The Fire Dragon and the Monkeys

A curly tree at the Botanical Gardens, outside Georgetown, Penang.

I can't believe it's Thursday already! Yesterday we took a trip up to Penang Hill to see the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia, it was truly beautiful. I would love to post some more pictures for you, but my internet connection at the new place is really slow and I'm not sure it can handle it, so I'll see how it goes.

We had a hairy experience with a surreal character on the bus who took rather a shine to me. She tried to steal my water and get into my bag, but I'm a Pompey girl and rather firm when it comes to interpersonal issues, and she soon got the message. Apparently a loud and firm "No!" means the same thing in any language!

We met a cool young dude at Penang Hill called Jeff, who has been on an epic travel journey since January. He kicked around with us for the rest of the day and only parted ways when we returned to our new hostel on Chalia Street. He's only 19 and is travelling the world all by himself during his gap year. Unlike us, he is flying everywhere and his tours of each country are a bit whistle-stop, but I was fascinated at his innate sense of independence and the way he handled us all getting a bit lost. Meeting him was a real inspiration to me, and I thought his description of Penang was very funny.

"Georgetown," he said, referring to the state capital, where we're all staying, "Is weird. I keep thinking that it's like the Truman show, when you turn around, they're moving new sets of buildings into place."

It took a little while of digging through his meaning but I kind of get what he meant. Georgetown is a little like Kuala Lumpur, in that it's a really eclectic mix of architecture and there's a strongly visible gap between the richest and the poorest areas. Travellers are lucky because the hostels are all based in the poorer areas of the town, and so we get to meet loads of working class people on equal footing in cafes and bars (especially if you eat, drink and socialise in the places we do!), rather than just as serving staff in your hotel or restaurant.

The views from Penang Hill had me grinning for the entire two hours we were up there. You take a funicular railway (what is a funicular railway - it's one of those trains that are built to go up steep hillsides - we went on one in Wales when I was a kid, didn't we Mum?). And Penang Hill sure is steep! At the summit you are about 850 metres above sea level, and the view across the city when the sun goes down is astounding and awe-inspiring. I get tired of taking pictures quite easily and prefer after a few shots of any place we're in to just walk around and feel the place rather than try to record it. There were also bats the size of cats (is that from Alice in Wonderland?!) wheeling around our heads that I couldn't take my eyes from and a storm rolling in over Butterworth across the water that was truly beautiful to watch from a distance.

I'm reading Eckhart Tolle's 'The Power of Now' in the evenings, which is encouraging me to locate myself entirely in the moment, and not feeling the need to record every little thing is a big part of that - it's even got me thinking differently about my ideas of being a writer!

Today we booked our ferry tickets to Medan in Sumatra, Indonesia. We're thinking we will probably be in Sumatra for a couple of weeks before returning to Malaysia for some R&R in the Cameron Highlands (where it's meant to be cooler). We leave tomorrow morning at 8am and have to be up at 6.30am. As we've been rising between 10 and 12 (what can I tell you, the cafes and bars here are open late!), this may come as a bit of a shock to the system.

There's a monkey in the tree - can you see her?!

After booking our ferry, a trip to the post office for Kate to post some of her numerous books home and a stop for something to eat (spicy noodles in black pepper - too good, too good!), we headed out from Georgetown to the Botanical Gardens, which are part of a national park on Penang. Here we saw some amazing trees, plants, and flowers and some crazy wildlife. Mum, the spiders here are huge! Fortunately, they like to build their webs up in the trees and as long as they stay up there, I don't mind them! There are ants the size of beetles, crickets that make a sound so loud that if you're stood next to one you can't hear your own voice and lots of lizards of various sizes!

Best of all though were the monkeys at the Botanical Gardens, who hang around the visitors trying to scam them out of food (I had to explain to one that this was strictly forbidden, but I'm sure he thought I was lying). I'm not sure what type of monkeys they were - small in size with long, long tails that they use to balance when climbing high branches. When we took a long walk up what felt like a million stairs in the jungle countryside, one of them kept attracting our attention by throwing fruit down at us - or maybe he just wanted to share! Best of all though were the baby monkeys, who spend all their time fighting with one another and leaping in and out of trees, rolling down the slopes and hassling their poor, exhausted mother.

