Malaysian memories

We cycle the last six miles in Thailand from Satun to the ferry dock where boats depart Thailand for the Malaysian island of Lankawi. I wear my knee length shorts and a conservative shirt instead of my usual tight-fitting bike short and tank top attire. Beads of sweat slyly expand into puddles. The sweat becomes a wet layer of Elmer’s glue and my shirt becomes a sheet of saran wrap clinging uncomfortably to me….

I was worried about cycling Malaysia. I had never been to an Islamic country before. Would the people judge us and not accept us? Would I have to cover myself and cycle in 90 degree heat fully covered? I shouldn’t have wasted the time to worry or write the previous sentences. It turned out that Malaysia was my favorite country out of all our travels in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Malaysia.

Memories that sparkle in my memory that are meant to be savored to the last drop, the last moment….

Witch costumes-- Will I have to wear one while biking? I see some women wearing long black robes, long black head scarves, and even long black scarves that cover their entire faces except for their eyes. I wonder how they eat and spy on a woman on the street corner stand slipping her spoon underneath her face cloth. I never see her smile, nor her curved nose, nor her curved body- just the blob of her burka that resembles a Halloween witch costume. However, men that accompany the women, wear typical western attire (shorts, tank-tops, t-shirts). It seems strange to me that only women cover themselves so carefully, but that men look just like men from the United States. I worry that they are offended by my hideous bike attire (tank-top, tight bike shorts). We spend our first nights in Malaysia on the island of Langkawi at a guesthouse owned by a Japanese/Iranian couple. The Japanese lady seems modern-- dressed in shorts and a t-shirt and always greets us with a smile and advice on the best cheap local restaurants and markets.
”As a tourist, am I offensive for not covering my body like the women that wear all black?” I ask her.

“No problem!” She replies kindly. “The women that wear all black are tourists from Saudi Arabia with a different more strict form of Islam. The Malaysian women usually just wear scarves that cover their hair and often wear just jeans and t-shirts or skirts. You will be safe and comfortable anywhere you go in Malaysia. No worry!”

Sea sick on the Indian Ocean- I sit calmly on the seat of the ferry-boat ready to write in my journal about our island adventures on Langkawi island. I imagine writing stories and stories and stories more during the three hour boat ride from the island to the mainland of Malaysia. At first, the ride is calm, smooth, gentle. I write about the Islamic attire of the women and am deep into my thoughts when a man begins to distribute black plastic bags. A wave breaks our determined forward route and shakes us sideways, then another wave, and another… I look out the window and feel terrified as I see monster hungry waves trying to swallow the boat. The boat bounces between them, surfacing after each one. People begin to use the bags followed by gagging sounds that I will save my reader from experiencing. I do not like boats, SAM I AM! Not in the Pacific, nor in the Atlantic, Nor anywhere, SAM I AM! I like the land, yes I do!

The never ending night jungle bike ride

Steve sinks in the sewer- We make it up the never-ending mountain in the lowest gear 1 and finally are overjoyed to see the warning fast decline sign… down, down, down, carefully in the pitch dark with just the small glow of our eternal light flash-light… Yes! Finally there are street lights signaling civilization in the distance. Then, the street lights welcome us as we cycle underneath them into a small town. We look up at the buildings for any English clues for “Hotel” or “Guesthouse” and BOOM! “OUCH!” I look behind me to see Steve’s leg caught in a sewer hole. The grate is just wide enough for his foot to slip through and his knee thick enough to catch his fall. Several people seem to pop out of the store fronts. “You needing help?” “We bring you to hospital?” “You ok?” “You leg broken?” One man picks up Steve’s bike. Another helps him up. We all watch eagerly as the evil sewer hole lets go of his leg. We let out a deep breath of relief as he takes a first step forward. A swollen knee, a few scratches, but nothing is broken. It was a moment that showed us the hospitality of the culture. People are people and they came to our rescue!

Iron legs and enjoying it! Southern Vietnam is mostly flat. Cambodia is flat. Southern Thailand is flat with a few gentle hills. Malaysia must be flat too. FALSE! We bike UP, UP, UP winding hill roads which reward us with beautiful views, lots of monkeys, and iron legs!

