July 16- Penang, Malaysia

We arrived in Sukothai in the late afternoon on July 13 after a short flight from Chiang Mai (all of these places were still in Thailand, just in case you are confused.) Sukothai is a funny little town, similar to Siem Reap in that there is nothing to do but visit the nearby ruins. We were headed out to visit them the following day, so we took a dip in the hotel pool before heading out with our group for dinner.

That night, we took a new kind of transportation (we seem to be doing this every week or so now) called a 'songtel.' It is really just a big truck with bench seating placed along both sides of the truck bed. The roof was covered with a tarp, so we felt pretty secure or something.


The next morning, we hopped on bicycles and rode around Old Sukothai. Since we had already been to the current capital and the former capital of Thailand, we just had to see the original, which was Sukothai. Again we saw some pretty amazing ruins. It is remarkable how distinct the styles were of the monumental architecture. Some of the temples here bore resemblance to those we had seen in Cambodia, but there was an obvious Thai flavor to these.


We had a picnic lunch overlooking a reflecting pond adjacent to some of the ruins. It was really picturesque- sorry there is no picture.

After lunch, we hopped back in the van to head to the airport again. It was really a beautiful ride past all of the rice paddies.


This time, we flew from Sukothai back to Bangkok, our old stomping grounds. Back in Bangkok (yes for the third time), we battled the Friday rush hour traffic to Kanchanaburi, a couple hours west of the city. As far as we know, it could only be 2 kilometers outside of the city, but the traffic is just so insane.

We finally arrived in Kanchanaburi, and were in desperate need of some fresh air. Luckily, the town was laden with beer gardens, and of course, the ubiquitous lady boys. Surprised as you might be, we only opted to hang out in the beer gardens. This beer garden was truly agricultural (we had to get our daily fix of Thai culture) with chickens and pigs running around trying to steal our wasabi peas. We decided to call it an early night.

The hotel we stayed at in Kanchanaburi was one of our favorites. Jillian liked it a lot because the bathroom was sort of outdoors, which meant that it was always safe to go in, even after Ari. Ari liked it because the only English channel on TV was the Cartoon Network. It was a cool bungalow style hotel, with rustic accents made of tree stumps and bark, but with the best air conditioning we've had since we left home. We won't hold it against them that for some reason it took a half hour to make us toast for breakfast.

The next morning we learned about how little we knew about world history. We took a van ride to the Hellfire Pass Memorial that commemorates the 90,000 people that died building the Thai-Burma Railroad under the brutal Japanese occupation forces during World War II. Most of the people were POWs from Australia, the UK, and the Netherlands, with about 700 Americans. In addition, several thousand locals were conscripted to work on the railroad under conditions similar to the concentration camps in Europe. The men worked backbreaking 18 hour shifts, with little food and less clothing, blasting through the rock and clearing debris with their bare hands to make way for the train to come through the mountains. We had no idea of the vast scale of the Japanese brutality.

We walked through the woods, eventually coming to Hellfire Pass itself. It was so named by the workers building it, because at night the light of the torches cast evil shadows of the guards on the hollowed bodies of the men working below. The experience was haunting.


From there, we took a train ride on the actual track laid during the War. We got off and took a short van ride so we could beat the train and watch it cross the bridge over the River Kwai. Neither of us have seen the movie, but we've seen the bridge!


Back in Kanchanaburi, we visited the Jeath War Museum, which housed artifacts left by the prisoners of the Japanese occupation. Previous visitors to the museum had sent in newspaper clippings from around the world discussing the trauma and these were also on display. One former POW from the UK had painted graphic images of the disease and harsh conditions that ravaged the prisoners in the camps. From there we went to the War Cemetery, where many of the Dutch, British, and Australian POWs who had died during the railroad's construction were buried.

The next morning we woke up to pack our bags before heading back to Bangkok, and found a visitor. There was a two inch scorpion quietly perched on Jillian's bag. Jillian snapped a photo for Jacob Roday before promptly smashing it to bits (she got an 'after' photo too.)

We were back in Bangkok by late morning, and what better to do than to go shopping? We hopped into a cab to Chattachuk Weekend Market, for the best shopping under the Asian sun. There you can buy anything from Asian antiques to baby crocodiles, t-shirts to deep fried just about anything.

After doing some damage, we needed a serious fix of shawarma, so we headed back to Khao San Road one last time. Shoshana's treated us well and filled our bellies (because that hasn't happened on this trip!)

Last night, we went out to dinner with the group on a boat cruise up and down the Chao Phraya River. It was really peaceful to see the city all lit up and to spend a little more time with the people who weren't continuing on to Malaysia with us. Now that we have been shopping, packing is getting a bit trickier, so it took us a little while last night to finagle everything into our backpacks.

We got up super early this morning to catch our flight from Bangkok to Penang, Malaysia. Luckily, we got to the airport two hours before our flight only to find that Intrepid had booked us for the flight on the following day. We banded together and were able to change the tickets without too much trouble, thanks to a very generous Dutch boy.

The rest of the flight was pretty uneventful, although we slept the whole way on account of waking up at 4am, so who really knows if we missed any excitement. We arrived in Penang and were transferred to our hotel, right in the heart of Georgetown, the busiest city on the island.

Everyone else in the group decided to take a nap, but we were hungry so we went exploring. We walked down the street that the Lonely Planet had told us was Chinatown, but we were about fifteen years too late, and the Chinese had been replaced by the Muslim Malay.

We had an outrageously delicious (and cheap) Malay lunch, and then headed to the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion. The beautiful Chinese style mansion was built over 8 years in the 1880's, but had fallen into disrepair over the past several decades. In 1989, Fatt's youngest son died and the house was purchased by a local architect with deep pockets and an interest in restoring the home to its original splendor. The restoration was completed in 2001, and the house was a charming mix of traditional Chinese feng shui and Victorian European panache. It was painted a strikingly bright blue on the outside, and our guide told us that the paint came from ground up flower petals that had been boiled and reduced to a gentle organic paint.

After the mansion, we wandered around Little India, taking in all of the sights and smells. With all of the bright colors and delicious food, we know where we want to go on our next vacation...

On our way to the internet cafe, we were welcomed in to a Hindu temple and escorted from shrine to shrine by a gentleman who explained each deity and his/her respective significances. The shrine was beautiful, and everyone was warm and friendly to us.

Tonight, Ari busted the computer cafe. He says that it was because there were only four nails holding together the desk with two monitors and two computers on top. It's really because he has been hanging around Jillian too long.

Well, we did it! We are actually caught up with the blog! Make sure you check out all the old posts, because we added a lot of pictures tonight. We hope you enjoy them.

Lots of love,
Jillian and Ari