What a long day! We took off at 6 am at the hotel on Penang island in Malaysia and started our 400 mile drive north to the resort of Rayavadee in Thailand where we just arrived at 5 pm. The first few hours of our trip were the usual panic; urban Asian traffic: people with dogs on mopeds, people with umbrellas on mopeds, people towing cages full of pigs on mopeds, people hauling construction materials on mopeds, people holding newborns on mopeds…and they are all going really fast and seem to completely rely on your alertness for their own survival. Needless to say that we were very relieved when we had passed the border post from Malaysia to Thailand. We exchanged some money (you can’t buy anything in the towns here without local currency) and entered Thailand.
The roads and areas we passed are a lot more rural and less refined here than in most of Malaysia. Malaysia benefits greatly from their oil resources in the East and they have invested their oil money mostly into building out their traffic infrastructure. On our way through Thailand we saw a lot more farming activity.
One very interesting thing we stumbled upon was a gathering of about 100 men and at least as many cages full of birds in the middle of a field. The birdcages were all hanging from wires over the grass. The chirping and birdsong was intense and apparently this whole ceremony was some kind of game whose purpose it is to have your bird jump from one ring in its cage to the next the most times within a certain period. I felt funny at first because we were entering this very indigenous local event as complete foreigners, but people waved us over, told us to get closer to the action to get a better view.
We continued our journey and stopped at a place called the Tiger Caves on our way. The caves are a holy place for Buddhist monks and we were lucky enough to see the initiation ceremony for two young aspiring monks who got all their hair shaved off (including eyebrows) right in front of us. Bloody scalps.
We continued towards the Thai coastline. The beaches here are very beautiful…traditional old fishing boats everywhere, the coastline lined with high cliffs and large rocks…we took a speedboat to our hotel, which sits on its own little island in the middle of the sea. It’s a truly amazing place. More tomorrow! Need to sleep now.
The roads and areas we passed are a lot more rural and less refined here than in most of Malaysia. Malaysia benefits greatly from their oil resources in the East and they have invested their oil money mostly into building out their traffic infrastructure. On our way through Thailand we saw a lot more farming activity.
One very interesting thing we stumbled upon was a gathering of about 100 men and at least as many cages full of birds in the middle of a field. The birdcages were all hanging from wires over the grass. The chirping and birdsong was intense and apparently this whole ceremony was some kind of game whose purpose it is to have your bird jump from one ring in its cage to the next the most times within a certain period. I felt funny at first because we were entering this very indigenous local event as complete foreigners, but people waved us over, told us to get closer to the action to get a better view.
We continued our journey and stopped at a place called the Tiger Caves on our way. The caves are a holy place for Buddhist monks and we were lucky enough to see the initiation ceremony for two young aspiring monks who got all their hair shaved off (including eyebrows) right in front of us. Bloody scalps.
We continued towards the Thai coastline. The beaches here are very beautiful…traditional old fishing boats everywhere, the coastline lined with high cliffs and large rocks…we took a speedboat to our hotel, which sits on its own little island in the middle of the sea. It’s a truly amazing place. More tomorrow! Need to sleep now.
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