Today is our last day in Malaysia, we are flying to Bangkok this afternoon.

After more bus rides, one night and a speeding boat carrying us across we reached the Perhentian islands.

Program: beach and ocean.

Which is exactly what we need for 4 days, until we ran out of money (island = remote = no ATMs) We thought the room would cost us much less but we arrived on a Friday and all was booked except something triple the price we expected to pay…. we liked it so much though we didn’t bother moving to a cheaper place later on, just stayed a shorter time.

The ride back on the boat was interesting. First of all, the boats carrying people from the islands to the mainland don’t go up to a jetty, when you arrive on (or leave) the island a small boat (rowing boat size, but with a motor) driven by a 10 year old comes to pick you up. So you try to transfer from one boat to the other without falling in the water with your packsack (no step or any passerelle), and the kid brings you to the shore for 2 RM (about 60 cents). The days we were lounging on the beach we watched them, and some take so many people the back almost goes underwater. But he, easy man! So we left the island, and since there are many companies offering the boat transfer to the mainland, we ended up side by side with another one. Then the race started….who will make it there first?! You should have seen the boats, going up in the air and SPLASH down! And vrooooom and splash again! Our boat won. Our bums were a bit sore though.

Our next destination was to be Penang, on the west coast of peninsular Malaysia. We took an overnight bus there, and since we hadn’t had any dinner we had some good old peanut butter sandwiches. Bad idea. I guess I didn’t mention that since a week or so I had been having stomach cramps every time I ate something, especially at night, and had to get up to go to the toilet in the night for an explosion. So there I am, sitting in the bus, having stomach cramps from hell, and there is no toilet on board. Ye!

Lucky me the bus stopped to tank and I could run out and tell the driver I NEEDED to go to the bathroom. For the record: squat toilets are not that uncomfortable actually. Even for major events.

When the bus arrived in Penang at 5h30 in the morning we had of course bags under the eyes and thought we’d need to waste time in the street until anything opened up, but no! 2 French suggested we share a taxi into town, and we could just follow them to the hotel they had booked and which allowed early check in. So no hanging out on the street, we could zzzz peacefully in a proper bed.

Since then we’ve been walking around Georgetown and enjoying good food here.

Now we’re off to Bangkok.

I still need to tell you about Remi at KFC, remind me if I forget about it….