Lounging on Langkawi.

We've just spent 10 fairly lazy days on the Malaysian island (pulau) of Langkawi, which sits in the Andaman sea, very close to the border with Thailand. Like the Vietnamese island of Phu Quoc, it has lovely, palm-fringed, white-sandy beaches, lapped by blue - but not crystal clear - waters. In fact, Langkawi sits in an archipelago of 99 islands, many of them incredibly small and uninhabited, and many with some gorgeous beaches, only accessible by boat. We've been puzzled, though, about why the sea is a little murky around here, with one or two exceptions amongst the islands. Certainly it's not good enough for snorkling - but we do have a theory: the sand, which really is as white as marble, is so finely textured that it's almost like flour. And you can certainly see, where the waves lap backwards and forwards at the water's edge, that this fine flour-like sand tends not to sink to the bottom, but rather stays suspended, not quite mixing to a paste, in the water.
Local legend has it that a local woman, Mahsuri, a maiden who was wrongly accused of infidelity, before finally being executed, put a curse on the island for 7 generations. As proof of her innocence, white blood flowed from her veins, turning the sands of Langkawi's beaches white. And the sea, albeit not as clear as elsewhere, is still really warm and inviting, nevertheless.

For the first 5 days here in Langkawi, we stayed in a traditional Malaysian wooden stilt-house - all dark wood, intricately carved fascias, and carved balustrades around the balconies - in the middle of a small jungle-like forest in the middle of the island. In the forest, there were dozens of rubber trees, each with its own cup catching the latex which oozed whitely out of the carved grooves in the bark. There were about 30 dwellings like ours dotted about amongst the trees, each housing 3 individual units, and a swimming pool, a restaurant and the vast Reception area about 5-10 minutes' walk through the trees.

The whole 'resort' - which, it must be said, has seen better days: probably nothing had changed since the 1950s, including the musty smell in the rooms!- was well away from the touristy areas on the island, and almost eerily quiet and peaceful, except for the night-time jungle noises! Whilst we were there, we saw a couple of 3-feet long monitor lizards ambling dinosaur-like below our balcony, several black and/or grey squirrels leaping around the trees, a few macaques crashing noisily through the branches, a skinny, bright green tree-snake, which I very nearly trod on, making it rear up rather threateningly (though I later discovered it's not poisonous) and, one night, a flying lemur (sometimes called a flying fox) which swooped onto a tree trunk just after dark one night, landing against and then hugging a tree trunk only a few feet away from where we were sittingout on our balcony. This gave us a bit of a fright at first: it looked like HUGE bat, about 2 feet long and with very large bulbous eyes, and indeed it certainly had that appearance in flight, with its vast webbed wings, but we were put right about that when we described it to a local chap a few days later.

We'd hired a car for a few days, as the place was so far from everything, and we toured around the island exploring the highest mountain (about 8,000 feet), several villages, a tropical fruit farm, a couple of waterfalls, two batik craft centres, a trip up to the second-highest mountain in the steepest and highest cable car we've ever been on, and a visit to the huge and very stylish gallery where you can see all the gifts given to the former Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamed by foreign nations, and heads of state (Formula 1 racing cars, Ships in Glass Bottles, Ming vases with Dr Mahathir's face painted on them - that sort of thing). One of the highlights of these trips around the island came when, near to the top of the mountain, Gunung Raya, a huge oriental pied hornbill suddenly flew, with great whooshing wings, right over our heads, and then sat in a nearby tree very co-operatively whilst we watched him through our binoculars for about 10 minutes. Up there, we also saw several majestic eagles soaring gracefully overhead, and two different types of monkeys sitting in the trees, or scampering across the road in front of the car. Oh, and we also went looking for something called 'Book Village' which we'd noticed on the map, but were disappointed to discover that it wasn't, after all, Langkawi's answer to Hay-on-Wye, but rather simply the Malaysian name for a small hamlet with several places where local families were swimming in a river-bed.

