Our flight from Kuala Lumpur to Sandkan had us stopping in Kota Kinabalu. There isn’t too much to do in the airport, except to drink $2 bottles of water and shop at a few overpriced boutiques. We arrived in Sandakan after a beautiful sunset flight over the spectacular Mount Kinabalu. Luckily we met up with a British lady who was also visiting the same hotel (Sepilok Jungle Resort) and had the organization skills we were lacking to arrange to be picked up by the resort.

The resort was unbelievably beautiful. Malaysia was finally starting to look up. Fantastic landscaped grounds with a pond running through the property. Great food at the restaurant, and very reasonably priced – especially considering there were no other choices! We paid $50 a night for a room with AC and hot shower. There were lots of places to sit down and just relax on the property, soaking in the environment of the jungle around you, the chirping of the birds, etc. This was definitely the highlight of Malaysia for us.  The only negative was that there was cockroaches in the room. Not a lot – we averaged one squash a day – and they were coming up from where the shower drained. We couldn’t really blame the hotel – the place was impeccable, and we were in the middle of the jungle, after all…

The hotel is just a 10 minute walk from the the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabiliation Center. The center re-introduces previously captured and injured orangutans to the wild. There are two daily feedings which help newly freed orangutans make the transition to living in the wild. This gives visitors a spectacular opportunity to see the orangutans up close and personal in the wild.

We had enough time at the lodge to see three different feedings of the orangutans. During the first feeding it was raining, but a few still showed up, taking shelter between the trees as they scarfed down the bananas. The second feeding was the best as all the other tourists left after the first 20 minutes, leaving only a handful of us watching a family of orangutans including a mother and a baby. It was an amazing experience. We got pretty close to them (within 10 feet as they swung by on the ropes to the feeding platforms). There were also macaque monkeys, who were a lot less shy (though they can be aggressive) and would often scamper right amongst the tourists as they waited for the orangutans to leave to eat the leftover fruit. Visiting the park isn’t that cheap, about $8 a person (or $4 with no camera).

Our next destination was Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital of Brunei. We flew through Kota Kinabalu to get there. The Royal Brunei flight was on time, a modern plane, and great service. It was pricy however: $200 one way from KK.

We were staying at the Jubilee Hotel and had arranged (by email) a pick-up from the airport (and drop-off the next day). While the hotel itself was fairly expensive ($80), the ride to and from the airport would have cost us $40 by taxi so it made it worth it. The hotel room was very clean (although we saw a confusing "NO COOKING IN THE ROOM" sign – do they really have a big problem with guests firing up the Coleman for an in-room BBQ?)

So, why Brunei? The amusement park, of course! Oh yeah, there’s also a huge mosque, interesting museums, a water village blah blah blah etc. but most importantly, there’s a huge amusement park! Jerudong Playground was built by the King as a gift to his subjects. Our visit to the park was definitely the strangest experience we had this trip, and we’ll never forget it.

To get there, the hotel offered to drive us, but the car wasn’t available for a while so we decided to take public transit. We caught the bus from the main bus terminal underneath the multistory parking lot. It was s-l-o-w. It took us an hour and a half to get there, and by car it should have been 30 minutes. The bus dropped us off at the edge of the park, but we weren’t exactly sure where the entrance was. Or even if it was open. We were walking down a road that seemed to cut the park in two, and finally we got to an entrance. Looking inside, we could begin to see a few rides. There was a guard at the entrance who sold us tickets ($15 for an all-night pass). We asked if it was open, and he said yes, but we couldn’t see ANYONE else so we thought it might have been a language problem. We asked him if there was any restaurants around (as we hadn’t eaten yet) and were pointed to the food court across the street.

There was dozens of restaurants, but only a handful were open. The workers at the restaurants were sitting down in the common eating area, waiting for any customers. Vegetarian was not easy. We settled on some pretty bad Chinese food that had "Tofu" in the title – but not in the meal. !!! By now we could see some of the lights of the rides, so we entered the park. We asked if there was a map of the place – no. There was a few signs, but they didn’t really help us. Wandering through the park, the grounds are beautiful. Huge walking concourses, lots of trees and places for kids to have fun, (drained) fountains. Everything was there, except for the.. people.

