Two weeks in Malaysia and then off to Thailand

We’ve spent two weeks in Malaysia, and now we’re in Thailand. The two weeks in Malaysia were nice, but we were getting anxious to get settled somewhere and we didn’t find anything in that country so we’ve left and settled in Chiang Mai instead. Most of our ideal destinations in Malaysia were places that are not ideal this time of year due to the rainy season.  The island of Borneo would have been really great to visit, but they get a lot of rain this time of year, so most of the information we read recommended against going there at this time, so we opted to head north into Thailand instead.

Kuala Lumpur was good to see.  Getting mugged there (see our last post) definitely put a damper on our excitement of the place, so we left it after spending only a few days there.  While we were there we walked around checking out the sights. The Patronas Towers were cool to see, and they have a lot of big crazy shopping malls (good for finding a new camera) and street shopping.  The city is very multi-cultural, so we checked out Chinatown and Little India as well, and we enjoyed some great food from there. The Indian food was especially good.

We left Kuala Lumpur by train and headed north to Georgetown, Penang. It is on a really nice island off the western coast of northern Malaysia.  The weather there was great, and they have some really good parks and historic buildings, and they are also quite famous for their food.  We tried a bunch of the local dishes, which were pretty good, but we ended up eating most of our meals at a great Indian restaurant (link) around the corner from our hostel.  Awesome lamb, chicken, vegetables, rice, naan bread, and really flavorful curries. Also, our favorite drink was the ubiquitous Teh Tarik, which is basically a sweet milky tea.  We had some of that every day.

Also on the island was a the Penang National Park (aka Taman Negara).  We spent a nice afternoon there hiking through the trails and to some remote beaches.  It was really hot and sweaty trekking there, but very rewarding. 

We were initially planning on staying in Georgetown for a while, but we couldn’t find any nice places to stay and there really wasn’t too much to do there, so we opted to head to Thailand instead. The northern city of Chiang Mai is a place I have been before, and it has a lot of great cheap apartments to rent, so we booked train tickets there, and after a two-day train journey all the way through Thailand we arrived and fell in love with the city very quickly.  There is a lot of activity here, great food, cheap prices, and great accommodations.  We spent the first day apartment hunting and eventually came across a really nice place (link).  The apartment has a pool, an exercise room, and our room has a kitchen – so we’ll finally be able to do some cooking for ourselves again. We booked in here for a month so we’ll be here until the beginning of January.

We also wanted to find some sort of activity to do while we’re here.  Joh has been constantly on the lookout for good places to do yoga, and we found a place (link) around 10-15 minutes away from our apartment that she was interested in.  They have a great deal where you can come as often as you like during the month, so we booked in there and we plan to go everyday (hopefully twice if we’re up to it) for the whole month. I’ve never done yoga before, so I was a little apprehensive about signing up, but I’m gonna give it my best and hopefully enjoy it.  We went for our first class yesterday, and it was good.  I’m extremely inflexible, and I can’t sit cross-legged to save my life and I can’t really do any of the poses correctly (my downward dog looks more like a hunched rabbit), but hopefully after a few weeks that will change.  By the end of the class I was sweating and pretty sore, so I guess it’s a pretty good workout.  It will be interesting to see how much progress is possible in one month.

So that’s what we’re up to.  Hopefully sometime mid-month we’ll update you on our progress.

Malaysia