On the Road in Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore

Road trip!

So since my roommate is from Malaysia, I wanted to get myself over there next vacation. We ended up planning a road trip and trying to get people on board which brought in Ramsey, an Ultimate Frisbee friend of Keat's. Last minute a nurse from Finland found her way into the car as well and we were off.

Keat's mom was kind enough to lend us her car. They drive on the left side in Malaysia, which felt weirder than you'd think. So it looks like I'm driving in the photo above, but I can't drive a car!

After picking up Heli, our team medic, we headed to Ipoh, a nice little town known for their white coffee. After having some great chicken rice we went somewhere for white coffee, then crossed the street and had white coffee there as well. Then we walked around a bit before getting back on the road.

I'll put all the food shots at the end.

Soy milk with black grass jelly. They call the drink a Michael Jackson, can you guess why?

Hey look! A shark within a shark wearing a pink tiara...

Just some guys you don't want to mess with.

That night we headed to Keat's hometown, Taiping. Stopped for some dim sum and bao and a bathroom break at KFC. We passed some temples on the way but they were closed. We spent too much time eating that we really missed a lot of sights!

It's a house (I think) right in the rock.

The dogs aren't allowed in the house!

Having breakfast by Keat's old school. Said he's sneak out a lot to come eat here.

Later we went to Penang, an island of food. Well, the whole country is great for food really.

Heli found this at the beach.

Oh yes, your mouth is watering.

At night we met a couchsurfing host who somehow had space for 4 people. She took us to this huge temple which we were late to again, 15 mins before closing. I was a bit disappointed I couldn't get some good shots, but there were tons of people anyway. It was all decorated with lights and lanterns for Chinese New Year.

Then our host, who went by the name YY, took us for 1am dinner at this famous Indian place that had a photo of Anthony Bourdain. 'Nuff credibility for me! I ate a giant prawn. Next morning we parted with Heli who was out of vacation, and headed to the border. Stopped at a street market on the way to eat.

Got to try durians! They're good, the smell is strong but I don't think it's THAT bad.

Angry Bird sticks. Yep. Those little winged bastards are everywhere.

Messing around with the locals.

Keat and Ramsey enjoying food with peanuts. ):

After setting up at a hotel near the border we got some food, on the way back we crossed a supermarket with a bowling alley. It was under 2$ per person, and they didn't even make you wear those annoying clown shoes! However the machine kept dropping our pins and messing up our already shitty scores.

Time for bed, tomorrow Thailand! Before crossing the border we had to get insurance for the car.

I feel like half the words in Malaysia are just badly spelled English. Note: that isn't English.

Our first night was in the little town of Satun. Thai people are really friendly.

Wall art at the guesthouse we stayed at.

Having dinner and trying to count the ladyboys on motorcycles. We were quite disappointed to not see any yet.

What a deal!... Better than the last place that is only 51.8646% off.

Having some of the family beer. Actually, it's a pretty terrible beer.

So our first day in Thailand we had stopped on the highway for lunch. No longer having an interpreter we just had to sort of point at what we wanted which was thankfully on display, and then I had to try to ask if it had peanuts in Thai because the lady serving couldn't read. She was able to understand me, though, and we had some great food. Behind us was another guy eating who spoke a tiny bit of English. he was friendly and we chit chatted a little, as much as we could.

That night in Satun we checked out the market. At one stall we stopped at for food the lady asked us where we're from and all that blah-blah. We then asked her where we could find some good food and after giving up trying to explain to us where to go, she decided to meet us the next morning. We picked her up at Tesco with her sister, and stopped in the store to buy some water. Inside we run into the guy we met at lunch the day before, who says hi again as we walk by. Later our new friend's (Janice) sister starts talking to the guy, turns out, they're old highschool classmates! Small world moment. So after being mindblown by that we went to get some food. Man, it was spicy. I couldn't try half the things because they had peanuts too ):

A really nice outdoor restaurant with tables under huts. They had this hilarious bird that screams like a little girl too.

So we dropped them off again and headed for our final destination, Songkhla. That's the only place we spent more than 1 night at while traveling. Finally, we saw some ladyboys and had more great food. Got some Thai massages (6$ for an hour!) and attempted to buy beer. Yes, attempted. Doesn't sound so hard but we were short on Thai baht and didn't want to have to pull out more money the night before we leave. Going for what looked like a cheaper beer we picked up 3 large, glass bottles (glass bottles, everyone things beer right?) of Siam Sato. Proud of ourselves we head back to the guesthouse and prop ourselves down with the owner and urge him to have a glass with us while asking which beer is better, Leo or Siam Sato? "Leo good, Siam Sato no beer." he said. "What?" Our hearts sank. We had bought 3 bottles of the weirdest rice wine, the first sip was ok but we had a lot to go through, and after a while it was like drinking onions and watery soy sauce. To finish it, we decided on playing some cards because nobody wanted to drink voluntarily.

Well I lost most of the games. It was so gross.

Time to head back! Originally we intended on taking 2 days to get back, but since we were using Keat's mom's car we decided to haul back in one go because she didn't have another one. Everything was fine  until about the last third of the trip when it started raining like no tomorrow. Pretty soon it got dark and at times we couldn't even see the road. We were freaking out, but after passing an accident we decided to get off the highway and find a town for the night. We couldn't find anything so ended up back on the highway a bit later, but it had calmed down. Later we passed a crane picking up a flipped semi. I was very glad when that was over.

The next day I went to meet...

We spent a day exploring Kuala Lumpur before heading to Singapore.

Wisdom beard stroke.

Batu caves, lots of monkeys there.

Boobs.

The monkeys weren't shy.

They get pretty close.

Lastly there was Singapore. A great city really, but I didn't take many photos there because, it was just a city. It's developed, like Korea, the people are very friendly, they use English which is such a relief, they have a good subway system, and the family of the friend we stayed with was super friendly and generous. We spent a relaxing 4 days there, ate LOTS of food and headed back home to the cold.

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Our friend's family took us out for chili crab, Singapore's most famous dish!

A friend also gave us tickets to Universal Studios. The Transformers ride was a blast!

Anyway, food time! And some miscellaneous shots. I had so much food I can't remember what everything is.

Delicious roti bread!

Chicken rice!

Fried carrot cake!

Dim Sum!

They call these ashtray noodles, because the guy making them smokes and ashes get into the food.

Green dessert stuff!

Uh... rice and stuff!

Laksa!

Noodles with chicken feet!

Duck rice!

Indian curry and rice, with a giant prawn!

Uh... more noodles!

Stuff I didn't eat!

More stuff I didn't eat!

Roti in square formation!

Good stuff!

Thai suff! The sausage was just like Lap Xeong

Friend pork. Kind of just tasted like french fries though.

Lots of Thai spicy food!

Cane juice.

Char Siew Noodlessss!

Prawn noodles!

Pepper crab!

Chili crab!

More noodles!

Getting breakfast.

Feel the rubber!

A funny old lady.

The crappiest floating market ever. So touristy.

Mmmmm, we ate bugs, if you didn't see it on facebook.

Never invite these guys out. They're pretty flaky.

We're on a boat!

Limbo on the beach.

If you scrolled this far, it was a great trip. I really was in food heaven, and being in Malaysia and Singapore is really a crazy multicultural mix. Funny thing, a lot of the stores in Chinatown in Malaysia were run by Indians. We met a lot of kind people and have lots of inside jokes to tell now. It makes me really excited about summer!