We found our first ride, one of the twirly spinny things. The lights were on, but at this point we had yet to see another living soul (except the guard). Then I noticed a silhouette of a figure slumped over in the operator’s booth. He saw us coming, helped us on to the ride and started it up for us. Upon leaving the ride (and beginning to feel slightly creeped out in this weird post-apocalyptic amusement park) we were thrilled to see another family. They were waiting for the Disneyland-style train, except it doesn’t go all the way around the park, it just goes for about 5 minutes then stops. It runs on a schedule, so I guess they just keep running it empty from A to B to A to B all night long. And I thought my job was boring. Anyways, we were glad to have met the family, as next up we found the bumper cars. Bumper cars just ain’t very much fun with just two people, but with the 7 of us, we had a great time.

After the ride, we chatted with the family we met. They were Irish, and the father was posted in Bandar Seri Bagawan working in the oil industry. We got the run-down on this strange place: It used to be pretty hopping, when admission was free (!!). A couple of years ago the King started charging $15 to try to recoup some of the costs, and attendance plumetted. So, now, a lot of the rides are closed down (roughly half of them on any given evening).

And this is how it went for the rest of the night. We would wander looking for a ride, and then ride it until we got bored of it. The upside-down-corkscrew-dangling-feet rollercoaster ride was especially fun. Easily on par with anything at an American amusement park, except we could ride it as much as we want, in whatever row we wanted. We didn’t even bother getting off – as the ride approached the station, we just motioned to the operator to keep going and we’d just keep on riding. After a while our backs began to hurt. Other rides that we checked out were the log flume ride (at one point you go backwards down a hill), go-kart ride (included in the price !!!), a more traditional rollercoaster, etc. There was even a "drop-zone" type ride, but we’re not that adventurous.

There’s also a huge magic-dancing-fountain with laser light show (a la Las Vegas, sans the people), and a theater for shows. But, there are NO souvenir stands, we found ONE stall selling drinks in the whole place, and no one selling food (except for the food court outside).

By the end of the evening, we’d definitely seen no more than 50 people in the whole park. And since everything is so spread out, we rarely saw anyone. A local girl explained to us that all the rides used to be open until the Prince managed to spend all the King’s money. Although the park was open till 1am (!!), after a couple of hours we were done and called the hotel to be picked up. (the local bus stopped running at 6pm – and there are NO taxis around, so arrange transportation in advance!)

The following day we went on a boat tour of the water village Kampung Ayer. An hour cost us $15. (Haggle.  Gently.  They will try to get much more out of you! Maybe we misunderstood, but our conversation with the water taxi guy went something like this: Him: "$200 one hour". Us: "$15 one hour" (this is what the Irish family told us is the going rate). Him: "OK!") ) There’s hundreds of houses on stilts, schools, mosques, etc. Apparently the population living in the water village is 30,000 strong.

After this we walked through a local food market, then we went shopping. On the way to the A/C shopping mall, we passed many stores selling Hollywood top 50 DVD’s for about $4 or $5 each (and by the way, they work fine at home, they are not region-encoded. I’m not sure how much royalties Disney is seeing from those DVD’s, but…)
The shopping mall was a bit of a let-down after the huge malls in Malaysia. We ate at the food court, and although the food was a little better then Jerudong Park’s, we were still disappointed.

We checked out the King’s Mosque. Unfortunately we were not able to get in, as it was Friday (it’s very hard to time a short visit to BSB that hits both the Mosque opening schedule and the amusement park schedule!). From the outside, it was very pretty, but after seeing the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca, nothing quite compares.
Back to our hotel and the airport for the onward trip to Singapore. We were somewhat nervous that we’d have problems with our tickets – we had purchased them on Royal Air Brunei’s website at the last minute before we left, and chose the option to pick them up at the airport in BSB. To our surprise, it worked like a charm – there was an envelope with our name waiting for us. It still amazes us that we click a bunch of things on a website in the comfort of our home, (on our wireless laptop from bed, I might add) and a ticket appears to be picked up on the other side of the world!