We rounded off the day with a long meal of vegetarian curry served on banana leaves - I ate as much of it as I possibly could, despite my constantly streaming nose, but it beat me in the end. I've also discovered that you can buy root beer here, called Sarsi - ice cold through a straw, it's hard to beat. Oh, and did I mention a trip to the Chocolate Boutique yesterday, where we blew a substantial amount of our hard-earneds on sesame almond chocolate, coconut chocolate and several bars of 70% cocoa dark chocolate - too good to miss and apparently good for you, too!

Amongst all the sight-seeing, people meeting and spiritual trekking we're doing, it's interesting to me that the most powerful experience in this first week is coming face to face with myself. There are so many distractions back home, but somehow being here makes me so much more visible to myself. I notice my thoughts more and feel more distance from them somehow and the temples we visit each day give me plenty of time for meditation and reflection.

Roll on Indonesia! I'll write as soon as I can.

Michael and Bean, it's great to see you guys here on the blog, thanks so much for following. And to my ardent early followers - I love you guys. Toxic, my own fallen angel, I can't tell you how much I miss you - there are so many things you would love and so many jokes that I just can't make without you......

Thoughts, forts and temples

View from the lighthouse at Fort Cornwallis - the first bastion of colonial times

Today has been simply divine.

The hostel we're staying at, The Blue Dragon, is mental. The owner is permanently drunk and so surreal you can't help but love him. They have a live band playing every night - think Dan, Kyo and Alex but forced to play American wankrock exclusively, despite their obvious talent. If I have to listen to Hotel California one more time, I'm going to spit roast someone. They only play to about 1.30 in the morning each day though, so it could be so much worse and as we're now planning to stay a couple of extra nights before catching a ferry to Sumatra on Friday, we've decided to switch to the Stardust cafe and hostel down the road.

Stardust is run by a simply lovely Thai family who have taken a particular shine to us (I think they're amused by the delight I take in being able drink rootbeer in the evenings) and it's a lot more luxurious than the one we're currently staying in, by which I mean that the bath is clean and your sleep isn't likely to be disturbed by waking to find a cockroach on your face.....

The fact is though, that by the time evening comes around, we're so tired we could sleep through the Apocalypse, although my saga of outrageously vivid dreams courtesy of my Malarone continues....

Today we visited Fort Cornwallis, occupied by the British in colonial times. I have a nasty feeling that Kate intends to post on her blog a particularly horrifying picture of me in a military hat and holding an old fashioned rifle - it wasn't my fault, the guide just wouldn't take no for an answer and it seemed rude to insist that I hadn't come this far to look like a re-enactor of colonial England.

The fort was lovely although quite surreal as they were blasting out classical music at full volume for the entire duration of our visit, but the fort is right by the sea and the breeze was so welcome, that I soon found a swing seat in the shade and drifted away to a bit of Beethoven's 5th. Well, until Kate discovered me, cut my toe in her eagerness to swing us into the branches of the tree the swing was suspended from and then nicked my swing while I went off to administer first aid to my foot. If I didn't know better, I'd think she had planned the whole thing.

From the gunpowder room at the Fort, with the Lighthouse in the background (from which I took the first photo above) - climbing that thing was seriously scary and I didn't make it the whole way. Mum, it was perfectly safe, I promise.....

The heat, the heat, the heat. It's damn hot. This place makes Hades look like it has air con. But you get used to the sweat dripping from your brow (as well as in other, less pleasant places) and it cools down as the day goes on until by evening it's perfect for sitting outside and sipping on a nice cool iced Milo or a Tiger Beer. Lawrence, I think I'm getting the hang of the toilets now, too - I haven't sprayed on my self once!

Most of all, I love the way the heat forces us to take things at a different pace. We do a lot of our walking in the late afternoon and early evenings and this is ideal as it's when the island comes to life. Mosques call prayers on the evening breeze, the bars start their music and the tuk-tuk drivers come to a rest at the side of the road and wait for people to approach them for a change. Actually, the tuk tuk drivers seem to find the three of us hilarious as we prefer to walk everywhere - we just don't want to miss anything. On our way to the Banana Bar where the three of us are hitting the internet tonight, an old Chinese man in a tuk-tuk laughed at us and pointed, miming walking with his fingers, and calling "Jalan, jalan!!" - not sure about the spelling of that, but it means walking.

One thing I can't get over is how friendly everyone is. We spent today in Little India and Chinatown (the Chinese and Indian populations here are really substantial), and wherever we go people stop and say hello and ask where we're from. When we tell them, some people shake their heads and say, "Cold!Cold!" and today a policeman spent a while telling us about his experiences in York a few years ago in the snow. He was horrified at the memory, which had him shivering while we soaked up the TIC's aircon!

