MALAYSIA MISADVENTURES: PENANG TO KUALA LUMPAR, AND BACK TO SAMUI

i have arrived back in thailand, and i am now back on Koh Samui, after 3 weeks in malaysia.

straight after my last blog from penang, to which i had travelled to by train from hua hin, i spent 10 days in kuala lumpar, capital of malaysia. i travelled there from penang island by bus. but it was no ordinary bus, but a 'Super VIP' one. probably the most comfortable bus journey ive been on. to give you some idea, it was the same size as a normal 50 seater bus, but with only half the seats! all for 26 malaysian ringitt/4GBP for the 5 hour journey... i had spent just the one night in penang, having been there twice before, so it was really just a convenient overnight stop to and from KL. the 1st thing you notice in malaysia is that the evenings are much lighter than thailand year round, due to the whole of malaysia being GMT+8, rather than GMT +7 in Thailand, despite places like penang being further west than most of thailand! parts of penang are also uncanningly similar looking an english town (it used to be a major british colony), which is not good, but at least everyone still speaks english!

upon arrival in KL i headed for the bukit bintang area, which is the main area of the city for shopping/nightlife/hotels. from there you can also walk easily to the petronas twin towers. i stayed at the cheap "cardogan hotel", only about 16GBP a night. having just left ekk's home cooking of food bought at tesco in hua hin of the previous week, it was a bind having to fend for myself in the food streets of asia once again! also having just left thailand with its recently imposed public smoking ban, it was like stepping back to the smoky dark ages in kl. not only is a ban there obviously a long way off, but a much larger proportion of the populace smokes. that would be bad enough, but a lot also smoke the incredibly odious indonesian clove cigarettes, which actually make me want to physically vomit if i'm within 50yards of one and its (and its owners exhaled) passive smoke....

however if i was to enjoy the kl nightlife i would have to bear it! the main gay club there, Blueboy, has been going for over 25 years. the decor doesnt seem to have changed since it opened, though since my last visit it has doubled in size. the clientele are a friendly bunch, sometimes a bit overly friendly!!! there is the ubiquitous ladyboy cabaret show from wednesday to sunday, sometimes twice a night. one night it was the grand finale of "miss blueboy", basically a ladyboy lip syncing/dancing/comedy talent contest. it went on for 2 hours, which even for me was a bit draining, there is a limit to how much campness one can take in a single dose. i think i reached it that night!
blueboy is also the only place i have heard the whole of the original 1978 version of boney m's classic "brown girl in the ring played in a club. i think the last time i heard it was on my last visit to the same club with my friend Ekk in 2004.

the days in KL were mostly spent in the many huge malls, some of which are actual tourist attractions, like Suria mall (base of petronas twin towers), and the berjaya times square (with indoor theme park). there is no duty on electronics in malaysia, so i took advantage and bought new mobile phone. it can upload music and i can also check my yahoo email on it somehow. i spent far too long trying to work out how to use it, and the downloading of songs from the internet for the 1st time in my life was a self educational odyssey lasting the best part of 2 whole days. but i now have mastered it, and have 60 songs on my mobile. i scared myself into how camp my 1st choice of 60 songs was, must be due to me living here for over 6 months now and surrounded by camp on an almost daily basis... ??!!

another thing friends i met in kl remarked upon was that i seem to acquired a thai accent. they all knew i lived in thailand at the moment, before i even told them!

malaysia being a muslim place, there is no pork. some supermarkets stock it, but you have to go into a seperate back room to get it. also all alcohol is heavily taxed, meaning it is expensive everywhere (relative to other things in malaysia), but still cheaper than london. even if it is sold in supermarkets, there is no guarantee the muslim checkout assistant will want to scan it though for you...
KL also seems to be the place where the muslim population of the world comes for there long haul city break, a role it seems to perform well..

so after kl, it was back to penang, this time by overnight sleeper train, spent one night there again. this time i went out to ferringhi beach, a great place for shopping, but feels likes it is yesteryears destination, with many vacant hotels and shop units. it has been massively overdeveloped with high rise hotels, and both the beach and sea are dirty, tourists have moved on. hope thailand doesnt go the same way!

after penang, it was back to thailand. i could have booked a backpacker minivan direct to samui from penang, but decided to do it independently for much the same price, but at my own pace. as a result i didnt see a single westerner, from leaving the penang ferry until boarding the samui ferry. 2 days later! i took a public bus to the malay town "alor setor", then another to near (but not quite!) the thai border. it was then a 20 minute taxi ride to the actual border, where there was airport style and size duty free shopping. from there, once safely stamped back into thailand, i took a minivan to hat yai. from there i took a thai 2nd class (ie slow and stops every 10 seconds) public bus to the coastal town of songkla. hat yai to songkla is only about 25km, but it took the bus an incredible 2 hours!!!!
i sometimes wish thailand would discover the invention of suitably spaced bus stops which intending passengers have to walk to! (rather than none, so people just wait anywhere on the side of the road, sometimes just 20 yards apart..)

spent a night there. had planned to look at the beach, but it was dark when the bus arrived. early the next morning i took a public bus to the next town of nathon sri thammarat. changed bus there for the direct bus to samui. i could have gone direct from hat yai to samui, but wanted to visit the east coast of southern thailand. the bus route passed through totally unspoilt countryside and coast, and nobody spoke a word of english! so upon reaching koh samui, it was a contrast to say the least. im still not sure why the bus joined us on the samui ferry, since we all had to get out of the bus and board on foot. when we reached the island we had to walk off the ferry and then walk to find the bus and our luggage! the bus wasnt going any further, leaving its passengers to the mercy of transport, samui style! hence the empty bus just took up valuable space on the car deck for no (to me) discernible reason....

have been on samui 3 nights so far. im staying at the same hotel as ive stayed at everytime ive come here, the "chaweng gardens beach". ive got a great sea view from the shaded deck outside my chalet, there is also a balmy breeze most of the day. when i visited with my mother last month, we were both ill, it rained a lot and the nightlife was shut for 2 buddha holy days, elections(no alchohol is served the day before, and the day of, elections in thailand) and the full moon party. so this time it has been a bit livelier in the evenings, but it is also exceedingly hot in the day (about 38 degrees c!)

i went to the full moon party on koh pangnan this time, it was 2 days ago. i was 2 hours late being picked up, so didnt actually arrrive there until gone midnight. by that time a lot of gap year travellers had passed out in the sand where they fell, or else been moved by their kind friends to the recovery enclosure. (a fenced off area of beach where they could lie whilst being gorped and laughed at by all and sundry!) i have to say the music wasnt really to my taste (not camp enough im afraid!), and i felt a bit threatened by being surrounded by 25000 drunken/drugged up backpackers who were mostly nearly 20 years younger than me.. (i guess i felt like an real old git!). was propostioned by several scary ladyboys. i left at 3am, eventually getting back to my room on samui at 5am.

so i am here on relatively civilised ( i use that word loosely!) koh samui for another 7 days, before heading to koh tao and then on to hua hin to meet ekk. thence onto bangkok on april 3rd.

speak again in a few weeks.....

PS RE THE PICS: if you should want to look at the fullsize phtos, just click on it and it will appear in a new full screen size window....

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