We decided that today would be the day we would climb Penang Hill, so after some more delicious roti canai for breakfast, we packed a daypack with water, sunscreen, and rain jackets, then walked to the bus station. Penang Hill is located inland and is approximately 2500 ft in elevation at the top. In the past, it was used as a retreat for the wealthy and/or infirm to escape the heat. Back in the day, people either had to walk up or were carried in sedan chairs. Nowadays, there is a funicular railway that makes the trip quick and easy, but much less colonial. At the summit there are gardens, a restaurant and heritage hotel, as well as a colorfully decorated Hindu temple and a mosque.

Our plan was to take a bus to the Botanical Gardens, walk up Penang Hill, take the funicular back down the hill, and take a different bus back into town. The bus to the Botanical Gardens only runs every 30 minutes, and we had apparently just missed it, since we had to wait for quite a while for the next one. We finally arrived at the Botanical Gardens at about 11:30, where we walked through the Moon Gate and started climbing. The first part of the hike was a steep, jungle track through the woods. Since hiking Penang Hill is a popular local activity, much of this first section was made up of crudely built, concrete steps in the steepest sections. Part way up the first section, we overtook an older, western gentleman, who introduced himself as Herbie. While we were taking a breather, we chatted for a few minutes with Herbie and found out that he and his wife were now living on Penang in the new Straits Quay development. We told Herbie a little about our trip, and it turns out, he's been many of the places we have been, especially Africa. We came to find out that Herbie worked for the World Bank before he retired. We walked with Herbie for a while longer, until we reached “Number 5.” There are rest stops along some of the paths where you can sit, often have tea or water and biscuits and they are simply known by a number. At this stop, we met his wife, Marina and another hiker from Sri Lanka, named Rizli (sp?). We sat and chatted with them for around 45 minutes before continuing on to the next section.



This section was also a jungle track, that was more strenuous than the last. It had no steps, but the path went up and over rocks and along the edges of ravines.



The jungle here was also more dense, and the air was warm, humid, and still. After another 45 minutes of hiking, we made it to “Number 84.” Here, we had a choice of continuing on the jungle track or turning onto the “jeep road.” There is a paved road that goes up Penang Hill, but it is only open to people who either live or work on the Hill. We decided to follow the “jeep road” since the jungle track had gotten fairly muddy. At this point in time, we were halfway up, but still had 1.5 miles to go to reach the summit. After stopping for a drink and a bathroom break, we set off on the pavement.

The road was amazingly steep and some stretches were marked as having a 30 degree grade. Others weren't marked, but they were even steeper. On some stretches, it was hard to keep forward momentum going. We did contemplate turning around and walking back down several times, and at some of our ever more frequent rest stops, we wished for a taxi to appear. By the time we finally saw the top of the hill, we were both at our limit and could hardly control our gasps for air, and our clothes were completely sweat-soaked. We were a little embarrassed when we joined the crowd of weekend holiday makers who had taken the funicular up the hill, and consequently, didn't look or smell like drowned rats.

Since is was now around 3:00 pm and we hadn't had any lunch, we decided to stop in at one of the food stands and find something to eat. We ordered our food and collapsed on a wooden bench while we waited. Soon, we had our food and felt some better. We were both too tired to walk around at the top, which was too bad, because we both remembered it as a nice place to visit from our last trip. We made our way to the train station, where we got quite a shock. We knew they replaced the old train we rode last time, with a fancy, new Swiss-made one, but what we didn't know, was that with the new funicular train came a fancy, new ticket price. Last time, the one-way ticket was 4 ringgit, but now, it is 17 ringgit (5.66 USD) per person. Too tired to walk back down, we bought our gold-plated tickets and rode back down. At the bottom, we hopped on the bus back into town, stopping for some coffee on the way back to the room. In the room, we stripped out of our still soaked clothes, showered, then collapsed on the bed until dinnertime. We had a late meal of dim sum and ice cream, then returned to the Star Lodge to watch Formula 1 qualifying before heading back out for a cold .

After yesterday's long hike, we felt like taking it easy today, so after breakfast, Re worked on some writing while I did some reading. We had banana leaf at Sri Ananda for lunch, then more writing and reading. On the way to dinner, we did some shopping and then made it back in time to see the Formula 1 race. It was a great race, and the season sure is shaping up to be one for the record books. After the race, I called my mom on Skype to wish her a happy Mother's Day, but unfortunately had a really bad connection, so we didn't get to talk much.

