Langkawi and Beyond

The night before I sailed on the ferry to Langkawi, my computer developed a major problem. Windows stopped working. It wouldn't load, no matter what I did. As a result, I couldn't access my blog file in order to write any new entries, or look through photos in order to choose which ones I would include in the blog. I could look at photos through some HP software that was included on the computer. I could listen to music files. And I could access the internet. But all the other functions that I have grown used to having on the computer were inoperative. So I woke up annoyed. And I had no time to deal with problem at all. I had a ferry to catch.

I checked out and headed to the ferry terminal and caught the ferry to Langkawi. When I arrived, the Langkawi terminal was located a fair distance from the town and accommodation. It meant a taxi ride. Now, I normally don't like taxis anyway. I find taxi drivers to be generally dishonest and out to take the passenger for a very expensive ride. And if I can find a way not to have to take a taxi, I will generally do it. Added to this was the fact that I was already annoyed about my computer. This was very bad news for the prospective take-Ken-to-town taxi drivers. But there were no tuk tuks. There were no motorcycle guys. There were only cabs and my feet. It seemed there was no other option. Until I thought about it a bit more. I had come to Langkawi so that I could take another ferry over to Thailand. So I had the option of continuing on to Thailand right away instead of spending any time on Langkawi.

I probably should have given Langkawi a bit more of a chance. I gather there is a fairly nice national marine park there. But I was just not in the mood. So I bought my ticket to Thailand and headed out a couple of hours after arriving. The lone photo I took in Langkawi was of their unofficial mascot, the eagle. And tourists can apparently feed eagles on one of the tours available on the island.

Next I thought I would spend a day or two in Satun, on the Thailand side of the ferry ride. But when I arrived in Satun, one of the travel agency types in the terminal informed me that Satun really didn't have anything very interesting and that there was really no reason to stay. I should have ignored him. I suspect that it might have been a somewhat interesting place, but not for anything of touristic value. I think it might have simply been a good way to view ordinary Thais doing ordinary things without the insane focus on getting money from foreigners that exists in the places where tourists congregate. However, I took the guy at his word and let him book me on a bus up to Krabi. I visited Krabi a couple of years ago, and I quite liked it. But this time I wanted to stay on the beach instead of in Krabi town. There wasn't really any way to get to the beach that day though. I was going to be arriving in the middle of the night. I got a booking for a place in town and decided to figure it out the next morning. And off I went. So instead of being ensconced in a room on the island of Langkawi in Malaysia, as I expected and intended when I woke up that morning, I ended up a fair distance up the peninsula in Thailand, after a long day, booked into a rather shabby room in a guest house in a nice little tourist town. Oh well.

A Walking Tour of the UNESCO World Heritage center of Georgetown

One of the big selling points for visiting Penang is the colonial architecture of Georgetown. Georgetown is where the British established one of their first settlements in the region. There are many buildings that have remained and were restored fairly recently. In fact, there are enough such buildings in the central area of Georgetown that UNESCO bestowed their increasingly meaningless favour upon the downtown area and it has become a World Heritage City. (UNESCO should just get it over with and declare the Earth as a World Heritage site of universal significance and of enormous cultural, social, historical, natural, futural, pastoral, biggial, smallial, masculine, feminine, primitive, advanced, and generally all-things-to-everyone importance to all members of the human race on the planet. Animals, too. And hey, why not plants and rocks and amoebas, and don't forget the slime molds and the seas and skies. Have I left anything out? There was a time when I thought it would be fun to visit as many World Heritage Sites as possible. Now there are too many to possibly visit.)

There are numerous brochures and pamphlets that show a bunch of the heritage buildings in the city and show them on a map, so they can be visited on a walking tour. The one I chose was fairly goofy. They were numbered in a way that like reading a page. So there were spots where the person doing the walking tour would reach the end of a “line” and then have to walk all the way back to the beginning of the next “line.” It wasn't organized very well. So I changed the order to better suit a normal sort of walking pattern.

I started at the old city hall building.

Right across the street from the city hall, was a war memorial.

The war memorial sits on a street that runs by the waterfront and is really quite attractive. And when I looked at the map later, I realized that this was actually the Esplanade, which was feature number 5 on the map. Oops!! I was out of order already.

Then I moved on to the town hall building. It was right next door to the city hall building.