The Kuala Lumpur airport is one of SE Asia’s newest airports, and is immaculate, modern, and super-efficient. Although located 70 km (40 miles) out of the city, the brand new KLIA Ekspres train takes you right downtown in 28 minutes. Don’t be suckered in by the cabs offering cheaper fares then the train – it can take up to an hour and a half, depending on traffic. The train is the only way to go. It was pretty empty both times we took it, lots of room for luggage, and very smooth. Which was important, considering how Wendy was feeling by then.

We took a few subway rides to the recommended hotel right across from the bus station, the Anuja Backpackers Inn. The room was very small, but seemed clean enough. The shared bathrooms however required walking through the smoke-filled lobby, past strange ever-present men who looked up from the TV to stare at us as we shuffled past in our PJ’s. The A/C, although it appeared to pump out cold air, did not make a difference in the room temp. The smell of cigarette smoke wafted in from the lobby. However, what we didn’t pay attention to as we checked out the room was the noise. It was on the second floor right next to a very busy street – we might as well have been camping on the street corner. The noise quieted down sufficiently that we were able to catch a few hours of sleep before the morning traffic woke us up.

Fortunately, another hotel that was mentioned in the guidebook as being for "business travelers" was right next door, the Katari Hotel.  Ian went to check it out – it was American motel style, and exactly what we were looking for. For twice the price, we were able to get a private bathroom with oodles of hot water, great sound insulation from the road, and clean clean clean.  We would recommend this hotel very highly. Great location, too. The 80 ringgit ($20) price was a promotion, but we would have been happy to spend twice that amount for the difference in comfort level.

Unfortunately, we spent most of our day in the room, still recovering from our little visit to the Perhentian Islands. The private bathroom turned out to be our most visited (and memorable) sight in KL. We did make it out to check out a few temples, and some shopping. We would highly recommend the Peter Hoe boutique just a few minutes away from the central market – very good prices, high quality crafts, and nice environment. It might not be as cheap as elsewhere, but it’s much more relaxed and no haggling. They also have a larger location just a few minutes away.

We also checked out the Central Market, saw a Batik demonstration and bought some other nice souvenirs (If you buy a traditional kite, good luck getting it home, there don’t seem to be any boxes in Malaysia big enough for it!! Fortunately we found a post office in the airport on our way out of Kuala Lumpur where the guy bent over backwards to create a box solution which worked perfectly). Anyways, the Central Market is definitely worth a stroll. Also, the covered street market along Petaling St. is full of knockoff  t-shirts and fake designer watches and is an interesting walk.

The next sight we saw, unfortunately, was the private hospital next to our hotel, where they seemed just a little too keen to admit Wendy for the night. After determining that it wasn’t anything more exotic then just pretty bad food poisoning, we just waited it out at the hotel.

Before our flight out of Kuala Lumpur, we checked out the Must See sight – the Petronas Towers. We got there early (8:30am), as the free tickets up to the skybridge are given out quickly for the whole day. Our allocated time slot was at 10am. We got to spend about 20 minutes up on the bridge between the two towers. The view isn’t that spectacular, and is only about half way up. I guess it’s a must-do just because everyone now associates the Petronas towers with KL, but it really isn’t that special. Apparently, the telecom tower offers a more impressive view.

Our bad luck continued at our hotel.  The Coral View Resort seemed to have a somewhat reasonable price, but the non-fan rooms only offered single beds that couldn’t be pushed together.  They are also high up on the hill and require climbing over rickety stairs to get to. We upgraded to the A/C room to get a full bed.  Wendy went to use the toilet, and as it was draining, the wastewater spouted all over the floor. Ok – time for a new room.  Again.  I go down to the main desk, where I am told that is the last room in that class, and I’d have to spend an extra US $10 a night to get the next step up (1 minute walk from beach).  They told me the toilet would be fixed within an hour – no thanks – and they wouldn’t give me a free upgrade to the next room.  After discussing with the manager we finally agreed on a price in the middle.

