Patti Smith at Paradiso

Behind her bandmates Patti walks on stage. A subtly ironic shake of the hip, and half the venue is sold. She walks up to the microphone, puts on her reading glasses, and recites the cover text of Horses, the album that was released 40 years ago.

D eze maand bezocht ik twee concerten van grootheden uit de midden-70's.This month I attended two concerts by mid-70's celebrities. PIL (John Lydon aka Johnny Rotten) and Patti Smith. Allebei revolutionair zowel muzikaal als maatschappelijk. Both revolutionary, both musically and socially. London vs New York. London vs New York. Voorpaginanieuws vs underground. Front page news vs underground. Arbeidersklasse vs intellectuelen. Working class vs intellectual. 59 jaar vs 68 jaar. 59 years vs. 68 years. (*) (*)

Het publiek bij Patti Smith was gevarieerder.Patti Smith's audience was more varied and Ook duidelijk maatschappelijk geslaagder.clearly socially more successful. Hoewel de 50'ers en 60'ers in de meerderheid waren, was er een flink aandeel jongeren. Although the majority of the audiance was in their fifties or sixties, there was a large proportion of young people. TheDe hippy-spirit zat er ook in: toen de stoelen op de galerij allemaal bezet bleken, ging menigeen in kleermakerszit op de grond. Hippy-spirit was present: when the chairs on the gallery were full, many people sat cross-legged on the ground.

De toetsenist zette de eerste noten in van Gloria , het begin van de integrale uitvoering van Horses .The keyboardist put the first notes of Gloria, the beginning of the full performance of Horses. In de stevigere nummers ontpopte Patti zich als een ware rock chick , met ritme in de stem en swing in het lichaam, van links naar rechts over het podium bewegend, leunend over de monitoren, In the louder songs Patti turned out to be a real rock chick with rhythm in the voice and swing her body, moving left to right across the stage, leaning on the monitors, shaking handjes gevend aan het publiek op de eerste rij, zwaaiend naar de bovengalerijen. hands with the people in the front row, waving to the upper galleries.

In de meer poëtische nummers schreeuwde ze, krijste ze het publiek toe als een ontketende messias, vloekend en tierend als Jezus in de tempel.In the more poetic songs she yelled, she screamed to the audience as an unleashed Messiah, ranting and raving like Jesus in the temple. De lange grijze haren wapperend, de armen breed uitgestrekt, het publiek bezwerend. Her long gray hair waving around, arms stretched wide, beseeching the audience.

Haar stem was bepaald niet meer van fluweel, maar dat maakt ze goed met een intensiteit en energie waar John " Anger is an energy " Lydon niet van terug zou hebben.Her voice had nothing velvetty, but she made up for that with an intensity and energy that could have tought John "Anger is an energy" Lydon a lesson.

In aanmerking genomen dat Horses 40 jaar oud is, bleef de uitvoering dicht bij het origineel.Considering Horses is 40 years old, the performance stayed remarkably close to the original. Alleen kregen we een extra stuk Gloria na het titelnummer, en werd Elegie een aangrijpende klaagzang voor een lange lijst te vroeg overleden musici.HoweverHowever, we got an extra bit of Gloria after the title track, and Elegy became a poignant lament with a long list of prematurely deceased musicians. Bekenden als Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Corbain en Amy Winehouse, waar ze allemaal songs ter nagedachtenis voor geschreven heeft, en minder bekenden als Johnny Thunders, Johnny Winter en natuurlijk haar eigen man Freddy " Sonic " Smith. Famous people like Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Corbain and Amy Winehouse, for who she wrote songs in memory, and lesser known artists like Johnny Thunders, Johnny Winter and of course her late husband Freddy "Sonic" Smith.

Na Horses werd een song opgedragen aan het publiek van Paradiso.When Horses was finished, a special song was dedicated to the audience of Paradiso. Toen de Patti Smith Group midden jaren '70 begon met touren, vond Patti het zo jammer dat het publiek nooit meezong. When the Patti Smith Group started touring in the mid 70s, Patti felt so sad her audiences never sang along. Pas na drie jaar, in Paradiso, werd ineens uit volle borst van begin tot eind meegezongen met Dancing Barefoot .With the exeption  of that one show  With the exeption of that one show in Paradiso, where suddenly they chanted along with Dancing Barefoot from beginning to end. Nu weer. Same thing happened tonight.

