Hospital verdict, historic Georgetown, and an unfortunate change of plans.

We were back at the Penang Gleneagles hospital at 9:00am Saturday morning to finish the other two tests that we didn't have time for on Friday. 

Once again, very efficient, and we got the results almost right away and had another consultation with the cardiologist.

Spent half the day at the hospital!

Just some background... the male side of my (Kevin's) family does not have good genetics when it comes to heart health. So when I got the laser eye repair done in Tashkent in October and the cardiologist there said that both my blood pressure and my cholesterol were too high, I was a little concerned. 

And, the doctor had said to give it a couple of months and get my blood numbers checked again. So here we are in Malaysia where these tests can be done at a reasonable price. And I wanted to get some more tests done just to satisfy myself that there is not something more serious on the go.

Visit to a mansion, and lots of different food!

Yesterday, Han and Michelle took us up to the Georgetown area to visit the Pinang Peranakan Mansion Museum. It was built in 1896, but spent many decades in neglect before being fully restored in 2002. 

Really quite spectacular, as you'll see in the photos...

Busy day with a lot of stops between Kuala Lumpur and Penang Island

We were downstairs at 7:30am Wednesday morning waiting for Han and Michelle to pick us up. 

We originally met Han and Michelle in May 2019 in Singapore when we were on our way to Australia. They are originally from Malaysia, but live in Singapore. We kept in touch, and then we bumped into them again in Kosovo where we went out to dinner.

Wandering around Kuala Lumpur

On Tuesday, we decided to stay in the central area and try to scratch some things off our "to do" list. 

When I bought this Honor Magic 5 Pro phone, it came with a very flimsy protective case and I wanted something a little more heavy duty. But because the phone itself isn't readily available in North America, options were limited as to accessories. Here in Asia though, choices are better.

December Expenses and 2023 Expenses Review

Well, 2023 was our most expensive year yet since we started out in 2007. We knew that we were going to spend more in 2023 than we did in 2022, so it's not surprising. We just didn't plan on it being that much more!

For December, we had a planned budget of $2,400 CAD ($1,780 USD). However that was before we decided to come to Malaysia, and the flights and accommodation here added to that. Also, we did some things in Thailand that were unplanned, like flying from Ubon to Chiang Mai.

Another one of those big lizards!

We slept in a bit after our late night on New Year's Eve, and just coasted through the morning. Not the most logical choice though, since the morning tends to be a couple of degrees cooler than the afternoon and we had some exploring to do!

Kuala Lumpur has a fair bit of park space, and one in particular showed a lot of different trails.

Happy New Year 2024!

One of the reasons we paid the extra to have accommodation right in the center of Kuala Lumpur was because we were coincidentally going to be here for New Year's Eve. And Kuala Lumpur is one of the world's great New Years Eve destinations. 

There is normally a midnight fireworks show at the iconic Petronas Twin Towers to ring in the new year, however that was cancelled this year as they unfortunately politicized the event due to the war in the middle east. They said we should not be celebrating while others in the world are suffering. However, some private enterprises here in Kuala Lumpur stepped up to the plate and we got to ring in the new year with fireworks anyhow.

Highlights of 2023. The Year in Review...

At the end of 2022, I wrote "2023 is going to be just as good"... and boy, was it ever!

We started 2023 in Granada, Spain and ended it in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. With 18 other countries in between! We were in 20 countries in total in 2023, with 10 of them being new countries for us, bringing our total countries visited list up to 67!

Welcome to Malaysia, country #67 for us!

With a 9:10am flight departure time, we left the hotel at about 6:30am. We originally thought about taking a Grab taxi, but there was hardly any traffic so we decided to walk to the airport. From the hotel it was just under 2 kms so we were still there by 7:00am.

We were already checked in online, but we had to check our carry on bags. We found the check in counter for AirAsia, and we were surprised to find that there was a huge line. This is when we almost made a rookie mistake!

Back to Chiang Mai

We needed to get back to Chiang Mai, and had originally thought our host would be driving us back to the main highway, and we would take the local transportation back to the city.

But the young couple, Jorrit and Mei, we had said hello to the day before had a car, and so we asked if they were heading back that morning hoping we could hop in with them. It turned out that they were, but they were making a side trip to a waterfall. "But you are welcome to join us", they said!

It's all about the money

With sore bums from the ride the day before, we hopped back on the bicycles for the 8 kms (5 mile) ride to the Wat Ban Den Temple Complex. Yes, we've seen a lot of temples (there are 37,000 of them in Thailand), but this one was supposed to be something special.

And it was!

Well, everything was going smoothly...

We went down for breakfast at 8:30am. Not quite as special as the breakfasts we had at the last place, but still sufficient... scrambled eggs, toast, coffee, and fruit. Right after breakfast, our host Pohn told us that they had to make a trip to the Myanmar border, and that we were on our own and to make ourselves at home.

He had left three older bikes out for us to choose from, and said there was no charge.

Now this is more our style!

At 8:00am Tuesday, we set up the laptop for a Christmas Day video call with the family. Of course it was Monday evening back in Canada, and with participants spread out between Nova Scotia and Alberta, there are a few time zones involved.  But, we got everybody online at the same time and there were seven different video screens open. Certainly amazing technology that allows us to do this from anywhere in the world!

