Days 22 and 23 - Cameron Highlands/Penang/Langkawi
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Monday August 30th
Tuesday August 31st
Another early morning as I had an 8am bus to catch to Penang. I stopped in at an Indian cafe for a breakfast of roti with butter and sugar for a grand total of 2RM (about 70c), then settled in for my five hour trip to Penang.
After a brief stop in Ipoh to pick up more passengers, we arrived at the Butterworth terminal at about 1:30pm. The bus was headed to the island across the 7.5km bridge (the longest in the world I believe), but I alighted at Butterworth as the ferry would take me almost to my hostel, rather than a bus terminal about 20 minutes from where I was staying.
The ferry docked at Georgetown and from there it was a quick 10 minute walk (well, as quick as a walk with a 12kg backpack in horrific heat and humidity can be!) to Love Lane, where I was staying. (Doesn't the name conjure up images of the swinging 60s or love hotels in Japan)? I managed to score a dorm to myself and dropped in my laundry, which was filthy from my muddy hikes in the Cameron Highlands, as well as air my still muddy running shoes (despite my best efforts to clean them).
Of course I was starving and being the heat of the day it meant the air-conditioned mall was beckoning. I first needed to find some reading material, given the Paul Theroux incident (see previous post for details), so first stop was the 'Popular' bookstore. All of the September issues of the fashion magazines were out, and for anyone who's seen 'The September Issue', you'll know that September is the most important month for magazines. September is the month that really defines the whole next year of fashion, with advertisers clamouring for space. It's not unusual for a magazine to double in size for September, and for an actress or model to claim a September cover it's quite an achievement. I purchased the Malaysian Cleo at 400+ pages (AUS$2 compared to AUD$9 for an Aussie/US/UK version) and the next book on my reading list - Twilight. I flirted with the idea of purchasing my next guidebook (Thailand), but decided Langkawi would be the best option. This of course ended up not being the case, with Langkawi not having one single bookstore ....
I had fried carrot cake for lunch and, energy levels replenished, set out on my routine self-guided tour of Penang. This took me along the waterfront, where I purchased my ticket for Langkawi for the following day, past a fort and some pretty cool buildings. Why is it that all of the 'good' buildings in Malaysia seem to be police stations or military barracks?
Penang is best known for its food, and was actually listed in the New York Times as one of the 44 'must-visit' places of 2010. The streets were busy with people and street vendors, and I settled on Indian again of mushroom karpathi - another steal at only 75c! (Although the diet coke - sorry, 'coke light!' was about double that ...) I played on the internet for a while after that - this time of year means Accenture promotion and payrise results, so interesting to find out what's going on back in Aus.
Tuesday morning I was up at 6:30am - seriously, I'm meant to be on holidays, what is it with these early starts? - as I had an 8:15 ferry to catch to Langkawi. Today was Merdeka - Malaysian National Day - and the streets were vibing with groups of people, ready to march in a Merdeka Parade. There were marching bands, school kids, police and military groups - unfortunately they started too late for me to watch them.
The ferry to Langkawi took just over 2.5 hours - I was worried it would be packed given it was a public holiday, but it wasn't too bad. There is no public transport on the island, so a taxi was required to my hotel, 'Nadias Inn Comfort Langkawi'. What a horrific hotel. I'd settled on it since there didn't seem to be a lot of options in the lower-end of the accommodation scale, and the room I was given was brighted a garish pink colour with one light giving almost no light. (Later I learned that this may be because Malaysians 'don't read', so why is light needed for reading?) At least I had my own room, bathroom, and a TV - even if the TV did only play Malaysian channels!
I have to admit I was expecting Langkawi to be a lot more 'touristy' and 'Western'. I was staying on the main strip, Pantai Chenang, yet there wasn't one chain (i.e. McDonalds) to be seen, just a cluster of local cafes, travel agents and internet cafes. Langkawi is also a duty-free island, so there are lots of duty-free shops similar to those in airports.
I had my lunch/breakfast at 12:30pm - given it was a 'brunch' meal I had a brunch meal of eggs benedict - and then walked the main beach and checked out the duty-free stores. It was then I realised there were no bookstores on the island, and I had just finished Twilight. A lot of the stores were also closed given the public holiday, but I did find a second-hand bookstore that allowed me to trade for another novel (some political thriller). I also needed to change some money - I only had about 100RM ($30 AUD) in my wallet, and of course most of the moneychangers were closed for the public holiday (and the guidebook said all the ATMS and banks were located back in Kuah town, 24km away). Luckily I found one and scored enough ringgitt to see out my time here.
I walked back along the beach - my first beach this trip - but it almost feels like I'm 'cheating' on Phuket. I don't want to lounge by the beach, cocktail by the pool etc until I'm in Phuket, so I'm just taking it easy here. I found a beautiful Italian place for dinner - meals are noticeably more expensive here than anywhere else in Malaysia - and then used my headlamp to try and read before bed.
