Penang – Day 1, around Georgetown

I checked into my hotel in Georgetown at 7am and slept for a couple of hours before deciding to walk around the town for the day, to see what I could find.  There was a lot to see!  One thing I discovered over the day was that I don’t really need sunscreen in this part of the world.  I guess the ozone layer is pretty thick here.  The weather was fantastic for the two days I spent here.  I took a ride on a trishaw, and discovered that the drivers are usually homeless – they sleep on the trishaw at nights.  Penang is very expensive compared to KL, and they can’t afford a roof over their heads.

A couple of men were playing checkers on the street, with bottle tops.

There is a tower in Penang called Komter. Like so much of KL and Penang, it was under renovation, upgrade or construction, but I was still able to get up to the top floor, which I think was the 60th or something. This gave me a 360 degree view of the entire island of Penang. I circumnavigate this tomorrow.  In the middle of the Komter observation deck is a very tacky wedding area. I don’t know who would want to get married here, but it looked like somebody was planning to do so that night.

For lunch I chose to eat from one of the many street stalls. This is an example of how many of them look.  I ate the Chicken Rice, as it seems to be one of the traditional and very popular meals in Malaysia.  I have to say I was expecting a whole lot more than what I experienced, after seeing Anthony Bourdain wax lyrical about it in one of his travel/food shows.  The rice was fluffy and well-cooked, but the roast chicken was almost cold.  I found out later that it is meant to be.  You have to add chili to get flavour, as the savory flavor we expect from roast chicken simply wasn’t there.  On the flip side, it cost me about $2 for tea, fresh juice, and the chicken rice.

Since Thailand, pretty much the only rock music I’ve heard outside Rock City has been The Scorpions. I first heard a “best of” album at poolside in Patong, and I’ve heard it regularly throughout Thailand and Malaysia.  Seems they’re huge in Asia.  Of course “Winds Of Change” is the real reason.  If Asians knew what their primary musical style was, I’m not so sure they’d be so crazy about them.

A phone booth with simple instructions on what to say once your dialee picks up.  I like it.

The tailor you go to when you’ve been asked to host the Academy Awards.

There are temples, shrines and mosques (and even some churches!) everywhere in Thailand & Malaysia.  From what I can gather, Hinduism has many gods.  My Indian is not at it’s best right now, but I think this temple is honoring the Goddess of breast implants.

And for those like me who don’t have time to stop for anything, there is always the fast food option. Self-installed in just 5 minutes, you can use this one to pray that the car to your left is not about to veer into your lane without indicating (as they always seem to do over here).

This is generally how the Hindu temples look in Malaysia. Penang and KL are both made up primarily of Indians and Chinese, with authentic Malays being in the minority.  Therefore Buddhism and Hinduism are both very popular, even though this is a Muslim country.

Once again, forgive my Indian translation, but I believe this could be a temple worshiping the Gods of Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

I walked past this very run down hair-dressing salon which advertises itself as “delux hair saloon”. Hate to see the budget ones!

A street-side shoe repairer still has work to do on a very quiet day.

The beggars are not as aggressive here as they are in Thailand, but I am glad I was not the only one to ignore them. It is very difficult to walk past without helping.

The street sweepers are human here, and they just walk into moving traffic without a care in the world. Here a couple of locals trade views on an upcoming footy match.

After a very long day walking around town I was picked up at my hotel by a friend of friend – Communications professor at Penang University, Sam.  She and her friend Kash took me to the best (but messiest) seafood experience I’ve had yet. Below you see the just caught trays and boxes of clams, pipis, whelks, crabs, fish, prawns & squid.  You load up trays with what you want, and they cook up a storm with it.  And boy, do they do a great job.  With the exception of the yucky orange crab fat, everything was stunning. I particularly loved the butter prawns.  Thanks Sam!  Only thing missing was some nice wine or beer to compliment the seafood – this is a Halal restaurant, so no alcohol allowed.

A view from the restaurant.  What a great way to spend a balmy evening.

In keeping with my ongoing obsession with macro bug photography, I present you with the unidentified giant bug that was crawling up my hotel room wall when I arrived home from dinner. I’m sure it was harmless but I relocated it to the outside corridor all the same.  Oh, and it had wings – don’t think having this thing dive-bomb my pillow at 3am would be that enjoyable.

OK – that was a very long post, but there was a lot to see in Penang. Tomorrow we have day 2, where Sam takes a day off work to drive me around the island.

Phuket – Being a tourist, alone.

It’s sometimes awful to be alone, but often it’s great. Today was one of those days. I’m in Phuket now, in a very nice room (with a jacuzzi) of an excellent hotel. I’m shamelessly going soft – recharging before I hit Malaysia.

I’ve booked a bunch of tours so I can see as much of the islands as possible. First thing I thought of when flying in to Phuket International Airport was the amazing view of the islands! Of course, my camera was in my overhead luggage instead of my hands, so no pictures. I’ll have to do it on the way out.