The hotel’s beach we’d landed on was full of coral and not very pleasant to walk on or swim from. Fortunately, our guidebook told us that the most beautiful beach on the island was next door at the Perhentian Island resort. There is a series of steps/walkways over the headland to get there, and it’s worth the walk. The beach is beautiful, the water is turquoise, crystal clear with nice soft sand. We spent the rest of the day sleeping, swimming, and checking out all the fish that swam around the coral on the headland.

We ate at the hotel’s restaurant that evening. The food was edible but uninspired. The ambience was certainly nice however, as we overlooked the ocean. The only vegetarian choice was too spicy for Wendy (even after we’d asked for non-spicy), so we went for a walk down the beach in search of more food for her.  (It happened every time we ate.  Ian would order his food spicy and it would come a little bit spicy.  Wendy would order her food mild and it would come SPICY.  The only thing we could work out is that maybe they figure vegetarian food needs the extra kick?) 

We found a lodge serving pizza, and sat down on tables on the beach again. Earlier, we’d noticed there was a bit of wind off the shore, but the sky had been clear as the sun was setting so it didn’t concern us. But suddenly, as we waited for our meal, the wind whipped up, and the wait staff all came rushing out of the main restaurant area, yelling at everyone to get inside, bring their drinks, and table numbers! There was a bit of mad panic as everyone crowded inside the small roofed building, which suddenly was given solid walls as they rolled down the metal shutters.

Seconds later the storm hit, an almost horizontal blast of rain and wind coming from almost all directions at once.
Through the cracks of thunder, we could hear tree branches falling around the restaurant. We decided that this storm wasn’t just a passing thing, and asked for our pizza to go. Within seconds of stepping out from the shelter, we were soaked to the skin. Fortunately, our little maglite was easily up to the task of getting us home, as we jumped over fallen branches, waded through flooded paths and made our way along the beach, knowing that we were only a few hotels down.  Amazingly and fortunately, the lights never actually went out, so once we found our resort we could follow the path lighting back to our cabin. What was a 5 minute walk out to the restaurant turned into a 30 minute ordeal home, taking shelter under whatever buildings we could find during the harder downpours. It was scary.

Glad to be back in our room, we sat down and ate the pizza, slightly soggy and a little bit sandy…. Then, an hour later, food poisoning hit Ian.  He spent the rest of the following day in bed, trying to sleep in between the sound of the chainsaws and yells of the workers as the island cleanup began. Fortunately we’d brought some antibiotics from home, and the following day he felt well enough to try some snorkeling. The little bit that we did do was spectacular. We heard that there were sharks (not scary) and turtles to be seen just off the headland, but he wasn’t feeling well enough to try it. Crowds of smiling, laughing Japanese tourists were being ferried back and forth all day from the resort’s beach to see them.

By the next morning, Ian was fine, but uh-oh, now Wendy was not feeling too good. We had to get off this island and get to Kuala Lumpur. The fast boat ride was slightly better then the way over (thanks to a heavyset guy who sat at the very front of the boat, preventing it from planing over every wave!). We got a taxi direct to Kota Bharu (We tried to haggle unsuccessfully, and backed down when we saw he was the only taxi left. Unfortunately what we didn’t realize is that a 2 minute walk into town would have taken us to about a dozen more cabs sitting around). The airport in Kota Bharu was very nice, modern, and air conditioned. When the ticket counter opened, we found that the next flight to Kuala Lumpur was full, but we were lucky enough to get standby seats.

We arrived early at the bus station in Penang.  The intercity buses are very well run, we were even able to reserve front row seats for our trip to the east coast. The scenery was spectacular – we were glad we decided not to take the overnight bus. At one point, a police officer boarded the bus and started asking us questions in broken English – passport, bus ticket, How do you like Malaysia (I lied), etc. We were worried he’d have to go through each passenger, but apparently we served as the representative for the entire bus and he was happy to let the whole bus go after talking to us!

We arrived in Kota Bharu and got off the bus to the now-familiar dozens of touts offering taxi rides and accommodation. They even claimed they could get us to the Perhentian Islands (our ultimate destination) today – which as far as we’d determined, was impossible. The ferry leaves from Kuala Besut, which is 1 hour away, and the cabbie would only have about 40 minutes to get us there. We figured it was not worth the risk of getting stuck in Besut without accommodation, so we just decided to overnight in Kota Bharu.

