Bangkok part II

Yesterday was lovely. We got up late, leisurely packed our bags, dropped them off at the front desk and then went off to explore Chiang Mai one last time before saying goodbye.

Because we’d been so tired when we first got in that we didn’t leave the main street and the day before we’d spent out in the countryside, we decided to be good tourists and visit a temple. That turned into “visit some temples”. There are a lot of them. As in, we walked for 15 minutes down one street and passed at least 4, and often times they were right across from each other. I’m not kidding. At one point there was a large complex and then across the street there was a smaller temple. Apparently, in Thailand if you’re wealthy building temples is the thing to do. I think it builds up karma points. My understanding is that it’s like buying those Catholic indulgences. They are all gorgeous though and it’s well worth going to them. Most of them are like mini oaises because there’s no smoking or drinking and there are flowers everywhere so it smells fantastic.

One funny thing is that in the largest temple we went into we saw a large sign of “Dos and Don’ts in Thailand” aimed at Westerners and some of the behavior they were warning against was so appalling that  you wouldn’t believe anyone would do it. Such as climbing up while laughing to have a picture taken of yourself with the Buddha. I was so shocked because that’s like spitting in church. But obviously someone did it if they have to tell you not to. Another thing I found funny was the part about how Westerners shouldn’t wear hot pants or revealing clothing because it’s not modest. I’m sorry, but I’ve been in Thailand for about a week now and I have seen some of the shortest skirts and shorts I’ve ever seen in my life. Almost on par with what you’d see in Malibu but in the middle of a city and so short I wonder how these girls can walk and stay decent. And no, they weren’t hookers so get that out of your head right now!

Lunch was a vegetarian restaurant that we’d been meaning to go to but for some reason hadn’t been able to find. Because even though we’ve passed it at least 5 times and said “Oh, cute”, it never once occurred to us to look up at the sign. You’d think we’d learn by now. But it was delicious and I love tofu and Khao Soi. And it was a good thing we had lunch because yesterday we had another overnight train ride to come back to Bangkok.

These train rides are killing me. I’m always good for the first two hours but then it turns into, “Oh my God, get me off of this train!!” I read a book, I listened to music, and went quietly stir crazy. The worst bit was that I was able to sleep on the last one, but this one was so bad because there were drunk Spanish tourists who were so loud even after the conductor had made up everyone else’s beds and it was obvious that people were trying to sleep. They were so loud I could hear them through my earplugs. It was not a good time and I didn’t sleep very well before finally waking up around 6 when the train jolted to a stop.

So our train was about two hours late getting in to Bangkok and from there we decided to walk to our hostel. We will never learn. We got lost. Again. And what should have been a 20-30 minute walk turned into an hour and a half of us lugging our big ass packs around trying to find a street sign because they’re not all visibly marked. It’s like trying to find your way through Tokyo. They want you confused. I’m convinced it’s a conspiracy initiated by the cab companies. Seriously. Everytime we stopped to look at the map to see if we could figure out where we were going, at least five different cabs would stop and say, “Where you going? I’ll take you!” or “Taxi? Taxi?” OR they would just honk and stop. Cab driver conspiracy. I think the idea has merit.

Whatever, we made it. It’s lovely. You walk in and there’s a small courtyard where breakfast is served in the morning and then you take off your shoes and are in this cool little reception area with hardwood floors. Our rooms are lovely as well. So all’s well that ends well.

We meet up with Ta later today and she’s going to take us out for a night on the town so that’s exciting and I’m really looking forward to it. But right now, I just need a nap.

Last stop in Malaysia

Penang… Where do I start?

The morning we left for Penang should have been a warning that the day would be anything but easy. We woke up ridiculously early to shower, etc before leaving. While we were repacking our bags, the buzzer sounded. We ignored it because we weren’t supposed to open the door to anyone per the owner’s instructions. But then it rings again and again and then there’s a long buzz. Finally someone else who’s up goes outside to see what’s going on and it turns out that someone had agreed to go on a jungle trek and their ride was there. But no one who was awake downstairs had any idea what he was talking about. And the owner wasn’t there and it turned into this ridiculous mess of everyone asking questions that no one knew the answers to and everyone in the hostel was woken up to see if they were the ones who’d asked for the safari but no one was. It turned out that the girl had only asked about details for the trip but that had quickly snowballed into, “oh! You’re going!” But it was entertaining and we met some new people like half an hour before we had to leave.

The bus ride was fine. Malaysia is a beautiful country from start to finish and one of the greenest places I’ve ever seen. The trouble came when we got off the bus and started walking to our hotel. First, we thought we were in a completely different part of town than the one we wanted, think other side of the island. Second, we started off in the wrong direction anyway because we were trying to avoid all of the people who were like “Teksi! Teksi!” because cabs in Malaysia are notorious for ripping you off. Third, it was boiling. Like, I thought I was going to melt into the ground like the Wicked Witch of the West. A lovely man finally turned us in the right direction and we started walking again, only to run out of sidewalk and be forced to go through side streets and up several hills. We were not pleased. At all. Then another lovely man told us we were better off taking the bus because we were kidding ourselves if we thought we wanted to walk. Fair enough. We’d been walking for 40 minutes by then and were over it. But we were on the wrong side of the road to catch a bus. And there were no crosswalks. And it was a busy highway and we had 20 pound packs on. We gave up and called the hotel to have them send a cab to get us since all the ones passing us were full. That didn’t work out too well since we weren’t sure where we were and were getting crankier by the minute. We finally found a ride and were so grateful to arrive at our hotel it was ridiculous.

