a brief time in malaysia

Going to Malaysia was a mostly impromptu idea and all the better reason to go. After a marathon session of finishing a final 20 page report, Matt and I set out on the overnight sleeper train to Butterworth, the land-side destination port for Penang island. Really, we sort of just aimed south and took the train as far as possible, without much clue as to what we might do or much background knowledge. I had only heard of Penang really as a place in Malaysia, I didn't realize it was an island, nor that it housed Georgetown, the second largest city in Malaysia, or really anything. But, we had several extra days before Matt and I planned to meet up with our other UNC friends who were still working and would meet us at Ko Phangan on October 4.

The train trip lasted a little over 24 hours due to some "brake" troubles. We bought a lot of snacks in preparation and enjoyed the first 6 hours. The first step of the train process was ordering food for dinner and breakfast. That was tougher than it sounds because I had to decide what I wanted for breakfast the next day, and like many english menus in Thailand contain hardly detectable subtleties in the language. For instance, fried noodle chicken versus fried small noodle chicken versus stir fried chicken with noodle, or curry chicken. These are all, of course, different dishes in Thai, but I can't read Thai, so I have to inquire the actual names of the dishes due to poor translations. I made friends with the attendant, who knew about the university I am attending in Bangkok, and we talked for a little bit until I ran out of Thai words and it got awkward. Unfortunately, we didn't book tickets in advance (poor planning) so our first choice of the second class sleeper in the lower berth (there's a window) was already filled.

On an aside, Thai people often use the word already in english to denote the past tense. For instance when something is sold out, it's "over already."

Therefore, we had upper berth tickets so just after dinner the attendants came around and set up the beds for the evening. Around midnight and Irish couple filled the vacant seats under our berths and were pretty quirky people, they talked obnoxiously for a long time, but it didn't bother me too much seeing as I had plenty of time to sleep, even if it was disturbed. At 6 am promptly I was fast asleep only to be awaken by the attendants shouting "Bangkok wake up, wake up!" and then they gave me my breakfast. I don't understand why we had to wake up at 6 am, but while living on a train you are subjected to the wills of random odd occurences. I realized why we had to wake up so early when 45 minutes later we arrived at the border between Malaysia and Thailand and I had to cross through immigration.

Crossing into Malaysia was only a bit intimidating. There were some funny signs about strict no admittance to "those who looked like hippies" wearing "khaki sandals, messy and unkempt hair, dreadlocks, torn clothing, or tie-dye shirts." It was pretty funny, especially considering there were many backpackers on the train that probably would fall into some of those cateogries. Although, I didn't notice anyone have any trouble at the border. Once we made it to Malaysia we hopped on a ferry to Penang island. It was late afternoon by this time, we ate some food, and found a hostel. A t the sound of the call for prayer, the streets instantly cleared and it was eerily quiet except the chanting through a loudspeaker heard throughout the entire city. The hostel was very inexpensive (~$2). We walked around town and went to "Fort Cornwallis," an old British fort.

Penang balanced was one of the most contrasting places, especially for Southeast Asia. First, it reminded me of Charleston, South Carolina. Apparently, before Singapore came into the British's hands, Penang was slated to become Singapore, and was the bustling trade hub of the region. But, once Singapore came around, the Brits neglected Penang and moved on to more strategic locations.

Regardless of Britain's economic intentions with Penang, the island contained a mix of England colonial architecture, Islamic influence, and Chinese everything. This was really weird. We walked through the city and if it wasn't Chinatown, then it was India town. The best part of all things in Malaysia was the food though. It wasn't Malaysian food that made it great, we had one meal of satay and it wasn't anything special. The Indian food there was outstanding and it was all really cheap for really large portions of deliciousness. We read up on some things to do for the next couple days in Malaysia before we were headed to Ko Phangan back in Thailand and decided we wanted to check out peninsular Malaysia so the next day we headed to the Cameron Highlands, a scenic agricultural area containing many large hills or mini-mountains known for among all things you would expect, tea and strawberries. This caused much confusion. We were in a tropical country, just about 5 degrees north of the equator, yet it was really cold outside and they were growing strawberries and tea. The series of small towns that comprised the Cameron Highlands were walkable and hitchhikable. We found ourselves among a surplus of Indian food options, all of which were delicious. One day we decided to go on a hike through the "jungle" which was also odd, because of the varying climate. Our map suggested the top of the "mountain" was only several kilometers, but it failed to mention the steepness of the trail. Doubtless, we were in a rainforest considering our bodies after 4 minutes were drenched in mud. The trail was steep and difficult, many times a rope was tied to a branch and a broken slippery rock face was all there was between us and the 80 degree incline. We found some British travelers along the way who were shocked about the trail and we hiked up to the top, to find it completely foggy and cloudy and we could barely see 50 feet, no less a nice view. The Brits thought the trail was hilarious and on the way back we hiked together and they made fun of an oncoming group of Indonesian tourists. The Indonesians began the hike an hour before sundown and were asking how much longer, the Brits were telling them "oh just five-ten minutes easy you'll be up at the top!" The Indonesians definitely had an hour or two left. At least they brought pots and cooking supplies.

After our hike we got in a cab back to our hostel, took a shower, did laundry and watched a movie. The next day we walked around the countryside, met some people, walked through one of the tea plantations, and saw some cool scenery at least. All the farming in the area is terraced along the hills, which was cool to see. It must be incredibly difficult to harvest though. Also, we found a tea factory, and had a free tour to see how their tea was made.

Malaysia was fun and nice, but for some reason, every meal was the best meal. It was mostly Indian food, but so good. I can't imagine what Indian food must be like in India, even though most of the Malaysians we encountered were Indian or Chinese. In transit we took an overnight VIP bus back to Thailand and we had three hours in Ipoh, Malaysia's third largest city. We went to a bar and met some friendly Malaysian businessmen, all Chinese, because I think the only people that would go to a bar in Malaysia are Chinese. They worked for Proctor and Gamble in Malaysia. They were extremely dissappointed to find out we had a bus to catch at midnight and we only spent 3 hours in their incredible town of Ipoh. I would've liked to stay longer, but we were going to meet our other UNC friends back in Thailand.

brief note

i will write about this later but for now this is where i have been/going since i finished my classes

just returned from 3 days in malaysia (penang and the cameron highlands), now at koh pangan, tomorrow i am going to snorkel in ko tao for several days, then we will go to surat thani.

afterward probably going to khao sok national forest, then phuket and then perhaps singapore.