We went to check out the KB Backpackers Lodge 2, just a couple minutes walk from the bus station. After our bad experiences with accommodation in Georgetown, we decided we would look a little more carefully before agreeing to the room. The dark, dingy room had cracks through the walls to outside, and a pretty frightening entry way. The main KB Backpackers lodge across the street wasn’t much better. We walked 10 minutes to get to Pantai Timur Inn, which, while being twice the price, actually was comfortable, clean, and we felt safe. Obviously the standards for acceptable budget accommodation drop sharply once you step over the border from Thailand to Malaysia.

Our next task was to figure out how we’d get down to Kuala Lumpur after our visit to the Islands. We were interested in taking the train, as we read it is quite pretty scenery through the highlands (unlike the bus, which goes around). There is very sketchy information on the net about a train that goes to KL. From what we could figure out, as of 7/03, there is a night train that runs to KL daily. On Fri-Sun, there is also an express "day train" which leaves at 4pm? and pulls into KL at 4AM (!!). There might, or might not, be a "jungle train" which does leave in the morning from Kota Bharu (5am?) and runs south towards Johor Bahru, but it would be necessary to make a connection in Jema to a different train to get to KL, and we wouldn’t be there until 8PM, so we’d probably miss the last train and have to overnight in Gemas, but neither our Lonely Planet nor the Let’s Go had any information on this town, so we just decided that the best bet was to fly from Kota Bharu to KL. This also bought us an extra day, but we didn’t know if we’d want to spend it in the Perhentians or in KL, so we didn’t make any transportation commitments.

For the rest of the evening we wandered around Kota Bharu. There was lots of interesting looking food from street vendors, but we were being pretty careful about what we ate. We ended up eating at a horrible vegetarian restaurant (Natural Vegetarian Food) with nothing but unsafe (fountain) drinks and overly salty, heavily fried noodles.

The shopping was nothing special – I picked up a Terminator 3 VCD for $3. We walked over to the Gelanggang Seni Cultural Center to watch a display of "shadow puppets", a traditional Malay art. Scheduled to start at 9pm, the first hour had nothing but traditional music from a band hidden behind the curtains. Confused tourists got up from the grass and looked in on the band from the sides of the stage. Finally we got some shadow puppet action happening, but it would last for only 5 minutes then back to the band, followed by some wailing audio feedback which had everyone covering their ears. We gave up and went home.

The taxi picked us up at our hotel in the morning and got us to Kuala Besut with time to spare. We bought our tickets on the ‘fast boat’, and sat waiting with a bunch of Europeans for the boat. It was possibly the most unpleasant boat ride we’d ever been on. The boat did look modern and safe, but the driver was pushing the boat so hard that we were whacking down every wave, slamming the boat down repeatedly. This is *NOT* a boat for anyone with back problems, or motion sickness. The driver seemed to be enjoying the rough ride, looking back and smiling and laughing at us as we kept losing discs in our back. The 50 minute ride is only from the pier on the mainland to the first drop-off point – depending on your hotel location, it can take a while before you get dropped off. The fast boat is too big to go in to the shore, so usually a motorboat from the hotel would come out and meet the fast boat to ferry the tourists back on shore.

We arrived on the island of Penang after a flight from Chiang Mai in Thailand. We arrived in the airport late at night. After hitting an ATM, we paid for a taxi coupon to get to our hotel, such as it was.

The drive in from the airport to Georgetown took about 40 minutes.  The Cathay Hotel was described in our trusty Let’s Go guidebook as an "old colonial" hotel with lofty ceilings, and perfect for couples. We decided to splurge on it – it was twice the price of other Georgetown hotels and about 10 times what we’d been paying in Thailand. Well, the entry and lobby area was somewhat impressive, with a sunken lobby and big dual staircases leading up to the sky high second floor. If you closed your eyes, you could imagine a time when this hotel would have been beautiful. Passing the sign for the "Men’s Health Club" ..ahem.. we got to our room. Yes, it had high ceilings. But any romantic illusion stopped there. The ceiling was sheetrock. The walls were worn and dirty with peeling paint. The shower, although it did have hot water and was private, had a hand held shower-head with randomly burning hot and freezing cold water.  But the most lovely touch in our room was a hand scribbled graffiti just beside the mirror from some long departed hotel guest: "Do not leave anything of value in this room, it *WILL* be stolen by the staff".  So, after heading out to the nearest payphone and making alternate arrangements for our accommodation the following night (it was too late and we were too tired to change hotels that evening), we went to sleep. 

