Mandy: Thursday 1st August
I will leave our photos to tell you of the wonderful sights and topography of our four nights in Georgetown and up Penang Hill etc as they say it better than I could. (Photos to follow later if wifi improves) The general feel of the place can’t be captured in a photo though so here I go again…….
The buses in Georgetown were good, they had aircon and were clean. However, like buses in the UK not all of the people on it were wholesome….on one journey there was an old chinese man itching his head vigorously and on another an old Indian lady with a security blanket in her hand and draped on her lap like a child, rhythmically sticking the corner of it up one nostril then the other then around her mouth and back to each nostril, over and over again. There was a poor blind women with awful flaking skin that made me wonder if she was a Leper. I sometimes look at the hawker food stalls that are clean(ish) but on dirty streets and grubby corners by bins etc and think ‘well the locals eat here and they are still alive!’ However it is quality of life not quantity isn’t it! (Grimace) one thing I do think is that whatever is in those sugary desserts and those Cendol drinks/deserts it is rotting their teeth, well making them fall out. So when a young guy with a full set of white teeth came in to an Indian cafe style ‘restaurant’ the other night with a wonderful ornate white outfit wrapped around him, a huge white swathe of material wrapped around his head and full, what looked like, tribal war paint on his forehead I thought it must be a Bollywood film star or Malaysian model or celebrity. (People around here generally make me believe that celebrities and models in glossy magazines must be from a different planet if this is real life) Although the Indian people have wonderful outfits and are beautiful to be fair. So anyway, I couldn’t leave after our curry until we asked the waiter who this wonderful clean, well dressed and well kept guy was. It turns out he was actually the head of the local Temple. So we were in good company that night.
Our last full day in Georgetown and off we went to get a better view of the island. I was holding back tears (well a few came out on the bus) as we made our way to the steep funicular railway ride up Penang Hill and the inclined lift to the top of the Kek Lok Si Temple! (As if we had not walked up enough steps to get to that level!) And I was mainly worried about the impending journey we would soon have to make to the Cameron Highlands in the coming days. When we got to the top of Penang Hill it was worth the worry. The views were fantastic and the Temples at the top of both were wonderful. The Sri Aruloli Thirumurugan Hindu Temple at the top of Penang Hill was full of life, lovely incense and joyous noise as there was some sort of event taking place with lots of Indian families in their best regalia enjoying first the religious ceremony inside and then queuing for the delicious Indian food they served outside afterwards.
How to describe Georgetown, Penang ……wonderful smells (some not so wonderful), lively happy LOUD! sounds in little India, stalls selling colourful flower garlands too. Not so good smells in Chinatown! ….the heady mixture of fresh or dried fish, eggs and durian fruit sometimes in the same dish!!!!! Their decor is gaudy and tacky too. The writing and paper lanterns are beautiful but sadly they do not leave it there!
Like i said a smile with a full set of teeth here is rare. I am not sure if we should take the opportunity to set up a Dental surgery here or whether there are lots of ex-Dentists who have gone out of business due to lack of interest in their skills! I watched as one old happy go lucky guy made his way across the road to one of the hawker stalls one night….rummaging in his pocket and putting his false teeth in his mouth as he dodged the motorbikes!
There are lots of beggars, they don’t bother you they just sit quietly with their Macdonald ‘s cups out in front of them. Not far away are expensive jewellery shops with armed guards inside and at the front of the shop! Crazy extremes of fortune yet again.
Mum, the weather here puts me in mind of those heavy muggy thundery days at home when you expect to find those teeny tiny thunder flies on your runner beans and marrow as it boils away on the stove. (Smile)
Oh and i thought of both of my dear old Nans this morning. We went in to a shop and noticed that they still sell the old type of back door latches you used to have to put your thumb on to open the door. They were in brand new packaging whereas they would be in a museum in the UK! I also feel a bit like Nan Permial with my new patterned dress top (the one I was wearing in the photo at the butchers in the Souk in Egypt) Mum didn’t say anything but it must, like me, put her in mind of the patterned overall Nan used to wear when I was little (smile)
In our last Hotel there was a laminated list in our room saying that you can ‘buy’ anything in the room….towels, flannels, bedside table, hangers, flat screen tv! It said that if they are missing once you leave they will assume that you wish to purchase them and will take they cost from your account! a polite way to say they will charge your credit card for anything you half inch!! We could have taken something as they could not ‘add it to our account’ as we paid cash! Although not only could we not fit the tv in our back packs but we hadn’t watched it the two nights we were there so it would be a waste of energy to steel it! I could have done with some of those plastic clothes hangers though. (wink)
There is nothing like a five star package holiday! And this is nothing like a package holiday of any star level!!! You realise just how much you don’t get to see of a country usually. We always knew though that on the coach journey from the airport to the four or five star all inclusive resort in Dominican Republic years ago that we were not really experiencing the country like the locals! We looked out at the squalor and poverty from our coach seats in disbelief……. On this trip we are now walking through the real Penang, warts and all!! Good and bad we are experiencing the real life here, maybe because we have walked ‘off piste’ so to speak and have been looking into people’s humble homes. Of course we get to crawl back in to our clean sheets in the hotel bedroom at the end of the day! The people are still human though! They don’t bite! Although something was biting that old Chinese guy on the bus the other day, the way he was scratching his head the whole journey!
After catching the ferry back to the mainland Glen left me sat on a seat in the bus station with all four of our backpacks and set about walking around the hawker stalls to find some food. As I sat there taking in the view…..well people watching, I spotted Glen now and again as he walked back and forth between the two main food areas, looking quite cool in the heat and humidity (well he was far enough away for me not the see the wet patches I guess!) As he walked by me, across the road, for the third time it put me in mind of watching a nature porgramme. The ones where they have filmed a Lion who seems to expend so much energy trying to catch an animal and when the buffalo or whatever gets away I think of the wasted energy it has used and sometimes if it is worth it once they do catch something and then have to share it with a variety of other animals who suddenly appear to join the feast. I can’t help but think I am better for sat here not eating than Glen walking around, getting hot and using all that energy for a plate of noodles and fish balls!….lets hope he doesn’t come back with another Cendol!!! Ah here he is…. and he has brought me over a fried rice takeaway bless him. (Purrrrr)
Toilets! ….. Thought I had better go to the toilet before I got on the coach for the two hour journey to Ipoh….needn’t have bothered, as we went up the steps of the coach there were two buckets! (A boy was going in a plastic bag on our last coach journey!) They should have told us there were toilets on here to save me the trouble of the station toilets……… (Wink)
I’ve tried not to mention my toilet experiences so far. I have written them and then deleted the paragraph many times. However I feel the blog and details of our trip would be incomplete without them. I have just, once again, paid 3 Ringgit (about 6p) to use a toilet that is void of toilet paper and common sense.
I have since googled bindis and eating with your right hand which says “ask a local how to do it properly, they say the food tastes better if you eat with your hand” well they need to teach you how to use those squat toilets too. I could never do it as a child in the open (on a country walk) and I sure as hec can’t get on with it now….. Mainly because I have to take my trousers and knickers off and there is nowhere to hang them! One hand already steadying the back pack around my front (throwing me off balance) and MY OWN! Toilet roll in my other hand! Maybe the 3 Ringgit is for an instruction leaflet which I overlooked to pick up on my way in. (Sigh) I would swap a lesson with a local if they were up for it. I could teach them how to use the sit down toilets without peeing all over the seat!! (Deep breath) I feel better for getting that off my chest.