Our second place of residence here in Pulau Langkawi has been in 'Tropical Resort '- a collection of small chalets sitting slightly back from the beach, Pentai Tenang, in the southwest corner of the island, the chalets separated from the beach about 100 metres away by a small forest. Here, we've been delighted to see a whole family of oriental pied hornbill flying like huge air-freight carriers backwards and forwards across the little cleared path which we walk down to get the beach. We've also seen hundreds of mynah birds, mainly grey/black, with yellow patches around the head and wings - and even some with completely bald, but bright yellow heads. And then there've been several sightings of black-naped, but almost entirely bright yellow, orioles too, and particularly when we went out on a boat a few days ago, dozens and dozens more of the beautiful large eagles, and several types of kyte, swooping down to the water to feed on the chicken skins which the boat-tour operators throw out for them. Whilst sitting on our little 'verandah' outside our chalet, which looks straight out onto the cleared path in the forest towards the beach, we've also spied several much larger kinds of flyers - a never-ending stream of para-sailers gliding over the top of the trees, towed by small speed-boats, on their 10-minute flight around the bay, their numbers increasing in the late afternoon and early evening as people 'parasail into the sunset' - which can be pretty spectacular around here. Watching them from the beach a couple of times, we were struck one particular evening by the incongruity of seeing a woman taking off from the sands and over the bay, dressed from head to toe in a black burka, with only a letter-box slit for her eyes!

The manager here, a Malaysian man named Syukri, has been a real highlight of our stay here, too. A highly intelligent man, with perfect English and a wider English vocabulary than most English people, he'd lived and studied in London for 8 years a couple of decades ago, and has certainly brought back with him the kind of humour which is, perhaps, only really attributable to the English. He's an aspiring writer (and could probably out-write that Bill Shakespeare if he wanted to), a devotee of Jeeves and Wooster and Fawlty Towers, and a media techno-wizard, making up video 'promos' for a range of clients internationally. Every day, we've spent some time in his company, having conversations both serious and silly (or what Bertie Wooster might call "exchanging gay badinage and witty repartee"), and have been thoroughly entertained!

On Monday (23 Jan), it was the first day of the Chinese New Year celebrations, and we could hear (but were in the wrong place to see) loads of fireworks going off into the wee small hours all around us. By Tuesday 24th, though, we're off to Melaka/Malacca, where we'll hopefully be able to enjoy the continuing celebrations for Chinese New Year - which last for 15 days! - for some of the time with Adrian and Michelle , the young couple we had such fun with in KL a couple of weeks ago, who are hoping to join us for part of our time there.

Meantime, though, as we head into the Year of the Dragon, a very Happy Chinese New Year to you all.

 

 

Musings in Malaysia

Last night, we had a discussion with a young German couple next door to us, Ella and Franz, in which we all, laughingly, agreed that Malaysia was not quite 'foreign' enough for our liking. We agreed that It is certainly too familiar feeling, too easy, too developed, too 'Westernised' to make us feel, however fancifully, that we're travelling adventurously! Maybe Borneo will tip the balance back again ... who knows?

Ella had been working in Hanoi for a year, and was now travelling through south-east Asia with Franz (his first visit to the region), and both preferred the simple lifestyles, traditions and customs of the village people in rural Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos - and we felt very much the same. But then, we challenged each other about whether, by this, we meant that Malaysia is simply not poor enough for our liking - a sobering thought. This discussion started to crystallise some thoughts I'd been having about these kinds of issues ever since we arrived in this country (much as we're also really enjoying ourselves here).

We had, of course, arrived from the poorest region of Vietnam (the Mekong Delta), and mainly rural areas of Cambodia, into Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia's biggest, busiest, most developed, high-rise, fast-paced city. We were struck, immediately, by two things: firstly, the large number of hugely overweight Malaysians we saw - something we hardly ever saw amongst the Cambodians and Vietnamese - including many seriously obese children as young as maybe 5. (Yeah, yeah, I know the one about the pot and the kettle, but hear me out, because I'm certainly not trying to have a go at individuals; rather, I want to make a wider point - no pun intended!)

