Krabi was great fun and although I didn’t really have anything that I wanted to do my guess is that I would have a lot of fun if I were to have stayed another couple of days. Unfortunately that was not to be, we left at about 730 and headed towards the border of Malaysia, with our eventual goal of spending the night at the tourist town of Penang.
There really isn’t much to tell about the trip, it was fun, boring, and everything in between. The border crossing went super smooth and took maybe a total of 30 minutes from the time our van stopped in Thailand to the moment our new van started up in Malaysia.
My first thoughts about Malaysia are pretty positive, at least when it comes to their development. The highway system was straight out of the west, something that you would expect in the US or Europe, in some ways maybe better. There were multiple rest stops, well surfaced roads, two or more lanes in each direction, and generally almost eerily Western. We stopped at one of the rest stops and got out to stretch our legs. The driver came over and sat down next to me and asked me where I was from. I pretty much always say Dubai now, since I’ve lived there long enough to consider it my home. The thing is, is that this confuses almost everyone. The driver keeps asking questions and eventually asks where I am from before Dubai and I say, USA. He gets a big smile on his face and start a small “U-S-A” chant, “We love USA in Malaysia.” If the guy wasn’t like 35 years old, it would have been cute. He went on to explain all the things that he likes about America. He focused on muscle cars and the movies.
After a total of about 8 hours on the road we pulled into Penang. Another one of my impressions was that I see Malaysia as completely different than the other Asian countries I’ve been to. Some of the city names, George Town, Butterworth, and others suggest a certain amount of influence placed on it in its initial years of it’s colonization by French, Dutch, and the British. It wasn’t until we actually got into the neighborhood that we were staying in that I started to see the culture. This part, Penang, is a touristy place and maybe that’s why it seems so cultural. The streets are more like what you’d expect and very similar to Bangkok or Phnom Penh. We’re staying next to the area known as Little India and it did seem like that last night.
We ended up hanging at the hotel for about an hour before we went out to dinner. I know anyone reading this doesn’t really care about my dinner, or any of the other minutia that I go into, but remember, I’m writing this blog for myself. My goal is that someday I’ll look back and remember the little things, the things that mattered the most in some instances. How the driver chanted, U-S-A to me was just funny, and a great memory to store, even though you may think it’s not worthy of adding to the entry. As we walked back, the group had decided to go watch the Olympics, but since I wasn’t asked I went back to the hotel.
Today we’re going on a walking tour of the area, the highlight will most likely be visiting an old British fort.
