Georgetown, Malaysia

Our second stint in Thailand was an incredible mix of great food, amazing friends, and plenty of sunshine and beach time. Will is writing all about it, but since we were there for over a month (!!!), that's a lot of typing. So, let's keep this party moving and skip ahead. Can't wait for how we spent our time in Thailand? OK, ok... here's the Reader's Digest Condensed Version:

Beach, cocktails, laundry, beach, swim, massage, see old friends, ocean, drinks, beach, diving, pool, make new friends, libations, beach, pool, pool, pool, beach, dive, drink. Oh, and we ate some exceptional food, too.

We certainly did not experience much of the culture Thailand has to offer, but don’t worry, we have another trip planned to travel through the north, where many cities and villages are sprinkled with Thailand’s history.

Ok, so fast forward to the end of February. We'll start on the mini bus from Krabi, Thailand to Hat Yai, Thailand. The shuttle bus was jammed full and hot, delivering us to the trainstation 15 minutes after the last train departed. That's just about the amount of time we wasted waiting for an impromptu delivery by our bus driver, a lovely unplanned stop (this isn't uncommon in Thailand. Many of the drivers pulled over for breakfast or lunch unannounced, never extending an invitation). We weren't pleased, but we made due, stopping by a Chinese New Year celebration. I ate sticky rice and mango for dinner. I suppose it really wasn't all that bad.

We left on the super early train the next morning. I was extremely sad to be saying farewell to our time in Thailand.

We met a young man from Wisconsin and rode the train into Butterworth, Malaysia (yes, I wanted to eat pancakes the entire trip), chatting about his service work with small towns throughout Malaysia. He assisted in getting us from the train to the ferry, where we could cross over to Georgetown, our planned destination, and paid for our ferry ticket when no ATM was available. We shared a taxi that dropped us off on the way to his place, and bid farewell to our generous and helpful friend.

No where booked, we started walking around the busy streets to find a home. We were in the triad of Chinatown, Little India, and the popular backpackers block, so guesthouses and restaurants were abundant. We found an incredible little spot, breakfast and ‘free-flow’ coffee included and air-conditioned. They only had twin beds, but the price was right and the room cool, so we took it, dripping with sweat from the heat and hauling our packs around town.

Georgetown is an amazing little city across the waterway from Butterworth in the north of Malaysia. Occupied by the British for years, the streets are lined with colonial architecture. It doesn’t really feel like Southeast Asia when you look around.

Our neighborhood was incredible. With Chinese New Year celebrations in full swing, many of the shops in Chinatown would close early or remain closed over the holiday, which didn’t bother us, since we greatly favored Little India. We strolled through the hawker-dotted streets, grabbing bites of Indian food here and there and popping into shops to scour their bangle bracelets and binids. The smell was fantastic, cardamom and curry wafting with the wind. We enjoyed our first banana-leaf meal, a mound of rice and mix of curries and gravies slopped right onto a hearty banana leaf, all the fixings framing the meal, and dug right in with our fingers in lieu of utensils. Not only a cheap dinner, but a very filling meal. We enjoyed it a few times, and quickly learned one was enough to split, leaving room for the sugary, sweet little desserts we nibbled on from one corner vendor. Not surprisingly, the coconut flavor was our preferred nightly sugar fix, forgoing the milk option unless coconut wasn’t available.

We did some research and planning while enjoying our bottomless coffee, unfortunately waiting too long to confirm we planned to stay another night. Our room was rebooked, so we moved next door to a similar set up, minus the breakfast plus an en-suite bathroom and double bed. We quickly got situated and went exploring.

Built right on the water, a jetty market juts directly into the ocean. We braved the intense heat and crowds, making our way down to the waterfront and perusing the little shops floating on the dock. It was too hot and too crowded to stay long, so we moved on.

Georgetown is great- there isn’t really one big site or event to see or do. It’s my favorite type of place to visit, since without any knowledge or planning, you can just go and experience it. Not surprisingly, I prefer the spontaneity of an adventure in lieu of planning for one. Around ever corner, a cute shop or street-art landmark waited to be discovered. We bounced from corner to corner, searching for the very street-art that Georgetown is famous for, snapping pictures as we went. We stopped in a little bakery, bustling with a crowd, and purchased a few sweet treats to keep us going strong.

Will had a bit of heat rash, and his arms were puffy and itchy, so we made our way home to cool off, the best medicine for heat rash and a wonderful excuse in his expense to enjoy the aircon we’d paid for. Cooled down and refreshed, we headed back out to continue exploring.

The city is adorned with cats. There are cat murals, cat street art, cat sculptures, cat post cards, cat souvenirs, cat apparel, and, of course, cats all over the city. Lucky for me, I LOVE cats. And what better way to commemorate your love for cats than to spend an afternoon in a cat café? Yes, you read that right. A café, filled with coffee and pastry goodness, with little fluff balls running all over. This was better than the beaches of Thailand!

We spent our afternoon enjoying the well-cooled café, iced coffee, and 5 cats that called The Cat Café home. We flirted with one particularly friendly fellow, were fooled by an ever-sleeping orange tabby that proved to be fake upon further exploration, and tickled and cuddled the cats until our hearts content. The café was very clean, with strict rules and adoring staff that clearly considered these funny felines part of their work family. We had a terrific time with the tabby’s.

Sprinkled throughout Georgetown are little post-card shops, housing all the fixings to write, decorate, and mail fun notes to friends and family. We spent some time procuring the perfect post card, writing a sentiment, adding plenty of goofy stamps, and left it in the hands of the kind woman who said our little recipient would get it in 2 weeks time (and she recieved it 4 weeks later, post birthday! But what 4 year old would even care?!).

The next morning, we grabbed breakfast at a great café called Mugshot, enjoying a nutella and banana dressed bagel, reading the paper (which I later discovered was 2 weeks old... all the headlines were still news to me), and did some work planning our next stop. We checked out of the hotel and stored our bags at the front desk so we could run to the bus station and purchase our tickets for the bus that night.

What should have been a 25 minute errand slowly turned into a 3 hour ordeal, resulting in serious miscommunication and what I can only assume was the wrong bus to the wrong place. We eventually got our tickets, guaranteeing our spot on the bus, and waited eons in the heat to get back on the wrong bus to get to our neighborhood. Annoyed and sweaty, we finally made it, grabbed our packs, and spent the afternoon loitering at the same cute Mugshot coffee house, borrowing wifi and staying cool until we departed to the bus station.

The ferry ride from Georgetown to Butterworth is free, and we filed on with the other locals, riding by moonlight to the bus terminal. We grabbed a plate of mixed meat and rice from the food stall area and waited for our night bus to whisk us away to our next stop.

From Georgetown, with Love,

Sara + Will