Around the corner from the town hall was the Dewan Sri Pinang building.

Following this, I headed over to Fort Cornwallis. The fort was established by a sailor in the British Navy, Francis Light. And in a fit of humility, he named the fort after the British commander in India. The initial structure was made of wood. Later, Francis Light wanted to make it a more formidable fort and sought to procure funds to renovate it into a stone structure. The powers that be, however found the strategic value of the fort to be lacking and denied the funds that Light required. So Light used his own money to renovate the fort. It is a quite a nice structure to wander around in for a while and it has a nice set of reading panels showing the history, not only of the fort, but of the English presence in Malaysia.

Adjacent to the fort is the Queen Victoria Memorial Clock Tower. It looks nice lit up at night, but I had forgotten to bring my camera when I was out at night looking at it, so this more drab daytime view is what we have.

Across the street from Fort Cornwallis, are the state assembly buildings.

It was at this point that I realized how the walking tour was laid out and that I was now going to have to walk all way back to the “left-hand side of the page” and start reading again. I did this and got a good look at one of the nice colonial churches, the Cathedral of the Assumption.

Next to the cathedral stands the Penang State Museum. The walking tour map says that this museum “houses a plethora of Penang historic artefacts.” With a description like that I couldn't resist going in for a look. From the outside, it doesn't look like much, but inside... Wow!! There was indeed a huge collection of interesting things. The most interesting exhibit rooms dealt with the various ethnic communities and their rituals of marriage and death. It was really a very impressive museum.

And next to the museum was St. George's Church. I had actually looked at this church on my first night in Penang after the long day of travelling from Taman Negara National Park. It looked better at night.

The Goddess of Mercy Temple was around the corner and across from the Little India area. I have seen shrines to this goddess before. The best one I saw was on a hill in Macau. This goddess is the protector of mariners and so is an important figure in sea and ocean areas.

Across the street from the temple was the Mahamariamman Temple. This is a Hindu temple and is on the outskirts of Little India in Georgetown.

Around the corner from the Hindu temple was the Japanese Teochew temple. This temple didn't look like much from the street, but inside it had been renovated and was quite large. And it seemed a bit incongruous sandwiched in between a couple of other shabby buildings.

Around another corner from the Japanese temple and down the street a little bit was the Kapitan Keling Mosque. It's large and imposing and the architecture is pretty cool. And it was interesting to me that these four quite different religious beliefs were to be found only a few minutes walk from each other.

Next on the tour was the Cheah Kongsi. But the next three buildings after it led away from the waterfront and the final parts of the tour. So I went the other way and began with the Islamic Museum. The museum was said to house the heritage of the Muslim community in Penang. I would have liked to go in and see the museum, but it was Tuesday and, in a switch for usual museum days off, this museum was closed on Tuesdays. Oh well. It took a bit of searching to find it because the map made it seem as if it were in one spot, but it was actually on the other side of the block. Now given my natural genius for the misreading of maps, it would be natural for anyone to say at this point, well, it wasn't the map but the map reader. Oho!! I say. There were some other people that I saw, who had the same map as I had. They seemed to be searching for the same place and had ended up stuck at the same place as I was stuck. So, nyah!!! It wasn't me.

Next up was Khoo Kongsi. This was the clan residence and temple for a group of Chinese immigrants. It was tucked away inside a block that was presumably owned and maintained by the Chinese family/families that built it. I think it was being renovated. I didn't actually go in and see that one because they wanted around 10 dollars for an entry fee. The fort had been 2 dollars, and the museum had been 1 dollar. It seemed a bit out of proportion to me and, without knowing if it would be interesting or impressive, I wasn't willing to give in to that kind of extortion. So I left.

The next place was the Cheah Kongsi, another Chinese clan residence and temple. This one was free. So I felt vindicated in my choice not to pay to go see the previous one. Perhaps the Cheah Kongsi was less impressive, but I will never know. And I found it quite impressive enough.

By this time, the clouds had been building up and it looked like rain was on the way. The next building in the tour was way off in the middle of the area, quite a distance from anything. I decided to forgo it in favour of staying dry, and moved on to the waterfront. Once again, I did them out of order since I was arriving at the area of the final stop on the tour. This was the clan jetties area. A whole community built their residences out over the water on stilts. I wanted a good look so I started out onto this pier. As I passed the guard house, the guard came out and told me I couldn't go there. I asked him where I could get a good look and he directed me out onto the jetties themselves. And it was a good view. I'm not sure I would want to live like that, but it seems to be a nice little community.

