Monday, July 6, 2015

My Malaysian Journey - 1

I woke up before my 5:45 AM alarm this morning. I knew I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep. I was too excited, and I still had things to do before leaving for my week's vacation in Malaysia. Cleaning the apartment, last minute packing of toiletries and such, posting about the excitement on Facebook; I needed that extra 30 minutes this morning.

Now, as I ready myself for bed in a timezone 1.5 hours ahead of mine, I'm glad I woke up early. It'll be easier to get to sleep, and I got lots to do tomorrow morning.

Not before sharing today's adventure with you all first.

I'm here! I'm in a shoddy little guesthouse in Penang, Malaysia.

First impressions of this town, on the whole, have been very positive. I would love to come teach and live here someday. It's a lot like Indonesia, but better. I can understand the language! I can speak to people. The food is amazingly delicious and the people are friendly and outgoing. I think I'm really going to enjoy my week here.

I talk about my impressions of the place in the video below, but a couple things I left out. Firstly, I got lucky with my accommodations. As I mention in the video, there were a few things I was looking for in my journey, and two of them I found half a block from my hotel. My motorbike rental place was just down the street, and although he had a money changer sign on his desk, I thought I would explore the town and look for the best rate.  Due to today being a combination of a Buddhist holiday with it being the month of Ramadan in the Muslim world, there were no other money changers open. So, I had to go back to where I started to get some money. Interestingly enough, the motorbike rental/money changer place is also a used book store, another thing I knew I'd be looking for here in this old English colonial town turned tourist Mecca.  The proprietor and I couldn't come to terms on a reasonable price for two books (he wanted $20 and I would go no higher than $16), so that part didn't happen, but on my way out of the bookstore I found something else interesting. There were half a dozen scantily clad, beautiful young ladies loitering in nearby doorways.  Hookers! Well, that wasn't on my list of things to get in Penang (at least not on my primary list) and so I passed on them too, but if I change my mind, at least I know where to find them!

Here's the video:



2 comments:

  1. I like the looks of Penang on your video. We are now in Yellowstone country, which you've seen before us. Today, several months of accrued consumer demand came to an end, as several boxes of stuff from Amazon arrived. Christmas in July! I look forward to your next video and post.

    ReplyDelete

Ten Years in Myanmar

 I couldn't remember the exact date of my arrival in Yangon. I thought the ten-year anniversary was going to be some day next week, so t...