Jungle train inside the life of the locals

Trekking with the loved leaches- We thought leaches only lived in standing water, but they hang out on the jungle floor and join us on our six hour hike into the jungle and snuggle in between our toes. YUCK!

…Vines are braided like a little girl’s hair. Leaves are bigger than a giant’s head. Tree trunks tower majestically above our heads reaching to Jesus, Zeus, or Buddha. I take in the pure virgin forest air. My eyes trace the trunk up, up, up and hang on the canopy leaves above. “What is that?” Steve’s voice interrupts my focus above. He stares at a small slimy creature catapulting up his shoe. We stare at it in unison as it magically disappears through his sock. “Yikes!” We freeze in amazement and pull back the sock. Within thirty seconds the hideous creature (leach) catapults onto Steve’s shoe, slithers through the microscopic pores in his sock, and sticks its suction cup mouth onto his ankle. “I can’t pull it off!” “It really has a grip on me!”

“Salt!” I remember. “We need salt!”

“Where are we going to get salt in the jungle?” We look at each other, completely defeated by the small evil leaches.

Then, it dawns on me. “I have salted peanuts in the shell!”

I pop the shell open, eat the peanut inside, and place the salty shell on the head of the leach devouring my Steve. It detests the salt and lets go as Steve grabs it using a leaf and tosses it on the ground. We are saved by salted peanut shells and rainforest leaves!

Night jungle treks, safari- The strong glare of the flashlight temporarily paralyzes snakes, monkeys, birds, butterflies, spiders, stick bugs, sloths, wild cats and all sorts of jungle critters. Their shiny eyes glow and reflect from the flashlight beam.

Is this really the way to the capital? We saw more monkeys cycling to the capital city of Kuala Lumpur than while trekking in the jungle!

Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia- A mosaic collage of people together create a piece of beauty

Malaysia welcomed us with adventure, culture, friendly people, and mean leaches! We flew from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok, Thailand—Capital city hopping until catching our long flight homeward bound!

Made in Thailand...

MADE IN THAILAND

What is Thailand like? The travel guidebooks describe Thailand as the most developed country in South East Asia: a beach lover’s paradise, exotic fruits, and kind spirited people. This is only a part of Thailand. On bicycle we see EVERY corner. We feel and conquer every mile of the back roads and interact with the local people beyond the hotel fronted tourist boulevards.

While Pattaya gave us an eye opening experience into sex tourism, the ride from Pattaya around the Gulf of Thailand staying south of Bangkok taught us what “made in Thailand” really means. Industrial polluted stink grey concrete expressway. I felt like I was riding through Gary Indiana headed from Michigan to Wisconsin trying to avoid Chicago. While the ride was disgusting, it gave us a real picture of what Thailand really can be for many of its people beyond the tourist trail.

Getting dark around 6:30 p.m., we begin to worry. No hotels in sweatshop world.

“Hotel?” Steve asks a local outside a 7-11 store, holding his hands by his head as a form of sign language. The man nodds his head yes to our relief and points forward.

“How can there be a hotel anywhere near here?” I ask myself doubtfully. We cycle another ten minutes and nothing- only large shabby factories.

“Hotel?” Steve asks again, this time to a man parked on his motorcycle.

The man smiles and motions once again ahead.

“There must be something!” Steve says, “Everyone points us ahead.”

Dark, with a just a few dim street lights guiding our way. My butt hurst from the seat in spite of the hideous bike shorts and then bright flashing lights take away all my aches and replace it with hope. “Paris,” the sign reads.

“Maybe it is a hotel!” we pull our bicycles off the road.

“Hotel?” I ask the guard in front.

“Yes! You want room?” the guard replies with a smile.

I turn around to look at Steve and say, “Welcome to a luxury honeymoon suite in the middle of dumpsville!” The bed is circle shaped. The room is painted red and purple. We are served rice and stir fried vegetables in bed for just a few dollars on a silver tray! And the biggest irony…

“You wanna know something funny?” Steve asks after taking a cold shower.

