A far cry from the beachfront suite on Samui!

June 10th, 2002 at 12:00am

I decided to go back to Malaysia. Just arrived tonight, in Penang, which is an island on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia. 1.5-hour flight from Bangkok. Beats a 20-hour bus ride anyday. The flight was full of Thais and Malays, no backpacker-types or Western travelers to be found. Lucky for me I sat next to a very nice Malay woman who was in Bangkok for business. She was most helpful in showing me how to arrange a taxi from the airport. Since the plane landed at 10pm at night, I was a little nervous about having to get into town, a 45-minute drive from the airport, and being as I was by myself in a foreign country late at night, well that could easily be the opening scene of trouble. But this woman really helped me out, waited in line with me for the cab, and saw me off. And who says travelling alone is no fun? I can assure you that woman would have never talked to me if I had been travelling with someone.

So I’m in Penang which is on Peninsular Malaysia as I said before. Think of this part of Malaysia as the Florida of SE Asia, the tip of which is Singapore instead of Key West. Then Indonesia is kind-of like the Caribbean Islands – and the other part of Malaysia (East Malaysia) is shared with Indonesia and Brunei on the big island of Borneo. I am planning to head to Borneo in September, so for now it’s just a few weeks on the’main land’.

I’m not really all that impressed with the accomodation here (my room smells like urine), but it’s late at night and I can’t be bothered walking around and looking for another place. This guesthouse had been recommended to me by someone I had met in Thailand, and usually recommedations are pretty good and up-to-date, but in this case the girl was a bit off I think. Tomorrow I will check out another place that had been recommeded by someone else. Other than that I hope to wander around the main town, Georgetown, a bit, and maybe hit some of the touristy sites.

Entry Filed under: Malaysia,Penang