5/14 Shipping Plans and Writing

After roti in the room, we spent the morning doing some reading and writing. Back to the Sky Hotel for a lunch of pork and rice, and then, more writing. After lunch, Re again attempted to contact the person we needed to speak with at MASkargo, but he was unfortunately not in. We spent the rest of the afternoon reading before heading back to Line Clear for dinner. The only English-language movie in town that we hadn't seen yet was “Safe,” so we to see it. Later that evening, Re Skyped her mom before we called it a night.


5/15 Again With the Shipping

Since we're having a hard time getting anyone to respond to our shipping inquiries in any kind of a timely manner, Re did a little more research on possible shipping routes. She discovered that Eva Air, a Taiwanese carrier, actually has a cargo freighter that flies from Penang to Taipei several times a week. So after breakfast, Re rode to the Eva Air office here in town. The woman there insisted that she would need to deal with a freight forwarder. Fortunately, Worldlink Cargo's office was located right across the hall. Re was able to speak with Ms Goh that morning and got the process started. When Re got back to the room, she exchanged a few emails with Ms Goh, who will now begin to work on a quote for us.

After a lunch of chicken rice, we spent the rest of the afternoon researching the possibility of living and working in Singapore. After several hours, we decided that while jobs are available and foreigners are more than welcome in Singapore, the cost of living is simply too high. Another dead end, so on to plan...Q? After dinner at the hawker stalls, we walked around and talked about how we were getting discouraged with the difficulty in finding shipping.

After breakfast, we fired up the bikes and rode down to the airport. We wanted to check with the Penang branch of MASkargo since the Kuala Lumpur office has not been very helpful. When we got there, we were told once again, that we would need to deal with a freight forwarder, but that he was on vacation. At another dead end, we decided to just go riding. Since we were already most of the way down the east coast of the island, we decided to continue around the island. Whereas, the east coast of the island is built up with homes and businesses, the southern and western coasts are much more sparsely populated, and there are long stretches of twisty roads through the jungle. It wasn't a very long ride, but it was a lot of fun to actually get out and do some riding. The roads were good. They twisted up and down through the jungle before spitting us back out on the beach road at the northwestern corner of the island. From there, we headed back into the traffic as we made our way back to Georgetown.

We stopped for lunch at Kapitan before returning to the room. We were happy to see that we'd received an email from Ms Goh. We emailed her pictures of our previous crates so she could see how we've shipped the bikes before. Later that evening, we returned to Line Clear for more nasi kandar. After walking around to find some dessert, we were heading back to the room, when I thought I spied a familiar looking couple across Chulia Street. Re and I doubled back to catch up with them, and sure enough, it was Fabian and Tanja, the bicyclists we originally met in Hampi, India, and later in Siem Reap, Cambodia. It really is a small world. They were just as surprised to see us as we were to see them.



We went out for coffee and spent a couple of hours catching up.

5/17 Not Much to Report

Like the title says, another wasted day trying to arrange shipping. I did change my tail light bulb and removed and reinstalled my exhaust header nuts.


5/18 Pancakes and Bad News

Re takes care of the majority of cooking duties when we're at home, but one thing I do is make pancakes. Every Sunday morning. In many places in the world, tourist restaurants sell “pancakes,” but they're more like crepes. Lately I have been jonesing for an American-style pancake, so this morning, we got up and rode to McDonald's for the closest thing we've had so far. They weren't great, but they were good. Later that morning, Re was able to get in touch with Faruq, the agent recommended by the local MASkargo office. We arranged to meet him at 4:00 pm at the airport. The rest of the day basically involved killing time until we could meet with Faruq. We had lunch at Sri Ananda, and afterwards, walked up to sit by the water for a while.



On our way back, we came across an abandoned Minsk in somewhat sad condition.