The second thing we'd been struck by was the amount of oil and energy being expended on cars, buses, trains, taxies, aeroplanes, stations, the billions and billions of lights and HUGE air-conditioning units humming away in the streets, shops, hotels, shopping malls, leisure centres, theme parks, etc. - all of which doubtless increased 100-fold with the additional lighting for Christmas, Chinese New Year, Divalli, etc. etc. Oh, and not forgetting the enormous volume of objects and 'stuff' in the shops - much of it mere 'fripperies' rather than essentials, and the associated packaging of the goods, including of the hundreds of varieties of crisps, snacks, sweets, and fast foods available everywhere (presumably related to the obesity and associated diabetes problems here). So much stuff, in fact, that you could think that the world would sink under the weight of it all! And, of course, it's the same in every one of the world's 'developed' countries, not just this one.

At the same time, we'd been reading and talking about the current 'moral panic' over the predicted arrival of the world's seventh billion person, and the discussions around over-population. Over the past couple of years, I've had several conversations with friends and colleagues about the problem of over-population and the need to, somehow, limit family sizes. It almost always seemed to me that, expicitly or implicitly, the finger of blame was being pointed at those countries in the 'developing' world, mainly in Africa and Asia. However .....

... it's become very clear to us how relatively insignificant is the actual 'environmental impact' of those rural poor with large families in, for example Cambodia, living in self-built wooden houses with thatched rooves, no electricity, no air conditioning, no piped water or sewage disposal system, whose only transport is a maybe a bullock cart, a bicycle or a moped, and who grow most of their own food, which they cook for the whole family over a single log fire. It would not surprise us if the environmental impact of those of us living in much smaller families in the 'developed' world actually have more than a hundred times the environmental impact, in terms of using up the world's precious resources, than do these 'problematic' people in their large families.

I'm sure we all know that there is a strong correlation between small family size and increased family wealth. However, there is still, despite several international studies, no proven causal link between the two (i.e. do those who choose to have smaller families become wealthier as a result, or do those who become wealthier choose to have smaller families?). It is certainly the case that the richer we become the more the problems are actually those of over-consumption (in all its manifestations, not just what we eat or drink), over-production - and the associated massive waste - rather than family size.

But then, of course, there's clearly no possibiity of reversal (other than, perhaps, by the kinds of economic crises we're living through, whilst there are those of us (ditto the pot and the kettle argument already mentioned) who want to have all the benefits of being richer - including flying around the globe, to live in air-conditioned hotels or dormitories, eating in air-conditioned restaurants, drinking ice-cold beer, having our laundry done for us, and buying unnecessary clothes or knick-knacks from gift shops. And, of course, if we stopped doing all of those things, would there be continuing, or even more poverty and unemployment in these developing countries, preventing them from having all these benefits of the developed world, or could they simply continue to live in, what seems to us anyway, a simpler, but more contented, 'subsistence' lifestyle - that is, in those places where there is enough food for everyone, anyway?

Answers on a postcard, please. And here endeth the Party Politcal Broadcast on behalf of the not-so-Green Party!!
　

All the Way from 91 to 62 Love Lane!

What a well-travelled woman I am! Having lived at 91 Love Lane, Morden, Surrey, from the age of 10 to 21 (and it's still my family home, where mum and dad still live 53 years after moving in), I've now travelled half way round the world - to number 62 Love Lane. That's 62 Love Lane in Penang, Malaysia, by the way! This is the address of a lovely little art gallery, specialising in highly colourful 'naive' art produced by children aged 6 to 17, in a little lane in Georgetown, Pulau Pengang (Penang Island) just off the north-west coast of Peninsular Malaysia.