The following morning we headed over to the Guidebook’s highly recommended Olive Spring Hotel, and found out just how nice a hotel the Cathay actually was. Our room was on the third floor of a ramshackle old wooden building, with random holes in the floorboards and stairs, large enough that you could clearly see down to the floors below. In most first world countries, this building would have long since been condemned. But not in Malaysia. The "room" (such as it was) wasn’t so much of a room as a partially enclosed space. The walls didn’t reach all the way to the ceiling, so every noise of every other guest, or every noise from the lobby or street could be heard loud and clear. Not to mention that if we wanted to use the toilet, we had to risk life and limb going down those stairs (which were pulling away from the wall). We should have just switched hotels again, but since we’d never been to Georgetown before, we wanted to start seeing the sights.

We decided to start the day with a bus ride out to Dhammikarama Burmese Buddhist Temple and Wat Chayamang Kalarm. They were significantly less then inspiring (now we understand why neither of the hotels had even heard about them). They were badly kept up and featured strangely pink Buddhas.  However, they were conveniently located across the street from one another.  We hopped a bus back to check out the sites back in the main part of town. They were not much better. We visited a few temples. The Khoo Kongsi family Clan House was the most interesting, and was still pretty unspectacular. We visited little India, where we saw an old man on a bike get slammed into by one of the many motorcycles racing around town. We stepped over mounds of trash to get into the Kuan Yin Temple (Goddess of Mercy) temple, checked it off our list, and moved on.

By about noon, we were done with sightseeing in Georgetown and decided to try one of the day trips that were recommended in the guidebook, the Kek Lok Si Temple. The bus dropped us off about a 15 minute walk away. On the way up, we were forced into walking up a path with dozens of tourist souvenir stalls. Being the only tourists in sight, they were pretty aggressive for business. Upon finally arriving at the temple, we were greeted with a dirty pond of stagnant water full to the brim with turtles climbing over each other as they desperately tried to get out of the filthy water onto the little land that was available to sun themselves. Oh, PETA, where are you??

The temple itself was decidedly non-authentic. Almost each holy room seemed to also house a not-so-holy souvenir stand selling bulk-produced cheap trinkets (the same you see in every tourist stand). We paid our $5 each to climb the 7 tier pagoda (the one you see in all the tourist pictures). The tower is not well kept up – paint is falling off everywhere, an altar lies in ruin from some construction project long since abandoned. Scaffolding equipment, caked with dust, is strewn about the different floors of the pagoda. Bare wires hang down from the ceiling along the narrow crumbling stair case.  After the tower fiasco we decided it was time to give up on the sights of Georgetown/Penang, and head to the shopping mall.

Komtar is a modern eyesore of a building that dominates the downtown area. It is where intercity and local buses depart from, as well as a location for government offices. Fortunately, it also houses a modern, clean, A/C, cheap (and huge) shopping mall inside. We killed the rest of the day shopping for Malay t-shirts with hillarious Engrish written on them ("Vast Regins of Spase!!", "Give me love – good friends is here!") and surfing the net, wondering why we’d left Thailand.

  The people of Malaysia were incredibly kind. They were always tripping over themselves to help us. They treated us very well and were happy to see tourists. This certainly made our time more enjoyable. Oh and by the way, many people spoke excellent English.

However, overall we did not enjoy our time in peninsular Malaysia. We found the sights were not impressive and not well maintained. The cities were dirty- which we never saw in Thailand. Homeless people with various afflictions are everywhere. Sanitation is often very poor. Now, when we finally make our way to China or India, this is what we expect to see – but there’s no Great Wall or Taj Mahal in Malaysia [turns out India was WAY worse, China much cleaner!]. There’s only the Petronas Twin Towers.