Finally it was on to the ferry jetties and wharves. The ferry that goes between the island and the mainland seemed suitably old and historic,...

...but the jetties were all shiny and new seeming. There were posh restaurants and it seemed an upscale area that would be quite pricey.

In the end the tour was a way to pass time. I didn't know what else to do on Penang, having visited the national park on the previous day, and not having booked a ferry ticket to Langkawi until the next morning. It was an interesting walking tour, though.

Penang's National Park

Penang is an island off the western coast of Malaysia. Penang has a national park. It is out in the northwest corner of the island. In the morning, I asked at the desk of the hostel where I was staying and was told that I could take a bus from right out front and go all the way to the park. Simple enough, so off I went.

It took about an hour to get to the park. When I arrived, it seemed a bit of a sleepy place. There were no great crowds. There were only a few people about. Even the stalls that provide food and souvenirs and, possibly more telling, tours for visitors were mostly closed. A sign announced that visitors should go the office to get a park pass and register. I duly went and signed in and got my park pass. My free park pass. They wanted to know where I planned to go. I eventually decided that they wanted to know in case I didn't show up by the end of the day to sign back out. Then they could send out searchers to look for the body. I had read about a turtle sanctuary and information center in the park. I thought it would be interesting to learn about the conservation of turtles, so I thought I would head there. But when I got there, there was also a hike to a lighthouse, and that sounded interesting as well. I registered my intention to go to the lighthouse. And off I went. I first had to deal with a ferocious feline blocking my way. I thought I wouldn't have to deal with big vicious cats until I got into Africa, but I figured this would be good practice and I snuck by without mishap.

It was a very warm day and I had about a liter and a half of water with me. The hike to the lighthouse was about four and a half kilometers. It was through the jungle and there were lots of interesting things to see along the way. Just at the entrance to the park, I came across a couple who had hired a guide. They were busy staring into the nearby jungle in a way that suggested they were seeing wildlife. When I got up to them, they were watching a monkey in the mangroves. But the spot to view the monkey was on a swaying bridge and it was hard to get a clear photo as a result. I was bummed.

I needn't have worried though. A short while later, I crossed paths with this guy.

And then a little after that, I looked up in the trees and saw this one.

I reached Monkey Beach, a nice long white sandy beach. At the end of the beach the trail led up onto a hill that went up about 250 meters. By that time I had drunk about half of my water. I wasn't sure I wanted to hike up to see a lighthouse, with dwindling water on a hot, sunny day, and then trek across the park to the turtle sanctuary. In the end it seemed best to not go to the lighthouse and head to the turtle sanctuary. So I turned around and headed back towards the turn-off for the other side of the park.

And I think the reason for the name of the beach, Monkey Beach, is all the monkeys that are around. This one was just hanging out.

Then I passed a whole troop of them on the path. They gave me a wide berth as they went past.

I made it back to one of the turn-offs to go across the park. This path was supposed to go past a canopy walkway. But the canopy walkway was closed and apparently the path was as well. But the tape didn't seem to be across the pathway. So I followed it. This turned out to be a rather bad idea. I ended up bashing through the bushes on a rather hidden trail as I made my way up to where it finally met up with the first trail (from the park entrance). I was worried at one point that I might be on this path and get hurt. However, I had registered for the lighthouse trail and so they would never find my body. But I did make it through in the end and got to the other side of the park. But I took another wrong turn and took the long trail around a special lake. The lake is a meromictic lake, one where sea water and fresh water meet. The sea water stays at the bottom and the fresh water sits on top and the two don't mix. I had swum in a lagoon of this type in the Philippines, but apparently this phenomenon only occurs in a few places on the planet.

Then I headed onto the beach. The very hot beach. The burning hot beach. But there were pine cone-like things from the trees at the edge of the beach. The got between my feet and my sandals and were very painful to walk on. So I took off my sandals. But the sand felt like it was burning the flesh from my feet. I was caught either way. It was a rough walk across to the ranger station at the beach. I was hoping very hard that they had water as I had all but run out of water getting there and it would be a long, thirsty hike back to the park entrance if they didn't. Luckily, they gave me some water, from a tap, and told me that I could drink water from the streams in the park as they were safe. I wasn't completely sure that would be true, but I didn't have much choice. I was really thirsty.