Next thing that hit me as I exited the airport is that this is definitely the most humid place I’ve been to so far. Thai paper money doesn’t really suit this place. No paper does.

Driving into Patong Beach (totally destroyed by the tsunami) I felt a little more like I was in Fiji again. Poor local village housing combined with tourist-related shops, agencies and hotels, and to my total surprise a place called Rock City. More of that amazing place in the next post.

As soon as I reached my hotel the heavens opened. Tropical rain has been constant since I’ve been here. We’re possibly feeling the effects of the Philippine typhoon. I hope it clears up before my tours of Phi Phi, Krabi and something else start (June 26).

Today I decided to be a real tourist and chose to do the Phuket adventure tour.

Heavy storms stopped half of the activities from being available (many snakes are out and roads are blocked by fallen trees and flooded rivers), but instead of being unhappy about it (no refunds) I was perfectly OK because the remainder of my tour group had canceled thinking it wouldn’t go ahead, leaving me in the unique position of being able to stay at locations for as long as I wanted and ask any questions I wanted. The tour guide was rapt (and surprised?) to find out I was easy going, and opened up to me about everything. So in the end I got a personal tour guide which, after Bangkok, I’m learning is what I really need to be comfortable. Whilst the entire 5-hour tour was entertaining and informative, a few locations really stood out, and I was able to photograph most of the day as I had put my camera into it’s waterproof housing beforehand.

The ATV ride was supposed to be about getting the guest to a spot on the mountain where the view was spectacular. Today it was more about riding on an open four-wheeler, through driving rain, on wet main roads followed by very dodgy dirt tracks that looked more like rivers with canyons running through them. My guide hated it (they think 25 degrees on a wet day is cold) and was shivering terribly, but I loved it! Got a bit hairy at one point on the way down the mountain, as my brakes became fairly useless in the slippery mud. I’m only showing you a photo of these things in case you don’t know what an ATV is, because I can shoot in the rain, and so you can see the conditions.

During the day’s activities we checked out rubber tapping, which was freaky. Rubber being poured straight out of a tree? I know that’s where it comes from, but actually feeling it turn to rubber in my hands was weird. Another local industry is cashews. Did you know they grew at the top of an apple? I didn’t! The apple juice is really nice, too. We also dropped into a massive jewelry designer showroom. I bought Mishka and Mushroom a small cat statue made from fish bone or resin (depends which lady you asked) each.

The elephant ride & monkey show was a lot of fun, especially when you could interact with the animals so intimately. My ride (below) was very happy to raise her trunk onto the platform and watch me as I stroked her tough skin and thanked her for the gentle ride. Watching her eyes move around to match my movements, I could instantly see that within that massive frame is a very gentle creature that trusts humans and enjoys their company.

This baby elephant is brought out to “massage” guests. She’s three and makes the most adorable squeals. I was allowed to hang around with her for a while after the massage. I think she liked me too, as she kissed me for quite some time! Her kisses threatened to suck my entire ear off at one stage.

It seems that Thailand is full of attractive women just wanting to spend time with you. After the baby elephant came Samlee, who is apparently the reigning Miss World. She loved to hold my hand, have her belly rubbed, or if she was feeling shy, cover her face with my hand. For a creature that spends it’s entire time running around rough ground and climbing trees on all fours, she sure had soft hands!

I’m not a temple fan, but it is interesting to watch how the many Buddhist tourists interact when they visit these temples. This is Phuket’s most important temple – Wat Chalong. You may not have seen inside one before, but they allow photography here.

Finally, the snake show was excellent. Once again, improved out of sight because of the fact that I had everyone’s undivided attention. Holding a large python was really quite nice, and I wouldn’t mind one. Patting a King Cobra was thrilling – apparently the chances of seeing one around town are quite good right now. Hearing the story about the guide’s friend who lost a baby to a python last week wasn’t so good.

Gold-ringed cat snake

I was photographing this King Cobra (not realizing I’d be a lot closer to one later) when it saw me and raised it’s head in a defensive pose. It was quite unnerving. It turns out he could see himself in his reflection on my camera housing.

I think this is the mouth of a python.

Snake kissing. He also allowed it to latch itself onto his finger.

Kissing an Asian cobra

The fangs of an Asian Cobra

The King Cobra about to turn my direction.

A general observation – the world is a very strange place. In Melbourne we have the cleanest drinking water you can get, yet it hardly ever rains. Here in Phuket it buckets unimaginable amounts daily, yet they can’t provide a natural, clean drinking supply. Whilst on the ATV I collected about a litre a minute in the lap of my poncho, and one giant raindrop actually dislodged my right contact lens, reducing me to one eye for crevasse and flash flood negotiation. I’m writing this, so it must have been perfectly safe.

Finally, after a wet day being a tourist I headed off to Rock City. On my way out I saw this large green creature on the wall of my hotel room.