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 |