Normally, Tawn and I travel frequently enough that I meet my visa requirements – exit/re-enter the country or go to the immigration office every 90 days – without making any special effort.  However, it has been almost ninety days since I was last out of the country and we have no potential trips planned until mid-October.  So I had to cave in and do a visa run.

Sure, I could have gone to the immigration office but that isn’t any fun.  In fact, I’ve heard that it really isn’t any fun at all.

One option was to do a visa bus run to the Cambodian border.  This involves waking up super early and getting on a large tour bus with a bunch of other expats, driving four hours to Cambodia, crossing the border and being faced by numeous beggards, victims or landmines and attrocities, and other people who would like your pity or, even better, some money, and then spending about an hour eating a questionable hotel buffet before you cross back over into Thailand and spend another four hours driving back to Khrungthep.

This didn’t sound like a fun time, so I searched the internet to see which low cost Southeast Asian airline would like to fly me somewhere international for not too much money.  Fortunately, Thai Air Asia had a very nice round trip price of 3700 baht, US$100, roundtrip to Penang.  I’d never been to Malaysia and Penang sounded interesting, so I booked a day trip there.

What I didn’t realize is that I had booked to travel on Malaysia’s National Day!  So when I arrived in central Georgetown, the main city on Penang Island, at about 10:30 am I found things largely deserted.

Right: View from the KOMTAR tower, the tallest building in the city, looking towards the historic district. 

The city shows its colonial influence as well as its mixed salad cultural heritage (ethnic Malay, Chinese, and Indian are the major groups) through its food and its architecture.  The older portion of the city is very walkable so I spent the better part of the day wandering around, taking pictures and visiting some of the notable sights according to the Lonely Planet Guide.

Clockwise from top left: 1) Old sign along Campbell Street; 2) brightly painted colonial building in Chiantown; 3) a row of concrete shop houses nearby 4) Khoo Khongsi (Khoo family clan hosue) interior on 5) exterior; 6) Masjid Kapitan Keiling – the mosque built by Penang’s first Indian Muslim settlers in 1801.

By around 2:00 I was very hungry and after having passed more hawker centers than I could count, I finally decided to go into one and see what the famed cusines of Penang had to offer.  Sadly, as a solo traveller, my options for trying a variety of dishes were limited.  Poking around, I asked several people what the various types of food were.  Everyone spoke more than enough English to make it easy for me and all were frienly.  One guy helped guide me through the selection process and I settled on a local version of fried rice that had small mounds of different ingredients ringing the main dish.  Very tasty.  He turned out to be very curious about a solo traveller from Bangkok, and we struck up a good conversation.  Of course, all his recommendations about the other types of food I should try were for naught, since I had a 5:30 flight back to Thailand.

After a little more exploring I headed to the airport, checking in about 90 minutes before my flight.  Penang Airport is this cute 13-gate airport, with the International and Domestic gates mixed together, but with different entrance and exit areas based on your ticket. 

About five minutes before boarding for the flight was to begin, they gate agent announced that the flight – true to Air Asia reputation – would be delayed for an hour because the plane was still en route.  I can’t believe that they didn’t realize that just a little further in advance, since the plane was coming from Khrunthep, a full 100 minutes away.

This gave me a little time to shop – wine has a much smaller duty than in Thailand and so the prices are much, much more reasonable. 

I also struck up a conversation with another passenger who was on his way up to Khrungthep to visit friends.  With the low fares on Thai Air Asia, I think a lot of people in Southeast Asia can make frequent visits to other places very easily.  A nice guy, we exchanged contact information and Tawn and I subsequently met him for lunch at Central Food Loft on Saturday afternoon.

The flight back was uneventful and I was home in time for dinner with another 90-day stamp in my passport.