I Want to Live in Penang

Well, we're in Malaysia, on Pulau Penang. First impressions are that it's much cleaner than BKK(particularly the air), a lot hotter, and everyone smokes clove cigarettes. This is the heavy, sticky heat we were expecting to encounter in SE Asia. It's about time to step it up to 3 showers a day and buy another bottle of talcum powder(for freshy). Of course it was difficult to buy anything on our first day here since the banks were closed for a holiday and every ATM was completely empty. Add to that a locked card from trying to withdraw too many times and you have a great start to our Penang visit. It was all cleared up by the next day but we had to skip a meal and Jenny's heart skipped a few beats in the interim. On the bright side however the necessary call to the bank had us finally purchase Skype credit which is a ton cheaper than any land-line phone or international card, and I recommend it to anyone calling overseas.

With the failure that was our visit to Ko Phangan still lingering in our minds and the sweat soaking through our shirts, one of the first things we wanted to do was visit the beach and cool off. We grabbed a bus to Batu Ferringhi, the only problem being that we couldn't tell when to get off. We took a pretty good guess however and we turned out to be only 100m from a public beach entrance. Batu Ferringhi is the area along the beachy north shore of the island where one can find all the overpriced resorts and hotels, but the beach is free for everyone to use. And they do use it. Tons of touts were all about trying to get the unsuspecting tourists to rent their jet skis or go horseback-riding, but they weren't as persistent as they were in other places and it was easy to enjoy ourselves. The sand is a normal yellow and the water is slightly muddy so it wasn't the white-sand paradise we were seeking in southern Thailand, but the water was a great temperature and there was sun on the beach. The only other thing we needed was a frisbee, which I finally regretted leaving at home.

Ahoy

Not a lot of opportunities for shirtlessness, so we remain pale

We seem to find ourselves at the large mall here just about daily, either to take a break from the sun and heat or just because it's right next to the bus station and dirt-mall(right) which, while dirty, has well priced salted fruits of which I cannot get enough. Apart from just walking around looking at what's for sale, there's a great movie theater on the top floor with movies as cheap as $1.50 at the right time of day. We've seen three while here, and I give my recommendation to Vantage Point. There was one point against the theater, and I'll quote directly from my notes:

Fucking movies let out into the fucking parking garage so you need to go all around and down to the fucking mall to use the restroom. Fucking retarded.

Other than that, no problems.

One stop at the mall coincided with an attempted trip to the tropical fruit farm which fell on its face. After the one bus brought us out past the beaches we proceeded to wait forever for the next one which would never come. It did come in the other direction, but didn't even think about stopping. We are completely convinced that an ill-intentioned taxi driver sabotaged our bus plans and I can only cross my fingers that someone screws him in return in the near future. Luckily for us, the bus stop was directly in front of the Penang Butterfly Farm with it's giant rhino beetle statue at the door. It cost the same as our original destination so we went for it and actually made a good time of the rest of the afternoon. Ninety percent of the farm was exhibits within the butterfly sanctuary area where the pretty little bugs swarm around you as you walk. Off to the side are a number of reptile displays and a small air conditioned viewing room where a great video titled "Insects of the Rainforests" played on a loop. It was definitely worth the fee and we got a ton of great butterfly and animal pictures. Here is a portion of that ton:

They put out pineapple slices to draw the butterflies








Monkey cups! "Carnivorous" plants that monkeys often drink from thanks to their cup shape

I loved this sign suggesting that visitors don't steal the flowers







Big turtle guy

After the butterfly sanctuary it was an easy trip back home to Georgetown for a refreshing Shandy(for Jenny) and some dinner. That dinner was particularly rewarding: we got a satay vendor's secret family sauce recipe and tried the abomination of dessert that is ABC. It was great to talk to the vendor who actually seemed really happy that someone loved his peanut sauce enough to ask what was in it and he eagerly shared his recipe which boiled down to peanuts and red beans. Now I know how I'll be making my peanut sauce in the future. Jenny really liked those satay sticks, especially in contrast to her hatred of ABC. Let me sum up that dessert: shaved ice, ice cream, red beans, creamed corn, flavored syrup, sweetened green pea noodles, and seaweed jelly. As for my review, it was not unpleasant, with all the elements being separately used in sweets all the time. It wasn't great though. Probably wouldn't bother with it again.


And that was our last day in Malaysia with money.

New Frontiers

The last thing we did in BKK before heading south was visit the Siriraj Medical Museum, hidden away in a far-off building on the end of the Hospital property. This place was gruesome, apart from the room dedicated to the deeds of King Rama IX which was actually a very informative look at how Thais see their constitutional monarch. After that though, the whole place was bones, skeletons, crime scene photos and preserved fetuses in various stages of development. It's actually really taxing to see it all and we somehow felt exhausted emerging from the small air conditioned area afterwards. The babies barely look real, preserved as they are, and it's made more disturbing by the shrine that we realized surrounded around each one where Thais would leave small coins and packages of candy as a sort of offering to the child that could have been or only briefly was.

