Rubbery Border Crossing

We conquered Malaysia in one day!

It was a grueling 19-hour haul comprised of numerous amazing accidental detours.

Attempting a shortcut through a "national park," we were lead (the wrong way) by a Thai on a moped through a beautiful rubber-tree farm and passed a military base. Then, we turned a corner in to a military blockade with at least a dozen stern looking young soldiers in full camo with assault rifles. We started to sweat (even more than normal), but as soon as we pulled up and stopped they all burst in to laughter and started taking photos of these ridiculous foreigners in their hilarious transport. We, however, were not allowed to take photos.

The border crossing from Thailand to Malaysia was... disorganized. We went back and forth between booths and offices while no one understood our pre-printed visas and import/export forms for the rickshaw. The whole while, every man, woman and child was inspecting, touching - and I think I saw one guy smelling - our rickshaw. We thought we were the first team to cross because every official was 100% certain they'd never seen one of these before, nor our particular forms. Yet, as soon as we passed through to Malaysia there were several other teams broken down within 100 yards.

It was good to talk so so many teams at once again. First time since the start. Lots of Chinese whispers, rumors, and half-told drama. Moose and I, perhaps thankfully, didn't catch wind of stories about us (beyond astonishment at how well our rickshaw runs).

Malaysia was... INSTANTLY DIFFERENT! People drove in lanes, used turn signals, spoke English, and wouldn't take my American credit card because it didn't have the magic chip the rest of the world uses. It had huge, well-lit box stores, well-paved roads, and street lights. We drove all day and only stopped at a Tesco (similar to Walmart).

Malaysia seemed to be constructed of equal parts modern, topiary-lined elevated freeways, 1980's strip malls with shutter shades, speed bumps, and teenage motorcycle gangs. But to be fair we were on the road the whole time, and mostly at night.

We stayed in a hotel in Butterworth where my room was swarming with cute geckos and giant mosquitoes (everyone else's room was clean). The next morning Adam and I went to a street market and proceeded to show the Malaysians what it means to be a tourist. We were inventing sign language for "chicken," fumbling with money, and having it counted out for us because we couldn't differentiate Thai from Malay. Nor did we understand that we'd gone from a single-tier currency to one with dollars and cents, where a 1 coin didn't equal 1 dollar. That made for some embarrassing barter attempts.

Adam decided to get his hair cut by a surprisingly styled-out stylist who owned his own salon. Then we dropped the rickshaw off at the port, where all the teams were waiting.

We tried to take a ferry from Padang (Georgetown) to Medan, Indonesia, but it was cancelled... in 2010. Thanks, Lonely Planet. After a quick cab ride with an Indian guy who somehow managed to talk faster than he drove, we were at the airport.

Next, Medan!