At around 3:30, we left for the airport and finally met Faruq at about 4:30. He took us into the MASkargo offices, where the three of us received the bad news together. It turns out that what the MASkargo agent in Kuala thLumpur had tried to explain to Re a week ago now, was that MASkargo cannot ship our bikes to the US. Since the attempted bombing of the UPS plane in the Middlle East a few years ago (the one where they had explosives in the toner cartridges, the US has put a complete ban on the transport of cargo deemed to be “personal effects” on passenger planes. The upshot of this is that we either need to ship the bikes to a country other than the US, or they have to go on cargo freighter aircraft. MASkargo doesn't have dedicated cargo freighters to the US, and the only place they fly is to Los Angeles. Well, ****ity **** ****. After we left the MASkargo offices, Faruq said he would check with Cathay Pacific and Korean Air and get back to us in a couple of days. When we returned to the room, we found out that Ms Goh had a quote for us to ship on Eva Air. The good news is, we have a quote. The bad news is, it's more than we had hoped to spend.


5/19 The Beach

We went to the beach, ate some food, did some reading, and drank some .


5/20 Lazy Day and Moto GP

Did a little writing, did a little reading, ate some food, and I watched four-plus hours of Moto GP. We're both getting a little more than a little frustrated with the shipping process. Georgetown is a much better place to be stuck than Dar Es Salaam, but the feelings of powerlessness and frustration are the same.


5/21 Another Day of Waiting

No word from Faruq today. Re checked into a few other shipping dead ends. We did see “Dark Shadows” at the theater and thought it was okay, but not the most cohesive story ever.


5/22 Still Working on Shipping

Did some reading, exchanged some money. Re called and emailed on shipping. We are both starting to get a bit stressed.

After cereal and yogurt for breakfast, Re made a few more calls to our less than helpful potential shipping agents. Not all of them have been less than helpful. In fact, we did receive our first quote on May 18 and another quote today, but they are all still more than we'd hoped to pay. We pissed away the rest of the morning until it was time for lunch. Frustrated with sitting around, we fired up the bikes and rode back to Air Hitam to ride around the lake.

The ride up to the dam itself was the same as it was back on the 10th, but after that, we turned onto the one-lane motorbike road/footpath that circles the lake for a while. It was a shaded, narrow, twisty road that wound along the edge of the lake and eventually dead-ended at a gate. Just before the gate, there was a left turn that went up a hill. It was wet and leaf covered and very steep. Re said she wanted to give it a try, so we did.



The next couple of miles were all taken in first and second gear due to the extreme angle of the road. We continued climbing up and up, and eventually came to a fork in the road. The right fork led into an open valley, and the left fork continued up the hill. We knew that one of these roads was supposed to go through to the back side of the island but there was no indication which one to take.



We opted for the right and followed it out into the sunlight. We rode along the edge of the valley for another couple miles through farms and through a few people's front yards. The road came to a dead end at someone's house, so we turned around and headed back. Once we reached the fork in the road, we continued uphill for another half mile or so. The road here didn't appear to be used very often, since it was covered in wet leaves with no visible tire tracks. This section was steep enough that we were stuck in first gear, and we had a couple of instances where our rear tires spun on the leaves. We expected the road to begin descending soon, but it seemed to keep climbing. Due to the wet leaves and pavement, I was beginning to get a little nervous about our descent, so we decided to turn around.



We slowly made our way back down to the lake. On the way, I spotted a snake in the road, and we turned around to take a look.



Unfortunately, it was an ex-snake. It had no obvious injuries, but it was dead. This was the same kind of snake that Re saw on Koh Lanta, which we had identified as a red-headed krait.



When we got back to the parking area by the dam, we also spotted this snake at the old guard booth. A local told us it was a green tree viper, and another person said it was a coconut viper. Either way, it was a beautiful snake.

We rode back into town and spent a while chatting with Anh, the gentleman who owns the Star Lodge and two other guesthouses along Muntri Street. He was giving Re lessons in Mandarin, so we could at least say “please” and “thank you” at the coffee shops and hawker stalls.


25 miles in about 3 hours.

After roti for breakfast, Re called the last shipper we were still waiting for a quote from, and he assured her that he would get back to us by the end of the work day. Screw it, we're going to the beach. We loaded the bikes and rode up to Batu Ferringhi. The sun was out today, and the water was beautiful. We did some reading, talking, and swimming, before heading back into town in the mid-afternoon. After a late lunch, we returned to the room to get cleaned up. We received a text message from the last shipper, and their quote on Cathay Pacific was several hundred dollars more than the lowest we'd received so far. Sigh. Later, we went out to see “Men In Black 3” and then had a late dinner at the hawker stalls. We stopped out at the Corner Bar, where we made our decision on shipping.


20 miles in about an hour.