Eat, swim, read, internet. Repeat.

We leave the island, and Malaysia, tomorrow at 1:30. We’ll take the ferry to Satun, Thailand and ride a short distance to stay for the night. We’ll make our way over the next 2-3 days to Krabi, where the beach, beautiful cliffs, and many wonderful things await us.

29 km

We took the 8:15 direct ferry from Georgetown, Penang to Pulau Langkawi, a 3 hour ride that cost us RM 110 for two tickets. As usual, we paid the ferry guys ten RM each for the bikes. The seas were mostly calm, and the ferry was the largest we’ve had so far so it was a smooth ride. We were greeted at the port by a very large eagle looming over the bay.

Michelle takes a picture! But it doesn’t do the statue justice,
as it’s at least twice as big as the picture makes it look.

We rode from the ferry terminal to Cenang Beach by the ocean road. It was a beautiful little ride. We found accommodation fairly quickly at the Shirin Guest House, run by a retired colonel in the Iranian Air Force and his wife, who I think is Chinese. It was clear pretty quickly who was in charge here, as he left it to her to collect the money and let us know what’s what. We have a cute little cabin with air conditioning for RM45/night.

We changed right away and headed across the road to the beach. We swam for a while, though not too long because there are little jellyfish everywhere and we were getting stung. It’s not a long lasting sting, but still dampens the fun a bit. We sat and talked while we watched the sunset, then went back to shower and find dinner.

39 km

Seeing More of the Island

Today we got the bikes out for a ride up to see the Kek Lok Si Buddhist temple on the hill. It’s the most spectacular Buddhist temple in SE Asia, the guidebook says. Dave navigated us through the city of Georgetown, a nearly impossible feat considering the amount of one-way roads that constantly change one-way directions, forcing you off to the left or to the right onto other roads. We climb gradually until we can finally see the temple on the hill above us. What we see first is the pagoda, rising many stories above the hill it’s sitting on.

Though we don’t see any Buddha ashes or blood, we do see many many Buddha statues throughout this sprawling hilltop complex of colorful prayer rooms, shrines, halls and other things I can’t name. We walked through it all, even nearly to the top of the pagoda, which offered a beautiful view of the city and surrounding hills. The temple was still decorated for the Chinese New Year, which just passed a week ago, so it’s even more colorful than normal.

Angry Knees Make a Frustrated Michelle

We continued riding up and up, to the highest point of the road with a lookout to the other side. We didn’t have our heavy panniers on the bike, but all of a sudden today my knees are angry. This is a big climb, but not big in the way that we expect to see up in Laos or northern Thailand. My knees have been happy this whole first month of the trip, but today they are instantly up to a fairly high level of pain getting to the top of this climb. I’m so frustrated I could cry. I worked so hard to keep my muscles and knees fit between the Great Divide and this trip, riding a recumbent bike at the gym when I still had my arm in a sling and continuing on a spinning bike when I could support weight on my shoulder again. It may take surgery to really fix my knees – oddly enough, the same surgery Dave had for his knees a few years ago. But I’m in Southeast Asia now, and surgery for my knees and possibly my shoulder will have to wait until I go back to work and have good insurance again. That’s not going to be soon!

Dave and I sat at the lookout and talked about the options. I think riding for an extended time in the highlands in northern Thailand and Laos might be out, but continuing on through the more flat or rolling areas should be OK with plenty of rest days like we’ve had. I think this pain came on after the push to get across the peninsula, as we covered a lot of kilometers and did a lot of climbing. If we have days with climbing, we’ll just take it slow and keep the days short. But mostly, we’ll stick to flatter areas. Maybe head north for some diving near Krabi, then head over to and up the East coast with another island stop, then on to Bangkok. From there we’ll figure it out, but most likely head through Cambodia and up the coast of Vietnam. Maybe we’ll stash the bikes and see a little of Laos by boat, which is one of the recommended ways to see it anyway. So, my knees are now in delicate mode, but we’ll take care to take it easy. This trip has always been about more than just covering a lot of miles.

My Calling: A Diplomat?