The hotel almost deserves its own post since it’s been so nice here. We were at the Eastern & Oriental Hotel (the locals call it the E&O) which is this colonial era hotel where all of the rooms are suites and it overlooks the ocean. It sounds extravagant, but what’s interesting is that because it’s not high season we got a rate that’s less than what you would pay at a seaside Mariott. I kid you not. And the staff here is amazing. They’re so nice and so helpful.

The food in Penang is amazing. We went out to dinner last night and had the best meal I’ve had in Asia. And the people here are so much nicer than KL and so much friendlier. Then again, I guess you could compare KL to NYC where everyone is mean.

This morning was a misadventure all its own. Having learned our lesson yesterday, we caught a cab to the mainland to buy train tickets. Our cab driver was the sweetest guy and gave us a little tour as we crossed the bridge and told us not to take a cab when we went to actually catch a train because that was a lot of money. Instead, we should catch the ferry and he would show us how to do it on the way back. So we got to the train station at like 8:20 because we had called last night and they told us to be sure to ge there early because there’s only one train to Thailand a day. The ticket counter was closed. They were on a break from 7:30 until 9. But, instead of leaving us our cab driver said he’d wait with us since it was only 20 minutes and went and got us water and then told us funny stories about the different customers he’d had over the past few years. We got our tickets and came back to the hotel for breakfast- delicious, by the way.

I’m typing this on my Blackberry by the pool so I’m going to end this now. We go to Bangkok by overnight train in a few hours, so wish us luck!

Oh, Kuala Lumpur

So today was a bit better than yesterday.

On the hostel front, I woke up three times in the middle of the night because some idiot who was leaving at 4am tried to plug in his razor with the wrong adaptor and blew out the power for the hostel. Not only did this mean that I had to go to the bathroom in the dark, but the air conditioner was out as well. Oh my god our room smelled so bad by the time I finally got up to shower. Eeeww.

We decided to go to the National Islamic Museum today and on our way there we decided that Kuala Lumpur has the worst infrastructure ever. Either that or it’s just so poorly marked that it’s designed to frustrate you. It took us a good 20 minutes to cross the river because we couldn’t find an under/overpass to take us across. We finally wound up basically running across a highway and passing through a post office just to get there. Then, we couldn’t find the museum! But there was a lovely woman who pointed us in the right direction.

To get to the museum from where we were you have to cross through the National Mosque. So of course we got distracted and went in. You have to sign a registry and put on full covering including hair covering before you can explore the grounds. The sad thing was that the second we said we were from the US, we got the most evil looks I’ve ever seen. Holy crap I was not expecting that. But the mosque itself was beautiful and had some of the prettiest views of the city. The only downside to the mosque was the female guide who had recently converted to Islam and instead of answering my questions about the mosque decided to preach and prostelytize about how Islam had given her a new peace and we should look into it too and hey here are some pamphlets and a book because Islam can give you answers too.

We left fairly quickly after that and went to the Museum. I actually had high hopes for it because I was really curious about Islamic arts and visually I wasn’t disappointed. The artefacts were amazing. There were a variety of textiles and metal works and just imagining the hours and craftsmanship it took to make them was mindblowing. They also had a jewelry exhibit which was very pretty and reading the history behind the different ways of working silver and gold was pretty interesting. That’s about it though. On the whole, the captions were slightly offensive. It wasn’t anything overt like, “Christians and Jews are bad” it was more subtle. Like they would leave out key areas of the history of Islam in Southeast Asia- like the fact that elements from the older religions remain in many regions. I also got the feeling like I was in the Vatican or the Sistine Chapel where they were attempting to convert me through an inappropriate medium. I understand that Islamic art is just that: religious art. But I don’t think that the captions that tell you the history of, daggers for instance, need to also contain a hidden message of the superiority of Islam in an art museum. I got mad. I know, obviously I was peeved.

Then it was off to try and get back over the bridge and over into Chinatown. We lasted all of fifteen minutes before the hawkers got to us and we ran away to the outskirts of town to find something to eat. It was kind of pathetic actually. You’d think we’d be better at this by now.

I think the higlight of the day has to be when we made it out to the twin towers and did some shopping in the mall (3 t-shirts was not enough and I don’t want to do laundry) before exploring the park in the city center. The park was so pretty and well-planned and we even passed a group of people doing dancercize which was so much fun! Dinner was CPK. That’s right, there is a CPK in Kuala Lumpur and I totally had a pizza there. And it wasn’t too bad.

The biggest accomplishment today has to be when we managed to find bus tickets to Penang without too much of a hassle and make our way uptown on the metro without being totally confused because the signs were actually clear! Honestly, that was when Kuala Lumpur redeemed itself and while not my favorite city by a longshot, is not my most hated. I’m really glad I came, but I never want to come back.

We head to Penang tomorrow by bus, wish us luck!