We arrived in Malaysia yesterday after a 12 hr bus trip from Krabi, Thailand. Right away we noticed a big difference in the way Malaysia looked, it had much less trash and everything on the highway seemed to be a bit more organized, which is likely due to the fact that it's a wealthier country. Malaysia is also much more multicultural, the population is made up evenly of three different groups: Malay, Chinese and South Asian communities. Malaysia is mostly Muslim, although we have noticed both Christian and Buddhist churches/temples around.
Penang is famous for it's food, which both Geoff and I have indulged in. There are hundreds of hawker stalls everywhere and most of the time we have no idea what we are eating. Trying to eat veggie here has been much more difficult as meat gets slipped in everywhere. We've had our hits and misses but our stomachs are getting a bit tired of taking gambles, they are literally grumbling about it. Hah, ya, I know, bad one ;)
Georgetown is a crazy, bustling mix of all three cultures. We met a German guy on our bus trip so last night we spent some time wandering the streets and trying some of the food and special Penang "white coffee" with him. It absolutely down poured for a while there but we were able to take refuge in a cool food market in the Chinatown area. Today, we just wandered around the streets. There isn't a lot to do here but eat so we are looking to go away from the big city to a smaller beach town on the north part of the island. We unfortunately received some bad news that the east coast of Malaysia is still in monsoon season, which means that the two parts of Malaysia I wanted to see (Cameroon Highlands and Perhentian Islands) would be very wet. This means we have a week to burn on this coast, which isn't supposed to be as nice. We are looking into maybe going to Langkawi, 2.5 hours in the wrong direction, or potentially changing our flight to come home a few days early. We shall see what tomorrow is like, laying around on the beach though sort of gets a bit dull though after awhile, so not sure what we will do after that. Anyways, here are a few photos.
Love,
Jess
To my fam: give Red some big kisses from us, looking forward to seeing him soon! And you of course...:)
Salut Jess and Geoff,
ReplyDeleteJe viens de regarder le tele hier soir quand Ils ont parlé de la mousson qui a frappé l'Indonésie. Ce n'est pas un agréable moment pour le peuple indonésien. Aujourd'hui, elle est belle à Vancouver. Le temps est ensoleillé et relativement chaud, et je crois que la météo va durer comme cela jusqu'à la fin du mois de janvier. Vous aurez un "chaleureux, ensoleillé" bienvenue chez vous. Mo