Penang Plus Some Old News

Wednesday, October 31. What a difference a one hour plane ride makes. Last night's quick, prop flight from Indonesia to this Malaysian resort island of Penang took us to a different world. It's a very interesting and diverse place. The Malaysians here seem heavily influenced by the Brits who grabbed control of the area way back, and the Chinese who were imported in huge numbers to do the work. A large number of Indians are here as well. Now that we've walked for hours I've decided it reminds me of both Miami and London. The fact that the British ran the show for so long explains city names like George Town and Butterworth.

We're here because we really want to take a famous train that runs between Singapore and Bangkok. We will catch it tomorrow and travel overnight to Bangkok. On that topic - It costs about $30 for a taxi from our hotel in George Town to Butterworth on the mainland where the train station is. But if you ask enough questions, you find out you can walk 5 minutes, get on a ferry, cross the bay and dock at the station for 30¢. And it takes 15 fewer minutes.

A couple of posts from earlier in our journey were written but never showed up at this blogspot. The highlights of what you missed: 1) On all three of the Delta flights coming here Marty was bumped up to Business Class. But when we had to fly China Air for the final leg, he had to sit in coach with me. He shook my hand and introduced himself. 2) However, I was allowed to join him in the Delta Clubs in each of the Delta airports. Very nice to be able to rest, eat, pee and wait in comfort. 3) We observed a fistfight between our bus driver and a woman passenger soon after arriving in Sumatra. I'll reconstruct what I wrote about that and post it here when we get back. 4) We are NOT roughing it, except sometimes. That's our room - second floor, just to the right of the palm tree. It looks out on the Indian Ocean.