Daarna was er soort pauze, een intermezzo waarbij de band een medley van Velvet Underground nummers speelde.Then there was a sort of a break, an interlude in which the band played a medley of Velvet Underground songs. Toen Patti terugkwam op het podium, zei ze dat ze een costume change had ingepland om als hedendaagse rock star mee te kunnen. When Patti returned to the stage, she said she had planned a costume change to comply with the modern rock star. Alleen was ze vergeten zich om te kleden en deed dat alsnog on stage . Only she had forgetten it backstageand had to change on stage.

In het volgende blok van drie nummers zaten die andere grote hit, Because The Night , en twee nummers van de latere albums Dream of Life en Gone Again .The next block of three songs included that other big hit, Because The Night, and two songs from the later albums Dream of Life and Gone Again.De bandleden wisselden eens van instrument, Patti praatte wat meer en gaf opmerkingen uit het publike steeds een gevat weerwoord. The band members changed instruments, Patti talked some more and witty rebuted some comments from the audience. Ze kwam bijna niet meer uit haar woorden van het lachen, omdat ze zo blij, zo gelukkig was. She was almost silenced with laughter, because she was so happy, so overjoyed. Na een onderonsje met de bassist volgde een vertederend ... my boy ... Het was haar zoon. A chat with the bassplayer was followed by an endearing ... my boy ... It was her son.

Als toegift kregen we, hoe kon het ook anders, My Generation .As a bonus, as if there was any other option, we got My Generation. In een concert dat in het teken stond van leven en dood, hoop en vrijheid, was de tekst toepasselijk veranderd in " hope I live untill I get old" .In a concert that was dominated by life and death, hope and freedom, the text was appropriate changed to "I hope I live untill I get old". Wellicht met het idee "de jeugd heeft de toekomst" werden twee tiener-rasta-meisjes uit het publiek het podium opgehesen, om een dansje te doen.Perhaps in the spirit of "youth has the future" two rasta teen girls in the audience were hoisted on stage to do a dance. Ze waren te verbijsterd van geluk en versteenden bij vlagen. They were stunned with happiness and petrified at the same time. Patti deed een gitaar om om de feedback effecten uit dit lied te bewerkstelligen.Patti took a guitar in order to create the feedback effects from this song. De gitaar in de versterkers kapotslaan zoals Pete Townshend in 1965 deed, ging misschien te ver, maar wel werd de ene na de andere snaar geknapt. Smashing the amplifiers and the guitar like Pete Townshend did in 1965,  went too far, but one string after another was snapped. Onder een nagalmende feedback verliet de band het podium. Under a reverberant feedback the band left the stage. De zaallichten gingen aan en Jimi Hendix' Freedom klonk. The hall lights went on and Jimi Hendix's Freedom sounded. De roadies deelden set-lists, bloemen en prullaria uit onder het publiek. The roadies shared set-lists, flowers and knick-knacks with the public.

Het was een memorabele avond.It was a memorable evening.

More concert reviews 

Read more concert reviews (PIL, Breeders)

PIL at Paradiso

While the venue was slowly filling up, a man dressed in a suit with fluorescent yellow stripes and shoulders strode from back stage to front stage and back again. He studied the part of the balcony that was located above the stage. That had to be cleared and secured with a ribbon. Throughout the concert he was looking sternly from a corner of the stage.  Was Johnny afraid of beer-throwers and stage divers? That was the only reference to the Sex Pistols days, as the audience behaved quite tame today.  So this is what they look like now, the  kids with “no future” of 40 years ago: late 50’s, bald and an old leather jacket that no longer fits over their beer belly.

The lights went out, the band came on,  John Lydon last. A capella he sang the opening lines, then the band continued in the same double opening as the latest album What The World Needs Now: Double Trouble / Know Now. Immediately  followed by a brilliant performance of This Is Not A Love Song.

The rhythm section laid down a very solid foundation, with a bass so deep it could not be heard, but that did resonate your sternum. If the rhythm section was reinforced concrete, the guitarist was the diamond drill. Abrasive, shrill, shrieking, whining, crying - but the guitar never managed to escape the iron grip of drums and bass. Also John's staccato vocals remained trapped in the mix and often were just another color in the palette of sounds. Although his singing was not dominating the music, John was the absolute focus of the venue: stage center. Only during a few ultra-short, surprisingly melodic guitar solos the spotlight shifted to the guitarist.

