a nice strip of white sand so named for all the monkeys that inhabit the forest at the edge, waiting to steal your stuff if you leave it unattended. The water was piss-warm and not as muddy as Batu Ferringi, all in all a decent way to cool off.

Mother-monkey fussing

As we walked down the beach towards our next destination, we made a friend. We named him beach dog, and after I stopped to horse around with him he came with us for the whole hike to the light house, which Jenny barely made herself.

Puppy!

So when we finally reached the light house, we saw a big "OPEN" sign on the gate. But any sense of relief was lost when we saw the on the sign in much smaller letters that it had been closed for more than an hour. Cursing the girl at the desk who forgot to mention this tidbit, I took the best picture I could of the view from next to the light house and we started back down. It didn't feel like a waste, since we at least accomplished something in the hike, but Jenny was on death's doorstep and didn't want to hear a word. Once we came back down B.D. wasted no time cooling off in the water and going to lay down under a familiar tree. We were relieved that he stayed there and avoided breaking our hearts by following us all the way to the bus stop.

The best I could do

Fucking light house

With all the tough uphill climbing behind us, it was only 2 hours hiking back to the beginning. We just marched straight back, except for an encounter with some monkey bridge guards. It was around 5:30pm when we finished. Below is a great action shot of a monkey screaming at me when I stuck a camera in his face.

Sentries

Monkey scavenging a coconut

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I cheated with the camera's color settings, but this was actually a red tree

It's two days later and we're still pretty sore and still very sun-burned, but it was a great time and we can't wait to go back and hike a couple of the other trails if we can. And all this in flip-flops.

Whoops We Ran Out of Money

The Frugal Tourist

When we found out we wouldn't be receiving as much as expected from our rent deposit we had to work out a new game plan. Considering our financial predicament, any attractions or activities that cost more than a couple Ringit(around $0.33=RM1) were out so we pretty much had to dedicate our daily budget to sleeping and eating. Surprisingly, we're probably having more fun now that we have stricter rules in place than we had before. Never again will we pay half of our day's expenditure for a disappointing Palace visit or take a cab anywhere. Another positive is that we are forced to walk everywhere, so we're keeping in shape while getting plenty of sun. Penang is really the perfect place for this, since the bus can get you around the whole island for around RM5.00 and most things that we want to do(especially the food) are right in the neighborhood where we're staying, Georgetown.

The best idea for free fun here was the Heritage Walking Trail. There's a non-touty tourist office by the pier which has plenty of brochures that came in handy, but especially useful was the Heritage Trail. It outlines two tours of Georgetown covering all the major historical and cultural landmarks, most of which are free and many of which let you walk right in. We've already dedicated three days to the first tour and we're still only about 2/3 of the way done. Some were just Colonial official buildings not really worth entering but of special note were the Cornwallis Light House, the Penang State Museum, and Kapitan Keling Mosque.

The Cornwallis light house sits on the edge of Fort Cornwallis, an important relic of the colonial era, overlooking the whole corner of Georgetown and a great view of the sea(right). There was a sign-in book and a sleeping security guard, so although we were most likely allowed to go up we snuck past and quietly made our way to the top of the light house. The view was fantastic and when we got back down the security guard was up and about the yard, but we were able to go Mission Impossible and sneak behind him as he washed his face on the side of the building. You can make an adventure of anything if you put your mind to it.

View from the Light House

A neat shot of the Court House, part of the Heritage Trail

Our other two favorite Heritage Trail landmarks were more time consuming. The museum took a whole afternoon, and for only RM1 each. There were plenty of very interesting displays, especially the room outlining, chronologically, the arrival of the different immigrant populations here in the city. The next day we reached Kapitan Keling Mosque(right) which had a sign welcoming visitors to the Islamic Information Center and wound up spending hours there. The fella inside told us to help ourselves to the wall full of literature, which we did and then led us in for a tour of the mosque and an outline of Islam and the prayers that were about to take place. We were seated in the back observing the afternoon prayers, plenty of people seeming amused that we were there, and when that ended we witnessed a Muslim wedding. Hell, we're in their wedding photos and video. It amuses us to no end that they'll be looking at that tape ten years from now and see the two of us in the back wearing borrowed modest robes, looking lost and out of place. As for the literature, it all had a certain slant, but what religious literature wouldn't?

Food

It's become apparent that we've pretty much come to Malaysia only to eat Indian food and drink local coffee. Especially the coffee. I've been writing down details on everything we've ingested and really can't wait to post a culinary wrap-up later once we get home since there's just so much information there. Every day is an adventure trying new food items, and part of the reason we're getting so much more out of it here than in Thailand is that there's English writing on everything and everyone speaks it. Chinese, Indian and Malay food all comes together here in Penang and it's a wonderful mix. A highlight of every day has been breakfast, when we've visited PEACE AND JOY Coffee Shop and had whatever bowl of noodles looked interesting from one of the vendors surrounding it. A note on the coffee: it's so fucking good. The local coffee is different from what we have at home mainly because the beans, instead of being roasted dry, are toasted in butter and sugar. They then proceed to sweeten it in the cup with sweetened condensed milk and more sugar. When it arrives at the table it is thick and syrupy and black as night, and when you stir it the milk works its way in from the bottom to give it a swirly chocolatey color. I'm probably devoting too much space to just describing coffee, but it's been a revelation for me as I could never find coffee at home palatable. Another variant, called "white coffee," is similar to the local type but toasted without sugar, and frothed with normal milk rather than condensed. It's thinner and a bit more bitter, and Jenny prefers it.

Next time, monkeys.