They also pointed the way to the turtle conservation sanctuary. Eagerly, I headed over to learn about how they save turtles at the beach... And found a building with a couple of bored looking caretakerish looking people who did nothing to try explain anything about the operation. They barely even acknowledged the arrival of visitors. Inside the building there were a number of reading panels showing how the turtles come to the beach, lay their eggs in holes, which are immediately dug up by the conservation staff, put into protected holes safe from predators and other threats and left to hatch. The baby turtles are allowed to grow a bit, and are then released into the beach to make their way into the sea and hopefully live a good life as they replenish the population of turtles in the area. It was a long way to come to read panels and I was somewhat disappointed that I had not gone to see the lighthouse. I did see where they kept the turtle eggs in their protected holes, though.

But still, if you go there, go for the lighthouse.

How Prejudices Begin

I was told to be at the bus stop to catch my minibus to Penang at 8:30 in the morning. I hate to be late, so I was there at about 8:10. I saw some other people about getting people sorted out for other buses. They asked me about my plans and they told me that my bus was just over yonder and I should just wait there. So I did. And I waited. I saw my bus go off around the corner. I figured it was off to pick someone up and would be back shortly. I waited. And I waited. 8:30. No minibus. 8:40. No minibus. 9:00. No minibus. I finally started to think that maybe it didn't have any other passengers and I was going to be stuck somehow. 9:15. No minibus. I was just about to head to the tourist information office to find out what was going on, when at 9:20, the minibus turned up. Ah! I had also just realized that I had left my cap at the hotel, so I figured that since everyone had kept me waiting and worrying, I would go and try to retrieve my hat. It took me about three minutes, but it felt good to delay everyone for even that couple of minutes. Revenge is fun.

I asked the driver what had happened, why he was so late. He said there had been a problem at the hotel. He didn't elaborate, so I was left to try to figure out what sort of problem it could have been. That sort of thing usually means that someone has slept late and has held the whole process up. There were six people in the minibus, so I looked them over suspiciously, wondering which one had been the sleepyhead. They all seemed to be together. And then when I went to get into the van, they were all sitting in the three rows of three seats with one seat between them and some of their stuff on the empty seats. They said they thought I would have to get in the front seat next to the driver. I readily agreed, since that is about the best seat in a minibus, but I could this situation ending up being a rude awakening for them as to how things work in the transportation business in Asia. We headed off for the last pickup at a really nice looking place just out of town. However, because the minibus was so late, the people there got tired of waiting (I think) and they made other arrangements with another company. I think the people in the back kind of thought they were in the clear at that moment, but I knew better. The driver made a call and sure enough there was someone who could replace the lost fares in the minibus. We headed back into town to pick them up. There were three. And with all of us (the six original people turned out to be all from the same family and they were travelling together with a fair amount of stuff between them. The three new additions also had fair-sized backpacks and there was just lots of stuff that had to be fit into the minibus. Too much, really. So we spent about 15 minutes trying to get everything, and everyone into the bus. In the end there were bags under feet, and on seats and on people, as well. It was quite cramped. To their credit, the family didn't make too many complaints about the situation, but they did seem to be awfully surprised about how uncomfortable this was going to turn out to be. And once the roster had been passed around to list names and nationalities and such (I presume so the bus company would know where to try to send any bodies should anything untoward happen), I discovered that the family was Dutch. Now anyone can be new at the Asian transportation game. There is no particular reason why they ought to know how it works, particularly since it seemed they had been staying at some higher-class hotel.

And at a rest stop part way along, I found out that it hadn't been anyone sleeping in. There had been a storm the night before, and it's possible that it disrupted telephone lines to and from the town. When they had been trying to pay for their room, the credit card machine wasn't able to get through to process the payment. The hotel staff also couldn't call the credit card company directly to try to process the payment that way because the phones were down. They had had to haggle out a solution to the situation and it had all taken close to an hour to sort out.

