Part X

Wicked, it's 6/6/06. Although it'll be the 7th by the time you all get this anyway. Saw a licence plate with 666 but I don't think the world has ended yet...

I tried a Durian the other night. The so called "king of fruit". It was disgusting. It's comprised of this white ice cream like substance but it tastes yuk. I had 2 small bites and it left a horrible taste, then when I went for the chiller they told me I couldn't mix beer with durian or I'd die. Great! So I had a coke instead, then felt sick for the rest of the evening. Tasted not unlike an orange fruit I got the other day which left my lips sticky like PVA and had a texture of onion. Didn't eat much of that either. As tropical fruits go, I think I'll stick to mangoes and pineapple. There are reasons why we don't bother importing this cr@p I suppose... and Just Juice doesn't have a Durian variant : )

Tiring of the 'hos, lady boys and hideous whinings from the Chinese puppet show, I have found new lodgings. It used to be a Buddhist Mok some time back. Has a nice atmosphere. There's an indian fulla there named Raffy. He read my palm, was most fascinating, very well done. He does Cobra massage too, a worthy complimentary treatment for the acupuncture. Uses lots of pressure points and releasing stagnation in the channels. Not unlike Tuina.

Malaysia appears to have stange liquor laws / customs. After a b@stard morning yesterday of driving up and down motorways trying to find a temple full of snakes, which I had to abort in the end, I decided it would be prudent to have a beer and put it all behind me. I found the cheapest beer I have yet seen and it happens to be a premium Danish drop called Royal Stout made by Carlsberg at 8% alcohol. Go figure... it's really good too, only need 1 in this climate! It costs half the price for a hippy of spirits than it does for a large beer.

I was walking around thinking about food when these toothless old chinese women gestured for me to come over. They had a food stand but I couldn't really figure out what they were selling other than there was a pile of noodles on the counter. Decided to go for it anyway and they made me the most tasty seafood noodle soup I've ever had.

Can be a mission negotiating the motorways over here, one moment I'm heading north towards my destination and all of a sudden it'll loop around and spit me back out on a another motorway heading to the other end of the island.

Mike is here (for those who know Mike) He came rocking into my gusthouse last night. Got a bike today and went back down to find the Snake temple. Dodging in and out of the traffic with a passenger on the back, things got a bit wobbly at times but not too bad. I asked an indian fulla at the roundabout near where my useless map showed the temple to be and he gave us excellent directions to the place. It wasn't all that though, a few little green vipers around. Went into the snake farm next door though which was ok. Had a venomous baby Temple Viper on my hand, they're deadly but choose not to bite, cos I'm not their prey. Got in the cage with a massive python too.

Headed back to the massive boddhisatva statue via a rather circuitous route due to a combination of the Penang roading system and a tourist map with roads that look like fat wobbly worms with no place names. Checked out the rest of the temple complex this time. Theres temple after temple all to different personas of Buddha. Cool place. Theres tacky tourist shops in some of the temples which seems a bit off to me. Felt like busting out the Jesus styles.. flip the tables over and chase them out with a stick. Suppose they need to fund the place somehow. I hung out by the large statue while Mike was getting an extended lesson in Buddhism from a monk there. This dog decided to be my mate and followed me around the place, was nice except his idea of fun was to keep biting my leg, till I chased him away. We climbed the Million Buddhas Pagoda. I don't think there were quite a million depictions of Buddha in there though, maybe a couple of thousand...

It is nice having a bike for another 24hrs. Get to ride my lazy @ss around to the internet cafe rather than walking the whole 5 minute journey : )

Went to the furnicular (cable car) being just down the road but it's school holidays, busy as with annoying kids and a long wait so postponed that yet again.

Strange, the radio was just playing an obscure hip hop style Enya remix...

Oh no.. now the dude running the cafe is watching what sounds awfully like WWF.

"...brought a 2 by 4 down on Monty Browns back...."

Outta here, there's a predatory mosquito on the rampage in here.