These travelogues are getting harder and harder to write!
Pictures will follow in...three months?
The bus for Penang,
Malaysia from Kuala Lumpur:
After dining in an empty food court with an Asian woman from Singapore, I
rushed for an early bus but just missed it. Another coming soon in the hot
shade. I waited, I boarded. We finally left, gassed up at a filling station and
returned to the starting point! I thought I was leaving early, and didn't
really leave til an hour past departure time. In Penang I shared a taxi with some Europeans to the guesthouse
area. He could've have driven in circles and charged us. Who knows?
The Chinese presence in Southeast Asia is very large. The island of Penang was preparing
for the Chinese New Year.
I thought I had a hostess there, an older American woman with a
theatre background, permanent resident of Penang, but I never heard from her
again despite repeated emails from me. Online I had found a cheap hostel, but
it was full. Across the street was a shiny Japanese hostel I took for one
night, air-conditioned, wifi, breakfast included. Inquiring after dinner, I was
directed a block away to a large outdoor food court with karaoke entertainment
from a stage, offering everything from beer to deer to frog meat, watermelon
juice to tofu to Indian food, doing a huge business. The next day I moved
across the street to 75 Travelers Lodge with none of the amenities but at a
third the price. It was full of older Europeans, mostly British men. Was I in
Losersville? I was extra careful with my belongings, suspecting desperation,
even over clean drinking water. I was the only female in the dorm, with worn
sheets, ceiling fan, yet a friendly atmosphere and lots of repeat business.
"I've been drinking this water for 30 years!" said one Brit. I read
newspapers in the lobby and watched men play chess and drink beer in the evenings.
Since my three months in India in 1978 I am a big fan of masala
dosa, the rice pancake filled with curried potato with numerous dipping sauces,
and this I found in abundance in Little India, a nine-block neighborhood near
the ferry to the mainland. So tired of white rice and noodles! At one restaurant, they called
me 'auntie.' I sure prefer it to 'oma' (grandmother)!
I rented a bicycle for a day and a night, mainly to find where
to buy a train ticket to
Thailand. With much help and advice and hours of wild goose chases, I
finally found a tiny office by the ferry to the mainland past a gauntlet of
food sellers. The young Muslim widow and mother who set me up for my next
adventure doesn't trust men and vows never to marry again. I had to vacate the
hostel at noon, catch the 1 pm ferry for the 2:30 overnight train to Bangkok.
She also let me know I needed Thai money to buy food on the train. Though money
exchange shops were everywhere, I had trouble finding them on my last hectic
morning and got a very poor rate. At the train station after the ferry was a
far better rate and even on the train it was possible to change money. And the
train food was lousy and overpriced!
Meanwhile there were things to see, temples galore, and the Penang Botanical Garden, established in
an old quarry in 1884, a long bus ride away. It was good to get out of the
crush of vehicles into some nature. I climbed a rainforest jungle trail to the
top of a hill where the British originator, Charles Curtis, once had a home. No
shortage of monkeys and joggers in the tropical heat. By the end of the
afternoon it was a jogging convention so you know some Malaysians are health
conscious.
There was more to see in Penang than I had time to investigate,
a 33 meter reclining Buddha, a narrow gauge train to the top of the mountain, a
floating mosque, fishing villages and beaches, snake temple, firefly sanctuary
and spice gardens. The native I met in the Malacca hostel urged me to visit the
blue mansion. On the last morning I tried, but the guided tour exceeded my
pocketbook, and I had a ferry to catch to a train. I'd hoped to meet a
Malaysian couchsurfing host coming to Penang to get his car repaired, but it
didn't work out.
I've been reading T. C. Boyle's Riven Rock, about the mental illness of Stanley McCormack of
Chicago wheat reaper fame, and this kept me occupied on the train. Everyone had
to disembark at the border, sans luggage, for customs, always nerve-wracking,
but the Thai visa was free. The meals were plastic wrapped porcelain and delivered
to your seat, but not tasty.
