Pulau Penang, Malaysia

Oct 22 -23 Pulau Penang, Malaysia: Tropical Fruit Farm, Pooling, Georgetown

Today is the day when Jonna and Reija had back to Bangkok. Their classes were due to start on Monday so they would be on time to settle in. With no classes now it's up in the air what Jonna will end up doing. Staying in Bangkok or fleeing the floods. Reija is due in the South of Thailand soon anyway, so just to survive in Bangkok for a few nights.

Waking up in a Suite is nice. Being greeted by a lavish breakfast buffet nicer. We chitchat, pack, discuss plans and walk along the beach until it's time for the two to head to the airport. Two our surprise we meet two more exchange students from Bangkok University in the Lobby, flying back with the same flight. Asia just seems too small to handle all of us. The coincidence to end up in the same place at the same time... in the same Hotel!

Laura and I see them off and spend some quality time on the beach. I am planning to meet my friends from FH Kufstein later and since Laura isn't feeling that much better yet she decides to stay and rest. The journey to meet my friends is one for the books. It would be quite close but I never expected such bad traffic on an island. The 25 minutes distance takes about an hour and a half to be covered. I get on a bus in front of the Hotel – 2 R only to the City Center, Komtar, including free Wi-Fi and chilling AC. At Komtar I need to switch to another bus to get to Gelugor, where they are staying, close to the University Sains Malaysia (USM) in Penang. A local lady takes me under her wing and makes sure I get on the right bus and get out at the right stop. How wonderfully nice. She also tells me a bit about the island and to watch my back for Philippino pickpockets. No matter where you go, it always seems to be the foreigners that steal from tourists. I finally get their and Martin is nice enough to pick me up from the bus stop. Altogether six starving people have been waiting for me to go to dinner. I feel bad that it took so long to get here and all of us are starving but hey, what are you to do, stuck in traffic. The restaurant of choice is a Chinese a few minutes walk from their home. Food is good but unspectacular but we do catch up a lot on travel tips, Malaysia vs. Thailand, Germany and Austria. What's same, what's different. What kind of classes do we have, what are the particulars about the Malays, what about the Thais. What's going on with the floods and what I am planning to do, or not do over the next weeks. I give plenty of travel tips for Thailand and Cambodia, since some of them are heading that way sooner or later. I also find out that they have fewer classes to take at USM but they are more work intensive than in Thailand and more is expected of them. Malay students are also hard to work with in group work so some things are same, some are quite different. The coming in late and having not much respect for the teachers seems to be similar too as are the freezing cold classrooms.

There is so much more to discuss so we move the chatting to Sabine, Juliane and Henrick's apartment to talk over a few beers, 15 stories high with fantastic views over the island and Penang bridge. Nice apartment, spacious, cozy and very, very affordable. I would have loved something like that in Bangkok. I miss the kitchen most of all. This feels more like a home compared to my barren Bangkok room. More talking and talking and the time flies by. Since buses stopped running they call a student Taxi, called so as they charge more reasonable prices for students and the ride home does not cost me an arm and a leg as it otherwise may have. Nice to talk 'Austrian' again and catch up with people from 'home'. It also makes me relax that they offered that I could stay with them for a while, instead of going back to Bangkok, and figuring out my next move. And to keep the Oktoberfest on mind that's happening on the weekend and Deepawali, the Indian festival of lights, during the week that I would miss if I head out on Tuesday....

After a great breakfast buffet we set out for the Tropical Fruit Farm which is hidden somewhere in the mountainous (well I would call them hilly) terrain of Penang. Since we are told a Taxi is only about 20 Ringgit to get there we decide to do that and then just take the bus back. Welcome to Asia, things are always different than they seem. The Taxidriver quotes us 50 R (about 12 €) to go to the Tropical Fruit Farm. We haggle down to 45 and since there's not so much other choice we just take the drive. It is quite far and very scenic. Past all the luxury hotels of Batu Feringgi, the Shangri-La and Hard Rock Hotel and many beautiful high rises. There are cliffs and from big to small beaches everything around. Scenic views abound.

The drive goes up and up and up till we are about 200m (I am guessing) above sea level. Through levels of palm trees and past the gigantic water reservoir of the island. Now we are in kind of a jungle and it's beautiful. The Tropical Fruit Farm is further up the hill and once the entrance is paid (adult 28 Ringgit, Students – only with official International Students ID card – 24 R) another shuttle bus goes farther up the mountains and our expert guide Saw starts explaining us about all the various fruits they have. Most of the fruits I have already eaten but there are quite a few that I have never even heard of. There is the Magic Fruit, 3 kinds of dragonfruit, 20 something kind of bananas, pineapples, figs, guavas, durian, starfruit, jackfruit, many kinds of apples and many other kinds most of which I forgot the name of. But with every fruit our guide had a story to tell which was so interesting I could have listened for hours. The only thing that made me wish the tour was over where the mosquitoes and damn did they bite. They appeared out of nowhere, I didn't even know there were mosquitoes until I had a few bites already. Nasty suckers! This time I wasn't prepared with any repellant and had to suffer full time and do my very best not to scratch non-stop.

But the tour fortunately/ unfortunately did come to an end and with the ticket you get to choose one fruit smoothie and have your go at a fruit buffet. Since I had tried all the fruits at the fruit buffet and smoothie stand already the guide suggested to go for a different concoction of pineapple with nutmeg and plum paste. I think the plum taste was what made it so horrible. I could not finish the Smoothie. Yikes! The fruits were plentiful but only what was in season at the time so I had tried them all already, unfortunately nothing new there to challenge my tastebuds.

Another bus brought us back down again and lucky enough we just enquired that we had two minutes left to make a run for the only bus that comes here and apparently runs only every two hours. That's what I call luck. So we hustle and catch the 501 bus to the last stop where we can switch to a 101 that takes us straight back to the hotel. 2 R each bus makes for the two 8 R instead of 45. Not a bad deal at all.

It's chilling at the pool (and travel researching for me) for now until we get ready to start discovering Georgetown. I am almost a Pro with the busses now (you have to be at those taxi prices) and take one straight to the Jetty (ferry) terminal to start our sightseeing tour from there. Or so we though. It starts pouring rain. My goal was to check on ferries to Indonesia but even after walking 15 minutes in the pouring rain to the ferry agencies all are closed. No information today. F.... Another 15 min back and a bus to Komtar, where the main bus terminal is and a lot of shopping malls which protect from the rain. I quickly saw the clocktower and the Fort but no real sightseeing got done in Georgetown today. The first mall we get too is full with cheap stuff. Bags and Shirts for 10 R (2.5 €) but all in Asian sizes. No shopping for me today.

And since I have practically decided to keep traveling the 5 additional weeks I can't buy anything anyway since I have to carry it all on my back.

An unexciting Malaysian dish of Hor Fun (I had much better already) in the food court, some fantastic Kaya (Malaysian coconut jam) balls and little shopping for Laura later we hop on another bus back to catch up on all Bangkok related news.

There's currently no water in the supermarket, but plenty of juices and booze. The markets are also running low on perishables such as milk and yogurt as the delivery trucks are not coming through. Plenty of No-Haves in all restaurants, even more than usual. But otherwise business as usual in Bangkok center. No water in sight, even Chatuchak weekend market was operating as normal. I am grateful for the on sight updates as the news media is portraying catastrophe in all of Bangkok. Yes it is horrible and I feel extremely sad for the people affected but I think that the panic the media creates through hyping it up ever more makes it just so much worse. I hope that everyone is and remains safe and keep waiting for updates how my 'hometown' fares during this very difficult time. I can consider myself lucky to be far away at the moment.