We worked on the website this morning with free wireless in the SD Guest House. I also spent a good bit of time chatting with Mr. Teh, the daytime manager. He sits at the front all day, reading the papers and sometimes smoking out at one of the tables in the front. He is the best feature of this guest house and I have a great time talking with him about the U.S. election, the economies of our countries and others, bicycle touring (he calls our bikes the babies: are we taking the babies out today? are we letting the babies rest today?) horse racing, and, oh yeah, my future. First he says I need to go to China and teach English, my “English very good,” he says. He’s a Chinese-Malaysian, and he’s very interested in the Chinese economy and markets. Next he says I should go back to America, forget the small town, and move to a big city to become someone great. He says I can do great things in America. And then after that, he says I should be a U.S. diplomat or ambassador because I’m very good with people. Then it’s back to talking about current affairs around the world. I think he reads every paper he can get his hands on. He’s retired from the shipping industry in Singapore and has this guest house gig so his kids won’t worry about him and he’ll have something to do. He’s perfect for this. His kids are both Malaysian but work in Singapore, one in finance and one in shipping. Seems he wants all the young to be great.

Food Talk

Georgetown, Penang has a Little India just a few short blocks away, so of course we seek out some Indian food. We went to lunch at Shusi Banana Leaf Restaurant. You walk in and sit down and they plop a huge piece of banana leaf down in front of you for a plate. Someone comes with rice, another with dahl and other sauces including vegetables. Another brings crispy things like fried tortillas, and someone comes back again with sauce for your rice. We say right off “vegetarian” and they bring the vegetarian sauce instead of meat or chicken. One reason we love Indian food is there are always veg options because many Indians are vegetarians. This lunch was absolutely fantastic. All the sauces were delicious and full of flavor, spicy but without overpowering the meal. The vegetable today was eggplant. I have never in my life tasted such a mild and buttery eggplant, and the spices complemented the vegetable incredibly well. We ate until we were full, as this kind of “set” meal is usually all-you-can-eat. Too bad we weren’t riding today, or we’d really get our money’s worth. Two set meals came to 7 RM, or US$2.16. We highly recommend this place for their set lunch!

Banana Leaf set lunch and my stretched out head.

Being Tourists

In the afternoon, we visited the Penang Museum, which offers a very well presented history of Penang including the different cultures that have co-existed peacefully for many generations. The three main cultures on this island, (and much of the West coast of the peninsula) are the Malay people, Chinese, and Indians. We spent a couple of hours going through this beautiful museum and we both really enjoyed it. We also appreciated the air conditioning as the day was extremely hot! The admission is only 1RM per person (30 U.S. cents). The sign stated they closed at 5:00, but at 4:45 they started ushering us to the door, even more forcefully at 4:50. I wondered if they were this prompt in opening in the morning.

Next we walked a few blocks over to Fort Cornwallis, where Captain Light first established the town and encouraged settlement. There’s not that much to see, but there is a very old cannon, a “magazine” that housed the artillary, a small chapel, a statue of Light, and a few jail cells converted to house a few pictures and explanations of Light’s role in the history of Georgetown. Once again, about thirteen minutes before closing I was ushered out of one of the museum cells with the lights turned out and an impatient man holding a watch. Then over the loudspeakers we heard five cannon booms and someone saying Fort Cornwallis is closing in five minutes. This repeated, obnoxiously, three or four times. We surrendered and headed out the front gate. This was all pretty funny, as the place is not all that big and they make such a big to-do about it. Even so, it was interesting to see and worth the inexpensive entry fee.

Buddha’s Ashes Grow

After dinner this evening we walked back by a Buddhist temple and there were a lot of people gathering to listen to a monk speak. As we were looking in, a man came out and invited us in to take a look. He ushered us right past the gathering of people and the monk who was being photographed before speaking, and we went right to the back where they keep their relics. When you visit old cathedrals in Europe you get to see bits and pieces of saints sometimes, and I guess the Buddhists do this as well. We were shown the ashes of the third Buddha, and while our guide’s accent was very thick, we understand that this Buddha’s ashes were not grey like yours or mine would be, but red. Not only that, but they grow in volume infinitely! The red ashes we saw had multiplied many times over after being put into the glass holder. We were told story after story of the miracles of the Buddhas. Once again we were the audience for someone who had a LOT to say and intended to get it all out while we were his audience. This happens to us all the time. Everywhere we go. We finally got out of there some time later, after the man wrote down for us his special chant for becoming Buddha in one lifetime only (not the usual seven) and after Dave was encouraged to take pictures to show all of America the miracles of the Buddha.

Today was much resting, eating, walking around Georgetown a bit, and writing for the website.

111 km

This morning we were serenaded by what we called the Car Alarm Bird and the Twilight Zone Bird. We had slept well and were both in great moods because the morning was so pleasantly cool. Dave was singing little songs and whistling, as he often does. It was a beautiful morning.