I had booked three nights online at ETZ hostel in Bangkok and
the directions were easy, the subway roomy, modern and air-conditioned, with a
metal scanning station and uniformed female guard to look in your bags and salute
you with a smile. Half price for seniors. The hostel was clean and new, each
floor white with painted bunks and accents in red, green or yellow, with
kitchen, lounge, computers, and widescreen TV beneath the roof. Noisy British
males filled the place with liter beer bottles. You had to doff your
shoes and the bathrooms were always wet. Towels are extra in Asia! I make do
with my Shammy.
Since the hostel was near the largest city park, I strolled over
to Lumpini past the horrific traffic and finally found an entrance. There
was a free orchestra concert playing in the middle of the green
space. Everyone stood still as the national anthem played. I sat on a rock
listening to Andrew Lloyd Weber until I was attacked by ants. There was a body of
water with pedal boats for rent. It grew dark and I wandered home.
My first morning at the hostel, having coffee, I met a lovely
Chinese girl (I mistook her for Japanese!) Lina
is a teacher at an international
school in Peking, who invited me to join her at the weekend market for some
serious shopping. She had Euros that were losing value fast, and everything is
much cheaper than in China. A slim but enthusiastic gourmand, she and I had
many meals and snacks, cocoanuts and pad thai together. She wore a flowered
headband and bought crazy yellow sunglasses, which made her look like a 'stupid
Japanese girl,' she laughed. And heavily discounted winter coats from a Korean
outlet near a huge shopping mall. I bought turquoise earrings (one of which I
lost today) and a long-sleeved shirt covered with a Frieda Kahlo self-portrait,
and odd green pants. My luggage grows heavier and heavier!
We had to move, the hostel was booked the next night. She had
stayed at another one before going to the beach at Phuket, which she said was a
waste of time and money. So we took the train 2 stops to Queen Sikirit (I say
'secret') Convention Center and dragged our goods down an alley with a dirty
canal and into another alley in a treeless neighborhood. It was 10 baht cheaper
and the dorm rooms were bigger, most of the clientele Asian. One of the workers
lived permanently in our dorm. There was a box of free left behind shampoo and
such in the lobby, hot and cold water, a fridge, and on the second floor a
place full of pillows to watch movies and TV and a bank of computers.
We set off for a big shopping center. Lina's cellphone charger
wire had suddenly cracked and she needed to replace it. We explored a large
food court in the basement. There was a 'ladyboy' or drag queen serving at one
of the stalls. Lina wanted to catch a drag show badly. And a floating market.
We climbed the staircase over the highway to another mall with a Tesco but
couldn't find the proper cord in any of the stores. She can call China on her
phone and do everything on the Internet. She doesn't trust 'public' computers
to book with a credit card.
The Grand Palace of
Bangkok is a must-see. Lina had already been, and went shopping with a new
Chinese acquaintance the next day. I took the train to the end of the line, Hua
Lamphong, which is the main train station, skirting Chinatown. I should have
bought my ticket then to Chiang Mai! I ran into a German girl from the hostel;
together we took a hot city bus to the Grand Palace. (Lina believes in taking
the much cheaper buses than the air-conditioned subways, from which you see
nothing but commercials on video and your fellow passengers.) I walked to the
wharf to see the tourist boats and catch a snack. Near the grounds a man was
telling tourists the place was closed, monks were in there praying, but it was
a story to divert them to other places. I was dressed respectably, long sleeves
and pants, socks in my sandals, but you can borrow a sarong to look decent if
you must. I spent too long
in a museum of gold teapots and betelnut containers, little imagining what
awaited me outside - brilliant temple after temple, gold or ornate mosaic,
large dragons or Buddhas, each one outdoing the previous one. Everyone
was snapping away.
There were even orange-garbed monks sightseeing. One building
held many Buddhas to admire, another was devoted to the good works of beautiful
Queen Sikirit. She was a beauty who in the '60's graced the best-dressed lists.
