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| We Just Loved The Interactive Street Art |
5/08/17 – 9/08/7
Rest days in Penang
Wow, Georgetown Penang. Yes, it’s just another city and
“every fuckin city’s just the same”. Mostly I agree with that, but, I think
Georgetown has something else. It is a tourist mecca, and that’s normally not
our thing, but the main part of Georgetown has a very cool vibe, a bit like
Jogja, but maybe even better. The main part of town, we stayed in Armenian
street, has it all. If you want to eat upmarket, you can have that, if you want
great street food, you can have that, anything you want, from cheap to
expensive, it’s here. |
| Larry & Priscilla Had Pride Of Place Holding Up The Bar |
Our host Kim, at ‘Armenian House’, made us feel right at
home. She has a basic café downstairs with great coffee and some good snacks. The building is your classic Chinese Godown, killer stairs over three levels,
our room was up top, with a nice outlook to a central atrium, with fresh air if
you want or close up for aircon. Authentic décor, with the original floor
boards, this was a great place to stay. Arriving on Saturday, the area was
really busy with tourists, to the point of queuing up for photos with the cool
street art. Funnily enough, this would normally bother us, but it looks like we
have chilled out again, and we just see it as part of the show, sometimes a
very funny show watching people around here.
Next day, the 6th, we thought we would ride up to
the Botanic Gardens and see if we could find a quiet spot to absorb some oxygen
and wildlife for a while. We passed the main show, throngs of people out for a
jog, a walk etc, but no-one going up hill, so we went that way. We rode up a
steep bitumen lane, that turned through a landscaped old quarry and then onto a
lawned terrace. Here we sat with a cool breeze gently blowing, watching the
monkeys and squirrels high in the tree tops. We sat and enjoyed the
peacefulness of the jungle behind us and chilled out with no one else in sight
when we realised nearly two hours had passed.
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| Chinese Temple Just Off Armenian Street |
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| Armenian Street at Night |
Starting to feel a little hungry, we hopped back on the bikes
in search of a cool drink and something to eat. We came across a fruit juice
stall that caught our attention, but better still, behind it was a small organic
shop. This looked quite interesting so we popped our heads in and were warmly
greeted by the nicest guy, Teoh. He owned the shop and invited us to sit down
and suggested if we wanted a juice that maybe his cleansing juice would be a
good start. We took his advice and sat down and ordered our juice. With that we
read his menu and discovered he makes homemade sourdough. Wow this was the best
day ever. Homemade sourdough with real butter, organic half boiled eggs,
organic cucumber and tomato on the side with homemade baked beans served on
lettuce leaves. This was a taste of pure goodness and gave us a warm feeling of
home. Now the juice was a nourishing, feel good all over drink of pure heaven.
Jam packed with leafy greens, broccoli, ginger, carrot, apple and a few other
extras thrown in. You could feel our bodies thanking us with every mouthful.
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| Georgetown Mosque at Night |
Our experience here at this little inconspicuous organic
shop didn’t stop at the food and drink. We were truly blessed to have the
opportunity to meet Teoh and hear his stories. His life experience stories were
fascinating, and he had a wealth of knowledge on health and wellbeing that he
was so willing to share. He was a man that had so much passion for life and for
his organic business. He also makes his own coconut oil, a high potency and
pure product using the art of fermentation. Boy I loved this guy and everything
he stands for, the way he
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| Teoh's Amazing Brunch |
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| I Just Want To Check My Facebook |
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| Huge Monitor Lizard |
On our last rest day we decided to find a beach. We hopped
on a bus that took us out to the National Park where we opted for the 1.5 hour
walk around to Monkey Beach. The walk was really beautiful, the first part was on
a well made path with the second a little more challenging. It was through the
jungle but following the coastal edge so every so often you would see the ocean
along the way. It was lovely and cool in the jungle and when we got a heavy
shower of rain we were pretty well protected with the dense canopy above. We
spotted a few cheeky monkeys on the way in and then a couple of shy ones later
on in the walk. Once we reached Monkey Beach we were a little disappointed as
it was just like any other tourist beach location. Commercial stalls lined the
beach, jet ski’s and banana boats with roaring engines out on the water. The
only consolation was that we could sit at a table on the beach and drink cold
fresh coconut water from a coconut, purchased at one of the stalls. We sat and
tried to relax for awhile and then noticed two young girls wanting to share the
cost of a boat for a ride back in an hour. We decided that a ride back at this
time would be a good idea and we were really thankful of making that decision because as soon as we got back to the National Park entrance down came the rain. Buckets and buckets of it. The buses run every 20 minutes so it wasn’t long
before we hopped on and ventured back to town, Dave had a beer at the bus stop while we were waiting. We did enjoy the walk and being
out in the jungle, but now we had to get our heads around getting back on the
bikes and cycling some more tomorrow. 
After dinner we had lots of fun going around the streets
once again, checking out all the street art.
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| Ride Mr? Miss? |
Penang to Sungai Petani
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| Leaving The Wonderful 'Armenian House' |
We used our early start to try getting some photos with the
street art with no-one else around.
