Small time Celebrity

Day 285

I had wanted to wake up early but I spent a bit too much time reading and overslept a bit. After breakfast and packing it was time to head back to Padang.

Conveniently outside of my hotel was a guy with a horse and buggy. This was one form of transportation that I had yet to utilize. He told me that the price was 4 and I agreed. In my guidebook it says that rides should cost around 5,000 and I figured he meant 4,000 by saying 4. When we got to the bus stop he told me that he wanted 40,000, not 4,000! I was about to just tell him too bad, he had said 4 and that was what he was going to get but I went ahead and gave him 10,000 anyway. It was something that I wanted to try and that was less than a dollar.

The minibus I jumped into left in about 15 minutes. I was stuck all the way in the back corner though and no amount of pleading could get the people in the middle seat to open the windows any further for me. It was a rather hot and uncomfortable ride. When we got into Pedang I was the last person on the bus. The driver asked if I would pay him extra to drive me to my hotel. The price he gave was fair and I quickly agreed. It might have been a few cents cheaper to get a local mini bus but the hassle of bargaining wasn't real ly worth it.

I had decided to go back to the first hotel I had stayed at here. It had a great location for seeing20the rest of the town. Luckily they had room for me. I also arranged airport transfer through them for the morning.

After some lunch I went to check out the sites. It was blazing hot and I kinda needed a break from the constant attention though. After walking around for about an hour I just went back to my hotel for a shower.

For dinner I went to a seaside restaurant, I had just missed the sunset though. A nearby family asked if their daughter could take a picture with me. I doubt that she was 2 and after I said yes she was in my lap before I knew it. Right away she started to howl. I didn't really blame her though, I'm not that child friendly and I think that kids can smell fear.

When I went to pay my bill the waiter mixed up 14 and 40 but we got it all figured out in the end. I grabbed a beer and wrote in my journal for a bit at a place right next to my hotel. I was a bit tired though and wanted to go to sleep early anyway, I had an early morning to look forward to.

Aliens

Day 274
I was up early and packed quickly. At the main office I had to wait forever to get my boarding pass. I wasn't able to get it before because I didn't have my passport on me. It took so long that I was afraid that I might miss the boat. I really shouldn't have worried about this though.

The waiting area was packed and there were very few seats. When boarding finally began there was only one guy checking tickets an d 5 people at immigration. I as lucky and rather close to the front of the line. I could see that a lot of people were have rather long discussions with the immigration guys. I was worried that I might have some problems as well, but there were none. I was instructed to sit towards the front of the boat and pile my back pack by the emergency exit. In no time there was limited to no access to the emergency exit with all of the backpacks. Strangely all of the westerners were instructed to sit in the same area of the boat. I waited on the boat for quite a while. It was meant to leave at 9 but didn't depart until 10:30

They quickly put some very loud and very awful music on the screen. The air conditioner was turned up to arctic and I had to get my sleep sheet out of my bag, my jacket was too far buried. I hadn't eaten earlier because I was afraid that I would be late and I had thought I would be able to buy snacks on the boat so I had not stocked up. The only thing to buy on the boat was a cup of noodles. Later on they gave everyone some slightly stale cake.

The boat was pretty rocky and I don't know how I managed to keep my noodles down. I did manage to sleep a bit, bu t the volume on the tv kept waking me up. Several times two screaming little boys came running into our cabin and would climb over the vacant seats and backpacks. I think this is why pe ople put their kids on leashes.

After 7 hours the boat finally docked. It took a bit of time to get everyone out, but everyone who needed to buy a visa on the spot was able to skip the long immigration line. While I was waiting I met a few people from the boat. It didn't take long for me to get my shinny visa and they to get stamped into the country.

Right before I stepped outside I was directed to go straight to the waiting bus. Outside was a mob scene and I was told that the bus was full. I could see myself that there was exhaling room only. A man offered me a good price for a ride to Medan including an ATM stop. I told him that I needed to wait for my friends. I went back into the mob and managed to find some of the other people I had met on the boat. Another man tried to offer us a better price, but one of the people in my group had been told by a cop not to go with him. We stuck with the first guy.

When we were dropped off at the first hotel it smelled awful and we felt that it was over priced. The second place was the same. The third place the guy brought us to was the cheapest and the cleanest. It was just right. T o save money undercover Israeli Zoe and I shared a room. It was just under US $2 each. I say undercover because Israelis are not allowed into Indonesia, Zoe has a French passport though and most immigration officers don't bother to look at the place of birth when issuing visas. The other people in our group were recently married Brits Kieron and Kate and another traveling couple Dave and Samantha.

Once we had dropped our things off we headed to get some dinner. Over dinner the guy that had brought us to the hotel also tried to sell us a jungle trek. I declined because I have no business in the jungle and I didn't want to do anything that I knew would make me miserable.

After dinner we all took showers and then met for a beer. I was really enjoying chatting to everyone and I guess that I wanted to spend a few days with the same people. For unknown reasons I put in a deposit to go with everyone on the jungle trek. It wasn't peer pressure at all, just plan impulse on my part. Forget that, it was aliens. there could be no other reason I would do something like that. Damn aliens.

Non Travel Day

Day 273
I had been planning on visiting a few things around the island but woke up not really feel ing like doing anything. I had also managed to hurt my foot. I don't know how I did it, but I was limping just a bit and it was making walking a little less fun. I thought that today could be the perfect day to stay off of it.