The doors to the Chinese temple - enter if you dare.....

After Fort Cornwallis, we took a guided walk (courtesy of a leaflet from the local TIC - how handy these places are when you're abroad) on The Road of Harmony, where all sorts of religious temples and mosques co-exist. Words can't describe how beautiful some of these buildings are and the welcome we received in each was so humbling, it almost moved me to tears. To think how we treat foreign people back home makes me feel very sad being here, where everyone is so keen to help and so interested in whether you like their country. But having visited Chinese temples, Hindu shrines, a mosque, a Tamil shrine, a Confucian temple and a Tao shrine today, I had a real insight into the role religion plays here in ensuring and maintaining a sense of community that just does not exist in my experience back home. And everyone we meet is so proud of Penang and so keen to tell us where we should go next (fortunately, home has not yet been one of the suggestions!).

In the Chinese Goddess Temple, incense was burning in huge brass pots outside - bigger than me by far - guarded by large stone dragons. Inside, worshippers were taking sticks of incense and walking to each corner of the temple, raising a dozen or so little sticks above their heads then to their chests, over and over, before placing them before each individual shrine. The statues of the Gods were dressed in brightly coloured cloth as they gazed down at us with unreadable expressions. Everyone greeted us cheerfully, as always.

Stone dragons at a devotional Chinese temple on the Road of Harmony

In the Hindu temple, statues of Lakshmi abound and four women sat in stillness before a shrine to the goddess, where maybe twenty or more oil lamps burnt fiercely. The women stared fixedly at the shrines, mouthing prayers to the goddess in silence. There was a stillness amongst them that I could not take my eyes from and I watched them for a long time with something between admiration, awe and aspiration for a spirituality of my own that could offer even half as much focus and comfort.

My favourite place today was without a doubt the mosque we visited. We arrived just as prayers were being called from loudspeakers on the tall minaret outside, and so many of the men arriving to worship stopped to talk to us. Although we could not go in tonight (it was almost 8 o'clock and visitors are only allowed til 6pm), everyone we spoke to invited us back tomorrow for a proper visit. Amazingly, the prayers calling from the minaret disturb a flock of bats (James - collective noun for bats? New challenge!), who fly so low to the ground that they whistle past your ears the whole time the prayers are sounding.

The sun was setting in a silver blue sky, with the lights of the mosque shining above its brilliant white walls, bats wheeling and prayers sounding. I sat on a marble bench in the gardens where we were told we were welcome to stay as long as we liked and just stared and stared. I even felt in harmony with the rats scampering happily around my feet.

This truly is a different world. I love it here. Although we are obviously strangers in a strange land, the welcome we receive wherever we go is awe-inspiring. Malaysia is definitely the right place to start a trip like this, and I think I could happily spend three months here alone. There's a paper here called The Star (known as the Paper for the People), so who knows, maybe one day I'll come back again......

We've discovered a ferry to Sumatra that leaves on Friday and takes us to Medan. From there we can travel a short while to the jungle national park, where we can hire a guide to take us out to meet the orang-utans. I imagine I will be out of circulation for a while, so don't worry, I'm fine (barring adoption by a gang of - James, collective noun for orang-utans?). I'll write as soon as I can.

In the meantime, I think of all of you so often, whenever sights strike me that I know you would love. My feet hurt. I am bathed in sweat. I think the back of my neck might be ever so slightly burnt. But rest assured that the last time I felt like this, the experience I'd just had was x-rated. I love it here. Miss you loads x

The cats here are EVERYWHERE - in temples, on the streets, in the courtyard of the hotel - these little kittens were fighting with each other in the lighthouse at Fort Cornwallis. The little black one had kittenkat eyes - I kill you.........!!!

The Road to Penang

This one's for you, Sal.....

We took a four hour bus journey today from KL to Penang, a small island off the west coast of Malaysia. The bus was the most luxurious journey I've ever taken and if they had buses like this in England, I would always be on them, whether I had somewhere to go or not....

The seats on the bus reclined at the touch of a button, and a footrest came out for our weary toes. In addition, a screen in the back of the seat in front offers a choice of music or movies for every nationality and Kate and I spent more time than was appropriate dancing and miming to Abba. Don't worry, I got it on video camera, and as soon as I can figure out a way to upload it, it's yours.