Our visit to Borneo (Sabah) we very much enjoyed, although we didn’t really see anything more than the orangutan sanctuary we visited. 

Budget accommodation was a huge step down from what we got in Thailand. We were glad to have the Lonely Planet to find some more expensive hotels – the budget hotels were below our minimum standard (clean room, private, quiet, safe, and hopefully a private bathroom).

Public transportation is well organized. We only took one inter-city bus, but local buses were good. Sabah seems almost impossible to get around without flying due to the condition of the roads.

The next morning we got up early to go to the Thai Elephant Conservation Center, about 1 hour back towards Lampang right off the highway. We had frustratingly passed it the previous day on the road in to Chiang Mai, but couldn’t figure out how to get the bus driver to stop, let us get off, and get our bags from underneath the bus, etc. Besides, I don’t think the long-haul buses will stop at points not on their route. If we’d spoken Thai, we might have been able to work something out, but it seemed too risky.

So anyways, we daytripped out from Chiang Mai first thing in the morning. The bus driver understood where we wanted to go (we used the word "elephant" in Thai from our Lonely Planet phrasebook – some giggles all around but it worked!) and let us off right outside the center just as it was opening (8 am). From the main gate at the road, it’s a 1km walk to the center itself. We got a ride with someone in to the center. There is a one way road that eventually leads to the center – but if you’re walking, *MAKE SURE* you take the RIGHT turn, then turn LEFT at the big radio tower. Otherwise you’ll be walking for 2 hours instead of 30 minutes. With no shade.

We took an hour long ride on an elephant through the jungle for $20 US. Quite an experience. It was very pleasant. We then saw the handlers (mahouts) bathing the elephants in the lake, and we watched the show. In the show, they demonstrate how the elephants have been trained in traditional logging techniques. They can stack wood, carry logs, etc. Next was the inevitable zoo/circus-like part of the  show. The elephants "painted" and "played music" as Wendy cringed. We headed out to see the elephant hospital. Here we saw several animals being treated for pretty painful looking injuries – gangrenous feet, big cuts, etc. The ECC takes in animals from Thailand and neighbouring countries that have been injured, and nurses them back to health.

We walked back out to the road (even the quick way is not so quick, when it’s the beating noon-day sun and there is no shade at all). Of course, we *just* missed a bus, and had to wait with no shade for 30 minutes for the next bus. We never found out about any organized tour packages from Chiang Mai to the ECC.

Anyways, we finally made it back to Chiang Mai, checked out a few wats (one of which featured a very horny 3 legged dog. Believe me, that’s talent!) and wandered down the street where we had seen the huge market the previous day. It was now eerily empty. We made our way back to the hotel whereupon we made the biggest mistake of our trip to Thailand: we got a cab to the airport and left!

In the morning, we got going early again to Chiang Mai. The bus left on time and was comfortable.  We grabbed a Tuk-Tuk to get to our hotel through the narrow twisty streets of the old city. We were staying at the Libra Guest House.  This was another wonderful budget Thai hotel – probably the best of all the great places we stayed. Incredible value, incredibly clean, fantastic service, great food, etc. They were in the process of expanding, but the noise, as promised, was only during the day. We had a room with powerful quiet fan and private bathroom with hot water for only $4 US a day. The lady at reception (part of this family-run business) was incredibly cute and had amazing English. She gave us all the info we needed (and a map) to get started on our sightseeing.

We headed straight for Wat Doi Suthep. This wasn’t too easy to get to, as it’s on a big hill overlooking the town. We walked to where the songthaews leave from, but they only leave when full, unless we were willing to pay extra. Fortunately there was one other Danish couple waiting, and after a lot of hard bargaining we finally were on the way for $2.50 each. (The driver wanted us to pay for a return trip, advising us that there would be no other songthaew’s up there.. uh huh.. of course it wasn’t true )

The road has lots of twists and turns and dips – so motion sickness sufferers beware! It’s about a 45 minute drive. To get the rest of the way up the hill, either take an enclosed funicular or walk. Laziness won out for us, but there really aren’t that many stairs, and it’s well shaded. We borrowed clothes to cover up properly (oops) before entering the temple complex. It’s another typically beautiful wat, in active use.

