Goodbye Thailand, hello Malaysia!

Georgetown is connected to the mainland via this bridge -- the second-longest bridge to a mainland in the world (or so I'm told)
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Another very early morning was necessary to get on the road out of Thailand and into Malaysia.  We were warned that it would be a long day -- nearly 11 hours of travel in total.  The vacation is over: let the traveling begin!

We took a minibus to Pattani (or somewhere near there... not too sure) to get on a train, headed to Georgetown/ Penang, Malaysia.  Nothing too eventful here, except that when we arrived in Pattani, we were swarmed with men trying to sell us tickets on the train and all their chatter was really annoying our tour leader.  Luckily, Liz and I had just realized that today was CANADA DAY, so I proceeded to try to teach the men how to sing "Oh Canada", while also explaining that no, Canada does not have an Independence Day, because we are not independent from anything.  Jane was quite impressed with my skills in occupying the men, that's for sure!

Luckily, Liz and I had just realized that today was CANADA DAY, so I proceeded to try to teach the men how to sing "Oh Canada"

When we finally unloaded all the bags, we had some free time, so a group of us headed off in search of provisions for the train.  In this small little town, what did we find?  A Tops, grocery store!  No joke!  We were very amused as we wandered the aisles, checking out the new and wonderful produce, miles of seafood counters and interesting dairy section.  Liz and I made a scene, as usual, when we finally went to check out.  I had picked up a big bag of our now favourite mangosteen from the produce section, but it seems the cashiers don't have weigh scales like at home and I was supposed to have weighed it at put my own sticker on it.  But the cashier couldn't explain this all to me, so she just gave me an annoyed look and hurried back to produce to do it for me.  Since we were in the express line, there was soon a huge line of angry thai people, glaring at us for holding us up.  And sure enough, Liz was buying tampons, which are a huge no-no in Thailand, so the women closest to us were staring into her basket, and giving even more disapproving looks.  Oh, it was a scene!

On the walk back to the train station, my friends showed up again and started singing to me, the words of "Oh Canada".  They had remembered... hahaha!

The train was pretty uninteresting, more like those at home, but the trip soon became great fun when we arrived at the Malaysian border.  We all had to disembark from the train and carry all our of luggage into the customs station.  Customs was also rather uneventful -- thankfully! -- but I did get 2 more stamps for my passport!

Back on the train, it was another 4 hour ride through the Malaysian countryside.  We arrived very later in Butterworth, Malaysia, which is really nothing more than the city across from the more famous city of Georgetown.  In Butterworth, we boarded the ferry to Georgetown.  From the sea, Georgetown looks like a "mini Hong Kong", with tall buildings sitting on the sea and larger mountains in the background.  We were all a little worn-out to appreciate the scenery.

Once in Georgetown, we walked with our packs the "short" 15-minutes to our hotel.  After quickly getting settled, we met back in the lobby to find dinner as a group -- as well as watch England lose to someone in a World Cup match (the British girls are very much into the 'football' scene... too bad they lost).  We settled on an Indian restaurant, and we were quickly rushed upstairs to our own private floor, complete with several televisions for the soccer fans.  It was a feast.  For 9 Ringitt (3 CDN), I had a lovely banana shake, tons of food and dessert.  Delish!  Malaysia was turning out to be a pretty cool place.