Laurie's World

Yup, that’s me……

Well, I successfully accomplished my goal of actually doing almost nothing for the 2.5 days here in Langkawi. To reiterate…..that was our plan and why we chose to come here. We chose a place with a great pool so that we could just sit by it. So we didn’t even go for a walk today….other than to find food for supper. So these are my choices of topics today, either talk about the pool or talk about food, because thats all there was to our day. I know when we get home, life will be back in full force so i don’t even feel bad about this.

The breakfast here is kind of crazy….there are eggs made to order, waffles, toast, cereal and fruit, and a tonne of other food that is not breakfast food. Pasta, Asian food, Indian food….so we eat breakfast food : ) can’t quite eat baked ziti or lamb stew for breakfast. But we do eat well enough that we don’t feel like lunch at lunch time, so usually leaves us very hungry at supper time.

After an amazing day of pool side antics, we set off in search of good Indian food. Sounds probable doesn’t it?? If you have ever heard about Malaysian culture, supposedly Indian food is all over the place. So after walking and walking and rejecting the restaurant that has RABBIT burgers….YES. I said…rabbit burgers (even with cheese!) on the menu. We finally found an open air place that had a menu posted on the wall that had naan, chicken tikka and butter chicken on it. So we decided to give this a whirl. The dude comes over and we start to order. We asked for butter chicken, he says “we don’t have that” so I say, “ok we will have chicken tikka”, he says “no. We don’t have that”. We say, what do you have? He says “tandoori chicken”. Ok….so we order tandoori chicken. And 2 orders of naan. He says “you want butter naan, garlic naan, cheese naan etc etc….” We say garlic naan : ) he seems super annoyed by us…..
Then we see mutton kebab on the menu, so when he brings us our waters, we ask for mutton kebab. He says “we don’t have that-we have tandoori chicken”- Jeez….ok….we get it. We are having tandoori chicken and naan.

But we see all these other people with big plates of food, rice and meat with sauce (looks a lot like butter chicken for example). We are literally the only losers with a chicken breast and a piece of bread! So not sure if this was a joke or not….so we ate it, paid and left. I should have taken a picture of it….but was so rattled by the experience, I just moved on. I did however take a picture of the burger we got AFTER we left the indian place….Hahahahahahahaha….now this was good!

Well, other than a walk to an a/c mall, we did nothing today! But we knew that coming here….the plan was to sit by the pool and relax. That is not “nothing” as I almost typed. Relaxing is actually something….and I am working on getting better at doing it.

I feel I need to correct yesterday’s post about the food. Apparently Troy did like the fried noodle dish. We think it is called Mei Goreng. Maybe it was just the fact that we had nothing to eat it with it kind of weirded me out….BUT we were determined to go back to the market tonight and eat more things. So we did…..we had samosas, and some other deep fried pastry thing. I asked for 2 “chicken” and 2 “beef”, so as I wouldn’t get the “sardine”, but I am pretty sure all four were sweet potato. Hahahahahahahaha

We also had a chicken kebab, which is like what we would know as a donair. It was pretty good, had some tasty sauce and cabbage and the chicken.

We tried these pancake things that we had heard about from Chad. WOW!! That’s all I have to say, they cook a pancake in a little pan and then they add a tonne of stuff, nuts, corn, sugar, cocoa powder to name a few (yes, all those things in the same pancake). Then they fold it in and cut it into 6 pieces and hand it over. WOW-again-super sweet….a lot of stuff going on in this delicacy.

So after all that we were stuffed!! So felt a walk was in order. We walked down to the ocean. I almost said beach, but it wasn’t really a beach. It was by the ferry terminal actually…absolutely stunning sunset!

So I am in a place where I can get as much duty free chocolate as I can eat! I am not sure why, but there are a LOT of duty free shops, and I mean a lot! So how great is that!!!!

Our day started off a little crazy! A phone call from the desk at 7:35 am saying”do you still want the taxi to the ferry?” And I was like “uh…yeah!” What happened to my 6:40 am alarm? Yikes! Good thing I am so low maintenance! And so super organized that I had the bags all packed the night before, otherwise we would never have made that 8:15 am ferry! But we did : )

When we pulled up to the pier, there was this huge BC like ferry parked there, we we all excited! Thinking wow! Nice ferry! But after we wound our way through the ferry terminal, this is what we ended up on! Hahahahahahahaha not sure where that other one was going……

If one was prone to sea sickness at all, this ride would have done it. I was feeling a bit queasy myself, but managed to pull through. There was a LOT of side to side rocking…..3 hour ride…..there was a movie though, so that helped….Jack the Giant Slayer (huh???)