From that downer we pretty much tried to make our way to the tropical paradise of the islands in the Gulf of Thailand, Ko Samui and Ko Phangan. Unfortunately once we got there we learned that it was raining. Heavily. And it would be raining consistently until after our Thai visas ran out. thus it was that we stayed exactly one night in a guest house on the beach which actually had some of the best food that we've had in Thailand, all cooked by the Thai co-owner and her sister. The menu even says they'd be happy to let guests help cook their own meal or observe the process which sounds like a blast, but we didn't really have enough time there. So there was the food and the twenty minutes of sunshine(right), but otherwise we were actually pretty miserable traveling to and staying on the islands. Next time we'll be checking the weather.

First thing in the morning we grabbed another ferry back to the mainland and proceeded to mill around the train station in Phunpin for about 12 hours waiting to ride a train halfway to Malaysia in 3rd class. Nothing better was available and we didn't want to stay in that city so we just put up, but you just know that whoever designed those train-cars and seats did it with malice. At least before that extended session of discomfort we managed to occupy ourselves playing flash games at an internet cafe and walking slowly around the evening market which was full of tasty things. There was great people-watching in the station also, from parents bathing children in large buckets on the platform to the armed military units waving their guns all over the place. Muzzle discipline, indeed. The most interesting thing was the train-side food service that we saw every time a train stopped in the station. Vendors jumped up and ran to sell their food and drink through the windows to passengers in 3rd class(and of course all the trash goes on the floor of the car when done). Inevitably there would always be one vendor caught running alongside the train to finish his last transaction.

That was our last impression of Thailand, on that third class train car. It was dirty and overcrowded and no one seemed to actually pay attention to what seats were on their tickets since none of the numbers on the seats were legible anymore. A few folks slept on mats on the floor in between seats which was probably more comfortable than the seat, except for the filth. We managed to get a 2nd class seat on a train about halfway through in Hat Yai and promptly went the hell to sleep even though it was already well into daylight.

To wrap it up, here's a few extra photos from trains and platforms and maybe other places too:

Some children merrymaking at the train station

Me merrymaking in Jenny's ear

Sleeping 2nd-class style

We Were Wrong About Bangkok

...It's actually a pretty nice place to visit now that we have our heads on straight. It was a smooth ride back from Kanchanaburi except for the horribly smelly Dutch hippies that sat in front of us, carrying their lice. Dropped off near Khao San we managed to find the River Guest House about an hour later tucked down some twisty side streets near Rama VIII Bridge, which was a real sight. And what a difference a few blocks makes: we are completely separated from all the noise and chaos of backpacker central, with the added benefit of rooms as cheap as any other city we've visited outside of the capitol. The cutest little grandma runs the place, and they keep the front gate locked after 3pm to ward off the unsavory types from down the road. When we arrived it was after three, and after ringing the buzzer we hear her from above and over the roof came a key on a fishing line. Once we had unlocked the door she reeled it back in and came down inside to greet us. It would really set the theme for our time in that place, and apart from the dogs and roosters every morning at sun-up we would sleep well.

Our fire extinguisher at the guest house, which doubles as a plant waterer

Rama VIII Bridge

An elephant near the Grand Palace

More elephants on a bridge over a canal somewhere

A corner in Banghlamphu in the evening, near our guest house

For the first couple of days in BKK we played around with public transportation and went to a couple of tourist spots. The malls in Siam Square are huge and all right next to each other on the two sides of Rama I, the equally huge and busy main road in central Bangkok. There's even an aquarium and accompanying IMAX theater in the basement of one, and plenty of movie theaters throughout all of them. We came to really like the MBK mall, which felt the most like home and was cheapest. There are plenty of western movies playing with Thai subtitles, and even plenty of Thai movies playing with English subs. We saw Jumper by the way, which was totally awesome and worth doing for the equivalent of $3US.

Leaving Siam Square, there were still endless shopping possibilities. We took the SkyTrain to the Victory Monument(right), surrounded by a huge traffic circle lined with street markets of food, clothes and everything else. It was here that we found a pretty neat Jazz/Blues bar called Saxophone which apparently has live music nightly. We caught the tail end of a Thai guy playing engrish acoustic covers of bluesy Dylan and Beatles songs, followed by a talented blues cover band which Jenny absolutely loved. and how could she not, they started their set with Sweet Home Chicago. Unfortunately drinks were very expensive there, but we considered it payment for the live music. It's a lot better than the bunch of blind people always singing at the markets. Speaking of which, we took a bus to Jatujak Weekend Market which was full of both Thais and farang shopping for deals on everything under the sun. The place covers 35 acres and even with our detailed map we could barely keep track of where we were. It was a madhouse, especially for someone who is already having trouble fitting down normal hallways. Apart from the overpriced food there was a lot of deal-making, and we came home with a shirt for the dog, a jade piggy and some cute salt/pepper shakers. Not a lot but it was a fun experience partaking in the madness and our first successful BKK bus trip. There would not be many more.