It's also the place where Andy and I had a lovely 'steamboat' meal on Monday evening (9 Jan), provided by our hosts, a young Chinese couple who run the art gallery - Joey (she a painter and illustrator) and Clovis (he a professional photographer), both of whom teach art classes too. We were also accompanied that evening by a young Belgian couple, Hans and Hannah, who are, like us, just travelling through. Earlier that afternoon, we'd wandered around the gallery, and Andy had commented favourably on a lovely, brightly-painted picture called 'Steamboat', and particularly the description which accompanied it, explaining how important it is for family and friends to gather round a table to eat and talk. Joey and Clovis overheard Andy's praise, and immediately invited us to join them that evening for just such an event: it's apparently something they do from time to time - invite 4 or 6 friendly-seeming gallery viewers to join them for an evening meal at their little table on the pavement by the gallery's front door. And so we sat eating home-prepared food from the steamboat (rather like a fondue, but with stock in which you cook a whole variety of vegetables, fish, meat, tofu and eggs), and chatting to the four young'uns about all kinds of things until nearly midnight.


We learned, for example, that many older Chinese and Indian people are nostalgic for the days of British rule, feeling that they were treated more favourably and equitably (with the Malay people) than they are now. We were told that it's quite difficult for non-Malay people to get into government/civil service jobs, that Malay people, as of right, get a more favourable interest rate for mortgages and business loans than others, and that some of the ethnic/religious minorities here feel that they are less well respected than the Malay Muslim majority. We also learned that the Belgian people hadn't really seemed to notice any difference to their lives from not having had a government in place over nearly two years. But we also talked about art, photography, wedding traditions, etc. etc., and it was far from being a wholly 'political polemic' debate. Indeed, it was a lovely, gentle occasion, and very relaxing after the previous 3 days of sight-seeing around Georgetown, walking our feet off in this 'heritage' part of Penang Island.

Georgetown, named in honour of our 'mad King' during British colonial times, is the fascinating historic capital of Penang state, of which the island is a part. It's a grid of trishaw-wide alleys and lanes with tumbledown Chinese storefronts, elaborate Chinese Perakanan mansions and Kongsis ('clan-houses'), as well as British Raj-era Indian/Malay/colonial architecture, colourful (nay, over-the-top) temples, mosques, and - particularly now in the run-up to Chinese New Year on 23 Jan - thousands and thousands of 'heavenly paper lanterns' casting the street hawkers and passers-by in a blood-red celebratory glow, through the joss-stick aromatic haze which lingers everywhere. Just beyond the 'heritage' part of Georgetown, there's a fair share of shopping malls, pubs, boutiques, cafes and traffic congestion that wouldn't be out of place in many Western city centres - but we're ignoring all that bit, and revelling in times past for now.


On Wed evening (11 Jan - the eve of my mum's 86th birthday, and a few days before my younger sister's birthday - so Happy Birthday Mum and Jacky!), we were once again the guests of some local Chinese/Malay people whom we'd met - for probably less than 5 minutes! - a couple of days earlier. Andy and I had been admiring a lovely old original Chinese building, recently vacated by the 'Old House Cafe', when we were surrounded by a group of about 10 locals (Chinese, Malays and Indians), who were themselves visiting Georgetown for the weekend as tourists, though being shown round by one of their number, who lives on the island. After sharing our views about this lovely old building, we were (as so often) asked where we were from, and a few names were exchanged. Almost everyone over here - of whatever race of ethnic origin - still seems to cling to an English name, and there was much glee and laughter over the fact that the 'senior' member of this crowd of friends was also called Andrew. And, in this incredibly friendly country, that was sufficient reason to cause Andrew to extend an invitation to eat together two evenings later, for some 'real home-cooked' Chinese Malay food. We had expected that we would be meeting up with them in a nearby restaurant for the evening but oh no! Andrew and his wife, Jenny, collected us by car from our hotel, and whisked us off to the house of the mother of one of the group of friends, Lee, who lives about half an hour's drive outside of Georgetown. There, we were given some delicious prawn/noodle dish with chilli sauce, some special steamed rice, a yam 'cake', also with chilli sauce, and some home-produced apple and carrot juice. The weird thing was that these dishes were made almost entirely for we two alone - Andrew and Jenny announced that they were part-way through a fortnight's gall-bladder de-tox regime, and were only taking liquid nourishment from a large jar of home-produced fruit and vegetable juice, and the rest of Lee's family (including his mother, who'd cooked the food, his father, two aunts, an uncle, a sister, a young cousin and another man who dropped in whilst we were there) only came to the table occasionally to 'pick' at the food. For the most part, they seemed more keen to watch us eating the food which had been prepared for us, each taking it in turns, with obvious pride which brooked no dissent, to ask what we thought of it, or to 'test' us on our knowledge of English nursery rhymes, the most popular of which seemed to be 'London Bridge is Falling Down'! A very bizarre experience indeed, if very hospitable and friendly. And all the food was delicious!

