Stiff Keyboard

This keyboard is reminding me that I have slight arthritis in my fingers. It is almost impossible to hit about half the keys properly, including both Shift keys and the Backspace key. Grr.

As for travelling, I have two new galleries, still waiting to find a way to upload them. I think I might be able to convince this place to let me plug in my laptop to their network later.

I left Pulau Pinang this morning and 3 hrs later arrived here on Pulau Langkawi, off the northwest coast of peninsular Malaysia. Nice place but not crazily cool so far. Tomorrow I am going on a 6 hour organized tour of the mangroves and such. It is very well rated by travellers, many of whom are luckily not of the rich old American variety and whose opinion on travelling I therefore will take seriously.

Yesterday I met a German named Ulf who was staying at my hostel, and since we're both travelling alone we went and found supper at some restaurant and had a couple of beers. I always enjoy meeting other travellers, especially when they're alone as well. There are too many coupls travelling, and they often don't seem very willing to meet new people. As a result I've been spending the vast majority of my time so far alone. While I definitely enjoy travelling alone, back in Europe and now here in Asia, there is definitely something to be said for travelling with others.

Right now, based on email correspondence, it appears as though my sister Joey and our friends Ian and Ron who are with her not that far from my location, will arrive here in Langkawi early tomorrow morning. A nice surprise, as the last email I got from them was that they were heading up the east coast of Thailand. Turns out the bus was fully booked already.

The pain in my fingers is becoming much worse, so I will end here. A better post with more real travel-related stories should be forthcoming.