Tuesday August 31st
Another early morning as I had an 8am bus to catch to Penang. I stopped in at an Indian cafe for a breakfast of roti with butter and sugar for a grand total of 2RM (about 70c), then settled in for my five hour trip to Penang.
After a brief stop in Ipoh to pick up more passengers, we arrived at the Butterworth terminal at about 1:30pm. The bus was headed to the island across the 7.5km bridge (the longest in the world I believe), but I alighted at Butterworth as the ferry would take me almost to my hostel, rather than a bus terminal about 20 minutes from where I was staying.
The ferry docked at Georgetown and from there it was a quick 10 minute walk (well, as quick as a walk with a 12kg backpack in horrific heat and humidity can be!) to Love Lane, where I was staying. (Doesn't the name conjure up images of the swinging 60s or love hotels in Japan)? I managed to score a dorm to myself and dropped in my laundry, which was filthy from my muddy hikes in the Cameron Highlands, as well as air my still muddy running shoes (despite my best efforts to clean them).
Of course I was starving and being the heat of the day it meant the air-conditioned mall was beckoning. I first needed to find some reading material, given the Paul Theroux incident (see previous post for details), so first stop was the 'Popular' bookstore. All of the September issues of the fashion magazines were out, and for anyone who's seen 'The September Issue', you'll know that September is the most important month for magazines. September is the month that really defines the whole next year of fashion, with advertisers clamouring for space. It's not unusual for a magazine to double in size for September, and for an actress or model to claim a September cover it's quite an achievement. I purchased the Malaysian Cleo at 400+ pages (AUS$2 compared to AUD$9 for an Aussie/US/UK version) and the next book on my reading list - Twilight. I flirted with the idea of purchasing my next guidebook (Thailand), but decided Langkawi would be the best option. This of course ended up not being the case, with Langkawi not having one single bookstore ....
I had fried carrot cake for lunch and, energy levels replenished, set out on my routine self-guided tour of Penang. This took me along the waterfront, where I purchased my ticket for Langkawi for the following day, past a fort and some pretty cool buildings. Why is it that all of the 'good' buildings in Malaysia seem to be police stations or military barracks?
Penang is best known for its food, and was actually listed in the New York Times as one of the 44 'must-visit' places of 2010. The streets were busy with people and street vendors, and I settled on Indian again of mushroom karpathi - another steal at only 75c! (Although the diet coke - sorry, 'coke light!' was about double that ...) I played on the internet for a while after that - this time of year means Accenture promotion and payrise results, so interesting to find out what's going on back in Aus.
Tuesday morning I was up at 6:30am - seriously, I'm meant to be on holidays, what is it with these early starts? - as I had an 8:15 ferry to catch to Langkawi. Today was Merdeka - Malaysian National Day - and the streets were vibing with groups of people, ready to march in a Merdeka Parade. There were marching bands, school kids, police and military groups - unfortunately they started too late for me to watch them.
The ferry to Langkawi took just over 2.5 hours - I was worried it would be packed given it was a public holiday, but it wasn't too bad. There is no public transport on the island, so a taxi was required to my hotel, 'Nadias Inn Comfort Langkawi'. What a horrific hotel. I'd settled on it since there didn't seem to be a lot of options in the lower-end of the accommodation scale, and the room I was given was brighted a garish pink colour with one light giving almost no light. (Later I learned that this may be because Malaysians 'don't read', so why is light needed for reading?) At least I had my own room, bathroom, and a TV - even if the TV did only play Malaysian channels!
I have to admit I was expecting Langkawi to be a lot more 'touristy' and 'Western'. I was staying on the main strip, Pantai Chenang, yet there wasn't one chain (i.e. McDonalds) to be seen, just a cluster of local cafes, travel agents and internet cafes. Langkawi is also a duty-free island, so there are lots of duty-free shops similar to those in airports.
I had my lunch/breakfast at 12:30pm - given it was a 'brunch' meal I had a brunch meal of eggs benedict - and then walked the main beach and checked out the duty-free stores. It was then I realised there were no bookstores on the island, and I had just finished Twilight. A lot of the stores were also closed given the public holiday, but I did find a second-hand bookstore that allowed me to trade for another novel (some political thriller). I also needed to change some money - I only had about 100RM ($30 AUD) in my wallet, and of course most of the moneychangers were closed for the public holiday (and the guidebook said all the ATMS and banks were located back in Kuah town, 24km away). Luckily I found one and scored enough ringgitt to see out my time here.
I walked back along the beach - my first beach this trip - but it almost feels like I'm 'cheating' on Phuket. I don't want to lounge by the beach, cocktail by the pool etc until I'm in Phuket, so I'm just taking it easy here. I found a beautiful Italian place for dinner - meals are noticeably more expensive here than anywhere else in Malaysia - and then used my headlamp to try and read before bed.
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