I don't know if I was supposed to change to another minivan after about an hour or what the deal was supposed to be. A comment from the driver suggested that I was only supposed to be in the van for an hour or so before changing to another vehicle. But whatever the case, it ended up that I travelled all the way back to the Cameron Highlands before changing to another minibus to go the rest of the way to Penang. I had suspected that I would end up back there, but it hadn't been my preferred route. I didn't end up staying in the town in the highlands, though, so it was no big deal. But it ended up with another Dutch family joining the minibuses passengers. This time it was a family of four. The two children (well, young men really) were deaf. And for some reason it seemed that neither one wanted to sit on the seat beside me. They seemed to have a little fight about it. And after being told to be in the back by the driver, one of the boys just went and got in up in the front. Then the driver came back and looked in and seemed a bit puzzled by where everyone was. He discovered the boy in the front seat and told the parents that he had wanted to put some of the luggage in the front seat and the boy would have to come back to the back. And the sour look on his face as they realized that one of them was going to have to sit beside me was enough to give a guy a complex. I have been discriminated against before, but it seemed an odd reversal that deaf people should be showing some kind of a prejudice against me. They even moved my stuff before asking, when we stopped at a rest stop part of the way to Penang. I was a good deal miffed at that, but I let it pass because I did end up with a more comfortable seat in the swap. But they could have asked first.

And again, here was a Dutch family showing a rather pronounced lack knowledge of how things work in the transportation industry in Asia. I know that it doesn't mean that all the Dutch are like that. But it did leave me wondering what goes on in the Netherlands that the Dutch would go out travelling in Southeast Asia assuming they were going to be getting their way because that's how it would work at home. The mother even had at the driver for seeming tired and that she was worried. She was telling him how to drive. It was strange.

In the end, all was well, and I got to Penang, only a little late because of the late start. But the second trip was altogether less comfortable because of the people in the minibus being quite excitable and, well, annoying.

Among the Creepy Crawlies of the Night in Taman Negara National Park

I really should have thought this one through a little more. I might have realized how it would go. The chance to see spiders and other creepy things in the nighttime rainforest would be too much for most people to resist. And so they wouldn't. And they didn't. I figure there were at least 8 groups of 15 to 20 people tromping through the jungle just opposite the town. There is a posh resort, the Mutiara Taman Negara, on the national park side of the river and we were stomping through the jungle just behind the resort.

We did get to see a number of bugs and such. There was a stick insect. You can see it in the center of the photo towards the bottom.

There was a termite mound on this tree. (It's towards the top of the photo.)

And there was a pretty big looking black widow spider as well. I haven't ever seen one that looks like that. Maybe they have a different one here in Malaysia.

There is also an animal blind in the area. Our guides took us to the blind and shone their big-ass flashlights into the distance and the light was reflected back from the eyes of some deer out in the forest foraging. We were lucky. Not as lucky as the guide of my group though. He had previously seen some elephants out there. And one time he even saw one of the park's rare tigers.

Unfortunately, our guide explained that it wasn't a very good night for seeing bugs. There seemed to be a storm coming. Before a storm, bugs and such are scarce and are difficult to find. It's after a storm that there is lots to be seen in the area. We still saw a bunch of interesting things. And I enjoyed the sounds of the night in the rainforest, with the comfort of having a guide to make sure I didn't end up meeting some ugly end in the night. But with all the other people stomping around in the dark, it did sort of feel very staged and as though we were farm animals being led around through the night. At least we weren't being led to slaughter.

Visiting the Orang Asli

The morning part of the program, the canopy walk and jungle trek, having been completed, we had a break for a couple of hours. This gave plenty of time for lunch, as well as making plans to move on the next day. I had been asking around at the places by the river about how to get from Taman Negara to Penang. I had heard that it was possible. However, I kept hearing things like, “Well, first you take our shuttle down to Jerantut. There you will change buses for another little town south of there. In that town you can change buses again for the one to Penang at 11:00 at night.” That sounded needlessly complicated and involved an overnight bus. Not my idea of a very good way to go. But I had heard that there was a fairly simple way to get to Penang. So I kept looking around. I was prepared to hop from town to town, if that's what it took. I was also prepared to go back to the Cameron Highlands and hop from there. Then I happened by the tourist information office in town. On their wall, they advertised a bus transfer to Penang that left in the morning and arrived late in the afternoon. Perfect!! So I went in and booked that during the break in the rainforest activities I had signed up for. Then I got some rest as it had been a hot and sweaty morning. My overpriced accommodation at least had air conditioning as part of the deal, which was a real advantage on a day like that.

