Davin Reporting!
Today we’re in Penang, Malaysia, on a ship tour that is supposed to take us “around the island”. Our guide is a very small woman wearing a Muslim head scarf, whose English is pretty good.
[Kristin Interjection: “Very small” doesn’t even give you the right image. She was like 5 feet tall. A very petite lady.]
To start out with, the weather here is absolutely abysmal again– possibly worse than in Sinagapore. It is around 90 degrees, with 66% humidity, so it feels like 110 degrees– like Las Vegas in the summer! Like Singapore, Malaysia is home to several ethnic groups and religions, but everyone here gets along and you’re allowed to believe whatever you want.
[Kristin Interjection: My only note from our day in Malaysia was about the weather and I wrote “It was miserable.”]
Our first stop is a Chinese mansion Pinang Peranakan Mansion, which was owned by a rich Chinese family. A lot of Chinese people made their way down here to Malaysia in the past. This mansion was two stories, and featured a large entry room for meeting guests. To the right of the anteroom was a dining area with a mirror hung on the wall so that the head of the household could see anyone entering the house from his dining table.
To be honest, most of this house was not all that memorable. There were a number of sets of China on display, as well as other decorations. There was also a kitchen area where you could see the old school cabinets and cooking equipment. One story we were told was about how the night after the wedding, the bed sheets would be checked to verify that the bride was a virgin. And also, there was some sort of fortune telling thing where the parents would predict how many children the couple would have, and what sexes they would be (I’m not sure how this tradition was maintained since the outcome obviously couldn’t have reliably matched what actually happened).
Attached to the house was a small Taoist temple, which the owner had also constructed. This was a fairly nice temple, with nice paintings and decorations. There appeared to be preparations for some sort of event here, with food being prepared, and one older tourist actually used her finger to taste the sauce on one of the spoons, which I thought was borderline, if not overtly rude (right afterwards the person working there cleared everything away, so maybe she noticed?). Although the temple was nice, overall this stop didn’t do a whole lot for me.
[Kristin Interjection: I didn’t know about this sauce story. That is gross! I was lagging behind as usual taking pictures.]
We then piled back into the bus and continued out into the countryside. Our bus was doing a drive around the outer coast of the island.
We then stopped at a small residential area to view some traditional houses. Actually, there were a number of modern houses here, also, but there were a few traditional type that were built on stilts. Apparently with it being so hot here, having houses built on stilts helped for cooling purposes– they need all the help they can get! Honestly, I’m kind of sorry that people have to live here at all, but I suppose it speaks to humanity’s intrepid spirit!
[Kristin Interjection: Our guide also pointed out several edible plants that the locals were growing. We saw an impressive bread fruit tree. The fruits were covered with cloth to protect them. The fruit was massive! I also enjoyed that the houses were painted bright, vibrant houses.]
After a few minutes in the sweltering heat, we moved on again, and headed up into the mountains, where we stopped at a long set of stands selling fruits and vegetables (as well as a few other trinkets). These stands were set along the highway, so our bus just pulled up and stopped on the road. Actually, just about every bus on multiple tours was stopping here, so there were at least three or four buses stopped, and one entire lane was completely blocked. Fortunately there was next to no traffic, so anyone who wanted to pass by just had to force its way past all of the tourists.
Our guide told us about a certain type of fruit that is popular here called durian but apparently it smells very bad. As a result, hotels ban it from their premises, and later on we actually saw several signs saying that it wasn’t allowed!
[Kristin Interjection: Later, in Toronto, I would discover that durian smells very similar to stale cat urine. We visited an interesting gelato shop which was selling durian ice cream. Both me and another friend of Natalie’s said, “It smells like cat urine in here!” at the same time. Natalie walked in and said, “They must be selling durian ice cream today!” Lol!]
As we were leaving these stands, we were offered dried nutmeg fruit to try. It was interesting but not something I would say that I liked.
On the bus, our guide handed out some small bananas to try, which actually tasted pretty good. Their taste was pretty similar to a standard cavendish banana, although perhaps a bit more flavorful. They were clearly much smaller than the bananas we are used to, so they’re probably not ideal to be sold in stores (but when the cavendish goes extinct, they’ll have to fall back to something!).
[Kristin Interjection: The skin was also very thin and Davin thought they wouldn’t fare too well in long distance transport. But they were delicious! As good if not better than the banana we all know and love.]
The terrain here in Malaysia is very lush, and the mountains are covered entirely with tropical plants. Driving through the mountains, I also noticed that our bus frequently took up more than half the road. It literally could not make some of the turns without going entirely on the other side of the street! It’s a good thing there was little or no traffic!
We drove past a reservoir and our guide told us that they sell water to Singapore, where it is treated and then Singapore sells it back to Malaysia at a much higher price. This was amusing to hear, because our guide in Singapore told us exactly the same thing (that they buy water from Malaysia and then sell it back). So, we heard the same story from both sides!