Slowly we slid into a trance in which the distinction between the separate songs  faded. Were they new or old? Were they familiar or not? It did not matter, they all were chained by the rhythm section and the overall sound color. Thus time faded away, no beginning or end, no past or future, it came to a standstill. A feeling that you have when you're halfway a twelve month journey around the world, or, as someone told me, if you've smoked some good hasjies.

We landed back on earth with a long experimental psychedelic version of Religion. In the middle part there was just John's distorted voice over a delicate rhythmic touch of the drummer. At the end a chant: "Turn up the bass." That happened. The room turned into a vibrating plate, first shaking the fillings out of your teeth, and then the molars out of your jaws.

The encore consisted of tight performances of the crowd's favorites Public Image and Rise (with John's motto "anger is an energy"). John had pleasantly surprised us with an excellent band and an excellent show. As parting words he gave us  Amsterdam's my second home, and this way we can change the system.

More concert reviews 

Read more concert reviews (Breeders, Patti Smith)

The Rabbit On The Moon

After painting our garden shed, the color turned out to be some sort of "dark night".  That inspired me to decorate it with a nocturnal object.

I selected some driftwood, I sawed, I glued and I painted the canvas. Then I drew and painted the rabbit.

In India or Thailand or any place near the equator, you can see the rabbit on the moon:  with a little imagination the darker spots on the moon make a rabbit.

Because of the different angle, on the latitude of Europe and North America those same spots make a face: the man on the moon. 

Travelogue 2015, week 7-8: Andaman (Thailand)

Trang

After two weeks we left Satun for Trang, 150 km to the north. Trang is a one size bigger town and less connected to Malaysia. At first the tourists were a shock for us. In 5 minutes we encountered more than in two weeks in Satun. But in the end it turned out they all stayed within a 300 meter radius of the train station.

We were in Trang the two days prior to Chinese New Year, and that was a major event. Every night roads were closed for stages and a market with food stalls - way more upmarket than your average Thai night market. Clearly people went there for a night out, to see and be seen, all dressed up. It was very busy but it had a pleasant and calm atmosphere.

From Trang we made a day trip to Kantang. Kantang is in the mouth of the river Trang, some 30 km south. For centuries it has been a main port with a mixed Malay, Chinese and Thai population. It used to be the second port after Bangkok, and had a rail connection with Bangkok. The glory days were 100 years ago when local entrepreneur and ruler Praya Ratsadanu had good connections with hte royal family, had an eye for the welfare of the people and had innovative ideas. he secretly imported and planted the first rubber tree from Malaysia (after a Brit had illegally stolen the seeds in Brazil). The impact of that is enormous and everywhere: the rubber tree is the ruling crop in southern Thailand.

There is one daily train from Bangkok to Kantang, via Trang, so we could board it. The final half hour of a 17 hour ride. The train had already emptied and took us through very rural land.

The train station of Kantang is the original wooden building, well maintained, with all the original details. One room now is a museum, a side building is a nice coffee shop.

We walked to Praya Ratsadanu's former residence. A wooden villa of two floors, lots of verandas, spacious and airy layout, and probably very luxurious for the time. It was poorly maintained but had old furniture and old photographs that were rather interesting. Most striking was the huge dining table on tte back veranda. It was surrounded by lush forests with the deafening sound of crickets.

We walked down to the river. The roads ware wide and way more traffic than we expected. When we say the port we understood why: that was rather big and the quay was stacked with dozens of containers in transit. Obviously this was still the main Thai harbour on the west coast.

Krabi

After three days we traveled another 150 km north, to Krabi. Wow, this was réally touristy.  Whole groups passed by. I hadn't seen so many in years. Swedish, French and Russian families; bus loads (literally) of backpackers; elder hippies on scooters; Dutch couples... Apparently Krabi town was not just a hub for the islands in the Andaman Sea, but also a destination in itself.

And on top of that half of China and half of Malaysia seemed to be here. We had underestimated the effect of Chinese New year and the subsequently long weekend, and the bad luck that our itinerary took us to the most touristy spot in the most busy weekend. The consequence was that we could not find a decent hotel the day we arrived, and that it took us hours and hours of looking around and asking around to be able to move into a nice place the next day. For top-season rates.

Despite all of that Krabi was a nice enough small Thai town, beautifully located on the river with a promenade along the bank and a mangrove forest across the water.

From Krabi we made a day trip to Railay. Railay is a small pinunsular 15 km from Krabi. The land side is closed off by steep lime rock formations. So it can only be reached by boat. The far end is another steep rock, but inbetween the two rocks is a valley with beaches on both ends. We took a long tail boat from Krabi promenade. The rocks rising out of the azul sea in a vertical line were quite impressive. And wherever the rock wasn't vertical, it was covered in green jungle.

