Tobias travels to South-East Asia and beyond!

Because the ticking you hear is your life passing you by!

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Location: London, United Kingdom

In my thirty's and slowly loosing my misanthropic streak!

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Over to Malaysia and Georgtown



It was time to head for Malaysia. I had been having it far too comfortable the last couple of days and decided to go for an eight hour and slow torture busses from Krabi.
Set off, crammed up with ten other people in a little mini buss and got to the Malaysian border five hours later.
I had expected the customs to be really hard (drugs and such are penalized by death) but they pretty much stamped the passport and sent us trough without checking a thing. Even when the car was stopped the customs guy was really funny and just opened the door said “Everybody be cool” and then closed it and sent us off again.
Another five hours later I arrived in Penang and Georgetown. I had chatted to a really nice guy called Mark from Leeds and we decided to share a room to cut the costs. Jumped of the bus and went of to find somewhere to sleep. Turns out that most places were full for some reason and nobody we asked could explain why. The hours dragged by and we started to become desperate. We were told there were would be hotels at “Love Lane” (yes it’s the actual the name of the street and also is what’s goes on there in the evening ) and we did check out on of the rooms but after seeing the most run down room ever we headed back to the main street again. Luck came our way, a couple had just checked out to take an overnight bus and we gladly paid the 30 Ringi to take the room of their hands.
George Town was a nice introduction to Malaysia. There are so many peoples and cultures living side by side to each other. You have Muslims, Christians, Hindu and Buddhist all sharing the same country and it certainly showed in George Town as I was walking around. One minute there were Indian music blaring out and then suddenly a huge Chinese temple or a mosque around the corner. It all felt really confusing at first but I got in to it after a couple of days and really started enjoying it. It was great being able to go for a great Indian curry for lunch and then have an excellent Chinese or Malaysian dinner in the evening.
I spent most of the days in George Town just walking around mesmerized by the whole thing and then spent the evenings at some pub watching the football with the mixed people that the town represented. Football is a funny thing in Asia, they all seem to be so into it and I always wonder what makes them decide to root for a particular team. There doesn’t seem to be any particular logic to it but I guess it’s just one of those things.

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