We got to Lagkawi, grabbed a taxi to our hotel, and arrived before noon. All good! Now it was my intention to book a place with a nice pool so we could kick back these last few days in more resort like setting. We are staying at the Bayview Hotel. It is very nice, we are on the 8th floor, it is a big hotel, 350 + rooms, so a pretty big stretch from our usual smaller boutique style choices. There was a bellman….we don’t see that too often! Anyway, the pool is awesome….spent the afternoon right there after we scoped out lunch options (and ended up at a thai restaurant!)

Got too much sun (again)….not sure why that “base tan” keeps letting me down! Grrrrr!!!! May have taken a small snoozy poozy in the deck chair…..must have been the early morning….. :/

Then we wandered out for supper around 7pm. When we were out earlier we found what we believed would be a local food market later, so that is where we headed. Hmmmm…..more food that mystified us! We tried something called “roti boom”. Meh! Won’t be getting that again. Troy tried some noodle thing, pretty sure he won’t be trying that again. So then we went for ice cream…..

And a stop at the duty free ship for dark chocolate (it’s healthy right??)

There was this super cute little kid crawling on a car (waiting for his parent to pack up their stuff from the food market I guess). Super cute and posed for me like a champ!

Oh yeah…the animals are very happy here girls! This bed is enormous! This pix is only half the bed and look how much room they have! Easily the biggest bed I have ever seen!

I am quickly losing track of the days! Thursday was our last full day in Penang. Here are some pictures of the streets that we wandered down closer to supper time. We don’t LUV it here. It is just ok. Can’t put my finger on what we doesn’t grab us about Penang. Maybe we are in the wrong part of town, would the beach have been more fun? Not sure….

It is a little too busy here for us (traffic) and it is always hazy. Good food not easy to come by, hard to understand what things are. The Malays use our alphabet, but a different language, so it is deceptive as you look around and think you will understand the signs, but you don’t. There is less English signage than in Thailand, but the spoken English is pretty good actually, most people we speak to, speak great English!

I also think I have to give this place the friendly award. We have been pleasantly surprised with how helpful people have been. Our travels using the public transportation have required us to need “help” a few times, and people are just plain helpful. Not that the other places we have been people aren’t helpful, it is just a gut feeling.

We went to “Little India” for supper…the street food was phenomenal. But since we recognized very little of it, we decided to look for a sit down restaurant. We found one….the menu gave us a chuckle, but at least we were able to order some things we recognized.

But the food was awesome! We had chicken tikka Marsala, butter chicken, rice and naan! Very safe meal! : ))

With our bellies full, we decided to walk down to the ocean. There is kind of a smaller version of a sea wall there. Managed to catch the sun setting….

We wandered back to the hotel, and I noticed this decal on a small red car, since then I have seen it several more times! I want to be a VIP of something (not necessarily McD’s), but wondering what privileges this gets!

Here is a quick shot of the street on the way back…

Need to be off to bed as we are going to be catching an early ferry tomorrow morning for Langkawi…

TTFN

Troy got trapped in the hotel today dealing with work problems, so I headed out on my own for a little walk a bout. So random thoughts today…..

Wondering how many people fall into these gutters when they are walking home either in the ark or if they have had a little too much to drink. I know i have wondered about this many other places too (can anyone say Vang Vienne??). But these kind of gaping holes are everywhere here! A real hazard!

I have seen many signs for something called white coffee here….so I had to stop and try some! And yay! It came in a bag!!

’twas very good! Tasted like thai iced coffee, so I bought myself a package of it at a store further along in my travels. Going to try one to make sure it is the same thing, then maybe get a stash for home!

So when I was taking this picture, the was a guy sitting at a table next to me giving me odd looks. Maybe he doesn’t know I don’t drink coffee out of bags every day! Like why would I need a photo of this? Anyway, I spent some time watching him too, as he was eating his meal of rice and stir fried veggies and meat etc with his hands. Straight up folks! He was a DHL courier (on his break I guess), but you don’t see that too often in a restaurant, we have certainly seen it on the street or in villages or work sites. Anyway…food for thought.

This building made me think about good neighbor policy….look how the one side must have painted the outside of their place and they literally divided the trim pole down the middle for their “end point”. Not putting a lick of paint on the neighbor’s side. No doubt where the property line is.

Some other random buildings….this first one clearly deserted for some time…trees are growing in it. But this is right on a busy street in the middle of Georgetown.

I think this is the world’s largest incense stick! I have seen a few of them burning on the sidewalk in front of businesses. This one caught my eye bcz a huge chunk of charcoal dropped off the top right onto the sidewalk in front of my feet. Luckily it didn’t drop right on my toes!

