Monthly Archives: January 2008

(Stay tuned — more bug photos coming up.) This morning we hired a car to drive us around to a bunch of roadside attractions outside of town.  The spice garden is a botanical garden that features a bunch of herbs … Continue reading →

Penang island was a free port in the 50’s and 60’s, but then lost its free trade status. (At about the same time, Langkawi was designated a free port.  I don’t understand the politics of this at all.)  That means … Continue reading →

The main goal of the drive to Kuala Selangor was the fireflies on the Selangor river.  There’s a small boat-launch where tourists hire electric boats (or rowboats) to cruise around in the dark.  The fireflies only live on the mangrove … Continue reading →

I’m not sure why this was part of the tour, but at some point we stopped and rode a strange-looking jitney up a hill to look at some old European fortifications which overlook the straight.  The main draw of the … Continue reading →

So far, most of what I’ve seen of the countryside of peninsular Malaysia consists of palm-oil plantations.  Our tour-guide Saan’s father used to work as an engineer at an oil factory, so Saan is full of palm-related factoids. The trees … Continue reading →

Today we’re taking a long, slow, daytime train from Kuala Lumpur to Butterworth, and then a ferry from Butterworth to Georgetown in Penang. This train is the slowest transport option along this route, and I’ve selected it so I can … Continue reading →

I was really impressed at the handiwork of these guys — they turned this escalator completely inside-out. They must’ve been a bit smug about it too, because when I started snapping pictures they lined up and posed like big game … Continue reading →

The next few sets of photos are from Chinatown in Singapore.  It’s Lunar (aka ‘Chinese’) New Year next week so there are zillions of temporary booths and candy shops set up.