After a few rolling hills we started mostly heading downhill. The cool, high mountain air was wonderful and we enjoyed every moment knowing it would soon end. We had breakfast just outside of Penkalan Hulu, at a roti restaurant. We had the best roti telor so far on this trip (egg folded into super-thin flatbread which is then fried, egg is sometimes spelled telur, sometimes telor, depending on the region). We sat at a table with some local fire and rescue guys and had a nice chat with them. As we were leaving we met Tukiman, a professor of psychology from North Sumatra University who was home to visit family for the weekend. We’d sure love to visit Sumatra sometime, and if we do, we’ll try to look Tukiman up. He was a pleasure to talk to, even for just a few minutes.

Our Bikes Open Doors and Conversations

Traveling by bicycle is such a wonderful way to meet people. Because we’re riding, we see small towns that most tourists never see. Because we arrive by bicycle, we are often respected for our efforts to see the country, and most often it is because of our bicycles that conversations begin. We have met so many wonderful people on this trip because we are accessible on these bicycles. We’re not encased in an air-conditioned bus or car that separates us, we are among the locals and eating where the locals eat. I feel fortunate to be able to have this time to travel, because bike touring takes time. And this time is passing by much too quickly.

79 km

More rolling through the mountainous jungle today as we continue West across the Malaysian peninsula. We are very close to the Thai border as we near the end today. Palm plantations line both sides of the road.

We stopped for drinks and ice cream at the highway intersection outside of Girik, and the women at the mini-mart told us the road ahead had huge mountains to climb, steep hills. They said we could take an easy route around them, and they drew a map. After three days of climbing and descending, I was ready to avoid any unnecessary hills I could. They spoke good English, and explained the turns three times through, making it sound very easy. We took the map and headed out.

Well. That didn’t work out very well. The turns were not where they should have been (“about 12k to here, then four k to this turn…”), nor were they labeled with signs like the women said. We made some turns and may have avoided a little of the steep climbing, but very soon we found ourselves back on the same main highway we were trying to detour around, with plenty of climbing to do.

Oh well, at least we didn’t get completely lost, because these roads were not on our Malaysia map. We did, however, enjoy a nice quiet road and some friendly, smiling people along the way. We also heard the 4:45 call to prayer in a small hillside mosque as we stopped for a snack. We weren’t sure, but we didn’t think the mosque had the usual speaker system set up. We think he was wailing at the top of his lungs without the help of a microphone, and it showed in his poor scratchy voice. Ouch. He mostly hit the notes, and we gave him high marks for effort. By now we’ve heard many, many calls to prayer throughout many days as we’ve ridden through and stayed in all these towns. Some of the voices coming from the tower speakers sound forced, but many are sweet and smooth and melodic as they waft over the sounds of the bustling towns.

We finally called it quits high up in the mountains today, 16 km before Penkalan Hulu. We rode down into the cool, quiet shade of a palm plantation and found a spot near a stream running through. As we were setting up camp we heard a scooter slowly making it’s way toward us over the hill. I was so nervous, thinking they’d get mad and throw us off the plantation, and there wasn’t any free jungle in sight. But the old man who puttered by on the little road above us looked down and nodded as we said hello, and he turned around and rode back. That’s all we heard. So we finished setting up and bathed in the clear stream. Three nights in a row camping, and each spot offered a cool place to bathe. What luck!

The many layers of insect and frog sounds blended to lull us asleep on this clear night.

67 km

Another day of climbing, but also some long and fun descending too! The mountains, once we got up a ways, are cooler and breezier than the lowlands, and we enjoy the sounds of more birds and insects. We are seeing signs for elephants on the highway (like cow signs in the U.S.) and we’ve even seen elephant dung right on the side of the road, but no elephants yet! We’d LOVE to see one or two run across the road, but with all this traffic I just can’t imagine it. They probably wait to cross at night.

We do see or hear monkeys every now and then swinging through the trees. They don’t vocalize much, but they sure can make a crashing noise when they’re really moving.

We were told we’d find a resort on Pulau Banding, a very small island in the middle of Lake Temengor, but when we got there late in the afternoon, sweaty and so tired from the hills, we found that it was closed for renovations until March. So, we rode back and forth and around looking for a place to stay or camp, and ended up finding a good spot on the East side of the lake, just before the bridge that leads to Pulau Banding. There’s a small road that goes down to a flooded dock (built too low on this man-made reservoir?) and also splits off to go to a cleared area that was either a quarry or a logged area.

We had a quiet camp there. We went down to the floating restaurant at the flooded dock for dinner. We crossed to the other side of the bridge from that dock where we found steps that went down to the water. There we took a swim and rinsed out our clothes. Camping after a long hot day is OK when you can get a bath! The lake was cool and refreshing.

View of Lake Temengor from our campsite.