Then we had a quick breakfast of Roti Canai before getting
on the ferry for the quick crossing back to the mainland. Then it was simply
onto highway one for about forty k’s up to Sungai Petani, which was done in fairly
quick time.
We had a hotel booked called El-Zahraa Hotel that was a very
middle eastern looking place, very well presented, clean and tidy. They had a
great safe spot to put our bikes, ‘The Boardroom’, so we headed for a shower
before heading out to find some lunch. We had choices of a great looking Indian
Restaurant which we thought we would save for dinner, White Coffee Café,
Starbucks, Pizza Hut, Secret Recipe, Sushi joint and then last on the street
was a cool looking coffee shop.
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| Maybe Something a Little Faster? Butterworth |
Dinner time came around quickly and we headed back out
before dark to the Indian Restaurant that we had spotted earlier. The food was
amazing and the service was really friendly which made for a very pleasant
dinner except there was no beer for Dave. It’s now been two days without a
beer. How will those freshly shaved whiskers ever grow again if this drought
continues.
10/08/17
Sungai Petani to Alor Setar
It was a lovely cool start to this mornings' ride which was
all on the main road, Highway 1. We seemed to have got into a pretty good
rhythm right from the start and really clicked away the k’s in the first two
hours. Most of the riding was through city areas and small patches of farming
land, but really there wasn’t much excitement happening except turning over the
pedals. We were about 15km’s away from our accommodation when we found
ourselves right in the middle of a very large market. We got off the bikes and
pushed them through the narrow lanes of stalls where we came across a very busy
food area with our favourite roti canai being prepared right before our eyes. We parked our bikes and were looking for somewhere to sit down when this lovely
lady and her daughter offered to share their table with us. The waitress came
over to take our order but didn’t speak much English so the lovely young girl
sitting with us helped us out. We had a great chat with these two great ladies
and as we were leaving they wished us well and safe travels.
As we left the market we had the opportunity to jump off the
highway onto a quiet narrow road right alongside a canal. This narrow road
followed the canal almost all the way into the next town where we were staying. It was a really pleasant way to finish off our ride for the day as it was
peaceful and relaxing just spinning away and not having to worry about all the traffic on the highway. A few local motorbikes went slowly
past us and waved and said hello, and lots of smiles and waves from the locals
and big waves from a couple of old guys fishing in the canal.
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| Parrot Espresso Bar, Original Town Mosque In The Background |
We arrived at ‘The Art Villa’ our accommodation for the
night. Tan, the daughter of the guy who
runs the villa met us and showed us around, this place was really nice. About
eight rooms upstairs, and a Thai restaurant downstairs that we decided we would
go to for dinner. Tan was keen to discuss our travel plans and wanted to offer
some advice from her own travels in Thailand, so we spent a good hour going over
maps, her experience was mostly with Northern Thailand as she said that they
like to escape to that area for a bit of cooler weather. This advice was really
welcome as at this stage we are still very much in ‘wing it’ mode.
Feeling like a coffee, Tan suggested an espresso bar in the
main part of town that overlooks the River Kedah, but that it was too far to
walk. We walked anyway, about three k’s each way and we had a great trip.
Initially, where we walked was pretty grungy, but as we arrived at the river,
we crossed a wide bridge and then could walk around the river through a very
Chinese looking area called Pekan China, which derrr, means China Town. We had
a great coffee and cake on the rear deck looking out over the river, with a
wonderful view up to the town’s oldest mosque. We could have sat there all day.
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| Old Rice Mill, Now Being Held Up By The Strangler Fig |
Afterwards we walked back, taking more of the back lanes,
seeing much more of the local life, lots of rundown old architecture.
A guy on a
motorbike with his young son pulled up and suggested that we shouldn’t be
walking here, it was dangerous. We couldn’t find out from him why it was so
dangerous, so we just walked on, being aware. We hadn’t felt like a target
until then, everyone had been friendly. We aren’t silly about where we go, but
this was broad daylight, when the most brazen crimes happen. It didn’t take us
long to get back to The Art Villa, it was nearly 7pm and still very light, and
we were hungry from our adventure.
So we freshened up, and headed down to the restaurant, where
we had beautiful Thai food. This little back street restaurant was very busy.
11/08/17
Alor Setar to Kangar
We didn’t plan on getting going too early this morning, but
in the end, our body clocks got us going again.
We had said goodbye to Tan and were on the road by 7:30. We weren’t
expecting much today, a pretty straight run of about 45km’s up to Kangar, which
would be our last night in Malaysia before crossing the border into Thailand.
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| Some Of Our Friends |
The flat land continued, following alongside irrigation
canals, sometimes we could ride the local lane on the other side of the road. As we approached Kangar, we could see hills in the distance, these effectively
form the border, the promise of a little climbing to come?
Once again, most people we passed were very friendly. We
found a nice local Roti joint for a late breakfast and had probably the best
one we’ve had yet, though the coffee bombed out today.