“What?” I reply.

“My boxers say: MADE IN THAILAND on the tag.”

A dot called Pattaya

Have you ever been driving along on some long road trip desperate for a bathroom break, rest stop, or maybe it is nearing dark and your eyelids are heavy and it is time for a hotel. Whichever the occasion, you pull out the map and your search for the closest little dot in route indicating a town.

The dot labeled Pattaya

The sky is a flawless coat of baby blue—no splotches of white clouds. The sky is like a clear window… the sun has a strong heavy eye and it glares at us the entire day. I can feel the sun’s stare as it slyly turns my skin pink. At times I can see the ocean through the rows of palm trees to my left! My legs begin to complain about each rotation of the pedals. We stop at one of the many 7-11 general stores abundant in each town. A yogurt, a pack of peanuts and a large bottle of water provide petroleum for the body. A few more miles.. We look at the map. There is a big dot just a few more miles up on our route. It even looks like it is on the ocean front. PATTAYA labels the bold dot and becomes our destination for the day. Riding a bicycle through the country, I see and feel the changes in the land. I feel as if I have ownership over each mile. I pedal it, with my own power, and I conquer it. Yesterday’s ride, north, was hilly green and more remote. Suddenly in the last few miles, the hills are no longer riding with me. The two lane road multiplies into four lanes. Small humble bamboo huts on stilts have been replaced by massive luxury resorts and skyscraper condo buildings. We pull over on the gravel shoulder, sip some water. “Maybe this place, Pattaya, is actually in our guidebook,” I suggest. Steve pulls out the lonely planet guidebook.

“Pattaya is not in the index.”

“Let’s just go towards the waterfront. There are sure to be a strip of hotels and restaurants there!”

The countdown of the road markers is over. We are there. I feel a sense of accomplishment. I glance at the watch: 5:15 p.m. “By 5:45, I will be clean and showered,” I tell myself, eager to find a hotel. I search the signs and buildings for English words like, “hotel, hostel, or guesthouse. I see English letters and they spell, “Go-go Girls” and “Go-go Bar.” I see a foreigner. My first thought is to stop and ask if he knows of a good cheap hostel. He is an older male white foreigner—not the typical backpacker. Then another foreigner, and another. I look around to my right, my left, and behind me. The street is full of foreigners—all older white men and many of them are accompanied by young short beautiful Thai women. I glance down a side street. “Hotel” pulls at my attention. Two very sexy Thai young girls sit outside of the hotel in mini skirts.

“Maybe not.” I mumble

“Go-Go Bar”

“ “Girl Dancers Tonight!”

“Lady-Boy Bar”

“Night Dream Hotel” (all in English)

I feel as if I have somehow left Thailand and entered a different country. The road stops at a T in front of the ocean where it joins with a plam tree lined walkway. Beautiful palm trees, peaceful waves and sea, sexy young girls, and old wrinkly white men. I stand there leaning on my handlebars, surprised, shocked, a rude welcoming to the dot on the map: Pattaya. Little did we know that it was the sex tourism prostitute capital of Thailand! A wrinkled white hand reaches down and squeezes the butt cheek of the little Thai girl next to him as they walk around me. I am disgusted. In the moment, I hate Thailand. Lustful old white men, greedy girls, no integrity, anything for money…We stay in a cheap hotel and like every other hotel, there are sexy girls sitting in front advertising “massages.” We tell ourselves that it is just for one night. And the biggest irony: Steve would get sick in the night and we would be stuck in Sin City: Pattaya.

I walk to the English book store across the street from the hotel and a title, “My name Lon, you like me?” grabs at my attention. I read it while looking out of the hotel window, watching the strange white men interact with the beautiful Thai women. The book helps me UNDERSTAND (not to be confused with accept) the prostitute life. The white men are generally social outcasts, unattractive, lonely, or divorced men, yearning for love. The Thai women are better paid than any other job in Thailand. They make enough money to provide for their entire families. Parents even encourage their young beautiful daughters to become prostitutes so the family can have T.V., siblings can go to school, and the rest of the family can live well. Sometimes the white man wants to “rescue” the prostitute, marry her, and take her to his own country, but the nightly money is not the same. Some Thai women chose to stay in the prostitute life for the money. It is sad. It is complicated. I wish the world was just a long beautiful bike ride through lush green palm tree scenery for everyone.