After resting for a bit, it was time to head back down to the pier for the next portion of the program. It was time to shoot the rapids. The river between the town and the park was quite shallow, but it was running fairly fast. This made for the perfect conditions for some rapids in the water, where the river descended to a new level quickly. If it also narrowed a bit, this would make the rapids even better. We had been told to bring a swim suit and to make sure to either put things that couldn't get wet into a plastic bag they had on the boats or to leave them behind, as we WOULD be getting wet. This was fairly clear. This also probably meant that even if the rapids weren't all that exciting, there would be shenanigans that would ensure people would get wet. I only brought my camera with me, but I put it into the bag on the boat.

And we did get wet. The boats got only partially loaded, so there were three of them in total. And they went on strafing runs. Boat paddles, feet, hands, and bucket and receptacles of various sorts were put to use to put as much water as possible onto the occupants of the boats. It was quite the spectacle. It was also the case that the rapids didn't really contribute to anyone really getting wet at all. It was certainly no white water rafting river, at least around the area of the town (which was called Kuala Tahan). We got through the last rapid, then turned around and headed for the village of the native people who occupy the national park rainforest area, the Orang Asli.

Here's the skinny on the natives. They are nomadic. Every once in a while, if they run out of food or if one of the village dies, they will move somewhere else. (This can be a problem for the companies running tours to the villages. There are times when they go and nobody is there. But the people of the villages do go and sell food and crafts and other stuff in the town, so the tour operators have the chance to ask where the village is now and still be able to find them.) They used to live completely off the rainforest. That included clothes and other thing like that. But now they have manufactured clothing and such. They still hunt in the traditional manner, although they also make purchases from town of vegetables and other things like that. They have also learned an appreciation for money and have learned some money management skills. They are the only people allowed to live and use the protected rainforest. With all of the villages put together, there are around 600 of the Orang Asli. The tour companies ask the villages if they will permit a visit. If the villagers say yes, groups can visit. But if they villagers say no, then there is no visit. (But other villages are asked and might say yes instead.) I kind of like that part the best. When the villages say yes, it isn't because they like to feel like curiosities. It's because they are proud to show off their skills and way of life.

When we arrived in the village, this information (plus more that I can't recall) was explained to us. Then we were given demonstrations of fire starting techniques, dart making techniques, and then dart blowing techniques (which we were allowed to give a go as well). For the fire starting, there was none of that rubbing two sticks together for a while and letting the friction take its toll. The took a piece of wood with a groove cut into it. Intersecting the groove, a hole was cut through the piece of wood. A strip of rattan was put into the groove in the piece of wood and drawn back and forth. The friction against the wood quickly rubbed some embers through the hole, with smoke and heat. The embers were placed into a bunch of kindling and then blown into a fire. The time taken for this process was about 65 seconds, from the beginning of the drawing the rattan against the wood to the starting of the fire in the kindling!!

Then our demonstrator showed us how to attach some balsa wood to their hunting darts using natural glue (that apparently beats superglue for being sticky and even causing problems if you get some on your skin) and a sandpaper leaf from the forest. (The things we have forgotten as we have gotten technologically 'advanced' never ceases to amaze me. If someone were to turn off electricity somehow, we would die in droves. The ones who would survive are the ones who either had some of this knowledge or were resourceful enough to learn it quickly.)

Then we were shown the technique for shooting darts through blowpipes. Those things can really move. It took our demonstrator three tries to get 'dinner.'

This was my go at it. When I made my shot, the blowpipe dipped just a bit as I blew. It's the one on the bottom, under the bear. So I missed, but I was quite close for a first try, if I do say so myself.

After the blowpipe demonstration, we were given a few minutes to look around the village. Then it was off to a swimming hole downstream where there was some frolicking. I had put my camera back in the plastic sack and didn't bother to get it out, but there was a swinging rope where people were doing amazing flips into the water. I didn't give that a go. My arms are not strong enough to hold myself in a swing like that. I would have done a face plant into the sand, I'm sure.

And then it was back to town for dinner and a rest. When we arrived, I decided to go for the night jungle walk. This short trek was focussing more on insects and spiders and other creepy crawlies. It sounded like fun.