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Published: January 8th 2009
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Ross:
Having now managed to reduce our bodies' core temperatures back down to somewhere near normal, and having drunk more fine Malaysian tea than one could shake a spoon at, we decided our time in the Highlands was up. Our non-VIP bus to Penang was booked for unearthly o'clock on the morning of the 15th December, a Monday no less! The only differences between Malaysian 'VIP' and 'non-VIP' buses is the price and the fact that the latter has four seats per row instead of three, or so we we thought. It later emerged that the non-VIP buses also come with a faulty gear box, resulting in a delayed stop of about an hour whilst small Asian men clambered inside the engine compartment to get oily.
We eventually arrived in Butterworth, a town on the mainland opposite the island (albeit linked by a whopping great bridge) of Penang. The driver seemed to be a sadistic bugger, taking great delight in being as confusing and unhelpful as possible. Apparently, the locals don't like it when foreigners refer to the main city on the island, Georgetown, as 'Georgetown'. We're still not sure why...
Eventually the bus dropped us on the
A rather large monitor lizard
...also on Georgtown mud flats island some distance south from where our ticket stated, but luckily we hooked up with a middle-aged Slovak couple from Germany who were also heading to our holiday paradise destination of Batu Ferrenghi. After an hour in the taxi (45 minutes of which was spent waiting outside a bank for the Slovaks to cash a traveller's cheque!) we rolled up outside Baba's Guesthouse, where we'd pre-booked three nights for about a tenner a night. Generally the guesthouse was made of MDF and plywood but it was clean, the staff were friendly, it had free WiFi and was literally spitting distance from the beach. We ventured along the main road which was slowly transforming into a bustling night market selling genuine Rolex's, Oakley sunglasses and D&G handbags. Yeah, right.
We were a bit surprised at how tacky Batu Ferringhi was. The Lonely Planet was fairly vague about the place but we'd been picturing a quiet village on a deserted beach with little in the way of amenities. On the contrary, the place had a McDonald's, a KFC, a Holiday Inn and a couple of Irish bars with half-started and half-finished resorts all over the place. Apart from using the toilet
A 4-wheel moped.
You should've seen the driver - he was special... in KFC we stayed well clear of all of these places.
After being bullied into a bargain three-course supper at a little Malaysian cafe, we headed back to Baba's for a sundowner and bed.
The following morning Polly decided to start her detox. She'd purchased a course of nutritional supplements in Singapore, called Juvanex, and had been threatening to get things underway for some time. Today was going to be the day! In short, Polly would be sacrificing 7 days of her life to fruit and vegetables with the very occasional treat of a stringy piece of chicken or fish, supplemented by a powdery, foul-tasting half-litre of watery mixture, twice a day. I abstained...
About a week ago we learnt that there had been some changes to the Thai visa requirements. There was quiet a lot of confusion amongst fellow travellers but basically people entering Thailand through overland borders would only be granted a 15-day visa exemption, instead of the previous 30-day stamp. We had heard about this change through the British FCO website, but the change had not been confirmed by the Thai government websites. There were a few internet forums discussing the change so we
decided not to risk it. As such, we needed to obtain full 60-day visas. We'd missed the chance to sort things out in Kuala Lumpur, but after doing some research we managed to establish that there was a Thai Consulate in Georgetown that could grant the visa.
Armed with some loose directions, our passports, evidence of onward travel, bank statements and payment, we hopped on the 101 bus to Georgetown, alighted at the 'Looking Good' shopping mall, obtained some passport photos from a little photographic shop around the back then marched a few blocks in the general direction of the Thai Consulate. Upon arrival the guard immediately informed us that a photocopy of the passports would be required so we clambered in a cab with another English guy on a visa run for a return fare to a nearby photocopy shop.
After completing the necessary forms and nervously handing over our passports we were informed that they would be ready for collection later that afternoon rather than the next day as previously thought. With a few hours to kill we wandered to a cafe for brekkie followed by a stroll along the seafront, watching the mudskippers and a
rather large monitor lizard wallowing about in the sludge. With the sun burning down we flagged down a cab to the other end of town and wandered up through the narrow streets of Little India and Chinatown, impressed by the quaintness of the old town in comparison to Batu Ferrenghi. After killing a few hours we returned to the Consulate, picked up our passports with shiny new 60-day tourist visas (all for the bargain price of 22 quid) and headed back to Baba's.
Polly, by this point, was feeling a little worse for wear and was sporting the mother of all headaches, probably due to a very long walk in the hot sun with not much food. So, while she rested I popped out for a very spicy beef tom yam soup, fried rice and a tiger beer at a little cafe full of locals around the corner.
On the Wednesday, we took it fairly easy. Luckily, Polly's headache had subsided, a sign that the worst of her toxins had been flushed out. We strolled along the main drag then plonked ourselves on the beach for a bit. The beach at Batu Ferrenghi is very narrow, fairly busy
and the jetski rental guys take great pleasure in cruising up and down at breakneck speeds in the shallows where everyone's swimming. After one too many 'Hello mister. You want shopping? Have shopping for you!' we went off to book a minivan to Thailand.
Our air conditioned, blacked-out minivan rocked up the next morning about 30 minutes early at 6.30am but, being the first ones on, we got the choice of seats. The blacked-out windows were a little disconcerting after hearing of bus-jackings in some of the southern Thai provinces. After numerous pick-ups at various hotels and hostels we were eventually on the road to Thailand. The driver was a miserable git and didn't appreciate having to stop for toilet breaks but nonetheless he got us (relatively) safely over the border and onward to the Thai gateway town of Hat Yai. We swiftly changed minibuses in Hat Yai for Krabi. The journey from Penang to Krabi took about 11 hours in total and cost 80MYR each (about 16 quid), finally arriving in Krabi around 5pm local time.
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