The people in Penang seem really friendly. We arrived at about 8ish and secured ourselves some lodgings in a place called The Blue Diamond, which was blasting out Dolly Parton from the frontyard cafe and bar as we entered. What more could you want? We have our own shower, here, but for Sally's sake I won't take a picture of it as it might traumatise her for life.

Sunset over Penang

Ang and I are currently sat in a small cafe called Stardust that offers free wifi to people like me who like to carry laptops everywhere they go. Kate has headed back to our hostel for a well-deserved rest. We've just gorged ourselves on noodles, rice, plenty of vegetables and some delicious spring rolls and I'm enjoying the first root beer of the trip. The joy of being allowed to smoke practically everywhere is overwhelmingly pleasurable.

As most of the day was spent staring from the window of the bus at jungle, jungle and more jungle, there's not much to report, but I'll leave you with the thought that today I used my first official hole-in-the-ground loo - a truly exciting experience that leaves me with only one question: once you spray, how do you dry? For your info, I'm going with the drip and shake method, but any tips are gratefully received. See mum, I didn't need a Shewee after all.....

The Kate on the bus goes Ha!Ha!Ha

Peace and love in Kuala Lumpur

KL from the Batu Caves

It's 3am and I'm in our small room with Kate and Ang.

No, we're not in jail. We've only just hit our room after a long day. We've spent the last couple of hours chilling in the lounge of our hostel here in KL, the Oasis (though this really is overstating it a little, like calling it The Hilton or something). KL is a crazy, eclectic architectural mix up. The streets are teeming with life - and not just human: rats, cockroaches and for some reason cats with no tails all abound here.

We had a late first night spent on the roof of our hostel listening to the young Malay dude who works here strumming his guitar, while we drank beers and catch up, and catch up and catch up.

After a hot night of crazy dreams, genuinely far too weird to recount here, but much to the amusement of the girls, I get up just in time to share coffee with Kate and Ang, genuine hot filter coffee, the benefit of which cannot be underestimated. I head for a shower. James was right about Malarone - my anti-malarial drugs - and the vivid dreams they bring as a side effect. The dreams I had last night were like nothing I've experienced before and not suitable to be reproduced here. In fact, not fit enought to be published anywhere online that you don't need a subscription to read..... and maybe not even there without a warning.

The shower is interesting - Sal, you're going to love this - because the shower literally hangs from the wall, less than a metre from the loo. The water runs straight over you onto the floor and down a dark round hole in the ground next to the toilet itself. The water is lukewarm at its hottest and usually quite cold, but apart from the first sudden gasp of shock, it’s actually quite pleasant......

The thing is that it’s so damn hot here. Like really hot. Not like the scorching heat of Canada, which burns you wherever you are without aircon, but a humid, deep down hot heat, like you might find somewhere near the appendix of a dragon. It’s truly awesome. I thought it would bother me a lot more than it does, but you actually kind of get used to it quickly. Actually you have to, or you would be damned.

It's official - meditation's what you need (if you want to be a record breaker)

We got up late, heading into Little India for a chickpea curry that, despite being ridiculously good, none of us can finish. We are the only westerners and this seems to be the case wherever we eat. The cafes used by locals are all out in the open, protected by huge canopies that stretch over them, or tables set underneath alcoves along the streetside. Westerners seem to prefer heading for local restaurants, perhaps just for the aircon, or to western imported eateries, such as McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, or even Pizza Hut. Suckers. The food, even in the restaurants that serve local food, are priced something like at three times the prices of the local cafes, and you don’t get to enjoy watching your food being prepared and cooked. I’ve never seen chipatis or rotis cooked before, and there’s a definite thrill to seeing your food being made before you eat it.

We also seem to be a novelty here, although everyone speaks at least basic English and we have no problems being understood as we point at things that look appetising and say, “Vegetarian? No meat?” Sometimes the locals seem to find this funny, but less so in Little India, where plenty of cafes advertise vegetarian food, sometimes exclusively. The owners and staff at the cafes we’ve been to so far have been really friendly. Over lunch, we talk about our plans for the day. We're not staying in KL long and plan to leave for Sumatra soon.