So the desk guy here at the SO Hotel asked me this morning if I am enjoying the food. I had to be honest and say…not really, we haven’t found much with wow factor! So he apologized a tonne that his staff hasn’t given me better information about great local food. He told me about an old man that sells a fried noodle dish right outside the hotel from 3-8 every day for 4.20 ringgit! (That is $1.21 USD). He said the line up can be very long as he sells about 500 plates every day there. So I made sure I was back right at 3 pm to be in line! It took about 30 minutes to get my 2 orders…it was pretty good I must say. The guy looked ancient, and he cooked over charcoal in a big wok. He cooked with one hand and fanned the charcoal constantly with the other. This is unusual….normally these bicycle cart guys use propane. And his cart was attached to a real pedal bicycle….not a motorbike like a lot of other ones we see. It was very interesting to watch! He could crank out the meals so fast he had a full time guy just wrapping and taking the money!

Here is what I waited for. It was actually very tasty, only a few mystery items in this I had to pick out! Hahahahahahahaha

Slept til 10 today! Shameful!! But in our defense, the time moved forward an hour from Thailand time zone, so it was really only like 9am to us. I am making excuses now….

No worries, this place doesn’t offer breakfast, so we didn’t miss anything. The front desk at this hotel is SO friendly….very impressed with how helpful they are. The plan suggested to us by front desk staff was to get up, be out the door by 9am and on our way to sightsee in the historical area of Georgetown. Needless to say, it was close to noon before we even came close to getting going. We decided to go to National Park instead, so we started the trek to Komtar, which is the main bus depot. As we were walking along, we noticed a bus stop that we believed had the bus number we needed on it. So we waited a little while. We think we might have it figured out….but we wait and wait….our interpretation of the sign is that the bus comes every 5 minutes?? So we decided to go across the street where we see a food court. That is what the sign said, food court. It was an open air plastic table set up, with what looks like buffet style lunch food. The place is quite busy with young adults, so thinking we are close to a high school or university?? So we figure out that it costs depending on what you put on your plate. Not by weight like a salad bar in North America, but by the item? But regardless, we do what we do when we go to buffet at home and that is take 1 or 2 of lots of things (in case it isn’t good right??). So our plates were 10 and 14 ringgit, which is still only $7.50 USD. And we get an ice tea with milk and an ice coffee with milk for 2.40 ringgit (75 cents! For both) so that was good deal! Just not as good a deal as the kids in front of us that filled their plates to the brim with 3 things and only paid 2 or 3 ringgit? It was very tasty however…like really good Panda Express…..Hahahahahahahaha

Then we resumed our trip to Komtar! Feeling like that was our best bet. One quick stop in a Happy Mart (like 7-11) for a cold water, and the lady there in her broken English tells us to be careful about our bags (both are over shoulder style) as they might get grabbed. My words not hers, she was using gestures at this point. Wondering now if theft/pick pocketing is a problem here? We shall heed her advice and not walk too close to moving traffic.

We made it to Komtar…..huge bus station! We feel good about our chances of catching the right bus here. We figure out it will cost 3.40 ringgit each to ride all the way to the national park. So this bus thing is looking up. ($2.13 total). We wait and we wait and we wait….prolly 45 minutes….the bus finally comes and it turns into one of those crazy mob scenes that you hear about but don’t think you’ll ever be in. It was like a massive cattle call with pushing and yelling. Prolly 100 people wanting on a bus that looks like it is already half full when it arrives. No way we are getting on this bus without a fight or some special knowledge. We just aren’t pushy enough! So they shut it down when not another person will fit, the guy keeps saying “there is another one in 5 minutes….please wait”. Some other lady says” I want on this bus, I have been waiting over 2 hours”. It was nuts. Once the bus left, i wandered over to one of the 3 guys that were clearly in charge of mob scenes for this particular bus and said in my sweet voice, “how long until the next bus?” He said 5 minutes! Hahahahahahahaha, how many times have a I heard “5 minutes” in this part of the world. That is their answer for everything. I look at him with a single tear running down my cheek and say “do you think your could help us get on the next bus….we just can’t push our way to the front well enough” he assures me “yes”. It is what it is, now I need to go convince Troy to wait for the next bus because he is going crazy and he just wants to get a cab and go! (And I mean crazy!!)

Just kidding about the tear, BTW! But I did bat my eyelashes a little….not sure if that works here or not, but it can’t hurt to try!