Mud covered, we made it to Thailand!

I am way behind on my writing! I have been living in the moment and the world finds me in a small town of Thailand called Phang-Nga. I imagine going home and friends and family will ask, "So, where in Thailand did you go?" I will look back wide-eyed, take a minute to pull out a slur of strange letter combination from memory and finally, "Wattanaprong!" or "Hua Hin!" or "Pretchapuri-Khan!" will explode out of my mouth. It sounds like gibberish, and that is exactly what the Thai language is to me still- gibberish. I have learned only a few words such as Saw-wa-di-kah for hello if a girl is saying it. If a boy is saying hello, the ending on the word changes forming saw-wa-di-krap.

Unlike in my travels in Central and South America, here I have not a prayer of pronouncing anything. Wattanaprong is the first dot on the map into Thailand from crossing over the Cambodian border. "We can make it there in a day if we leave really early," I encourage Steve and our fellow biker, Charlie.
"The road line on the map is a dotted line. Maybe it is not paved," Steve wonders.
"Of course it is paved! It is one of the primary border crossings from Cambodia to Thailand!" I state boldly. We look at the map closely. All the other roads we have been on are marked by solid lines. Indeed the line marking the road from Siem Reap, Cambodia leading to the border of Thailand is dotted.
"Maybe it was a misprint. Or perhaps the map is out-dated." I state hopefully.
At 6:30 a.m., we meet Charlie in front of the mini-market. He is easy to pick out miles away with his six packs to label him as super-man world biker! We jump into the mini-mart quickly for some peanuts and yogurt energy and then we are off. Feet hammering at the pedals. I get a steady rhythm going and keep my pace steady. On the way out of Siem Reap, we pass luxury hotels, fancy restaurants, and just a mile further little bamboo hut dwellings. The road is gentle, smooth and paved. For the first half hour of our ride I think that for sure the dotted line for the road was nothing. And then all at once it happens. The strip of luxury hotels is behind us. The pavement is like a royal carpet and just beyond the royal tourist hotel ville, the paved road ends and we are greeted by dust that flies up to hug our faces. I hold firmly onto my handlebars, keeping myself steady on my bicycle as the dirt bumps threaten to throw me into the ditch. My eyes are glued to the road playing I-spy with the huge pot-holes. I swerve around them. A huge cargo truck passes, tossing dirt up like confetti. It plasters my hair and clothing. I click my gears down to the lowest number one. We slowly crawl like a line of turtles and we feel each and every kilometer in our legs. With each curve, we convince ourselves that it is the last gravel patch and just around the corner the gravel will unite once again with asphalt. However, Cambodia fights us the entire way as if it does not want us to leave.

