Decided that I'll actually leave tomorrow, so I spent most of today writing, planning, organizing things, replying to emails, taking pictures, and a bit of beach time. I spent part of the afternoon talking to Matt because, again, he really is an interesting person to talk to. It might seem strange but I was really impressed with his knowledge of football, simply because I don't have that depth of knowledge on any topic. I get bored too easily and move onto something new so I have quite a wide breadth of knowledge, but it's fairly superficial in a way.
Anyway, I wanted a quiet night and I did not want to go to Sunbar again, so after dinner I went with Matt and a different Dutch girl, whose name I can't recall, to a fairly low key Irish bar for a pint of Guiness that tasted particularly delicious since I hadn't had one in a very long time. We were all just hanging out and convinced the bartender to play more upbeat music instead of the vaguely depressing love songs he was listening to and then Lady Gaga came on. I missed her, even though I have her album on my netbook, I hadn't played it in several days, so I was really excited when she came on. I was so excited in fact that I got the bartender to play nearly her entire album.
We all went back to the hostel to hang out with the others and the newest new arrivals, but they were all going out to Sunbar later and I was not going to go (and they were drinking some disgusting booze and playing Kings without Never Have I Ever) so I went back to the Irish bar, and, somewhat ironically, considering that I was in Malaysia, met an Irish couple who I talked to until the bar closed. It doesn't sound exciting but it was a nice, calm evening out that was exactly what I wanted then.
3/25
I finally made it off the island! Woke up, packed, got some lunch and then split a cab with another woman who was leaving from the hostel to Kuah, the town on the island the ferries depart from. I took an hour long ferry ride to Kuala Perlis, on which I spoke to a Malaysian woman, probably in her late 40s, who had studied in the U.S. She'd been in New York City and said she'd had a great time there, but didn't wear her hijab at the time, which she was wearing now. I asked if that was because she'd become more religious since returning home and she thought about it for a bit before replying that it wasn't that exactly, but that it made her more aware of (and I'm obviously paraphrasing here) who she was and standards she should live up to. I'm afraid that I'm making it sound oppressive and sinister here, but the way she described it wasn't. My understanding of it was more like something you wear to remind yourself to be a better person and remain true to yourself.
After disembarking from the ferry I had a maybe 50 minute (?) cab ride to Arau, then got on the overnight train to Bankok for RM 105 ($34 USD). It was supposed to leave at 5:30 but didn't arrive at the station until 6- it was just like being on Amtrack! Before we'd been on the train for even an hour we had to get off, go through immigration to get into Thailand, which was an absolute breeze, despite what I'd heard previously, get some food and get back on.
I'd gotten a bunk on the lower level ocean side specifically so I might see a bit of the sea as the tracks run nearby, but it got dark even earlier than I'd expected and I couldn't see anything. I spent a bit of time talking to a group of Malaysian guys who seemed quite normal, and a Malaysian woman who was very nice and interested in my Indian bead loom work (I'm just trying to finish making a belt so I can stop lugging the damn thing around,) then went to bed. The bed was fine, nothing special or impressive, fairly similar to overnight trains I'd taken in Europe. All of this is to say: I'm still not impressed. I don't know why but I think I just don't like trains. Maybe it's the lack of control or that your path is already so set. If an emergency ever happened on a bus, the driver would divert to a hospital. On a train, all they can do is stop it.
I also wanted to mention here how much I hate Islamic (squat) toilets but normally I don't complain too much or have much real trouble with them. But squat toilets on a moving train is another issue altogether. It was not fun and what made it worse was the later realization that they actually had Western toilets, just in another area of the train.
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