A previous monarch had discouraged native dress and the queen encouraged
villagers whose income ended with the rice harvest to revive their silk-weaving
traditions. She hired designers to reinterpret traditional clothing into
shimmering gowns she wore nearly 50 years ago. They are displayed in her
museum, along with videos and testimonials of her meeting villagers to revive
their crafts and improve their living. Her charity is called SUPPORT. I have
never seen a photograph of her husband, the bespectacled king, smiling. She
wears bright red lipstick but has lost her girlish figure of the Kennedy days.
Who has not?
When I got back to the hostel, an American who plans to open his
own hostel in Burma (now Myanmar) told me there was a Couchsurfing gathering
that night and gave me directions. Also to the Burmese embassy. My online
research told me visas to Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos would cost too much for
the short time I have left, so I decided to see the newest hotspot before tourists
ruin it. Save the rest of Southeast Asia, including China, Korea and Japan, for
2015! I took the train to the Skyway, a newer line high in the air, with no
senior discount, and found dozens of Couchsurfers at an ever-growing long table
at an outdoor restaurant in Cocowalk. I sat with a French man longing for a
cigarette, a Mexican girl who married an American and they'd just lost their
house in California; a Russian, a man who promised me a beer if I could guess
his nationality (I couldn't; we had the same haircut) and a Jamaica-born
Floridian I was later to meet again on the train to Chiang Mai.
So I treated myself to a liter of Thai beer and peanuts from a
hawker.
I headed home and just a hundred feet from the hostel, two street dogs I'd seen
being stroked in the afternoon got an attitude, started barking at me, and
though I acted cool and did not rush, they both bit me, one inside my right
knee, the other through my dress on my right hip. They let me go and I
told the Chinese guy in the lobby always on his computer to watch out for them.
He said he grew up with a lot of stray dogs and the thing to do is crouch down
to their level and confront them. (Someone else said they'll then go for your
jugular!)
Upstairs at the row of computers I warned people, and they
thought I should go to the hospital. What trouble! Finally in the room I told
Lina about it and the Thai girl who lives there immediately called her boss,
Chinese Iata, who came around in her
truck to drive me to a nearby hospital. They dogs did not seem rabid,
but...she'd had trouble with them before, they'd bitten a neighbor and another
hosteler, and the owner had a business on the street, a Mercedes, but a
reluctance to muzzle or take home the street dogs he liked. She'd previously
called the dog pound but he insisted he'd adopted the dogs and given them
shots. The emergency department, unlike any I've seen in the States, was empty
of customers. They dressed my wound, gave me a tetanus shot, a course of
antibiotics, and an appointment for the next day. Also an adhesive guard to
keep it dry in the shower. But it took the dressing off when you removed it!
The next morning one of her employees took me down the street to
the business of the dogs' owner. Iata was sitting waiting for him, and I joined
her. We watched a very large fish (for prosperity) in a large fish tank, and
the ten uniformed employees at their computers, doing his import export
business. After a while he came in, and I noticed Iata saying "KA" a
lot, presumably a polite honorific, but the discussion became louder. He swore
he'd had the dogs treated but didn't come up with the paperwork. He would pay
the hospital bills. Even the rabies shots.
I'd been planning to go to the Burmese embassy for my visa. Iata
knew they closed at noon and handed me 200 baht and called a taxi. I knew how
to get there by the trains but I would never make it. It was Thursday and I
risked having to stay in Bangkok past Monday if I didn't apply that day. I rode
in a scarlet pink taxi, watching the meter, and it went past 100 baht ($3). I
would take the trains back and give her the change (she wouldn't take it). The
visa office was a madhouse. I filled in my form, luckily had grabbed 2 visa
photos and a tattered photocopy of my passport. Someone had brought a gluestick
which we all borrowed to affix our photos. I didn't have enough Thai money to
pay to get it done by the morrow and they wouldn't take my dollars. The banks
closed at noon. I raced into the sunshine and dashed across eight lanes of
speeding traffic to a bank. The ATM was closer than the bank. Back I sped
across the highway to the visa office to return the next day for my visa to
Burma!