Urban KL is a real experience, even just for the sights and smells alone. Each step brings something completely new and not always for the good. The smell of rotting food from the bins attracts cockroaches and rats, but is enough sometimes to turn the stomachs of most humans. Roadside stands selling western style handbags, clothes and gadgets, as well as so much food, abound. We see plenty of fruit sellers, who spend their days hacking watermelons, lychees and melons to pieces and placing them into small plastic bags, only to hack them into pieces again and place a slim, sharpened wooden stick inside. These sell for a ringitt or so each, and look absolutely delicious. Away from the stands and lining each street are more shops than you can shake a big credit card at, selling a vast array of goods. The compellingly named Kiddie Delights that sits across the street from our lodgings hasn’t been open since we arrived and although I’m intrigued, I’m quite relieved. We aren’t here for the shopping though and unless there’s something specific we need, we’ve not ventured in – although the aircon at the 7/11 renders it incredibly tempting whether you need anything from there or not.

Sometimes, the men are a little too welcoming and we are stared at continuously on the streets, buses, cafes and metros. We’ve been asked for our phone numbers and email addresses, requests which we politely decline. When pressed I insisted that I really couldn’t give a man my details because my mother wouldn’t like it. This seemed to bemuse him so much he gave up. In the main though, it seems quite understandable that we are stared at as we are often the only white women (and unaccompanied white women) in the places we visit and no one has been hostile or too effusive in their attentions.

Lord Marugan guarding the Caves

After lunch and several cigarettes, we decide to head for the Batu Caves, home to an
Indian shrine that is approached up over 200 steps. These are a sod in the heat, but not unmanageable, and made much easier by the attendance of many monkeys on the way, who scamper in and out of the crowds looking for food. Although the guides say that the Caves are often packed with tourists, our decision to go later in the day makes it much easier. We catch a bus from Little India for an hour’s journey out to the caves.

Monkey say - Give me your effing banana or I kill you.....

The caves are amazing. Water pours from the stone roof, as bats and pigeons wheel overhead, while the floor is home to several chickens and many cats, who roam around in harmony. It’s not too busy and we wander around, taking respite in the cool, but still humid shade of the caves. At the back of the cave is a shrine dedicated to a Hindu goddess, where Hindus queue up to be blessed. Music is played and echoes around the caves to the accompaniment of a beating drum. I love it here. The three of us wander around separately, taking photos, sitting drinking water and taking in one of the most novel experiences I’ve encountered for a while.

We amble from the caves back to ground level and grab a cool can of orange from Gheeta’s Cafe. Although it is just closing, I am an instant fan of Gheeta’s Cafe because they have blatantly ripped off the Starbucks logo and replaced the word Starbucks with the cafe’s name. If they were selling mugs I would have bought one.

Paravati and the 6 babies that would become Maruga

We’re thinking the shrine is all and that we should head back as it is coming up for 6.30pm or so. Just as we are leaving, we see a sign for the Caves Villa and wander towards it, half-curious. This turns out to be the entrance to another set of caves, as long as you are willing to pay the 15RM for entrance. As this is officially peanuts, I shout us the fee, not that it matters, as the man staffing the booth is so delighted at our decision that he spontaneously decides to charge us only half price. Once through the entrance there is a large pond filled to the brim with koi carp, there are hundreds of them, who rush straight to us looking for food.

Past the pond is the entrance to another cave, a tribute to an Indian poet, featuring excerpts from his verse and statues that represent each verse. It’s very beautiful, and some of the translations are somewhat loose, making parts far more amusing than I think the poet intended. Past the poetry is a reptile house, which makes us a little sad, as it is stuffed with snakes, alligators, lizards, and spiders. Many of the snakes are from the jungles of South East Asia, which we are keen on visiting, so we don’t dwell on them. Heading out of the cave, we notice yet another cave and head for it.

This cave is filled with scenes and statues of Hindu gods and goddesses and we dwell on these for quite some time, only leaving when the place is due to close. We all take plenty of pictures before leaving, some of which are here and the rest I'll bore you with in a slide show on my return. Next to this last cave is a huge statue of Hanuman, the closest follower of Krishna and his most loyal friend. Underneath is another temple shrine, where people are gathering for blessings and some kind of ceremony. Their outfits are beautiful and I stare unashamedly at their backs, secure in the knowledge that they are far too involved to worry about us.

The journey home is not as simple as our inward journey, we get a bus half the way and then take the metro, but it means we can stop off for some roti on the way back to the hostel, before chilling out in the lounge with a gazillion of other people from all over the world looking for adventure, experience, knowledge, themselves and probably something more elusive than all of the above.


Love to everyone, I think of lots of you everywhere we go, and keep on track with me here x