Envoi n°15

Episode n°59 : bloody hell 3 ! [bloodyhell3.doc]
Georgetown

Pays : Malaisie (cliquer ici pour accéder à une carte)
km parcourus depuis Grenoble (FRANCE) : 14 938 km (Padang Besar, Malaisie)

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finally, during this stay in penang, we ve been able to look around once, and to ride a loop on the island. very steep stretche, bloody hell !!!

the day after, we ve left penang to carry on one more day and split to follow each of us his way ...

about malaysia, even it has been a very short stay for me, i d have done some observations concerning this country.

first of them, i ve been very surprised by the huge competition between thailand and malaysia. people were often asking us which country is the cleanest, which have the best education system, ... or the best durian !
then, it s like a country where different community are quietly living together : muslim, buddhist or christian. from india china or south asian country, it seems to be as peaceful as a dream. but reality is quite different and easy to understand : people from the community on power have more opportuities to success than the other. when they were talking about the country, no problem. but for a chinese seller leaving in the north, for exemple, there s nothing possible for him with the local government owned by indian-muslim community.

as you can imagine, lots of these conversations were starting by "have you ever faced this " or "did you have any problem like that on your bicycle?", or "how was cycling in india for you ?" .........
then, we ve shared about how we write on our respective website. i don t really know what it s looking like but for me, the idea about this page is changing day after day : relating every minutes with many details, facts or statistic informations ; trying to describe the landscape, the society, or people s way of life ; or talking about what can feel a scurfy cycler on tour.. to be honnest, i ve changed my mind several times about this subject since i ve left france on march 2007. maybe you ve seen the changes on the mour du tonde s website. i think it may be understood like the mind i had when i wrote my text. sometimes, i feel like sharing many of my observations, sometimes i dont, i feel dizzy and bored by the time i need to update it. in this cases, i used to keep this feelings for my own diary.

i ve been a little surprised to hear that we had to face sometimes the same difficulties to be understood by relatives about such kind of long trip alone. i ve tried to look for the exact words to tell here more about the willing to keep travelling like that.... but i can not find them. i can only say i feel very pleased and lucky to do this trip now. it s like the realization of a dream i had since so long time. it s like bracket in my life. at the same time, i miss my family, i miss my relatives, my friends and the "normal life". i thank them as well to be so comprehensive. and before going back to this normal life, i want to enjoy every seconds of this trip as much as possible to collect, to experience, to learn, to taste as much as possible.
explaining it or sharing it with friends, even very closed friends that came to visit me on the way appears to be quite difficult. but talking with john about this did not need to look for many words : we were on the same length wave and our mind may have followed nearly same evolution along each of our trip !

i ve done a mistake although just before the border : it was late and customs were closed already but i ve came too close to the police, then no hotel in the malaysian-side, except one "resort" too expensive for me. i ve been obliged to turn back and to look for a place to pinch the tent. usually, i don t care but i used to be very careful when i m near a border. this night, i ve slept only half, a lot of  houses surrounded me in the forest and i could not hide myself more... but on the morning, i ve left early and crossed the border easily.