Laurie's World

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.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 24th, 2013 at 9:30 pm and is filed under Thailand 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.