Christmas on a Bus

You probably wouldn’t think that the idea of Christmas on a bus would be appealing. To be honest, I was not interested at all! When we made our travel plans, we were very flexible, but we all agreed that we wanted to be on a beach on Christmas Day and did not want to be traveling. Clearly the universe had other plans for us because here we were, walking up Christmas morning at 6:00 am (after only going to bed at 3:00am) to skype with my family before packing up and jumping on a bus.

It was so expensive to fly to Langkawi or Penang (at least $200 USD), the train was the cheapest (only about $10 USD) but we were told that the bus would be the most enjoyable – comfortable seating, and beautiful scenery. Well the bus ride was honestly amazing!

For starters, we ended up in a executive sleeper bus. There were probably only 30 seats on the whole bus, and each reclined into a pretty comfy bed. Additionally, each had a personal entertainment system on the back of each headrest. I never turned it on so I am not exactly sure what it entailed, but I am sure it was cool. Once we drove out of Singapore and passed through costumes getting back into Malaysia, the rest was a breeze. Both of the girls were knocked out quickly, but I put on my headphones and stared out the window nearly the entire drive, and my God, it was breathtaking! We drove in and out of mountains and valleys and through the jungle of Malaysia. We drove through tiny villages and big cities all of which were backed by the incredible backdrop of the mountains. At one point, I even saw monkeys playing along the side of the road. Now if I were driving, I would have stopped and gotten out of my car to take pictures. However, monkeys in Malaysia are like deer or squirrels, so they are nothing special to anyone else… in fact, they are more of a nuisance than anything.

The other cool part about driving instead of flying straight through was that we got to make pit stops in some pretty cool places. Picture a bus stop in the US… a huge paved parking lot, probably a large building with a semi decent bathroom (that may or may not have tp) and usually a McDonalds or a Starbucks if you are lucky, but more likely a couple vending machines. The first stop that we made, I thought it was a joke. We pulled off the highway into some little village and parked in front of a huge building that had seen better decades. There were tons of people, but I assure you that we were the only white ones. There was no McDonalds or Starbucks, but street food everywhere, although not nearly as appealing as the street food I adore in China. The bathroom was disguising, and it was the first time that I was really sad that it was not a squatty potty. I mean if a bathroom is going to be that gross, I wish that it were just a hole in the ground so that any part of my body wouldn’t have to go near the toilet. It wasn’t my favorite place in the world, but it was definitely interesting.

The second time that we stopped was awesome. Again we pulled off the road into a small village, and parked in the middle of what looked like a dirt pit. There was a bathroom equally disgusting but the people were so friendly. The street food at this stop was fresh fruit, and homemade waffles, deep fried bananas, and egg and chicken burgers. We loaded up on a little bit of everything and sat down at a little table. The locals loved us. They didn’t speak a whole lot of English but they turned on some English music and started dancing and they kept saying “I love you” to us! The food was delicious and it reminded me about how welcoming and friendly Malay people were to us when we first arrived. It is not that Singapore people were unfriendly, but people seemed to really enjoy interacting with us and they wanted to in any way they could.

Well what was supposed to be a 9 hour bus ride, turned into 12 hours as we drove the entire lateral distance of Malaysia. I can’t complain though because I did enjoy the ride. We got to watch the sunset over the mountains, but by the time it was dark out, I was restless. When we finally drove across the bridge into Penang Island and got out at the bus station, it was pretty much a nightmare finding out way out, getting a taxi and making it to our hostel… but we made it!

This was the second time that we found a super friendly and talkative Malaysia taxi driver (it was becoming a pattern). I, of course, ended up in the front seat and from the second the doors closed until we arrived at the hostel thirty minutes later, our taxi driver talked and talked. Don’t get me wrong, he was extremely friendly and he wanted to tell us all about the island. The problem is that although Malays speak English, they speak it with a very strong accent (almost Indian) and lightening fast that makes it terribly difficult to understand. I did my best to keep up, but man, I was getting a headache trying to listen, decipher and comprehend the bits and pieces that I was getting to turn it into some kind of logical conversation. The girls were laughing in the back and later applauded my efforts admitting that they did not understand a single word that he had said.