The heat and humidity have been particularly intense here in Pinang, however we’ve learned quickly to take it easy and become as laid back as the locals. Our appetites seem to have adjusted accordingly, being quelled by the heat during the day and picking up night when it is cool and food hawkers populate every avenue and alley, with cooks perhaps more talented than those we witnessed in Taipei’s night markets. Malaysia has grown on us and we are glad we decided to spend more time here than we had originally planned.

Today we head out from the Stardust Guesthouse on Lebuh Chulia (Chulia Street) in George Town, the capital, to catch a train on the mainland in Butterworth, heading north to Thailand, known often as the land of smiles. More detailed anecdotes and reminsces of our time in Malaysia will hopefully make their appearance sometime in the next couple of weeks. For now, please do check out our Taiwan and Malaysia photo sets, as Joshua has included detailed notes on many of the photos, and often they show you much more than we can manage to tell you about what we have seen and experienced.

Now we look to lovely beaches and tepid sea waters where Joshua will learn to dive and I will refresh my divemaster skills and explore what Thailand has to offer below the surface. We will be stationed for about a week on Ko Tao (Turtle Island) in the Gulf of Thailand, on east coast of southern Thailand (for those following along on a map), followed perhaps by some island hopping on the parcels of land due south of us (Ko Phangan, Ko Samui) and a trip to Phuket in the Adaman Sea, on southern Thailand’s western coast. Then we head to Bangkok to catch a train to Thailand’s eastern area, bordering with Cambodia, to start our first volunteer project on an organic farm.

We will be thinking of everyone gripped by winter’s cold and snow as we stroll on our island beach in Thailand…

I got a lot more photos uploaded yesterday, so have a look. There is also a new Malaysia 2007 set, where I have our KL and Taman Negara photos, as well as some from Penang (more coming soon-ish). If you haven’t seen them yet, all of the Taiwan photos we’re posting from the road are in the Taiwan 2007 set. And of course all photos are in the Asia 2007 set. Also, remember that within the sets the photos are in chronological order (oldest first), but in the main photostream they are in the order uploaded (newest first).

I think rIAm has an update she’s about ready to post, but this is about it from me. I put pretty extensive commentary on the photos I uploaded, though, so you may want to check that out.

Now it’s off to Thailand… and a bittersweet goodbye to Malaysia, especially Pulau Pinang (we’re happy to get to the beach, but we really like it here, and really like our two friends Janet and Sean, who we had to say goodbye to yesterday, for who knows how long).

Sometimes what we see just makes us laugh. Hope the same happens for you.

A travel note: We’ve really enjoyed Malaysia, especially Taman Negara rainforest (oldest in the world) and Pulau Pinang. On Friday we leave this wonderful palce (Georgetown, the capital of Pinang) and head to Thailand, specifically Koh Tao, for some beach bumming and scuba diving.

A couple more notes on photos: Some of the photos would benefit from some mild fixes in PhotoShop (or the like), such as the ones of Taipei 101 with a very gray sky. We don’t normally adjust our photos much, but since we’re stuck with what’s on the Internet cafe machines, we’re not touching up any of them.

Also, we put descriptions on most all of our photos on flickr, as it saves us from blogging about each item. So go through the photos and read those descriptions… and make comments, if you so desire.

Lastly, all the Taiwan photos we plan to upload from the road are now on flickr. We’re getting to Malaysia, but haven’t gotten too far (yet).

Cheers!

As much as we’d like to write about our time in Malaysia, and get photos posted from both Taiwan and Malaysia, the Internet connection here is slow due to the earthquake at sea somewhere in the Pacific at the end of December, which damanged communication lines, in particular fast Internet connections at smelly and sometimes loud Internet.

So if you were me what would you pick: smelly, sometimes loud and definitely slow connection Internet café surfing in order to update friends and family back home about your travels OR trekking through virgin jungle and then heading to Malaysia’s northwest for the country’s best food on an island known as the pearl of the Orient AND THEN heading north into Thailand to hit another island and the country’s southern penninsula to experience some of the world’s best beaches and best diving?

Tough decision, I KNOW!!!

Suffice to say the decision is made. Ciao for now!

(When we find a faster Internet connection, we promise more updates and most certainly, plenty of photos documenting our travels).