Well, at last the next bus came, and it was another crazy mob scene, but the guy told me where to stand and encouraged me to hold my ground and push on! Troy and I stayed glued together, and we managed to get on the bus, standing room only! We were off! All for $2.13! It would have been at least a $16 cab ride….so feeling good about this ; )

Also want to add that the birds here obviously can’t read….Hahahahahahahaha

Ya, all that stuff running down the sign is what you think it is. This was inside the bus depot.

Here was our bus ride!

We made it to the park!

We decided to hike to turtle beach and take a prebooked boat back to the park entrance after, 80 ringgit ($25- good use of the money) The path started off very civilized, and I was thinking “yes! This will be a fun and easy 2 hour hike we have planned!” what started off as this…..

Quickly became this……

Then this!

We hiked across the width of the park, 4.9 km in all (if the map is to be believed). So much sweat! Can’t even tell you! But when we emerged on the other side….here was what we found.

Gorgeous deserted beach! There was supposed to be turtles here….but they weren’t really obvious and we were so totally baked from the hike we just took, we put zero effort into finding any.

We got to the beach around 5:35pm and the boat to take us back was booked for 6pm, so that gave us a few minutes to catch our breath. As 6pm approached and no boat was around, we started to get a little nervous (I did for sure). Kept thinking…..”how long do we give this guy before we start the hike back?” The last thing i needed was a 2 hour hike through the jungle in the pitch dark!! Once the sun sets here, it is like someone shut off the light switch to the world!!

There was handful of workers doing some concrete work on the pier and they looked at my slip and said we were in the right place. When they left at 6pm and we were all alone on the beach, I started to get more nervous! Then we see a little boat in the distance…I took a pix with my zoom lens.

I got excited it was for us…..but it just kept on going right past us….oh no. Then 2 young people wandered out onto the beach. I hustled right over to see what their situation was. They were undecided about taking a boat or walking?? So my hopes that they had a boat booked that we could hop on were dashed, but the good news was the girl told me “Malaysians are always late. And and I can say that because I am Malaysian!” So we continued to wait, then around 6:30 pm, imagine this, the boat that went past us came back! Hahahahahahahaha he was just dropping some other guests off at a beach a little further along. I don’t even know why I worry about these things so much, we have NEVER been stranded here, but bcz this is Malaysia and I am not as familiar, it felt strange. But alls well that ends well. We had a great boat ride back to the park gates…

Here is the place we docked! These stairs are Thai quality!!

Always mind your step!
And I guess mind what pier you walk on also!

Caught a gorgeous sunset also…..

The plan was to take the bus home….but we had time to grab some supper first. Not too impressed with the 31 ringitt ($9.13) meal we found. It tasted ok….but very blah. So far, mostly underwhelmed with the food here. Going to continue to look for better food as we have heard it can be great.

Tuesday started off nice and early…..so early in fact we couldn’t get breakfast at our hotel! Wow!

We were able to secure ourselves a breakfast at the airport however! Quite tasty but very salty….thanks Ronald!

Uneventful flight to Kuala Lumpur, then connected to Penang. Now here is my tale of the bags. They weighed more than the stupid allowance….but those sweet check In Gals at Chiang Mai let it slide. They were 16.2 and 16.4 kilos and I had registered for 15 kilo bags…so I thought that it would get through all the way….but NO! The much more stickler check in gal in KL said I could take 1kilo out of each bag, or pay 30 ringgit for each kilo over (that would be $20 USD!) for 2 kilos!!! So there I was….one of those people opening their bags pulling out their nightie and dirty clothes etc to get the bag under the weight limit. But then my problem is that I have to put it in my carry on….which I am already worried about being over size and I know it is over weight (only 7 kilo for carry on). But I must have looked sufficiently annoyed that she gave us the tags for our carry on so that when we got to the screening point for carryon and I am watching them turn away half of the people with backpacks, I say “we have already got out tags” and she say “oh really, ok…..” And off we go!!

So we land in Penang, get our taxi (44 ringgit)….and he whisks us to Georgetown. Not too sure about this hotel, mostly because I have become a little bit spoiled due to the 8 days of junior suite living at the Chiang Mai Boutique house. But it is clean and the bed seems comfy, so we will be fine. Only booked 2 nights here anyway.

We got settled in and then asked the front desk about what we should see. He suggested Penang Hill. And he insisted we should take the bus….super easy, cheap! Must do he claims…he pretty much has our time here all planned out with all using the bus…supposedly the bus here is great! So we agree to give the bus a try….he tells us where to go, and even gives me coins so i will have the right change! Nice guy!!

So here we are waiting for our public transport! So proud of Troy…..this is a big leap for him!!!