The valley however was built up to the max with restaurants, shops and resorts. Thousands of tourists crowded the one available km. It was just too much, an artificial recreation park with nothing Thai about it.

We had a coffee on the eastern bay, where we had landed. This was the side with mangrove. the first time this trip we saw mangrove in the water instead of on a mud plain. Tree tops in the sea. We walked to the western bay, that was more beachy. I sat in the shade under a tree for a while, while E. went swimming in the crystal clear sea. She said it was one of the most beautiful spots she had ever swum. Meanwhile it got more and more busy with people arriving by boat from Ao Nang, the next coastal strip, and because the rising tide made the beach more and more narrow.

Ayutthaya

We were running out of time. We were still 800 km from Bangkok. Hardly less than the 900 km we had travelled since Kuala Lumpur. With just three days until our Amsterdam flight would leave Bangkok, we had to fly the remaining stretch.

For the third time I had not succeeded in travelling overland from Malaysia to Bangkok. But there is no reason not to try a fourth time...

Coffee shop underneath fly-over opposite Don Muang

We took a domestic flight from Krabi to Bangkok's old and legendary Don Muang Airport - now  for low cost carriers. From there it was an easy train ride to the old town of Ayutthaya, 60 km north of Bangkok. There we spent a couple of days. The temperature was rising to the mid-thirties, it was getting seriously hot. From Ayutthaya it is also an easy transfer with public transport to Bangkok's new Suvarnabhumi  airport. And then a long long flight to Amsterdam...

Travelogue 2015, week 5-6: The Crossing (Malaysia - Thailand)

The Far North

The Thai Phusam festival is celebrated much more vigorously in Malaysia than it is in India. Our hotel was fully booked and we had to leave the final day of January. The tourist trail would be the ferry from Penang to Langkawi, and from Langkawi to southern Thailand. The business route would be the highway to Hat Yai, the central city of the peninsula, in the area advised against by the Foreign Office. But we preferred to stay as close as possible to the west coast of the peninsula anyway. That’s how we ended up in Alor Setar, way off the beaten track.

Alor Star is a city in limbo. In some ways it is a large village, with stray dogs instead of cats, plots of green waste land, detached wooden houses on the approach roads. At the same time huge buildings are constructed, like the second highest telecom tower of the country (actually very stylish) and the ugliest concrete shopping malls and parking garages. It was poignant to see how the immigrant labourers lived, in shanty camps of corrugated sheets.

When we approached Alor Setar in the bus, we saw a blue dome over the skyline, with typical Iranian tiles that are uncommon here. No Iranian mosque was mentioned in the travel guide, and we couldn’t find it, until I looked for “blue tiled dome” and found the website of the company that designed it for a rich local business man. The design was inspired on Iranian mosques and the ultimate version thereof: Samarkand. They had flown in Iranian materials and Iranian craftsmen to build it.

We had to take a taxi to get there. The place was surprisingly big for what a private person built. Two wings from the main building created a fore square with fountains. The white mosque with the blue tiled domes was impressive indeed.  It was in the details, like the carpet, chandeliers, woodwork and floor tiling that you saw it had not had unlimited funds like say the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi.

It was most interesting to walk around this deserted place – it was a Sunday morning, and here the weekend was Friday – Saturday.

The Crossing

All started well. We hauled a taxi to the bus terminal and got on a bus to Kangar. It was a medium sized bus taking the country road. Long straight roads along canals with rice fields in the background. We made good progress, not stopping for boarding or disembarking passengers.

At Kangar bus terminal we inquired for a connection to Kuala Perlis, where boats to Thailand should leave. No busses, they told us. It turned out: no busses here, but they departed from a parking garage underneath a shopping mall in another part of town. That sounded too unsure, so we took another taxi. That dropped us in front of the customs building in Kuala Perlis. Classic: you had to go through immigration in the building to get to a fenced off part of the quay.

The officer would not stamp our passports: he said we’d have to find a boat first. Outside were four wooden cargo ships (about 2x12 meters in size). One of them was being loaded with large bags of rice or wheat. We gestured to the loader. Yes, he’d go to Thailand. No, he wouldn’t take us, he was cargo.