We saw a monk blessing some Thais, and awkwardly watched. When he was done, he beckoned us to come over. We sat down in front of him, he said a prayer while waving a stick (dipped in holy? water) over us, and we were blessed!  Then he tied a string on my wrist (and his assistant tied a string on Wendy, as monks can not directly touch women). Unfortunately, the blessing only seemed to be valid in Thailand, as our luck and good fortune ran out as soon as we hit Malaysia…

Getting a songhthaew back to town was very easy and quick. From there we headed to the Sunday market on Tha Pae road. The road and market area was packed with vendors of everything from crafts to food to clothes. It was a very pleasant stroll – unfortunately cut short so we could hightail it back to the hotel for our ride to the Old Chiang Mai Cultural Center for a traditional dinner/dance.

The evening at the center was a disappointment. The dining hall is a huge room packed with tourists, each paying $8 to get in for this evening. (relatively, this is very expensive! Although it did include transport from the hotel). The food left a lot to be desired (barely warm fried chicken???), although food refills were free. Drinks were extra. The traditional dancing and music was performed by ‘authentic’ hill tribe village people. They looked bored and uninspired throughout the evening. After dinner, everyone shuffles over to an outdoor covered theater, where the performances continue. The whole affair fortunately only lasted 2 hours or so. We would have much rather been checking out the night market. But, well, hindsight being what it is…..

We tuk-tuk’ed to the bus station in Ayutthaya, as it is outside the main city and quite a walk. The bus station is set up in a pretty strange way. It is not possible to buy a ticket until the bus arrives. In our case, the bus originated in Bangkok. The ticket agent’s English wasn’t so good, and we were worried the bus we were told about didn’t exist and that’s why she wouldn’t sell us the ticket. But eventually, the bus did show up, and we, as the only non-locals, got aboard. The bus was semi-AC, but a little more cramped then the bus we had taken to Ko Samet. There was 5 seats across. Thais might be that skinny, but …

We pulled into Sukkhothai a little late (the trip took 6 hours), and we tuk-tuk’ed to our hotel, the Ban Phe Guest House. We stayed in a non-AC cabin with private bath, which was clean and not too hot, thanks to a powerful, quiet fan. The owner is English-speaking and we were very happy staying there – lots of great tourist information, super-friendly staff, etc.

Unlike Ayutthaya, the ruins are not in the city proper, but 7 miles outside in Old Sukkhothai. We took a songthaew over to the ruins. The bus was supposed to drop us off at the main gate to the ruins but instead dropped us off somewhere in the middle of Old Sukkhothai. Some school children helped us point our way (traveler’s tip. If you want good advice, never ever ask a man on the street. Women, school children, or store-owners are the best ones to point you the right way.  Men will tell you even if they don’t know).

The ruins are very different from Ayutthaya’s. They are not as well preserved, or as elaborate, but they are in much more beautiful surroundings. Basically the whole site has been turned into one big park. There are a few roads that snake through the site, but there isn’t very much traffic. It’s perfectly set up to ride a bike through from site to site (and there are many bicycle rental places right outside the main gate). We decided to walk, as it was very hot.

We wish we’d had more time there. It ended up being rushed for us – the distances between some of the wats are considerable (although the walk was always pleasant) and we found ourselves rushing to get around everywhere before the last songthaew back to town (at 5:00. The site is open later, but unless you arrange for a taxi in advance or take a scooter, you’ll be hitching!).

Sukkhothai would be perfect for a picnic – there is greenery and scenic stops everywhere, and the whole site is very well maintained. There was very few people there, despite our guidebook’s warnings of throngs of crowds. I guess people just aren’t travelling as much these days – fine by us! We were often the only ones visiting a particular wat. The wats that stood out were Wat Mahatat and Wat Phra Phai Luang (although it was quite a hike to get there).

We had a pleasant, relaxed, excellent dinner at the hotel’s restaurant. The owner even called ahead to the Old Chiang Mai Cultural Center on our behalf to make a reservation for us.