"I must walk my bike," Charlie states, "All the bumps are breaking my bicycle pack. I have too much weight to ride this safely." We stop for some ice and tea at a corner hut. Our five minute break slyly becomes 10 and then twenty minutes. We all act buff, but really none of us are a match for the hot relentless sun and her partner in crime, the dry dusty bumpy gravel road. Finally, Steve and I agree to pedal ahead to the next small dot on the map for lunch and we will wait for Charlie there.
My sweat creates a layer of elmers glue and the dust, like glitter, sticks right to me. It just doesn't make me very pretty. I feel disgusting, but I keep on pedaling. My fingers even feel a bit tingly from clinging onto the handlebars too tightly. Little hut/stalls form a market in front of us, each selling strange Asian fruits like dorian fruits, dragon fruits, and leeches. Then there is a building with plastic tables and chairs. "That can be our lunch break!" Steve says.
I "unglue" my bicycle helmet from my head. It feels good to sit below an awning in the plastic chair. "cafee? ice?" I state slowly.
The lady smiles and repeats, "cafee, i?"
I nod my head and a minute later I devour the ice cubes in the coffee. The overly sweetened condensed milk doesn't even bother me. I just enjoy the cold drink on my parched throat. We attempt to order lunch by pointing to the vegetables on the cart and the rice in the pot. The lady smiles and indicates that she understands. We wait anxiously. We always await our food, never really knowing what we are going to get. Sometimes we manage to communicate well and are pleased with servings of stir-fried vegetables and steaming rice. Other times, we end up with a plate of pork on top of fried rice. Even though we are able to clearly communicate "vegetarian" in the language, sometimes it is too unbelievable that a white person could possibly not eat meat. As always the local people are really sweet and really want to please the foreign guest. The best way to please the foreigner is to serve them the best meat. The lady places two plates of fried rice mixed with onions and cabbage in front of us. At least it is not meat. Regardless, the food serves as our cheap gasoline. One more iced coffee. Then we look up and a small brown dot in the distance comes into focus. "Charlie!" He is bathed in his own sweat and coated with dirt. I glance at the watch. It is already 2:30 in the afternoon and it gets dark around 6:30--completely dark at 7:00. We are only a third of the way to the border. Cambodia will keep us as hostages one more night. Steve and I agree to move onward, biking another three hours or so to the next town. We will find a guest house and then call Charlie with the name of it so he does not have to waste time in town looking for one. Maybe the road will improve ahead. Nope. Cambodia fights us to the end. I begin to worry that we will be stranded on the dirt road in the dark. I push hard on my pedals, grip the handlebars. "I am tough!" I tell myself. "These bumps cannot slow me down." The road becomes an obstacle-course of a game. At five o'clock, we see buildings in the distance. At five thirty, we are coasting slowly in front of the buildings looking for any English words such as "hotel" or "guest-house." There are about three of them in a row. Simple concrete buildings with English writing on them. I pick one where there is a family sitting by a table outside of it. I smile at them as I approach. "You have room," I say. I put my hands together beside my head to indicate sleep. The girl gets up with a smile. While Steve holds my bicycle, I follow her up a dark corridor with only a figurine of Buddha lit up in the entrance way. She leads me up a flight of concrete stairs and opens a door revealing a simple room with two twin beds and a separate door inside leading to a shower head and toilet. "Yes!" I state with a smile. Really, it didn't matter. I was so tired and so relieved to hide for the night from the dirt road. It felt so good to shower. After biking all day, we appreciate the water even if it trickles cold from the spicket. I always shower with my sweaty bike clothes on the floor and sprinkle laundry detergent on top of them. I stomp on them while I wet my hair as if I am stomping on grapes making wine. We shower, wash our dirty clothing, and rest on the bed, and no Charlie. 6:58 p.m. The night swallows the daylight in one quick bite. "I am worried about Charlie riding out there in the dark." I state.
"Hey guys?!" I hear Charlie's voice from the stairs.
"Charlie! Yeah, you made it!"
"Great work, Charlie!"Steve greets him.
"Man! That was the worst road I have been on yet in my entire year of travel!"

Safety zone. One more plate of rice and fried vegetables and a million prayers to Buddha or God or Ala for better roads tomorrow. Just maybe the road tomorrow will be paved?!

JULY 3, 2008

Buddha wants to make us even stronger! Cambodia fights us with its horrible road to the very bitter end. With a little bit of rain to add to the excitement, the dirt road becomes muddy road. A moment to remember-- Charlie glances at his GPS on his handlebars and then looks up at us, "In 10 kilometers we will be out of this country!" We bike through ankle deep water. We stop in the mud-puddle holes called towns for iced coffees or rice. Finally, muddy, stinky, sweaty, sun-scorched under the noon sun, we cross the border and stand at the line for immigration. Our passports are stamped. Thailand welcomes us with PAVED ROADS and wide shoulders. I look up at Steve and at Charlie, "Welcome to Thailand Steve. Welcome to Thailand Charlie!"
Charlie looks up at me. "Welcome to Thailand, Teresa!"
"We made it!"