Iata took me to the hospital two more times. She told me her sister
had owned the building her hostel was in, it was apartments, and wanted to sell
it. Iata got it for nothing but put millions of baht into it. She manages
condominiums in Bangkok. Her married nephew was becoming a monk for a month,
not seeing his wife in that time, and the family was witnessing his ordination.
There were lots of New Year's preparations, cooking for three days, offerings
in every home for the ancestors, fake money and cars and gifts ritually burning
- fake but still costly...and she had to give money to her younger nieces and
nephews. My dressing was changed again. Lina and I took an evening walk in
search of dinner, climbing dreary stairs over highways. I bought a big plastic
bag full of lime juice. Was that why I had diarrhea all night and hardly slept?
I lost track of the trips to the bathroom I made. Several times I had to
frantically clean the bed. Happiness is a dry fart!
I rested the next day but had to eat. Lina's bed was booked so
she had to move back to ETZ. I was afraid of dehydrating and losing
electrolytes. In the evening I met the blond German girl and we took to the
streets in search of dinner. We found a night market that was a true horror.
Chickens! Alive, dead, in between, the sidewalk slick with greasy filth,
vegetarianism beckoning. I wanted pad thai but couldn't find it. Back and forth
we traipsed, finally I settled on a soup but lost it to the gutter halfway through.
She gave me some white bread and I had peanut butter and jelly. The next
morning Iata recommended I drink a 'spy'; she reached into the fridge of drinks
for sale and gave me a Sprite.
I finally got to the train station and the trains were sold out!
I bought a sleeper a day later for Chiang Mai, earlier in the evening than I
wanted, arriving in the wee small hours, but it was all that was
available. Lina and I were to meet again but she didn't show. Later she
called to say she'd been stuck in Chinatown, could we meet in the evening? I
opted to chill out on pillows with the hostel's many DVDs. I saw "Due
Date" and part of "Bad Teacher" before dozing off.
One more day of sightseeing. I had a ticket left over from the
Grand Palace, of a mansion in another part of the city. Conflicting opinions
set me in the wrong place and I had to take a taxi to get there. The royal
wooden Vinmanmek mansion was full of
Chinese tour groups. We had to leave our cameras and backpacks in lockers and
our shoes at the entrance. It was impressive but the visit to the Coronation
building was overwhelming.
Golden thrones, jewel-encrusted elephant tusks, huge bas-relief
religious murals, and in the basement, Queen Sikirit's collection of elaborate
embroidered pictures of animals and forest scenes. But I had to rush to a taxi
to the subway, to the hostel for my luggage, back on the subway to the train
station, and the evening sleeper to Chiang Mai.
Lucy, a
retired American occupational therapist and couchsurfing host, had been booked
but since I was delayed, had a free bed for me. In the morning I frantically
fed coins into a public phone several times until I understood the directions
to give a taxi driver to her neighborhood. Somehow brand-new air conditioned
taxis in Bangkok cost a fraction of a broken down truck taxi from the train
station in Chiang Mai. The grumpy driver did call Lucy, who met us on her
scooter at a dead end past the university and cursed the overcharging
driver in Thai and insisted he follow her and drop me off at her house a few
blocks away. Lucy had designed her beautiful spacious home with a large green
backyard leading to a pond with koi in it (3 survived to grow large of about a
hundred). Two backpacking Lesbians were just leaving and I read Lucy's sheet of
instructions: minimizing plastic, squeegeeing the shower afterwards, no
cooking...but she provided breakfast! She is a volunteer English teacher of 73
with a progressive lung disease, a personal trainer, and plans to live on the
first floor when her health deteriorates. Report on Burma ... To
be continued....!
--
--
ALexa
Posted on Facebook on 14 or 15 February
Flying to Burma tonight (Myanmar) with a one hundred dollar bill. VISA card decided to stop working. Call the bank (on the other side of the world)! -- follow up on Facebook reported her VISA card was back in action.
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