Our next stop was probably the most interesting on the entire tour. We stopped at a textile manufacturing shop, where we got to view patterns being painted on to sarong fabric. It was called Batik Block Printing. There were two different methods: the first involved using a large stamp to place wax designs on to the fabric. The craftsman would just keep stamping this pattern onto the fabric until it was full. The other involved tracing a pencil design using a wax pen. Either method would leave a light brownish pattern of wax on the fabric.
After the wax pattern was in place, the fabric would then be dyed using an ink brush. The person who was responsible for this step would simply touch the fabric with the brush, and the color would spread out, but be stopped by the wax. This was a very ingenious method, and it must have made creating the finished patterns much easier (I think trying to just paint the patterns on directly probably would have been close to impossible!). Finally, the fabric would be washed, and the wax would be removed, leaving white lines where the brown wax had been.
Having viewed the process involved in creating the patterns, we then were shown to the store where you could buy one of the finished products. For sale were mostly sarongs, but also some female dresses and male shirts. They all looked nice, but we weren’t really interested in making a purchase. Fortunately, we did find some postcards here, as well as some pins and patches!
Following a fairly unmemorable lunch, ...
[Kristin interjection: Hey! It was quite memorable. It was inside a hotel that was open to the outside so it was miserably hot. They provided us with one bottle of spring water each and then came around to try to sell us nice cold drinks like beer and soda. The only free drinks besides our little water was coffee and tea. I both admired and completely despised the owners for their business acumen which attempted to take advantage of their weather to get more money out of us! Bastards... I made due with my water, of course. The food was pretty unmemorable.]
After lunch, we stopped at a Thai Buddhist temple named Wat Chayamangkalaramwhich which is also called ‘The Temple of the Reclining Buddha’. It seems you’re not supposed to refer to it as a lying Buddha or the sleeping Buddha, as that is disrespectful. The guide said the monks would get mad if they overheard you refer to it in this way.
This was actually a fairly impressive temple, as the reclining Buddha was huge– perhaps 80 to 100 feet long! There were also some interesting murals depicting various stories of the Buddha, and out front were some fairly impressive dragon designs. Across the street was a Burmese Buddhist temple, which was decent, but not much different from most of the other temples we have seen so far.
That led us to our last stop: The Blue Mansion. This was another Chinese mansion, this one founded Cheong Fatt Tze. I actually liked this mansion a lot more than the first. Not only was it architecturally more impressive, but we also were provided with more of its history. The mansion was two stories, with a central, open courtyard. The center of the courtyard had an empty pool which was designed to fill up when it rained, and then drain out in a whirl pool action.
[Kristin Interjection: We were told that this house was built to maximize Feng Shui. Supposedly, the good karma collects at the focal point in the middle of the court yard and if a spiritually sensitive person stands between the two trees they can feel vibrations and positive energy radiating from that spot!]
Cheong Fatt Tze was a very successful merchant, and had at least 8 wives, all in different cities! He started out poor but worked hard for a business owner who took a liking to him. Cheong fell in love with the businessman’s daughter and could not believe his good fortune that the businessmen approved the match. From there, Cheong was able to expand his business and make a lot of money. Unfortunately, after he died there was no one to continue in his place. He left all of this money to his favorite wife and her baby son. Through mismanagement of the money by the son’s trustees all of the money was squandered before his came of age.
The current owner of the Blue Mansion bought it in 1990 after the death of Cheong Fatt Tze’s last surviving son. The building was in a severe state of dilapidation. The owner specifically wanted to restore the building. He spent a lot of money and used Grade 1 International best practice standards of restoration. It took over 6 years to complete the restoration. In the end, the building won “Most Excellent Project” award from the UNESCO Heritage Conservation Awards 2000.
[Kristin Interjection: This house was very nice and if you are ever in Penang, Malaysia it is also a hotel. So, it would be a nice place to stay. Unfortunately, I do not plan to return to Malaysia because the weather does not suit me!]
Finally, we headed back to the ship to put an end to a fairly long day. We passed some scenic views of the coast and our guide told us that the locals do not go to the beaches. There are superstitions about angry spirits causing drowning to occur. The guides expression for talking about drowning was to say the people are “pulled down” or “pulled under”. However, there is another reason the locals don’t go to the beach: to avoid the sun. In Malaysian society lighter skin is considered more beautiful. She laughed at how this is the opposite of many societies, including ours, where we covet tanned skin!
I thought this tour was decent overall (some stops were better than others), but the weather here is just abysmal! I would be reluctant to come back to these places in the future knowing that the temperature and humidity are so bad!
Next Stop: Chennai, India (April 10, 2016)
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