While lying in the tent this evening we both thought we heard an elephant trumpet somewhere in the dark distance. Later, we heard a grunting/growling noise not too far outside the tent. Monkeys. Don’t know why they were making that noise, but I didn’t like it too much!

First Challenge is Breakfast

Breakfast attempt #1: No food left, just kopi (Malaysian coffee).

Breakfast attempt #2: A roti joint, fresh out of roti!

Breakfast attempt #3: We are welcomed to the cafe and sit down to order. No nasi lemak left (rice & egg, one of our usual breakfasts), they don’t make roti here, but they do have rice and chicken curry or meat curry. That’s it. We say we don’t eat chicken or meat, vegetarians. We get some kopi and chat a bit with the friendly locals, including a teacher. (Kopi is a mix of coffee and herbs and doesn’t taste great if you’re expecting real coffee, but it’s good once you get used to it. I order kopi, which means it comes with condensed milk and sugar. Dave gets kopi-o, which is just with sugar.) After a few minutes, the teacher, who speaks English pretty well, asks if we want rice and an egg, a hard-boiled egg. We say yes! We sit and drink our coffee a few more minutes, and out comes a dish with three hard-boiled eggs. Only when I go to crack the shell it gives easily and egg spills out. It is BARELY COOKED. In fact, only the edges are barely cooked, the middle is raw. Ugh.

We look at each other and start scraping out the cooked part of the egg with the wee spoons they’ve given us. Oh my. But soon they deliver plates with some rice. We mix the egg with the rice and force it down, trying to smile a little because we’re being watched. As soon as we manage to finish we get out of there. We want to quickly put that behind us and move on quickly.

Breakfast attempt #4: Success! We find a roadside cafe with a cheerful woman who lets us point to food and order exactly what we want. We order plain rice (nasi), FRIED eggs (telur GORENG), chili sauces (sambal and also plain chili), and cucumber. We finally felt full.

Rice, fried egg, chili sauce = nasi lemak. This one served up on a banana leaf.

The Hard Hilly Ride

Today we start climbing. And we climb, and climb. At first it’s rolling hills that we tackle, but then we just keep going up.

It was a hot day, and with breakfast #3 to get it started, well, I had problems. My stomach at first was just a little queasy, then in the afternoon it was downright nauseous. The grade was so steep that I was pushing at a pretty high intensity just to keep moving, and with the heat and everything, I just felt like puking. (Hey Kat, do you remember how we’d almost puke in the weight room sometimes while doing squats? Now THAT was fun, right?)

We had not tackled real climbing yet on this trip, so that was also a factor. And it was so hot and humid that I sometimes had to take off my sunglasses because they were too fogged up and the sweat was just dripping off of me. Seriously, I was not having fun. But you have to be prepared for the not-fun times if you want to experience the great fun of bike touring. So we pedal on. But, yes, I was grumpy.

All we needed to be able to stop for the day was water, enough to filter for drinking. We finally found it – a stream rushing down the side of the mountain. There was a sort of rest stop there, with bathrooms and a couple of picnic tables. I sat in the shade with my feet in the cool water while Dave scouted out a place to camp. He found a great spot just back a half kilometer or so, up a logging road to a cleared area, up that stream a ways. We had the privacy to bathe in the stream, then we washed out our clothes and filtered water.

Wild Animal!

We then went for a sunset walk up another branch of the logging road and enjoyed the evening sounds of birds and insects. While we were walking back we came around a corner and saw an animal walking up the road that came from the highway. It looked up for a half second before turning and galloping back down the road. I first thought “German shepherd” when I saw it, because it was dark, with what looked like a long snout and big ears, but it was too tall and big, and it didn’t run like a dog. We went down to look at the tracks (and Dave got a picture the next morning) and they were of a hoofed animal. Dave’s best guess is a tapir, but we’re just not sure after looking it up in the net. It was pretty exciting to see a large animal in the jungle, even if we don’t know what it was.

70 km

Boat ride to the Mainland

The boat ride was smooth as marmalade this morning as we left Pulau Perhentian for Kuala Besut. The boat came at 8:00 a.m. and we were stepping off at about 8:40. What a difference smooth seas make. It was fun! I was smiling! No arm stiffness or neck soreness was necessary. We got sprayed just a wee bit, and the breeze was cool on our faces. It was a lovely way to greet the day. Now we head West across the peninsula.

