West coast of Malaysia

  Georgetown, Pinang, Malaysia
Thursday, August 21, 2008

Now was time for me to leave Indonesia and go back to Malaysia as I still had not visited the west coast of the country. I booked a flight from Yogyakarta, Indonesia to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Physically leaving the country was not completely straight forward. My first obstacle was when I had to pay an expensive fee to fly out of Yogyakarta, something like the airport tax. It is pretty common in Indonesia and is not always included in the price of the ticket. After I had carefully spent all my last pennies of Indonesian rupiah buying gums, sweets, and other unnecessary items, I got stopped at security in order to pay the airport tax. I had no money left, so after negotiations, the officer let  me pay it in Malaysian ringgit at a bad exchange rate of course, but my plane was about to leave, so I had to get going.
 
The last thing was customs. Whereas it should be pretty easy to leave, it did not happen exactly that way. I had a very mean woman behind the immigration desk telling me that I overstayed in Indonesia as my visa had expired! They do not put any expiry dates when they stamp your passport, they only stamp the day you go in and from then you have a thirty days visa (that you pay for when entering Indonesia). What I did not take into account was that the day you enter and the day you leave counts as two full days, so to her, I overstayed by one day. In front of her, my negotiations skills were much reduced so I had no other choice than paying the USD20 fine that was only payable in rupiah at a bad exchange rate again. By that time, my plane was fully boarded but as I had to get out of the airport to go to a money changer and then go back through security to get to customs and pay the fine, they promised me that my plane would wait for me...which it pleased me to believe. I rushed, got escorted out, to the money changer, then back in through customs, back through the aiport tax collectors (A bit like in Monopoly, I pass the Go spot on the board, I pay the airport tax for passing that space for the second time ! Luckily, you only pay that tax once). I paid the "overstay fine" and rushed into the plane that actually did wait for me. Weird feeling when you are the last one on a plane with all angry eyes staring at you as if you were the cause of the delayed departure of the plane. At that point I was used to the staring as I had just spent one week in Java where tourists are rarely seen. No big deal. I made it...with a little bit of extra cash in rupiah whereas I had carefully spent it all an hour before in order not to have change leftover !
 
In Kuala Lumpur, I was to have dinner with some friends whom are living in KL and whom I had met in the Perenthian islands a month earlier. For some reason, the plane was late, so I only made it on time for drinks. On top of that, when you arrive that late in a city, guest houses tend to be already full when you need a place to stay, so I had a bit of trouble finding a room, which delayed me even more. It did not prevent me from having a nice evening with my friends. As I was knackered, I slept well despite the club right "in my bedroom". The club was actually next door, but as it was techno music, I could feel the vibrations of the drum and base all over my body ! I spent the following day relaxing in KL simply waiting for my night train to Penang. As it was school holiday, the train was absolutely packed, so I got the last bed, in 1st class, which was a great idea. Everybody was telling me to take the bus cause it is faster but that is the exact same reason why I chose the train over the bus : it takes longer and for a night transportation, it is an advantage to me. It means your night is longer and the ones who know me well grasp how much I like my sleep.
 
The train still arrived at 5:30 am in the town of Butterworth, next to the ferry terminal to Georgetown,

Georgetown building

the main town on the island of Penang. It is only a short ferry ride to Georgetown but finding a hotel at 6 am when everything is closed and still in the dark is simply not possible. I had to wait a bit for a few places to open and found a great big room in an old colonial British house. Penang has a strong colonial history. Originally part of the Malay sultanate, it was given to the British in 1786. On 11 August 1786, Captain Francis Light, known as the founder of Penang, landed in Penang and renamed it Prince of Wales Island in honour of the heir to the British throne. It then became a British colony in 1867 until 1957 when it gained its independence. In July 2008, George Town, was formally inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site alongside with Malacca, which I visited later on.

Georgetown city center

 
It is extremely developed, hotels, restaurants, cinemas, malls, roads, heaps of tourists and buildings dating from the colonial period. All this makes it a very European looking place. A place not at its place in Southeast Asia. It is also home to all the big English names such as RBOS, Pret a manger...I felt like being at home ! and of course all American chains as well Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, KFC, McDo. Unfortunately, everything was closed on the Sunday I arrived, travel agency to book my way out of there, bike rental, most museums, shops, the town was kind of dead. It was easy for me to walk all around town and enjoy a peaceful Sunday in the heat of the sun. No problem, I thought I could rent a motorbike the next day to drive around the island but that was not possible. Indeed, it did not stop raining the whole Monday.

Georgetown temple

I always drive a bike back home, so rain is never a problem for me but that extremely heavy rain was, especially cause the road had been transformed into a rafting river. Even walking was a challenge, bare feet was the least slippery alternative. Typical ! I have just spent 3 months in Southeast Asia traveling through Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, during wet season and never had any problems with the rain. Now I am on the west coast of Malaysia during the dry season only to find heavy rain. And it is not over, the entire rest of my stay in dry season southeast Asia took place under the rain ! There was only one thing to do : go to a movie. As the rain never stopped, I went to see 3 movies in fact. That was relaxing.
 
I tried to get a way out of Penang but all means of transportation were full. Of course by definition dry season is synonymous with high and busy season. My bus out of Penang was going to the Cameron Highlands, a very cool over 2,000 m high mountains scattered with tiny little villages. Sounds lovely but the reality is much less appealing as mass tourism has really hindered the landscape...and it is a 7 hours bus ride from Penang for most part on little windy mountain roads in a not so powerful bus. Other than tourism and beautiful hikes, main town out there have strawberry farms and tea plantations. The biggest and most famous one being BOH,

BOH tea plantation

created by an English man in 1929. Today, you can visit the factory in which 30 people work in and the plantation with its 2,500 men workers, mainly foreigners from India or Indonesia. Most of the work in the plantations is still done manually, or even if they use a machine, it is a man activated machine that requires 2 men handling it at a time. It is a very physical, endless job.

Melaka monuments

My next destination was Melaka reachable through Kuala Lumpur, after another 7 hours bus ride. Lovely historical town with an easily walkable city center and loads of colonial buildings, museums, churches and a bubbly Chinatown.