We had one last great breakfast at the Chedi Home Guesthouse in Chiang Mai, and then set out walking with all of our worldly belongings.

Moving to the countryside

Our original plan was to stay at this guesthouse in Chiang Mai until the 30th, but when I booked, they were sold out after the 26th. This has turned out to be a good thing, since we've had enough of Chiang Mai and are taking our last three nights here out in the countryside!

The guesthouse itself has been great. But our first impressions of Chiang Mai have stuck with us. It's not for us. Far too busy, too big, too touristy, too much traffic, not easily walkable... we're just not seeing the attraction.

Merry Christmas from Thailand!

It's Christmas morning as I write this here in Thailand. And Christmas Eve in all of North America where the majority of our readers are located. Millions of kiddies will wake up with excitement and big smiles on their faces in the morning!

From the weather reports, it's looking like a green Christmas in our hometown of Ottawa. Not that rare of an event, as there have been about 15 of them since the 1950's. And it's most certainly a green Christmas here in Thailand!

What's on the agenda for 2024...?

I noticed that our friends Linda and Steven over at The Chouters posted their upcoming plans for 2024, and yesterday was a quiet day for us so I thought we'd take this opportunity to do the same.

Our plans are always pretty flexible though, so don't take all of this as being written in stone! 

Temple tunnels, and met some other Canadian senior nomads

We had originally planned to go on a hike, but ended up going to a temple instead. Personally, I'm already "templed out". They begin to all look the same after a while, so unless there is something special, I've lost interest. However this one had some interesting tunnels built into the complex, so we made the 5.5 km trek through the city to get there.

So I suppose we did do a hike... but it certainly wasn't in nature!

Arrived in Chiang Mai, Thailand

We called a Grab taxi (about $3.00) to take us and our bags to the Big Ubon Breakfasts for one last great breakfast before we flew out. It's only about 2 kms, and we would normally walk that, but Ubon is definitely not pedestrian friendly, especially during morning rush hour. 

We had a great breakfast, and the owner Andy offered to drive us the short distance to the Ubon airport terminal.

Daytrip number two to the Mekong River

We didn't see everything we wanted to see the day before, so once again we hopped in the rental car. This time, we drove northeast to Kaeng Sam Phan Bok, or as it is known in English, the 3,000 holes.

This is a section on the Mekong River where there are a lot of rapids during the high waters of the rainy season, and the swirling waters have created an odd landscape of erosion in the rocks. This phenomenon can only be seen during the December to March dry season when the low water levels enable you to explore the shoreline.

Busy day in a part of Thailand that not many tourists go

We are staying in the city of Ubon, which is a place not many tourists go. The city itself doesn't have a lot to offer, however it is day trip distance from the Mekong River and the border with Laos. 

And on that border at the river are quite a few interesting things to see!

We're going to be renting a car for a couple of days!

It was 8:30am before we finally made our way out of the room for breakfast. We've got a kettle and tea and coffee in the room so we were just relaxing. Anyhow, the little restaurant area is right outside our room, so we figured we'd go for breakfast because we'd seen breakfast items on the menu. We went out there, and there was nobody around, with a "closed" sign on the door. (Turns out they stopped serving breakfast during Covid, and never got it started again).

So, I found another place about 15 or 20 minutes walk away.

We're kind of bouncing around without a plan!

But that's fine, because it's all new to us anyhow. 

Yesterday, we took the train from Pak Chong to Ubon Ratchathani. Everyone just calls it "Ubon", so that's what I'll do from now on. Originally, we were thinking we would try to get into Cambodia from Pak Chong, but the route was too difficult.

Back into the national park

One of the problems with this type of "senior backpacking" travel that we are currently doing is that we don't have a vehicle. We've solved this problem in the past by renting a car, the way we have done in Romania and Turkiye. This time, we've been trying to avoid it because we really didn't need one in the cities, and the train is so easy to use. 

But when it comes to getting into a national park here in Thailand to do some hiking, it does make things a little more complicated.

Bugs and bats

On Friday afternoon, we did our scheduled half day tour with the group from the guesthouse. This tour does not go into the national park itself, so it's quite a bit cheaper because you don't have to pay the park entrance fee per person.

Once again, there were five of us in the back of the truck... us, a single guy from Birmingham, UK, and a couple from France.

We saw a lot of interesting stuff!

A busy day yesterday as we did a full day tour into Thailand's Khao Yai National Park. 

We had read that the full day tour can have as many as 15 people on it, but you are separated into groups of 5, so it feels like you're on a small group tour. We had a younger guy from Germany, and a mother and daughter from France with us.

Ayutthaya to Pak Chong travel day

Wednesday was not that exciting of a day, but you kind of want travel days to be like that! 

We had reservations for the 11:30am train from Ayutthaya to Pak Chong. It's a two hour train ride, and each ticket cost 173 baht (4.85 USD, $6.60 CAD) each for a one way reserved seat in third class. We are quite happy in third class with all of the locals. Much more fun that way, and they have all the windows wide open with the wind blowing through.