Bangkok traffic at the giant roundabout

Much more successful than our attempts at bus travel was the river taxi, which is a wonderful way to move around the city. While there isn't much mass transit on the canals that are left in the city, moving up and down the Chao Phraya is a really cheap and pleasant way to travel. That is, unless you pick the wrong spot like Jenny and eat a wave from a passing boat. But aside from getting wet once, it's a good time. There's shade and a cool breeze from the water, rather than sweating on a bus with car exhaust filling your nose and we wish the river went to more places of interest so we could take it everywhere. One of my favorite things here in BKK is the markets surrounding the less touristy docks. There's all kinds of great local food items, seafood and produce that I haven't really seen anywhere else. The best we've seen was Pier 15 which not only had rows and rows of buckets with all kinds of eels and fish, but also little baby turtles crawling around which I haven't seen before. I'm not sure how they're generally prepared but I'm going to be keeping an eye out now. Then right on the end of the pier were vendors selling bags of stale bread and crusts. Wondering why Thais would need to make such massive amounts of breadcrumbs, we saw the throngs of (mostly cat-)fish all flopping around right beneath the dock, going crazy for the bits of bread people threw in. Really, it was a great way to kill 15 minutes waiting for the boat to get there. The way I reason it, there are so many fish there only because you'd have to be crazy to eat anything from the horribly polluted water of that river. Welcome to southeast Asia, where there is no concern for the environment at all.

Crazy damn fishes

Buddhist Temples

Luckily the river taxis run right down from our guest house to the Phra Nakhon district, which seems to be pretty much the Mecca of Theravada Buddhism. We made the obligatory visit to the Grand Palace for way too much money to see the emerald Buddha and some coins. Really, I'm sorry to say it but we're not knowledgeable enough about the history or significance of anything there to make seeing the place worth half of our normal daily expenditure. As obligatory as the visit to the Palace and Temple was the run-in with well-dressed English-speaking men trying to scam us into going somewhere else, telling us the Palace is closed, which kind of taints the experience. Much more interesting however was Wat Po right down the street, home to the largest reclining Buddha in Thailand and the most Buddha figures of any one temple. That was something to look at. There was a lot of really neat architecture and Chinese-derived statues besides the huuuuuge 50m-long Buddha laying down in his own hall. Also for those with the disposable income there is a massage school on the temple grounds, where you can let students practice on you for twice as much as you would anywhere else. But if you consider it a donation to the temple or school, perhaps it would seem like a good idea.

Just Reclinging Buddha being Reclining Buddha, panorama style

For a sense of scale

More Buddha

Don't know who this is. Cthulu? Davey Jones?

An artist touching up a wall at Wat Po

Chedis at Wat Po

Hey there

A diagram of something

A Buddha for every day of the week. We gave to Tuesday-Buddha

A macro shot of some ginormous wall painting

Chinatown is Chinatown is Chinatown

Really the last thing we did here was take the river taxis(right) to go exploring the markets in Chinatown, and that was a good time just to feel like we were back in New York, because I'm pretty sure Chinatown is the same no matter what country it's in: Dim sum, noodles, restaurant equipment, tools, massage and bad air quality. I've been watching massage prices everywhere we've been and Bangkok is often double the prices we saw in Kanchanaburi, but Chinatown is there with the good deal just like home. We happened upon a mall and upon entry decided to go for some foot massage and it was a great time. They brought us tea and a blanket, washed our feet(filthy from walking in BKK!), and then rubbed us with some lotions and stuff for an hour before finishing with a quick shoulder, neck and head rub. Of course there was more tea at the end, and then we were on our way to dinner a few blocks away. I hadn't thought of it beforehand but we wound up walking down a Soi which seemed to have nothing but shark-fin and bird's-nest (bird spit) restaurants, both of these Chinese delicacies which I've never had the opportunity to eat since they're very expensive back home. Lucky for me bird's nests come from Thailand, where I happen to be staying. I had a small bowl of hot bird's nest soup for something like $3US and it was memorable more for trying something special than for the taste sensations. To give a review though, it tasted like a sweetened, oaty minced-vermicelli soup. Pleasant but not ground-breaking, although it's supposed to raise my libido, which is always a plus.

So we were wrong about Bangkok. There's a ton to do that we didn't write about once you're comfortable dodging touts and scam artists, like eat bugs on Khao San(the grubs were the only tasty one)(right), visit the National Library(could not find any English books but it's a nice break from the heat) and even get a full-service haircut and shave for like 5 bucks(my face is so smooooth). We'll be sad to say goodbye in a couple of days, but our tourist visas run out soon and we need to head south to make it to Malaysia for our next adventure.