The other boats were idling. After a while a guy showed up who spoke some English. He yelled to a man aboard one of the idling boats. Yeah, he’d go to Thailand if the boat would fill up with passengers. Or if we’d charter it. The price for that was a bit steep though.

Slowly it dawned on us there was no (longer a) regular service from here to Thailand. Neither was there a stream or even a trickle of tourists or locals using this route. We started to wonder whether this would work out…

Obviously, nothing was happening any time soon at our quay, so we walked balk into town and found a place where we could get some lunch. And consider our options. It didn’t look like the boat would fill up with passengers.  Back to Kangar would be a gamble too. The only overland road this part of the peninsula went through a salt water swamp and national park, and it wasn’t clear whether there would be traffic, let alone a bus or a minivan.

Best choice would be to charter the boat. But we didn’t have enough money for that, and we had already discovered not all, not at all, ATM’s are linked to the same network as the Dutch banks. And this small town seemed to have two ATM’s only. But we were lucky: one of them did the trick and we had money in our pockets.

Back to the quay. Now it was totally deserted. All boats were gone. Nothing happened…

A little further downstream I could see another quay with boats similar to the ones that had been at ours earlier. But that was there and we were here. I decided to have a look. I could leave our custom’s area through a back gate. Through some cargo shed I got to the other quay. There was not a lot happening either, but there were boats and one of them was being loaded with insulated fish storage boxes. A guy who spoke some English came to my help. He shouted to the guys on the boat. After a while the conclusion was they were willing to take us.

We went and got our exit stamp. Then via the quay and the back gate back into the country, through the cargo shed and via another wooden boat onto ours. We climbed into the wheelhouse, well, it was more a wooden dashboard built around a car steering wheel that was connected by a long axis with the diesel engine in the hold. The captain sort of knelt around it and off we went. First slowly out of the river, then faster into the open water. The Andaman Sea. We had a strong headwind and white foam capped the waves. As long as we had a steady speed, the boat was stable. Whenever the captain turned the gas down, we wobbled and swayed. No fun. In the distance we saw Langkawi’s silhouette and closer by some smaller islets of lime stone rock covered with jungle.

After an hour in the deafening noise and exhaust fumes we reached land. In a river mouth a concrete jetty held two large ferries. We were dropped off at the foot of some steps leading up. Some forms, photos, passports, stamps – and we had entered Thailand. The terminal was a more serious business here, because it had ferries to Langkawi, ticket counters, shops, dual time clocks and an exchange bureau. We changed our ringgit for baht, so we had some pocket money.

Taxi and motor-taxi drivers told us there was no transport into town. Soon enough they were proven wrong, when a songtauw pulled up. That is a pick up truck with two benches in the back, usually riding fixed routes. This one had a lot of cargo in the back that it had to drop first at another, smaller jetty 1km upstream. Here were some cargo vessels similar to the one we had arrived on. After the drop he took us into Satun town. We had a spectacular view over fields, a river, a huge rock forming a mountain, the same way these lime rocks form islands in the sea.

At had been 8 hours, very exciting at times, and we had to recover from it all.

The Deep South

We had dinner next door. No vegetarian dish on the menu, the waitress spoke no English, miscommunication between staff and management – welcome to Thailand. Still we managed to get a decent green curry.

We sat outdoors and watched Satun go by. It really had an end-of-the-road or frontier-town feel to it. There was no through traffic as there was just one road connecting Satun to the rest of Thailand. The deep south has a Muslim majority, and we saw more headscarves here than in Alor Setar. The Malasian people had been very friendly and helpful enough. Over here t was more laid back and everybody radiated that legendary Thai smile.


The Gleam Resort has ten bungalows in a neatly kept garden with a swimming pool at the end. The rooms are well designed and maintained. It is immaculately clean, the room is pleasant and the bed is big and soft. The veranda has a couch made of an opened up oil drum. Decoration is inspired on America in the ‘50’s and yaughting.

The place was very quiet. In the middle of the night there was absolutely no sound at all – no dogs, no church bells, no traffic, no generator, no a/c, no nothing. Call to prayer was the first sound in the morning, followed by early birds and crickets.

This was one of the most beautiful places I ever stayed. Sure, some hotels have better equipped rooms, but they are less tasteful. Some resorts are surrounded by spectacular nature, but they are too isolated. Some places may have both, but they would be so expensive we wouldn’t feel at home.

It was so comfortable, so green, so quiet – and yet so close to town you didn’t feel locked in. You could just walk into town for lunch or a shop. And that town was pure Thai, with just the occasional foreigner.

