jarno’s / trul’s page

Malacca is the next UNESCO World Heritage Site (since 2008) I was visiting. Malacca was an important spice trading town in the past because of its strategic location next to the sea strait with the same name. The Portuguese ruled the state and city in the 15th century. the Dutch took over control of the region in the 17th century, controlling it for more than 180 years. So yes, there is still a little  windmill. In 1824 the Dutch signed a treaty which gave the British administrative control over the region. The region was owned by the Japanese during World War II. I’m just summing the dates, for more information feel free to check Wikipedia :p.

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Pulau Pinang (where Pulau means island) is an island off the northwestern coast of Peninsular Malaysia. It was listed by UNESCO in 2008 as a World Heritage Site. Most inhabitants of the island live in Georgetown, the biggest – and capital – city on the north-west of the island. Founded in 1786 by British trader Francis Light, Georgetown was one of the three Straits Settlements along with Malacca and Singapore. Modern-day Georgetown is one of Malaysia’s largest cities with 600,000 inhabitants.

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For my trip from Koh Phangan to Penang, Malaysia I bought a combined ferry and bus ticket. The journey is about 700 kilometres over land, excluding the 3 hours ferry ride from Koh Phangan to mainland. The lady at the travel agency was sure that it would be by VIP-bus, though I spoke to Francesco in advance who told me that it was by minibus: no problem. I had to say bye bye to paradise early in the morning. Here is the itinerary for that day:

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Today I uploaded a selection of the pictures I made in Vietnam. You can find the pictures here:

* Pictures in normal view
* Pictures displayed on Google maps
* Pictures in Google Earth

Ko Pha Ngan is an island off the Central Gulf Coast of Southern Thailand, halfway between the islands of Ko Samui and Ko Tao. It is known as a land of coconut trees and, above all, for its full moon party: a monthly drug and booze party on the south east of the island, with people trying mushrooms or or just getting shitfaced and peeing in the sea, leaving their glass in there. There was no full moon during my stay and I did not bother to go to the black moon party, for which you need to pay entrance fee unlike the full moon party. The rest of the island is a quiet paradise with lots of people staying here for a long time to do a yoga course.

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Micky needed a new little laptop and a new camera – her camera died and her sister got the old laptop – so we went to a few malls to look around. In the end she bought a Sony Vaio netbook.

We have basically been lazy for the days and primarily ate a lot. Mickies parents were heading to Chiang Rai for a business talk in the weekend so she stayed with me. We stayed 8 nights at Imm Fusion.  Micky went home a few of those days.

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