The road tracklog
From Taiping to Padang Besar
from 10/12 to 14/12/2007

The Internet Café in Taiping opened only at 10:00 am. I should wait. Alas the Orange mailbox was in disturbance. Time lag with France is seven hours, Orange was under maintenance. I went back there after lunch to update my website. Then I took the E1 highway to go to George Town where I arrived around 5:00 pm in the rain. I found a bivouac in L Selamat between Jln Burma and Jln Macalister.

 
Penang Bridge 
Pulau Penang 
the 10/12/2007 

The 12/12 I visited George Town with the booklet provided by Tourism Center which proposes two walks through the city to discover colonial buildings then religious ones. Undoubtedly the city has a Chinese majority. With pleasure I found again the serenity of Chinese temples opposed to the multicoloured exuberance of Hindu temples and sound proselytism of mosques. The East India Company built administrative buildings that the State of Penang maintains admirably, another difference with India, and churches. I strolled most of the day under a Breton drizzle in the morning and a leaded sky in the afternoon with a temperature around 29°C and moisture higher than 80%.

 
Pavilions, 1920
George Town 
the 11/12/2007 

 
Players 
George Town 
the 11/12/2007 

The following day I moved towards Kuala Perlis stage to the border of Thailand. The road through the rice plantations is without much interest, the landscape is resolutely flat with some karstic relieves. The ferry of Kuala Perlis takes only passengers; on the other hand that one of Kuala Kedah in the south of Alor Setar embarks cars and trucks. The bivouac is on a side-walk in the rice plantations at a hundred metres from the sea.

 
Fishermen's village
Kuala Perlis 
the 12/12/2007 

 
Rain water recuperation 
for rice plantation 
Bivouac 
the 12/12/2007 

Before Kangar I visited the museum Muzium Kota Kayang recently inaugurated in a new building. The collections exhibited are worthy of interest and elegantly presented. At the beginning of afternoon I installed the bivouac on the carpark of Taman Negeri Perlis. Then I went for a long walk in the secondary forest. It was my first experiment of a leech through the sock. I saw many large lizards, varan, and a multitude of butterflies, but none of large animals announced by Visitor Centre.

 
L'entrée du Parc
Wang Kelian 
le 13/12/2007 

 
Burma cave II 
Wang Kelian 
le 13/12/2007 

I arrived in Padang Besar around 8:30 I filled tanks one with diesel and another with water at the last petrol pump of Petronas. In Thailand the diesel is much more expensive. Insurance is compulsory, in the city I found an insurer open at 09:00 which gave me an insurance for three months at the price of 70 MYR, that is approximately 15 euros and a bank to exchange ringgits against bahts.
The border crossing is presented on Information, for Thailand see travelog and Information.
In the two countries I was treated with regard and courtesy. In Thailand it rained much, an officer accompanied me with an umbrella to my truck. The time lag in Thailand with UTC is moreover seven hours, that is to say one hour less than Malaysia.

The journey in Thailand began.