It was doubtful we’d find a place as good as this further north, especially since it would only get more touristy, and that is usually not to our liking. So we decided to stay longer. Much longer.

Some mornings we’d take a walk into town or into the surrounding countryside. The most spectacular walk took us into mangrove forest, just a km from home, and beyond some fish ponds to a small hamlet.

Lunch we had daily in a small veg restaurant. Every Thai town has one, but it can be hard to find. First, to get across the question, given we don’t speak Thai. Second, not many people know it. Third, to understand the answer, given they don’t speak English. Fourth, to actually see it even when you stand in front of it. This was a tiny place in the corner of a shed. What gave it away was the red letters on yellow background. They always have those. The food was delicious, varied, healthy and dead cheap.

For coffee we had our regular spot too. A small bamboo take-away stall with a young woman hidden behind the counter. It was a delight to see with how much care and attention she prepared every order. A spoonful of this, a dash of that, stirring, mixing, pouring it into a huge cup or bag filled with ice, packaging it in a paper bag. She wasn’t very talkative. Below her gleaming scarf she had thick painted eyebrows and eyelashes black as night.

Afternoons we’d sit by the pool and read. By now the skies were blue and it was about 33 degrees. Celcius.

For dinner we alternated between home and town. The food wasn’t as superb as in Malaysia, and ordering could be difficult, but all in all we were quite happy with it.

Some night we went to an open air pub that had a stage and a house band. They were pretty good. The singer liked to do covers of Western songs, from The Carpenters to Adele – not easy. She was accompanied by a guitar player and a percussionist. And then there were five staff, whose main task was to fill up our glasses with coke and ice cubes from the side table. So there were us two, the three musicians and the five staff…

Travelogue 2015, week 3-4: Backpacking ain't what it used to be (Malaysia)

From KL we went to Taiping, and four days later to Penang. Both transfers were incredibly smooth and comfortable. Until Ipoh we had a modern, luxurious train that did up to 140 km per hour, despite it being a narrow gauge track. The busses were extremely luxurious touring cars, with chairs that would have suited intercontinental business class flight. The life of a backpacker ain't what it used to be anymore. Thank god, as the same goes for my body.

Rain / nature

In Taiping we witnessed the most spectacular tropical downpours. Miraculously we never got caught in one. The original plan to visit a "real" rainforest somewhere, has been postponed indefinitely. It is just too wet. The jungle is inaccessible.

Still we see some of the upsides of this wet equatorial tropical climate that makes Malaysia and Indonesia different from places like South India and Thailand. The abundance of the flora/vegetation is beyond belief. Each and every spot that is left untouched by humans is taken over by some small plant. In no time that'll be a bush. Larger trees host parasites like moss, ferns and hanging plants. It is not hard to imagine how the jungle could re-conquer a complete city within years.

It hurts to see how large parts of jungle are being cut down for mining (tin, cement), plantations (oil palms, rubber trees), residential areas, industrial sites, power lines and roads.

Malaysia is car country. Probably it has gone through the phases that everybody had a bicycle, a bike, a pick-up-truck. Now everybody seems to have a car. Only KL has a decent public transport infrastructure. Outside it has the characteristics of car country: high quality and low frequency.

Indian / Malay / Chinese

So why do I enjoy it so much, a country where various cultures are manifest? First, because it simply makes the streets more vivid and colourful. Secondly, because it suggests to me that it may actually be possible for humans to coexist in diversity and respecting each other's customs. Everybody is unique and that is beautiful.

At the same time I must say the various cultural groups do not have equal political or economical rights. Criticism on the ruling group is easily seen as an insult and punished severely. As a generalisation the Malay are in power, the Chinese are in business and the Indians are into manual labour.

Taiping

Taiping is an old town once important for tin mining and as an administrative center. Now it is a quiet sleepy town with mainly Chinese people and typical Chinese houses. At street level they have an arched passageway making a sidewalk. Traditionally the ground floor would be both shop/workshop and living room for the family. Nowadays they are mainly just shops. The first floor has beautiful art deco-ish stucco and wooden shutters.

In Taiping too we found the most delicious food. That may well become the main theme of this journey. A vegetarian stall in a food court had superb veg versions of nasi rendang and nasi lemak, two Malay/Indonesian dishes we normally can't have.