Luckily our run of early check ins is still holding. 10:57
this morning and the lovely young girl at the counter of the Sri Garden Hotel,
let us in to our room, probably the best view yet. Larry and Priscilla got to
stay down in the lobby next to the very special flowery wedding arch.
Once showered and changed we headed into the centre of town
for a look around. We found a very cool looking coffee shop but had to wait
until 3pm for it to open. With a light lunch at some ordinary joint to tide us
over we just wandered back to our hotel for a little rest. On the way back we
stopped to watch an old guy in his workshop who was working steel in an old
blacksmith forge. His heavy old anvil was sitting out the front just like the
one we have that was George’s. It was really great to see him banging the hot
steel into shape and firing up the forge. Dad would have loved this and I can
just see him standing there chatting with this old guy for hours. It looked hot
dirty work but he had a great smile and seemed to be so involved with his
work.
Eager to get that coffee we headed out and arrived at the
doors at 3:05 to find the place full of students from the local uni, sat down
and ordered an expresso and macchiato, oh how exciting. And yep it was pretty
amazing coffee so a second round was ordered plus two apple strudel pastries. The food was divine and we left feeling pretty good and over the moon that we
seem to have this knack of sniffing the good places out.
Our dinner option tonight maybe ‘Starlight View Café’, not
sure if it is going to be a hit. May not happen if it is raining as it is up on
a roof top in the open. We can see it from our window in our room and at this
stage 6pm nothing is happening. Apparently things get going at 7pm.
Well ‘Starlight View Café’ was ok. Young people running the
joint and they were very friendly and happy. Happy maybe because we were their
only customers for the whole night!!
12/08/17
Kangar to over the Thailand Border
Rain overnight made for a nice fresh start in the
morning.
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| Larry & Priscilla Checking Out Wedding Venues "Love On A Bike" |
Our last 30km’s of Malaysia was a super sweet ride. It was so
amazing riding along having that feeling of nature surrounding you. It made me
smile and made my heart sing. We were
starting to get pretty excited to cross the border. We have never crossed a
border into a different country before. This was an exciting moment, as this
land border crossing into another country was on our fat bikes. Here we will
have to go through immigration where as at home all we had to do when crossing
the border from SA to WA was to smile at the fruit inspectors and say ‘No
Fruit’. The first procedure was departing Malaysia. W e parked the bikes and
handed over our passports to a nice guy who stamped them, read our fingerprints
and allowed us to leave. We continued along the road for a very short distance
and saw a very long line of people waiting at the immigration window. Only one
window open, allowing for only one person at a time to be processed. We stood in
line and a lovely young guy came up and said we had to fill out the forms
first, woops. We wondered over to the information man who handed us arrival and
departure forms and said ‘fill out’. Ok thanks!!! We had no vehicle rego and we
had no place we were staying. Well let’s just wing this and see how we go. We
wrote 'travelling by bicycle' and 'staying at various hotels and homestays'. Dave
went first and the immigration dude asked him to clarify our answers and once
he understood all was good. All stamped and made official, we both were now
legal to enter Thailand.  |
| One Kilometre To Go, Last Photo In Malaysia |
We only had 5km’s to ride to our accommodation and it was a
beautiful 5km’s of riding. Tall sheer cliffs on our left made for a perfect
scenic view. Before we knew it we were at our first Thailand homestay, and were
greeted by the friendliest lady. She showed us to our room and once showered
and changed we wandered up to see if we could get some lunch. They had a small
shop which was like a fruit shop selling all their own produce and also ran a
small café. She sat us down and showed us the menu. We realised she didn’t
speak much English, but she managed to communicate pretty well with the help of
translator on her phone. Usually her daughter is here who speaks English, but
this week she was away in Bangkok. We ordered some lunch and drinks which was
all homemade and then she brought us out a bowl of freshly picked rambutans and
some other fruit that we weren’t quiet sure of. After we had completed our
lunch she asked us if we had tried durian. Neither of us had actually tried it,
we have smelt it but never eaten it. So she came out with a bowl of durian with
coconut sticky rice. It was delicious and we thanked her so much for a lovely, very filling lunch. We struck a little problem though. We had thought we would
have been able to find a money changer at the border crossing but we must have
missed it. Luckily at our homestay they were able to change some Malaysian
currency into Thai currency for us. All sorted.
We had hoped to have gone for a walk around the food garden
at our homestay, to walk off lunch but it started to rain pretty hard so we just
waddled off to our room, armed with an umbrella kindly given to us by our lovely
host. By dinner time I was feeling tired and not hungry from such a big lunch, that I decided to go to bed early. Dave wandered back over to the café and was well looked after. He ordered his dinner which he thoroughly enjoyed, and
then was given a plate of papaya which he has never tasted one so good. Now this is where the story gets interesting, and a little freaky. Our host also
offered him some durian water, a fruit that tasted similar to custard apple. She said to Dave ‘very good anti-cancer’ then said ‘so you have no more cancer
in your left ear’. Ok ,that was freaky as, how did she know he has had a cancer
removed from his ear? There is no scar, no tell tale sign at all. Wow!!! Goosebumps. Welcome to Thailand.
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