103 km

We’re seeing more women without full head coverings, fewer mosques, and more Buddhist temples. We are definitely seeing changes as we work our way North of the Malaysia/Thailand border. We even saw a couple of Christian churches today, one in session with the doors wide open. There is definitely more diversity here. Other drastic changes include seeing dogs. In Malaysia the only animals we saw around houses or restaurants were cats and chickens. Now there are very few cats and plenty of dogs. We had our first dog chase us today, though it didn’t put in all that much effort and never caught up to us, but if it were a cattle dog like the ones we saw in New Mexico on the Great Divide trail we would have been toast.

Passing through one of the towns, we stop at a Buddhist temple to
take a look. This friendly monk wanted to be in the picture.

Another site we saw many times throughout the day as we passed through towns in the palm & rubber plantation countryside was people on motorcycles and scooters holding cages with birds in them. Nice, big, ornate cages, sometimes covered and sometimes not. We could not figure out why so many people were transporting birds around. They were not all on the move, there were many houses and shops with one to several cages of birds hanging out in the yard or from the open front overhang. Birds were chirping left and right on the road through these towns.

Later in the afternoon we overtook a couple of cyclists coming back on the road from a noodle stand. Wow! Cyclists! Day after day in Malaysia we were the only alien beings on the road, and so far in Thailand we’ve seen three pairs of cyclists: an older couple getting on to the ferry we had just taken to get to Satun, they were going the other direction; another couple passed us going towards the ferry several kilometers into the ride from Satun; and now these two men ahead of us. We rode along with them and chatted for a while. They’re both Thai, touring for 10 days from Satun up the West Coast. After talking with them for a while, Dave asked them if they knew anything about the birds everyone was carrying around. Evidently they hadn’t noticed. Hadn’t noticed?

Just a little while later, Dave and I were having a cold soda at a roadside stand and saw THREE MORE CYCLISTS! They were from New Zealand, heading the opposite direction as us. One was traveling for a year, his sister had recently joined him for a month, and another friend had just joined them for ten days of riding. They stopped to chat, and we talked with them for about twenty minutes. We got all kinds of great information about the roads ahead, from Thailand to Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. We’ll definitely be taking that information into consideration as we plan the weeks ahead.

We got to Trang late in the afternoon and tried to find the Yamawa Hotel, which was listed in our Lonely Planet guide and sounded pretty nice. But Trang was just too big to randomly look for a particular hotel, nobody recognized the name and we didn’t understand directions to the street it was on. The Thai people so far speak little to no English in general and we don’t speak any Thai, and using the phrase book so far is not working well because we’re not saying the Thai words well enough for people to recognize them. We’re probably not getting the tones right or something. Anyway. Dave finally saw a sign for tourist info, and he went in there and got a copy of a simple street map with a few places marked on it, including our hotel.

The Yamawa is barely like the description in LP, more expensive, and ended up having some kind of bed bugs, so we can’t recommend it. However, the girl who worked there spoke just enough English that, with our phrase book, she was able to write down and help us pronounce a few key words with which to find food. It’s not easy being vegetarian in SE Asia, but Dave is also very allergic to MSG, which is in everything here in Thailand in great quantities. His stomach is already in great distress. So I will give the Yamawa good marks for helpfulness, but I’d still say to just look around for a reasonably priced guest house.

We rode about 25 km back to the jetty today and got on the 1:30 ferry to Satun. It was a smaller ferry, and the only outside space was on top with the luggage. Dave was out there the whole time, I stayed for a while near the end. Dave said the ferry workers (a Thai crew) were repacking cases and cases of cigarettes from duty-free Langkawi into suitcases after the ferry left the jetty. They resell them back in Thailand and probably make a killing.

There are about 104 islands all together around Langkawi, most of them uninhabited. Dave really wants us to do a sea kayak trip there sometime. It would be a beautiful place for kayaking. The water is warm and green and there are beaches on many of the islands.

I forgot to mention yesterday that we rented a kayak in the afternoon and enjoyed a bit of paddling. My shoulder was quite happy with the paddling motion and I breathed a big sigh of relief more than once. We’ve got a sea kayak trip planned for this summer and my shoulder HAS to work. Well, I think it will be just fine. In fact, it’s probably great rehab to continue strengthening the ligaments and muscles that look so weird now.

The ferry ride to Satun, Thailand took just over an hour, and another 45 minutes to get the bikes unloaded and set up and us through customs. We had a quick snack outside the terminal and then started riding. It was only a few km to the town of Satun, and we were not ready to stop for the day. We saw a couple of towns in the 50-100,000 population range within a reasonable distance, so we went on. Well, all the signs in the towns were in Thai, but we never saw anything that looked like a hotel or guest house, and we even asked at a few places, acting out sleeping like charades, and there just wasn’t any place available until about 55 km down the road in Langu. We asked at a little store and the women pointed us just a bit down the road to the Andaman Guest House. We rode on.

About 500 meters past the store I said, “There it is!” I thought I saw Andaman written on the sign, but when I stopped and looked closer it was in Thai and totally unreadable. “That’s weird,” I said, and we kept riding. We rode more into town and still didn’t see it on our left, as we were told. We asked again, and were pointed back the way we came. We got near the place where I thought I saw the sign and I asked some working men at a shop, “Andaman?” while pointing at the sign. “Yes, yes!” they said, so we went down the little road to what looked like a guest house. This was the place! That was really weird. It’s like I could read Thai for a half second, then my brain kicked in and said, “Hey, what are you thinking? You don’t know Thai!”

We’re going to have to quickly learn some basic Thai phrases. It’s difficult because it’s a tonal language, so we have to get the sounds right as well as the tone. Malaysia was easy, because there was English everywhere on signs, and at least the alphabet was the same so we could pronounce the words. We will be studying our phrase book!

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!