We made a day trip to the coast. Large parts of the Malaysian coastline still have mangrove forest. The 2004 tsunami reestablished appreciation for it. Some tiny parts even are protected. In a village 15 km from Taiping, a part is made accessible.
The local bus was a huge contrast with the long distance bus from Ipoh. Rattling and shaking it roared along, with me not fitting in the seat. It should be a 30 minute ride, but it took a bit more as the bus conductor forgot to tell us where to get off. So we rode along all the way into the village and back to the entrance again. Tarmac roads, parking lots and wooden houses had taken up quite a large area, but there were also a number of wooden walkways, elevated a meter above the muddy ground, deep into the forest. There seemed to be no one else, and it was a bit spooky finding our way in the semi-dark under the tall trees. The trees were standing in a sort of mud plain with the roots sticking out like reversed branches to balance the tree.  Some spots saw more daylight and they were covered with bush and ferns. We saw monkeys, birds (prossibly an eagle) and a 50 cm lizard. Beautiful!

We walked on to the village. Houses here looked poorer, people rode bicycles and bikes more. Branches of rivers and canals flowed into larger rivers that in turn flowed into the Andaman Sea. We didn't get that far out. We did cross a tall narrow bridge over one of those rivers and saw the shoreline packed with fishing boats.

Penang

Penang is the official name for both the island and the state, and is often used for the city Georgetown as well.

Penang was the first British trading post in this part of the world. It has a large historical center, Unesco World Heritage. Part of that are old British colonial buildings. A larger part old Chinese houses, temples and kongsi (clan) houses. In between are mosques and Hindu temples.

A couple of streets make up Little India where Bollywood- and temple music roars from the video shops; the smell of spices and incense floats in the air; shops with stainless steel pans and pots; the liveliness and the colours; women in saris or churidas or jeans with there long black hair let down - something you never see in South India.

And then there are a couple of true backpacker streets. The backpackers however are totally outnumbered by large quantities of Asian tourists. One of the main attractions, and adding to the uniqueness of the town, is the street art. Huge murals and iron wire "cartoons" cheer it all up.

The population itself is mixed again, but the East and South Asians seem to have acquired some of that typical Southeast Asian openness and eternal smile.

Despite the many hotels we had trouble finding a suitable one. We spent the first afternoon and the next morning looking at quite a few. Some just had dorms, some had shared bathrooms, some were dingy, some were full and many were over budget. The very first one we had looked at was a rare mid-range hotel, but a bit too expensive. Later we saw it had a seasonal discount offer on an internet booking site. The next day we went back and asked for that discount at the counter. No, that was not possible. But we were welcome to log into the hotel's wifi and sit in the lobby and make the booking then and there. Backpacking just isn't the same anymore. But we got our room, later moved to an ever better room with balcony and sea view, and are very happy with it!

The first days we just walked around town and took it all in. Since we arrived here the sky has been blue and the sun hot. The sea breeze keeps it all comfortable. 

One trip was to the botanical gardens. They were amazingly beautiful. The gardens itself were very pretty, spacious, light. But the setting is what did it: surrounded by true rainforest, and the highlight was the path that went through that for a bit. Again we were mesmerized by the huge trees, the unusual roots, the parasite plants that let air roots down to the ground, that in turn were used by climbers to get high up near the light.

In George Town there are again lots of restaurants to choose from: vegan Japanese, Chinese, Malay and Indian. One Indian restaurant at first glance looked like South Indian, but had done some interesting fusion: it served mock meat in the North Indian thali and had a buffet near the entrance where you could choose your own side dishes with your rice: d.i.y. thali. Two features typical for the Chinese veg restaurants here. So yes, the cultural groups do mix. Indians eat in the Chinese restaurants and Chinese eat in the Malay restaurants.

One restaurant we saw had a big sign "Dindigul Biriyani". Having lived in and visited Athoor, Dindigul for ten years I could not but take a picture and send it to my friends there. They put the picture on Facebook with the question "who knows where this is". Within minutes Vinodh, a mutual friend of ours replied: "this is in Penang, my cousin runs a restaurant there".

I met Vinodh years ago when a film crew was recording English lessons given by his sister-in-law for a dvd for her language school. They had hired the resort for the weekend and it was a lot of fun. Vinodh was there just to watch. We chatted, he lent me a book. He runs a tool shop in Dindigul town where I have often been.

Of course we went to eat at the restaurant and say hello to his cousin. At first he was a bit shy and distant, but as can happen with South Indians, after a while things warmed up and we chatted away happily. The restaurant was opened a year ago by a jewelry merchant across the street who wanted to diversify. Not only the cousin, but also the cashier and the cook, actually all eight staff members were imported directly from Dindigul to run the restaurant. It had a modern look and the food was pretty good indeed.
We even had the manager of our hotel go and eat there...

