Malay

...kinda sucks. Its very expensive here!!! Like...very. Like...almost the same as Canada.
We are staying in a guest house called "Banana New House" (they speak English here)
and its got its own money exchanger (they use ringgets [9ringgets=1baht] in Malaysia) and they are doing our visas for us! In the morning, they go to immigration and take care of it for us!! So we lucked out.
The man told us that we probably wont get approved for a 1-year visa, and that nowadays its very rare. he said that some people who even own buisnesses have to leave the country every 3 months and ususally the odd time that people get 1 years is if they have a work permit with a company for a long period of time.
So... we're in Penang until 2:30pm on Friday. I think overall it only took us 12 hours to get here. And we stopped over in Hat Jai City(Hat Yai, Had Jai, Haat Yai...etc..its a different spelling everytime) which is in Songkla province of Thailand. There was a lot of nice little markets and vendors. and we sat down with some tuktuk drivers and practised our Thai with them. Then a police officer came up to join in. And he had a newspaper in his hand, and he opened it up to show us and he was on the cover of the front page, wearing his uniform and he stood the exact same. He was a really nice man and he was tall and skinny and he gelled his mustache into thin little curls (like the pirates do) bu tthen he got walkey-talkied to take care of something and left. But we had fun sitting there.

We went through customs at the border and they let me take 15 clementines, 2 apples and coconut water!

We really miss Chompoo. But Uncle said he'd take care of her for us! We we're trying to find her a home up until we left, but no luck.

Our friend Astch (pronounced Ash...which...im just going to spell it that way cause its easier) is building a house near us. Its actually in a very beautiful spot. He took me down to see it the other day and its right on the riverfront, and hes got a little gazeebo and a longtail boat and a really big lawn and then he has part of the jungley forest to do whatever he wants to, and its very quiet and secluded and he has no neighbours execpt for his parents. I want to live down there now. And he gets to hang out all day down there are relax cause he works mostly around suppertime for 2 or 3 hours. He works with football ( soccer) and he recruits people from all over Thailand and he trains them to play for this team (dunno the name)
But he brings them down by his house and they do all their training like running and stuff down there! Hes very cool. He took me and Jessica out for coffee the other day and picked jessica up from work , which is like a 20 min drive away. Hes got a sweet truck and he is introducing us to some really thai reggae music like Palmy and T-Bone! Check them out. Palmy looks like a younger, half thai version of Janis Joplin.

Back to Penang. We dont really care for it all that much. Its just like being in any other city except for everyone is frowning or staring blankly. I dont know why they arent happy.
:( we're just sticking around the guesthouse and playing it safe. Gotta hide from the mosquitoes too because they carry Dengue fever here. Can't take the chance right now! Although that powder stuff really comes in handy. It was less than a dollar and its like baby powder and you just put it all over you and it smells the same as baby powder but it scares away mozzies!

Ok time to go find a book.
xoxo