Not Our Crash

A few kilometers after Kuala Besut we stopped for breakfast #2 (I’d been so nervous I couldn’t do much more than a piece of toast and coffee before leaving the island) and while we were joking and smiling with the locals in the roadside cafe we heard a loud crunch. Dave said he immediately thought the bikes had been hit, but I’d turned around in time to see that a scooter had been hit. A young mother and her toddler were just slowing to pull into the cafe when they were hit from behind. The mother instinctively folded around her baby and rolled, coming away with only the back of her hand scraped. The child was fine, and in fact he didn’t even cry out loud.

We were curious to see if we’d finally see some police in action, as we see grand “Polis” buildings in every town but never see them out and about. But no, after maybe ten minutes the driver pulled away while talking on his cell phone. It was all no big deal, as the husband, whom we’d been joking with, laughed it off after a while, while the woman who’d been hit motioned to us laughingly that he’d been hit on the scooter TWICE already. Huh. Funny thing, this getting hit by a scooter. Ha ha, let’s all finish our coffee.

Dave and I have bar-end mirrors that we check constantly while riding, but especially through towns. There are little roadside cafes and food stands before, throughout, and after every town we go through. People pull off the road, or sometimes park in the far left lane to visit these places while traffic is supposed to veer around them. Add to that at least as many scooters as cars, plus bicycles all sharing the same lane and these situations get tricky. We’re very careful, and for the most part it works very well. The way I see it is that the cars slow or swerve to make room for scooters on their left. The scooters swerve or slow to get around the bikes. The bikes just need to make sure they don’t get “doored”, or hit by an opening door on the left, or run into pedestrians or cars inching out into the road.

Note to Jan (Mother Snowberg) and Grandma: please do not let this keep you up at night. We’ve gotten through a month and most of peninsular Malaysia alive and without even a close incident. It works very well, but we are also extremely diligent in watching the mirror and the road ahead and keep to the flow of things. It’s OK, but this was a wake-up to be even more careful.

Another Generous Malaysian, Yet Another Friend

Around 1:00 we stopped in some shade and were getting ready to pull out the food bag and have ourselves a hearty snack. Before we could, though, we were approached by a car. The driver got out and asked if everything was OK and if we needed help. He gave us his card: he’s Nik Mahadi Hassan, a journalist with TV3, one of the main stations of Malaysia. We chatted for a couple of minutes, and he asked us to come to his house for lunch instead. It was only a couple of km. back. We agreed, and followed him back to his house. He had us sit in his beautiful living room (our sweaty, dirty selves!) with a cool breeze from the ceiling fan blowing. He served cold juice and brought out oranges and bananas. He then brought beans and bread and butter.

We ate a great meal while we talked about the similarities and differences between our countries. We also got confirmation that we’d made the best choice in choosing to enter Thailand from the West side. He grew up in the border town where the main East side highway crosses into Thailand, and even he does not recommend going through there any more due to the Islamist militant insurgency that has been wreaking havoc since 2004. We enjoyed talking with Nik and meeting his wife and some of his seven children. And we so appreciated the respite from the intense sun and the lunch in his home. How many times can I say we are amazed at the generosity of the people we are meeting on this trip?

Pakistan, No. U.S.? Very Good Country

Down the road some more, this afternoon we stopped at a tiny store that had a cooler full of sodas. We grabbed our favorites (Coke for Dave, and 100 Plus for me–like gatorade only carbonated and tastes like Squirt), and ice cream bars from the freezer and sat on the front steps in the shade. A minute later a young man pulls up on a scooter. He approaches Dave first (always, men address Dave first, and usually include me later) and shakes his hand, touching his hand to his heart afterward in the Malaysian way. He then tentatively asks “From where?” and Dave answers, “United States.” The young man smiles, nods, and squats in front of us. He is a serious sort. He’s quietly looking at the map, then points and asks “To where?” and Dave answers. They proceed like this, a couple of words at a time, and finally I’m included as I also answer some of the questions. We are communicating a lot with few words, smiling and shrugging sometimes when neither of us can get a point across. His name is Ahtuh, and he’s from Pakistan, going to University in Malaysia to become a doctor. He will go back to Pakistan when he’s done, but he tells us Pakistan is not good right now. His one word explanation: “Al Quaida,” and he shakes his head. He looks up at Dave, “America. Very good.” Thumbs up. “Pakistan…” and he moves his hands in a flat motion.

Quiet again. He does not rush to fill in the silence, and neither do we. We are getting used to this way of communicating with few common words. This culture does not need to fill all the silent seconds, and we are slowing to the pace as well. Maybe it’s me who is slowing, because Dave I think has always been OK with it. It is comfortable when you realize there is not always something to say. Few words sometimes say more. When we stand up to go we exchange meaningful handshakes with Ahtuh, and I think we all feel the richness of this moment and we wish each other well all around.