Gurney Drive

Saturday, December 12 - Tonight we hit the hawker stalls on Gurney drive in Georgetown. Stall upon stall of street food. It was like heaven for foodies like us.

Georgetown vs. KL

Saturday, December 12 - We could live here. We popped into Penang (Georgetown) for a night on the way back to Ipoh. We’re planning on touring the city by day tomorrow before we head home.

We arrived late afternoon and grabbed a hotel before ducking out onto the street to find the nearest pub. Already this city feels cleaner, safer, more inviting, and more multi-cultural than KL. It’s bigger than Ipoh, but it has a fantastic food culture, and some great architecture.

We’re really looking forward to exploring this city tomorrow.

Butting in

Saturday, December 12 - Speaking of tollways, the system here seriously inefficient – well, unless you have a toll tag. The rest of us schmucks who want to pay cash have to line up. And the toll plazas are often seriously backed up because there are too few queues open to service the large number of cash-only customers.

And the result? People cutting in line. Nothing irks us more than watching the impatient barge into the line several cars ahead as we sit (not so) patiently waiting our turn to give our money to the government.

And the most ironic bit is that there are PSAs on every radio station urging people to "bring courtesy back." Guess others in Malaysia have noticed a decline in common decency.

Pay to Pee, Pay to Drive

Saturday, December 12 - Nothing is free. You have to pay to use the internet. You have to pay to use the bridges. You have to pay to use the highways (and it’s not cheap either! It cost us about RM60 to get from KL up to Langkawi!)

But really, the biggest scam being perpetrated on the Malaysian people is that you pretty much always need to pay in order to use a public toilet. Granted, it’s not very much – like RM 0.30 – but it seems kind of ridiculous. There are no gratuities being paid for standard things like taxis, waiters, or barbers – and yet there’s a 30 cent toll for the toilet? On top of that, you have to pay another RM0.30 to buy some tissues/toilet paper if you intend to... you know.

What nonsense.

Little Kancil

Friday, December 11 – For our tour of Langkawi island, we decided the most cost-effective way to get around would be to rent a car. We wound up paying too much for a car that was too tiny – the Kancil by Perodua - a Malaysian car company. The Kancil (a type of small deer) was one of the very first sub-compact cars in Malaysia. The joke goes something like this:

Q:How many people does it take to get a Kancil to the Cameron Highlands?
A: 4. 1 to drive and 3 to push.

Believe it. A scooter has more power. And yet, these little cars remain very popular across the country. We’re convinced it’s part of the reason that highway traffic can be so slow and chaotic.

Still, our rental got us around the island okay. We had lunch in Kuah (the biggest town on the Island) and we checked out a couple of other beaches.

We were going to do a hike at the Seven-Wells waterfalls, but it is dry season and the advice we got was that the waterfalls weren’t very impressive this time of year. So we skipped it - although as you can see from the photo on the right, we did see the falls from the cable car.

The Sky Bridge

Friday, December 11 - While our first day in Langkawi was spent lounging on deck chairs and exploring the shores of Cenang beach, on the second day, we decided to explore the island a little.

One of the big sites we saw was the Langkawi cable cars and the sky bridge at the top of mount Machincang (seriously, we’re not making up names here!).

Junkii was a bit freaked out by the cable car ride (and I wasn’t much better) – especially as the incline of the climb increased sharply as we neared the summit, and the wind howled through the gondola.

But the ride was worth it. The view from the top was spectacular, and the skybridge that spans two of the peaks was impressive to say the least. Sad that, while the skies were clear, there was a haze on the horizon that limited our potential view of Thailand, but that’s a minor complaint.

Here are a few shots and some quick video tour-guidery:

Found Round Langkawi

Thursday, December 10 - Most of our time on Langkawi has been spent on the beach. The Jellyfish kept us from enjoying the water after we got stung, but there was plenty of other stuff to see.

These are just some snapshots from the beach. For more photos, please visit www.flickr.com/photos/junkii/

Jellyfish Sting

Thursday, December 10 - Unfortunately it hasn’t been all smiles and sunshine today. While we spent the better part of the day lounging on the beach beneath the shade of an umbrella and playing in the surf, this afternoon we got stung by Jellyfish. Ouch! Hurts like the dickens.