After a few hours of reading I had grown bored and headed off to the movie theater. I ended up seeing Twilight. It was pretty bad, but for some reason I really liked it. Very strange. I also had dinner at the American Embassy, aka McDonalds.

When I was done sojourning into the Western World I headed back to my hotel to shower and pack. I didn't pack though, I simply retouched some of my Indonesia plans and read for a while before calling it a night.

Working

Day 272
I was up a bit later than expected and after a rather gross breakfast I headed back to the internet cafe. Not only did I have blog work to do, but I also had some flights to book. I made a bit of a mistake though in booking an exit ticket out of Indonesia before booking the boat ride there. I would only have 30 days in the country and the boats were often full. On realizing my mistake I quickly headed over to the booking office. I got lucky, there were a few seats left.

When it was all worked out I suddenly got very excited about Indonesia and went back to my hotel room to work out a better itinerary. This took me most of the day.

At 7 pm I met Sarah and she brought me to another bar where she had met some other people. The bar was owned by this crazy guy named Jim. He told us that the cure for cancer was to have sex for 6 hours continuously and that he was currently in talks to make a few movies with Angelina Jolie. I think he might have been on the crazy side. This was confirmed when it started to pour and he ran out to dance in the rain. Jim was also super flighty with all the girls, making everyone a bit uncomfortable. Due to this we didn't stay very long, but made sure to exchange email addresses before parting.

Penang Draw

Day 271
I was up pretty early and found a place around the corner for breakfast. I had wanted to try and switch hotels, mine smelled like moth balls, but every place that I checked at was full. That was really too bad. As it was still rather early I went back to my hotel and checked out the different pets they had around, there were some turtles, a chipmunk and a hamster.

My first stop of the day was the Goddess of Mercy Temple, built in 1801. There were a lot of people around and the smell of incense was every where. There was a woman selling birds that you could let free. I have heard that the birds are trained to fly back after some time and that it is all a hoax. I wandered Little India for a bit and bought a new mini flashlight. I don't know what happened to mine. I also found a colorful temple and some really fresh oj. The fruit juice here is just amazing, I can't get enough of it. The next temple I found had some wonderful carvings and I watched as people burned fake money.

Each separate Chinese clan had it's own house. The oldest remaining one is known as Cheoh Kongsi. The temple/meeting hall was just breathtaking. I don't think I would have been allowed inside so I didn't even try. Nearby was a wonderful and empty temple. It was nice to have it to myself and I got some really nice pictures. Next up was a bit of th e island's colonial heritage with St. George's Church and the Penang State Museum. My guidebook claimed th at this was the best museum in the country and I wanted to check it out.

Penang had been occupied by ancient tribes, however was basically empty when the British rediscovered it to use as a port town. This was when Georg etown was founded. Soon the island became a trading center and people from all over Asia began to move in. There were rooms dedicated to each of the major ethnic groups on the island. This was pretty interesting and concentrated on decoration and marriage ceremonies. My favorite part was on different locals. There was one guy who repaired shoes for about 70 years, and another who walked door to door selling trinkets.

The history bit was also quite good, but for some reason I didn't take very good notes on it so I don't really remember much. The museum was the best that I have seen in Malaysia, but then again, I haven't really seen much in this country.

When the museum was done I grabbed some lunch before hitting the internet cafe. Unfortunately I couldn't upload pictures was was stuck just typing up future blog entries so that I wouldn't get too behind. When I was out of things to do I headed back to my hotel to take a nap and plan the next part of my trip. I was considering Indonesia.

After dinner I went t o a bar/hotel that looked like a backpacker draw to see if I could make some friends. I managed to meet English Sara wh o was also traveling alone. We spent most of the evening chatting and making plans for the following night.

Immediate Attraction

Day 270

I heard some girls get up the same time that I did, but just rolled over and went to sleep. I had been up way too late and needed to keep sleeping. After another hour I got up and got my act together. I had to pack in the dark though, this wasn't much fun. At checkout I thanked the super nice hostel people before heading out.

Getting to the bus station was easy. The ticketing area was a mad house though. It took me some time to find a booth that had a bus to Panang, most of them seem to have left even though it was only 8:15 am! I really should have shopped the day before. I did manage to find an 8:30 am bus though, but I might have paid more than necessary. I also didn't get a window seat. I really like being able see how many miles are left to go. The people at all the windows closed the curtains. I also hardly had enough light to read by. In the end I just gave up and went to sleep.

When I woke up some hours later I saw that my seat mate was looking out the window20but had the curtains wrapped around her head. The person across for m me was doing the same. It must be a conspiracy, I ended up giving my book another try.

I had thought that the extra expen sive bus took me all the way to Georgetown, on Penang island, but it only went to Butterworth. I had to take the ferry across. It was less than fifty cents though and so smooth that I hadn't realized we were moving until we were just about there.

In KL I had been given a map to Georgetown and had no problems finding a place to stay. The walk there was actually quite nice. My guidebook was quite right in saying that despite the garbage and a lack of sidewalks there is something endearing about the town. Once I had dumped my things I went off in search of lunch. When that was done I headed back to shower and figure out what I was going to do with myself for the next several days. By the time I had it all together it was almost dinner time. Before heading out though, I checked my email and let everyone at home know that I was alive.

For dinner I went to a stalls market and had some chicken and rice. I had wanted to try to be sociable, but there didn't seem to be anyone in the town. I ended up back at my hotel for an early night.