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Published: August 8th 2006
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Temple
Some temple we visited at some point... all the information is swimming in my head at the moment. But it was beautiful. It’s time for a late update!
Penang was… Penang. We stayed in Georgetown and initially we were a bit disappointed. It wasn’t very interesting but once we got outside of the main city it became much more interesting. We went on a day trip with our new Swiss friends and visited a few places. We started our day with a Buddhist Temple… Kok Lok something…. I am so bad at remembering these names of things. After our little ride to the top of the temple we got to see this giant statue being built in the process. It was so large that it was a bit overwhelming. No monkeys at this temple.
We continued our day journey with a visit to the butterfly farm in Penang. It is supposed to be the best one in Asia so we thought we’d give it a try. It was fun. There were so many different kinds of butterflies and all kinds of strange vegetation like a carnivorous plant. There were orchids everywhere and fruit and flowers to attract the butterflies. I wish we had some pictures to show but Ryan didn’t take any. There will be plenty to show though
Temple
Inside the temple. once we get home.
Following that, our taxi driver brought us around to a small fishing village. The driver’s English was really good and his knowledge of the island, all of its aspects, was large. He taught us a lot about Buddhism as he drove and talked about the affects of tourism in Penang. He pointed out things and explained them to us. We hired him for three hours, paid him a ridiculous little amount of money and he took care of us. He really made our morning enjoyable. He later dropped us off at this five-star resort. Or it supposedly was. We were going to go there to use their beach which was supposed to be really nice but it was really… crappy. There are so many boats around everywhere that they make the water dirty. And the sound of the jet skis doesn’t allow you to even relax. Ryan and I booked it out of there pretty quickly, taking public transportation back to our hotel. Wooo-hooo…. A hot bus ride that was more than an hour. We didn’t realize it would take that long. Back to our wonderful hotel,
Different
Me! Sitting on my animal for the ... I don't know. But we are both rats. Hotel Ping Pong or something. It was pure crap. They tried to make an appearance that they were a high quality hotel but they had waterbottles in the rooms but they had been re-filled. And who knows if the water was filtered or not. We had crickets in our room, others had mosquitoes and another girl saw a mouse. Ugh, we were so glad to leave that place.
We got back to the hotel and I realized that I couldn’t find my wallet. With everything in it. American money, Malaysia money… my drivers license. Luckily not passports. We did a panic walk retracing our steps and when we couldn’t find it we paid our cheap fare and got back on the bus to go back to meet Belinda, our group leader, to ask for help on what to do next. When we finally got there it was completely crazy. Somebody picked up my wallet and turned it in. With everything inside. All the money, everything. And for some reason I had put the hotel’s business card in there
Beach
The so-so beach we are staying at in Ko Samui. that morning, so they had called our hotel to give me the message that they had it. But all was sorted out eventually although I never want to experience that feeling again.
The night market was fun in that area. It was cheaper than everywhere else we have been. Dinner was good. We ate a hacker center again, a place with a bunch of booth-type vendors all around the outside of the room. It was wonderful. I am beginning to learn how to eat food. But I still suck. Most everything here is too strong of a taste for me. Ryan is in love with it though. It seems every meal his tolerance for spicy food goes up a notch. Ryan and curry were meant to be together.
We ended Penang thankfully. It was a pleasure to leave the city and get on a bus and ferry to get to Ko Samui, which is where we are now! It’s gorgeous. It’s a wonderful mix and match of quirky buildings that have all been built at different times. Our whole group is enjoying this island since we can finally wear short-sleeve shirts. Everywhere else our shoulders have to be
Ride
Ryan on the back of a trickshaw. covered, so to escape the heat a little and not get farmers tans, I am happily donning a short sleeve shirt at the moment and loving it. The wind is blowing in the door and I can smell the rain. This place makes me want to stay.
Ko Samui has been pretty relaxing so far. Eating and swimming, meeting up with our group in the evening. Relaxing. Until today. Today we had a speedboat tour to a few other islands in the area. It was overcast in the morning so they wanted to postpone until tomorrow. We ended up going anyway. The waves were so large that we were being bounced around and we were soaked thoroughly by the time we arrived at our first island. It was fun and where we ended up was much different from where we are staying with grass and giant trees. We went snorkeling and saw some cool fish. Ryan nicked his toe on the coral and it was bleeding all gross-like. Went to another island where we landed on the beach and took a climb, probably only twenty minutes but it felt like a long time. This wasn’t hiking in the traditional
Boat beach
Beach we went speedboating to. sense, rather it was climbing up steep open stair that were too narrow and more often than not to close together so had to go back down it like a ladder. The view was worth it though. Emerald Lake. A lake in the middle of an island. We couldn’t go in to protect the wildlife but the water really was emeraldy and there was tons of waterlife in there. We saw a crab, but I don’t think the water is salty. Hm, who knows. We trekked back down, slowly and surely and took our boat ride back to our hotel. They dropped us off at our beach, our hotel is oceanfront. The sun and the wind was exhausting and I think everybody immediately got in the shower back in their rooms.
And then for the finale! Ryan went bungee jumping! There is a bungee jump place here and they came and picked us up. I went along to watch but did not jump. It was a fifty meter drop and it took Ryan a few tries to convince the rest of his body to move off the platform. He was initially going to get him hands wet from the
Crawl
Melissa crawling through crevice thingy on our hike to the top of some hill to see Emerald Lake. water below but he jumped off the platform inside of falling and that gave him more momentum. Instead of a rewarding feeling that you did it, he got an upper torso dunk. He looked relieved when he was done. He even has a certificate! Valid proof.
We have been trying to call home but the phone situation is ridiculous here. There is more than one phone company and each phone company owns certain public phones. To make everything difficult you can only use a calling card from that company on their phones. And for some reason nobody has phone cards. But we are here and safe and getting maybe a little tan. I’ll come back as pale as I left.
A sort of quick overview on what we have been doing but there was a lot to catch up on.
Adios amigos.
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