Between leaving KL and arriving in Georgetown, we'd spent three days/nights in the Cameron Highlands - named after our 14-year-old grandson, of course - which had been recommended by another Jenny - this time, our long-standing friend in Bromsgrove (thanks, Jen).

There, the temperature was a good 10-12 degrees cooler than KL, being some 5,000 feet above sea-level, and we even had to wear fleeces in the evenings, for goodness sake! But the scenery - undulating hillsides covered with layers and layers of tea plantations, strawberry farms and vegetable growers - was really beautiful. Hadn't appreciated until then that black tea, green tea, and Chinese tea are all made from the same leaves, just oxidised for different lengths of time. Nor that fruit and herb teas were invented purely to use up the most 'inferior' parts of the leaf after processing.

Amazingly, too, in Tedah Rata, where we were, unusually, staying in a pretty desolate, Marie-Celeste of a hotel, we bumped into a family we'd met in our hotel in KL the previous week - a Canadian couple, with FIVE children between the ages of 2 and 14, who are travelling all over the world during a year-long break after the 40-something-year-old father sold off his business in Alberta. Now that's what I call brave - all that home-schooling!!

Now, though, we've just arrived by ferry on the island of Langkawi, a 2-and-a-half-hour journey north from Penang, and fairly near to the Thai border. For the first time, we have a dull and cloudy day - though it's still as hot as it's been everywhere else, the Cameron Higlands apart, of course.   More in a week or so ....

Happy New Sultan!

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur just two days after Boxing Day - and two weeks into the reign of Malaysia's new Sultan: Abdul Halim Mu'adzam Shah, ruler of the Malaysian State of Kedah since 1958. At 84, he's the oldest constitutional monarch they've ever had, but then this is his second term, his first having been in 1970-75. Under a unique system introduced upon Malaysia's independence from Britain in 1957, one of 9 hereditary rulers takes his turn as the country's King for five years at a time, and his turn has turned up again. We've heard that the office of the constitutional monarch - largely ceremonial, he being the supreme upholder of Malay tradition and symbolic head of Islam - is highly regarded over here, particularly amongt the ethnic Malay Muslim majority. However, we're not sure how this conclusion about 'popular opinion' has been arrived at, given that public criticism of the King, and of the State Sultans, is more or less illegal under the Malaysian sedition laws! (Hope no-one but you is looking at this!!)


Actually, if it's shopping you want (not my favourite pastime, although Andy - or Ed, as he's bizarrely started to call himself on these blogs! - is, as usual, much more interested) then KL is definitely your place! There must be dozens and dozens of absolutely VAST shopping malls here, all similar to anywhere else in the world really, with their Debenhams, Laura Ashley, Gap, Nike, Starbucks, and FOS (Factory Outlet Store - the Malay TK-Maxx equivalent) - but also with several really interesting stores that we've never heard of before.

Our funky little hotel, in what was obviously once a proper street, looks straight into the back-end of the glass-and-steel shopping mall known as Berjaya Times Square Mall, whose absolutely massive air-con outlet buzzes deafeningly, 24/7, towards our otherwise delightful little bamboo-shaded outdoor restaurant area (where, incidentally, the fully-included Malay breakfast, with its plates of fresh fruit, roti and parathas with curry or banana pancakes is just wonderful!). Oh, and I meant what I said earlier about theme park-rides: in Berjaya Times Square Mall there's an absolutely huge, elaborate and really scary-looking roller-coaster which screams up and down all around one of the stair-well/atrium areas, actually turning upside down over the huge six-floor drop of the stairwell/atrium area over which it it is built! We watched this in fascination yesterday evening, together with our new-found local friends, Adrian and Michelle. They also pointed out that there's a multi-screen cinema on the 6th floor, and yet another cinema entered via the 10th floor, but with a screen which apparently covers 3 whole floors of the complex!

Adrian and Michelle are a young Chinese-Malay couple from Sarawak and Sabah in Borneo who are currently running the hotel where we're staying. Delightfully for us, yesterday evening they invited us to dine 'out' with them at Uncle Duck's (yes really!) restaurant on the 4th floor of the Mall. (Have to say, despite our apprehension over the restaurant's name and location, it served amongst the best Chinese food - particularly but not only the duck - we've had anywhere. The humour was also of a high standard - particularly when we dicovered Adrian's family name to be 'Queck'! - Ed.) After our meal, Adrian and Michelle took us on a guided tour of this massive mall, showing us some of the highlights and quirky bits - like the roller-coaster and theme park - which we might otherwise not have found, and we shopped together in some of the 'novelty' shops, many getting ready to celebrate the Chinese New Year at the end of this month. A really fun evening!

Despite the aforementioned culture shock, then, we've been thoroughly enjoying ourselves here in KL. Rather like London, KL also has quite a lot of green space and parks, and their Independence (Merdaka) Square, boasting the world's highest free-standing flag-pole, is still as green as it was when it was an even more hallowed ground in British colonial times - a cricket pitch! We spent one hot and humid day in the butterfly gardens, and the huge bird park, both near to the Lake Gardens to the west of the city - both absolutely fascinating. The array of brightly colourful butterflies fluttering by - some much larger than the bats which share our loft in The Quad - was fantastic.

It was equally wonderful to wander around the world's largest free-flight bird park, with dozens and dozens of storks soaring gracefully over our heads, just before landing ungainfully and clumsily on their stick-thin legs a few feet away from us; with several strutting peacocks squawking loudly and bossily, and occasionally deigning to flash their magnificent plumage to the delight of all; the lumbering great double-hornbills looking - rather like a 747 or Airbus - impossibly large and heavy to ever get off the ground; the emus and ostriches strutting around their large open pens, and the range of imperious-looking eagles all staring menacingly out from their cages.


We've also been up KL Menara (telecoms tower, currently the fourth tallest in the world), whose viewing gallery is over 300 feet higher than the iconic, and better-known, Petronas Twin-Towers; wandered around the historic Central Market; visited Mosques, Hindu and Tsaoist Temples, and the spectacular Islamic Arts Centre; walked around China-Town and Little India, and sat sipping a cocktail in the 32nd-floor 'Sky Bar' overlooking KLCC Park and the beautiful, floodlit Petronas Towers. On New Year's Eve, Adrian and Michelle, and the staff of our lovely little hotel laid on a wonderful - and free - hot buffet meal for all the guests, and then a crowd of us, guests and staff together, walked over to a well-known vantage point on one of the huge, closed-to-traffic, boulevards, to count down the New Year together and watch a wonderful firework display. The atmosphere on the streets was amazing - everyone greeting each other with a range of differently-accented 'Happy New Years', and the drivers and passengers in their stationary cars all shouting greetings as we walked by. Just great!

We've also enjoyed finding our way about town using the city's railway-based urban network of monorail and LRT transit routes. This system of differently liveried overhead rail routes is great, but nothing like as integrated as the London underground, for example. Each of the routes was built separately by different companies, using different gauges and rolling-stock , tickets need to be bought for each separate part of the journey if you need to move between lines, and, even where there's an interchange between lines, it's rarely conveniently located: you often need to come out of one station, walk down the stairs to the pavement, walk round the corner, take the escalator up to the next line, queue again to buy a new ticket - but you do, thereby, at least manage to avoid the traffic chaos, with its almost complete lack of pedestrian walkways, below! And the tickets are really cheap.

Tomorrow we're off by bus to spend a few days in the Cameron Highlands. For now, though, let us use this opportunity to wish you all a very, very Happy New Year!  We'll leave you with a couple of pieces of useful advice for 2012 .....