I took a van ride to cross the border from Ao Nang to Georgetown. It took about 11 hours due to some unfortunate circumstances. Georgetown was so hot during my stay. I spent most of the time walking around the old quarters and checking out the old buildings and architecture.
Goergetown is a city in Penang Island, Malaysia. Georgetown is very calm and
the life is slow paced. I really enjoyed the slow paced life there. The old
British architecture was an incredible sight-seen.
Georgetown enlisted by the UNESCO
I left Ao Nang in the morning and I had to switch to another travel agency van
at Hat Yai city. There were so many people crossing the border to Malaysia.
Just as we crossed the border and were on the highway, the border police/patrol
vehicle followed us and signaled to us that we should follow them. The driver
had to make a U-turn, we followed them for about 7 minutes to another highway
where they stopped us with another van. A quick talk with other border police and
they let us go, but not the other van. Not sure what was going on, but it was
weird, my guess is that someone was in trouble in the other van. So this unfortunate event caused us to actually take a longer busier route and the total duration was stretched to about 11 hours for me from Ao Nang to Georgetown.
I meet two Germans on the van from Hat Yai to Georgetown. We spoke on
the van until we got to Georgetown. We went to our hostels then we meet for
dinner that same night. We talked about our plans in Georgetown, but we were so
tried so we left right after we finished eating dinner.
The
first night when I got to Georgetown I saw a temple on one of the main streets and I
stopped to observe it. I initially thought it was a Japanese temple because there
was a art of what looked-like two samurais, but the text was not Japanese
so I assumed it was Chinese, which made sense because later I found out there
was a Chinatown couple of blocks away. The days in Georgetown were incredibly hot so I could not walk a lot, but I
got a good feeling of the day-to-day life in Georgetown. On the first day I walked a little
bit in the morning and in the evening to explore the small town. I went to Little India and
Chinatown. See the video below of Little India. I really loved the Indian music
they played in one of the shops I passed by. Chinatown was full of temples and
they had very big incense that were ready to fire up, see the pictures below.
Chinatown or China?
Huge incense that will be lighted up in front a temple.
I initially thought it was a Japanese temple.
A close-up look at the art.
I visited the oldest mosque in Penang called Kapitan Kling Mosque built by the East India Company troops in the 18th century. The mosque had many Bengali, Indian, and Pakistani Muslims. It barely had any Malay. It was great to see such historical mosque and be able to walk around its gardens.
Kapitan Kling Mosque
Inside the mosque
I went to Batu Ferringhi beach on the second day. I took a bus from
Georgetown to Batu Ferringhi, it was about 30 minute bus ride. I asked the bus
driver to give me a notice when I get to the beach stop, he said okay, but I
think he miss-understood, because I ended up stopping about two miles away from the beach. So
I just crossed the street and took the inbound bus to go back two miles. When I
got to the beach, it was not as good as I thought it would be, maybe because I
have been to the Thai beaches so my expectations jumped to a higher level. The
beach that day looked angry, it was good only for intermediate surfers as the
waves were pretty big. I took a quick dip, and then sun bathed as I observed
the small clouds.
I meet with my new German friends for dinner that night. We shared travel
information, exchanged information on life in the US and Germany, talked about
our studies and the city of Georgetown itself. I have become fond of Germany
after the good things I heard. If I were to live in a European country, it
would be Germany. We exchanged contact information and said good-byes as it was
time for us to go our separate ways.
The next day, I visited a couple of shopping places to buy a second
backpack to carry the items I buy as I travel. After I bought my second backpack, I spent much time
indoor catching up on my reading of the ‘The Lost World’
by Conan Doyle, writing
in my journal, eating Indian food, and looking up the next potential
destinations. I ended up buying a plane ticket to Johor Bahru for the next day
(located on the other end of Malaysia bordering Singapore) to go see a
Malaysian friend.
Looking at the distant mountains as I was about to enter the Penang airport.