The jellyfish were pretty thin in the water early in the day, but more and more showed up as the day went on. Hopefully tomorrow they’ll be thinned out again. We’re both a little water-shy right now.

Ahhhh, Langkawi

Thursday, December 10 - Kudos to Junkii for getting us from KL all the way north to the ferry quay over to Langkawi Island. It was a full day drive to say the least.

We got to the ferry at around 6pm and had to wait until 7 for the next launch. The wait for the ferry was fine – although we had to fend off a bunch of scam artists that wanted to set us up with some no-name hotel. Good thing we had done some research on Trip Advisor. But the ferry ride itself was most unpleasant.

It took nearly two hours across choppy waters in the dark, and worst of all, like all Malaysian interiors, it was prone to being over air-conditioned. It was like riding in a refrigerator and we were both pretty much like popsicles in our shorts and t-shirts. Not pleasant. And to top it off, we were forced to watch a horrible Malay comedy film (Sifu and Tongga) that just made a bad trip worse.

But the end result has been worth it. We got to the beach area we wanted at about 9:30 pm and found vacancy at the hotel we had hoped for, and all for the paltry sum of only about C$35 a day. We walked the strip and found a great fresh seafood restaurant for dinner and downed a couple of Tiger beers before hitting the sack.

And this morning, here’s the sight we woke to:

Lunch With Mummy & Baba

Wednesday, December 9 – Not too happy about lunch today. After a stressful drive north form KL, we stopped in Ipoh en route to Langkawi. We met Junkii’s folks for lunch and they took us to have some Teow Chew food. Junkii tells me it’s poor-man’s food, and I believe him. You basically get a bowl of tasteless, watery rice porridge and a few simple dishes to eat with it. Definitely not the best meal we’ve had from Ipoh.

Escape from KL

Wednesday, December 9 - Despite a great day spent with Meei, we’d be lying if we said we weren’t happy to be leaving KL. There’s just soooo much traffic and it’s such a large, sprawling, and dirty city. Ipoh is more our speed. It’s little, but the food is good.

But despite our eagerness to leave, getting out really was an exercise in frustration. We tried following a map, but we weren’t sure which highway we needed to get to, so that was the first obstacle. But even if we had known, there are so many inconsistencies in the road signage that we probably would have gotten well and truly lost regardless.

As it was, we’d just nicely get onto a highway and find a sign directing us to Ipoh when there would be a split and the signage would encourage us to get off in the wrong direction. We hit one that literally told us to take a specific lane for Ipoh and (seriously) 300m later, there was a second sign telling us to be three lanes over! Obviously we missed that exit.

It took us about 90 minutes to finally get out of KL when it shouldn’t have taken more than about 50 or 60. And we only got out in the end because Junkii topped up his cell phone account (remember how expensive that was?) and used the iPhone’s GPS app to help us get out.

And if you think it’s just because we’re not local, Junkii’s parents said they fell for exactly the same signage tricks we did. And they’ve spent their whole lives in Malaysia!

Found ‘Round KL

Tuesday, December 8 – We were up early on Tuesday to catch the light rail train into the KL city centre to meet up with our friend Meei. We visited the tourist trap spots in the Central Market and browsed the knockoff watch/purse/sunglass strip called Petaling Street. Didn’t buy much though. We just spent the day catching up with Meei and her husband, Heng.

We even drove out to their home in Klang where we met their two kids (so sweet) and they treated us to yummy Klang-style Bak Kut teh before dropping us at the LRT station. All-in-all, a really nice day with friends.

Here are a few photos. Check out the Christmas tree in the images below. It’s not the best photo, but check out the full-size version and you might notice that it’s basically made of empty plastic water bottles to help raise awareness about waste. It’s kinda pretty, no?

Oh, and speaking of Christmas, there’s a whole lot of Christmas in Malaysia. Given this country is primarily populated by Muslims and Buddhists, that’s pretty shocking. Our theory is that Christmas is being pushed by the retailers as another way to encourage shopping. The radio stations are all over the ‘buy buy buy” message and the malls are piping in carols that likely hold little meaning for the locals. Both of us thought we would be free of these shallow aspects of Christmas this year, but no such luck.

Anyway, here are those photos we promised.