It took a while, but the bus eventually came. And the ride was longer than we thought, but it actually got us there…even though we found out that it was the drivers first day and she missed an important turn and had to turn around in a gas station (major sight to see!)

So this town is no Chiang Mai, but it is also no Bangkok, so somewhere in the middle to me. There are more cars, and less scooters than CM. The driving seems very chaotic and again with very few rules, like Thailand, but there also seems like there is more road rage! More horn honking and bird “giving” than I ever saw in Thailand!

Yes, that says Times Square! Hahahahahahahaha

So we got to Penang Hill at 7:45 pm and we are able to catch the 8pm funicular train to the top 800m up! The whole thing took I much longer, so we are going to miss the sunset, but are led to believe the nighttime view is very good also. So 60 ringgits round trip to ride the train. Believe it or not there is a set of stairs to the top also, but we just don’t have this kind of time….so we take the train. It is very cool actually, if only a little scary!

The view was spectacular, but my little camera couldn’t capture the view….so those who want to see it, will have to check out Troy’s blog, the pix will be there : ))

We were back down (via the public bus!) by 9:45pm and found this establishment open for a chicken burger! It is Malaysian chicken at its finest!

Monday was our last day in Chiang Mai….we took it VERY easy! Super slow morning, then a delicious lunch of pad Thai at Ginny’s, then the oh so predictable trip to Wararot market to get another bag. I am completely unsure how this happened! Actually, I know how it happened…..2 full weekends in Chiang Mai….that is how it happened. : )

This market is so great! But super proud of myself…..I went in, got the bag, and got out with that as my only purchase! Troy could hardly believe it when I showed up back at the hotel with my one purchase! It is however a 120 litre bag! So not messing around here. Our other Mumbo Jumbo (as we lovingly refer to it as) is an 80 L! So now the challenge will be keeping it under the weight limits on Air Asia!

Miles and miles of stuff! This is a birds eye view ; )

Also Monday is a big holiday in Thailand so lots of stuff closed and the monks have a lot of ceremonies and special events. Riam told me about this large group of monks praying in her temple, so she said I could go take a picture, but we got some strange looks after I took it and then when we moved, they took the “no entrance” sign and moved it over it so the view was no longer accessible. I think I may have been a bad girl taking this picture….I’m not sure! Uh oh!

We enjoyed our last massage in Thailand then back to Ginny’s for supper….pad see ewe and chicken and cashew nut (sharesies!!)

Good bye to our dear friends and off to bed as we have to be up and our the door by 7am Tuesday to fly to Malaysia!

After being able to sleep in a bit, we met up with Ian, Tee and Richie at Ginny’s Cafe at 11am to head out for a day we had eagerly planned for earlier in the week. Tee had arranged for an air con mini van to pick us up and take us out to their land in Mae Rim so we could see the progress they are making with their building. Ian’s man cave is built, there is a bathroom and kitchen and Tee’s woman cave is in progress. The restaurant is next, then the house and pool will be started by October (they hope). After that, they are going to build 5 or 6 more bungalows to rent out….

Big project! It was exciting to see their dream taking shape!

Then after that, we walked down to the village where Tee grew up. Her mother and other family members were at home cooking in preparation for a big Buddhist holiday coming on Monday and Tuesday. They prepare food and then go to their temples early on Monday morning and give the food to the monks. Monday and Tuesday are major holidays in Thailand, all government agencies and schools will be closed and it is illegal to sell alcohol, so no bars will be open and many restaurants and shops will close also.

We loaded back into the van and started the drive to a mountain top viewpoint that Ian found a while back on his motor bike. Suffice it to say, places you can go on motorbike take a lot longer in a commuter van….but it was worth the drive! It was up in the mountains at a hill tribe village where the Hmong live. We had lunch in a sala up on the top with a view to die for. The pictures can’t possibl do it justice, but i’ll try…

Such a big day we planned! As after the mountain trek, the kids (Tee and Ian’s son, Audi and his friends) were promised a trip to the local lake. So we went to Huay Tung Tao. Enjoyed more refreshments and food under another sala with a gorgeous view of the lake as the sun set.

We were home by 8pm, Just in time for me to hit the Sunday market. I was a lone soldier this time. Couldn’t convince anyone to come with me….that’s ok i am much more efficient solo anyway : )))
Managed to get all the way done with no rain, the skies just opening up as I bought my last item….so perfect timing to pack it up anyway.

But this does leave me in a spot where I will have to go to Wararot market tomorrow to buy another bag! ; )

The man cave!!

View from lunch

Troy and Richie