To Thailand

Our plan is to travel to Bangkok overland.  For me that is the third attempt to do so. The first two times I spent too much time on Bali / Sumatra and ended up taking a flight / night train from Penang to Bangkok. Third time lucky?

As you get only 15 days when you enter Thailand overland, we needed a visa. So we went to the Thai consulate. The application itself was a breeze and we got the visa the next day without further ado. What made it complicated were the Penang city buses that ran infrequent and with the most silly loops and detours in the route.

That's how two weeks in Penang passed. We are getting quite settled. Meanwhile E. has made a start writing her book. Let's wait and see how things go, and whether we will actually make it overland...

Travelogue 2015, week 1-2: to KL by KL (Malaysia)

I have rarely had a night flight out of Amsterdam before.
Every time Amsterdam Airport was de-humanized more. I already knew how to label my own luggage. Now I had to do passport control myself !?  At least I was still patted down by hand, and very thoroughly. After the see-through-machine advised to, that is.
When we walked to the gate it was as if we already entered a third world country (although we weren't even travelling to one). The toilet block was in not heated and not cleaned and the doors were not lock by the men occupying the bathroom. Then there was no seating area before security check. Huge buckets in the middle of the hall were catching leaking rain water. At the entrance of the security check a hand written note was attached with a luggage sticker, that there would be no toilet blocks beyond that point. A long cable was hanging from the ceiling with a label attached to it, saying "danger". The gangway had handwritten notes at the two exits saying "row 1-5"  and "row 10-42". Fortunately we didn't have row 6, 7, 8 or 9. And yes, those rows were on the plane.
Aboard the KLM Boeing 777 all was much better. Service was very friendly. Seats were of course too small for me and pretty uncomfortable. So within three hours I had a back pain and sore legs. At least it didn't get worse after that. A direct flight meant a very long stretch at once, 12 hours without being able to stretch my legs half way. But on the upside: after touch down we really had arrived.

KLIA's arrival terminal was much better than Amsterdam's departure gate. A satellite of steel and glass surrounding a patch of tropical jungle. A train took us to the main building.
At first, all seemed to go well, going through immigration and collecting our luggage. Then things went downhill.
For starters we couldn't find an ATM. When we found a group of three machines, there were several tourists in trouble. One's bank card was swallowed. The other couldn't get any money out. The third machine was domestic only. We couldn't get money either. I realised I had forgotten to tell the bank we were going overseas. How stupid of me to forget such a crucial thing, that had been introduced already a couple of years ago. Luckily we carried 50 Euro's cash for emergencies. This was one.
Meanwhile I lost the keys of our luggage, but a stander-by found them for me. When on top of that we realised we hadn't brought adapters for the plugs / sockets, it was clear things would not turn out right anymore, for the remainder of this year.
Meanwhile we had taken the airport train into the city, and the LRT, some sort of sky train, to our neighbourhood. In the station it was hard to find the right exit. And everything was so much closer than I had expected, that I became disoriented. A soft rain was falling, but it was gentle and warm.
At 6.30 PM New year's Eve we checked into our hotel. The room was basic and bare, but very clean and everything seemed to work. We live very central, in between Chinatown and Little India A lively neighbourhood with the characteristic mix of Malay, Chinese and Indian cultures.
After the night flight we didn't stay up for the count down at midnight.

Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur is a big and busy city. But most of all a vibrant city where the three main ethnic groups of Malaysia live next to and mixed with each other, which makes it all extremely colourful. The Malay and Indian women contributed to that more than the Chinese did. The Malay women wore very bright head scarves that always match the rest of their dress.
I have never seen so many vegetarian restaurants outside India - and the choice here was much wider. Usually I make one restaurant or another mine, very soon after arriving in a new city. Here we kept on finding new great places, and we never returned to the same place.

Of course it is a city of contrasts too: old and new; rich and poor; clean and filthy; traditional open air markets and a/c shopping malls; traditional houses and ugly high rising concrete buildings; freeways and metro lines snaking around one another - often unpassable for pedestrians.

We enjoyed sight-seeing but even more so to wander around the various neighbourhoods, each having its own charm. Chinatown and Little India speak for themselves. Bukit Bintang was the new happening place with malls, night life and an Arab Strip. