Georgetown, Malaysia

Friday, Oct. 27, 2006

Georgetown, being quite close to the Thai border, was a natural place for us to close out our time in Malaysia. In the morning, we took a minibus across the border in Hat Yai, where we had planned to fly through Bangkok, via Asia Air, to Chiang Mai.

Upon checking in, we realized that our Bangkok flight was delayed, which would leave us with only a sliver of time upon touching down in Bangkok to gather up our bags and dash across the airport to our departure gate. What ensued was the most amazing and unexpected display of customer service!

We were allowed to board first, thus seating ourselves in the prime position to get off first as well. The flight attendants saw to it that no one passed us, and upon landing, we descended onto the tarmac to find a van waiting for us. We were escorted by an Asia Air staff member, who informed us that our bags had been forwarded on, and who zipped us across the airport, through check-in, and pointed us, boarding passes in hand, towards our departure gate.

Big, big thank you to Asia Air, a budget airline that doesn't even serve drinks on its flights, yet treated us to seamless customer service which allowed us to continue on our way.

Thursday, Oct. 26, 2006

We caught a city bus in the morning to visit Kek Lok Si Temple, the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia. After about fifteen minutes on the bus, we pulled into the local Esso gas station to...fuel up. In my experience, plenty of private bus drivers will stop at gas stations to use the restrooms or buy salty snacks, but I don't think I have ever seen a city bus gas up at the local gas station!

The temple, a complex of brightly-colored buildings blanketing a hill, is reached through a stuffy, narrow alleyway of souvenir and snackshops. This gauntlet runs for a good fifteen minutes or so, before you're actually at the temple. Along the way, you pass by "Liberation Pond," an ironically-named concrete paddling pool teeming with hundreds of turtles climbing up on each other, waiting for scraps of lettuce tossed by passers by, purchased from the enterprising local who is positioned right before the pool.

Kek Lok Si Temple is quite large, but with varied and interesting places to explore. A large bronze Buddha stood up on the hill, overlooking a pagoda and halls below. Allegedly there one million Buddhas at this temple; the images line the walls, are present in the detailing of the columns, and along the tiling in the stairwells. We found an unlocked door and noticed a huge bronze bell inside, suspended by ropes and chains that had been rusted thoroughly through. So we ducked under and played inside the bell. Whee!

I'm sure the rest of the buldings in the massive complex are used by monks and have legitimate religious functions, but it seemed like the temple was built to accomodate the plethora of souvenir shops. You could buy general Malaysian souvenirs, Buddhist imagery, pottery, snacks, and even stuffed animals. At every. Single. Level. Of. The. Temple.

Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2006

Rest day! Internet and noodle-hunting! Sadly, that was kind of it.

Tuesday, Oct. 24 ,2006

At 7AM, at a cost of 2 ringgit apiece, we caught boarded the city bus into Georgetown. After checking out a few guesthouses, we found a clean, clean place, cheesily named "Stardust," with an innkeeper who kind of reminded me of my dad.

I relished a hot shower and the quietly satisfying act of flossing my teeth. After a nap, we explored the historical part of town, a blend of colonial and Chinese-Malysian shophouse architecture. Georgetown is on the island of Penang, off the northwestern tip of Malaysia. Strolling along the beach, we watched fishermen drop baskets into the water to scoop up tiny little fish. Through the afternoon drizzle, we continued on, checking out the old architecture, mosques, temples, and a Chinese clan house. After cutting through the Little India neighborhood, we returned to the Stardust.

I am the kind of person who sleeps in bus stations...

Monday, Oct. 23, 2006

Today was a big transit day: 3 hour boat back to town, 3 hour bus back to KL, and 5 hour bus to Georgetown, on the island of Penang.

However, today was also Hari Raya, a holiday I know nothing about (despite the fact that signage fêting the occasion has been posted everywhere for a month or so), so our boat was late. An unapologetic rep for the company we'd unwittingly booked our ticket with was quite unhelpful. I won't do the full rant, but here's the summary: NKS Travel sucks.

It seemed fitting that on our bus ride to KL, our bus ( steered by the same driver who shuttled us, haltingly, from KL just a few days before), overheated and broke down on the side of the highway. After forty minutes we were on our way again, and in the early evening we pulled into KL Chinatown.

The roads in that area are lined with narrow booths and slivers of storefronts selling bus tickets to destinations all over the peninsula. We asked a lady when her next bus to Georgetown was, and she replied "7PM". Since this meant we'd only have to wait half an hour, we went ahead and bought our tickets. At 7:10PM, I politely asked her what time the bus was supposed to arrive. She looked at me dully and replied "7:30." At 7:30PM, she told us to go to the bus depot, across the street. At 8:00PM, the bus actually arrived and we were off.

The bus ended up arriving somewhere on the island of Penang, but not in Georgetown. Taxis, charging 30 ringgit, offered to take us into town, but this was ridiculously high, so we opted to sleep/wait out the night at the snack bar in the bus station. The Indian music wafting out from the snack stand, a three-note trill which tinkled incessantly through the whole night, was our constant conscious companion as we drifted in and out of restless sleep.

Taman Negara National Park

Friday, Oct. 22, 2006

Although the hide was supposed to be a place to potentially spot wildlife in the park, it was so dark at night that it was impossible to see anything. The only wildlife was some rats scurrying through the rafters, and the only large mammals I heard were our fellow hide-mates, pushing the sweet sounds of slumber through their nasal cavities.

That said, it was still an interesting and oddly enjoyable expereince. We set out on the trail again early in the morning, this time taking an alternate route along the river. I prepared myself against the leeches with duct tape compounded with DEET slathered generously all over my shoes (curse lace holes) and legs. his worked well; I only found three leeches attached (and a couple trampled and dead in the soles of my shoes) during the trip back. The rainforest also has a a huge variety of plants, including trees and vines with vicious spikes. I suppose because I had the leeches somewhat figured out, I felt it necessary to barrel obliviously into many of these poky specimens. Shins beware.

Right before we reached park headquarters again, we took a detour to walk on the canopy walkway, apparently the longest walkway of its kind in the world. Though an interesting experience for the sheer novelty of being up so high and swinging slightly, it wasn't quite as marketed - a way to see flora and fauna that would be inaccessible from the ground perspective. Rather, everything above was leafy and green, and everything below was as well.

Upon returning to civilization, we were eager to have real food for dinner. However, with it being Ramadan, most of the restaurants were closed, except to serve steaming buffets to the large tours of Koreans who piled through each night. When we finally did find a place to eat, a guy sitting at the opposite end of our table looked oddly familiar. Turns out it was a guy I was vaguely acquainted with at Berkeley, who had worked as a healthworker in Unit 2 while I was an RA there. Even though I don't really know him, it was neat to see a (slightly) familiar face. I'd had a quiet suspicion I'd see a Berkeley face sometime during my trip, so I guess this was it.

Thursday, Oct. 21, 2006

We planned to hike out and spend the night in one of the park hides, a simple stilted cabin positioned above a salt lick, where you can sleep and watch out for animals in the middle of the rainforest.

At AM, we checked in the with park headquarters, paying our fee and asking what trail to take. We puttered around, then decided that we needed a more substantial flashlight than our headlamps. We went back to the HQ desk, and asked the same man if he could point us in the direction of the camp supply rental store. After securinga huge, heavy flashlight, we decided to go have lunch at one of the floating restaurants along the river. At 11:30AM, we rolled back up to the HQ desk, once again, to be pointed in the direction of the actual trailhead. The park staff (the same guy as our other two visits), gave us an incredulous look that melted into skepticism, and he showed us where to go.

The trail was decently maintained, but the recent rains had washed out some parts of the path and brought down branches and trees, which had to be climbed over and under. About 20 minutes into our hike, I made the unpleasant discovery of three leeches, fixed to my left ankle. Marc and I pulled them off, and I duct-taped the tops of my ankle-length socks (unfortunate choice) to my legs in hopes of keeping the leeches out. For the rest of the trip, we stopped every few minutes or so to pull off the leeches that clung to our shoes and feet (leeches unfortunately can work their way through the loose weave of athletic socks). Mar's feet, in Tevas (an even less fortunate choice) were quite the walking buffet for the buggers, and they worked their way under and into the straps of his sandals, making removal extremely difficult. Slightly irksome was the fact that neither my travel book nor the park literature or staff made any mention at all of leeches.

We stopped for a break, and Marc pulled out a bag of Tiger Biscuits (also marketed as "Energi Biskuat" in Indo, a Danone product featuring a tiger in frankly, really ugly blue overalls and a red shirt) which we'd previously opened. He slid out the molded plastic tray ... and there lay a gecko, eyes wide ... with a stump in lieu of a tail. Without saying a word, we looked at each other. Marc began to pick up stacks of biscuits, inspecting the tray underneath. Ugh, he's checking for gecko poo, I thought. Nothing. He picked up the second stack, and my skin started to crawl. Oh no, I hope he doesn't find the ... there lay the gecko tail.

It's amazing what you find yourself able to tolerate in certain situations. We ate those biscuits, and they tasted great. Here's the way the rest of the story goes: we pulled leeches off, we pulled leeches off, we saw some wild pigs and heard monkeys, we pulled leeches off, we lost the trail with only one hour of daylight left, we refound the trail, and after seven hours of trekking, we arrived at the hide by the last light of day, two minutes before a rainstorm poured down.

Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2006

Caught an 8:30AM bus to Taman Negara National Park, the world's oldest rainforest. The three -hour bus ride inched along. The speedometer on the dash didn't work, and I could see the needle spastically twitching at "0 km/h" as we crept through KL gridlock, accelerated and merged onto the freeway, and jerked to a complete stop on the highway due to the incompetent gear-shifting of our driver. Through it all, that needle pointed faithfully to 0.
What goes great after a three-hour bus ride? A three-hour boat ride! To reach the actual park, we long, shallow, covered boat with a motor attached to the back up the river. The motor died in the middle of our trip, and our poor boat captain struggled to get it started again. The boat gradually slowed in the oncoming current, stopped, and began to turn and go backwards. Eventually, the captain jumped into the water and tied the boat as he wrestled with the engine and got it going. From there, it was smooth sailing, until it happened again. And then again. It was a fun boat ride though. Much more preferable to the bus.

Kuala Lumpur

Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2006

We planned a mellow day, visiting Lake Garden Park (the Central Park of KL). Barely anyone was there, perhaps because it was midday on a weekday. The park is nicely landscaped and well-maintained, but it has a definite element of bizarro. Speakers, regularly affixed to poles throughout the park, played Malaysian talk radio mixed with pop music, giving a sort of deserted-carnival feel to the place. We found an elaborate and varied children's playground and rode swings and seesaws, expecting the lady from last night to run out the bushes and blow her whistle at us. It began to rain, and we found a food stand, eating curry puffs and coconut pudding in a banana leaf box, as we waited for the shower to pass.

Monday, Oct. 18, 2006

We went to the Petronas Towers today, that icon of this city whose only previous impression on me has been from the movies Zoolander and Catherine Zeta Jones' butt in Entrapment. (I know, there's no accounting for taste.) The Islamic shape (sixteen sided or so?) of the buildings, formed by overlapping circles and squares (I think?) is repeated all over the city, in the sidewalks, tiling, and buildings.

The trip up to the skybridge linking the two towers is actually free. Before ascending, you watch a video about the towers' construction, which is actually really, really interesting. Then a guide escorts your group up the elevator ride, providing additional narration that is timed to perfectly conclude at the opening of the doors. I was quite impressed.

Tangent: I haven't eaten at McDonald's, or any other U.S. chain restaurant yet, but I probably will soon. I'm amused how all the McDonald's here prominently post their "Ringgit McSaver Menu" (basically, the Malaysian equivalent of the Dollar Menu), featuring a grid of glossy photos captioned with "Hamburger," "Veggie Burger," and "Carbonated Beverage" (it's a Coke, splashing extravagantly into its brightly branded cup), among other selections. I'm also not sure how bothered I should be that "Veggie Burger" has an asterisk leading to a statement below: "Not a vegetarian product."

In the evening, we walked through and had dinner at the Petaling Street Market in Chinatown. I overheard a Caucasian girl ask a handbag booth vendor "Do you have Louis Vuitton bags? Like, huge ones"Oh mans.

We headed back to the Petronas towers after dinner. We laid down on the cool sidewalk in front of the towers, taking in their beauty and indulging in some crappy photography, but there's simply no way to squish the structures into an eloquent photo, especially with my (lack of) photo skills. The area seemed oddly deserted, save for the occasional office worker emerging after a late night. Upon walking around to the back of the buildings, where there are fountains and a park, we realized that the Kuala Lumpur Nuzzling Couples Club was occupying every bench, ledge, and scrap of lawn available.

I tried walking across some stepping stones through the fountain pool, which were clearly meant for walking, and got a whistle blown at me by a guard. I guess no walking on water after dark? Then I sat down on a swing in the playground, and got whistled at. I satisfied myself with sitting on a bench, watching the lighted fountain, until 9:50PM, when it promptly shut off, lights snapping off crisply and water jets going limp. Then minutes later, a rapidfire bursh of whistling, apparently signaling the close of the park, drove the crowd down into the metro station, to be whisked home.

Sunday, Oct. 17, 2006

First thing in the morning, we boarded a ferry back to the mainland, and then caught a bus to Kuala Lumpur. Overall, Malaysia has a fairly nice road system - in good condition, wide, paved, well-marked - but they seemed to have neglected to level out the road before paving, so there are all these small ripples and rolling hills in the otherwise flat asphalt. Watching the front of the bus from my seat, I watched the dashboard of the bus bob up and down, up and down... no wonder I still felt like I was on a boat.

Arrived in Kuala Lumpur in the evening. We walked to Merdeka (Freedom) Square, a meticulously maintained lawn flanked by interesting, historical buildings on all sides, blending Moorish and British architecture. In Kuala Lumpur, much of the city is lit at night, with soft white string lights hanging down from trees, outlining buildings, illuminating fountains, parks, and night markets.

We walked by Masjid (mosque) Jamek; the evning prayer call emanating from the mosque fell like a sheer scarf, drawn over and subtly blanketing the surrounding city bustle. In Sawit, I'd heard the prayer calls every day, but in a small village it felt different, more like a relatable element of daily life there. Here in Kuala Lumpur, it feels more like an exotic soundtrack to an exotic place, with highrise buildings, people in business suits, andthe monorail gliding by silently overhead.

Lastly, we went to Masjid Negara, the National Mosque, an angled blue dome with a 70m high tower. The grounds around the mosque are a serene, contemplative setting of fountains, benches, and trellises. Light on the white walls of the mosque reflected into the hazy sky, creating a soft blue glow around the mosque.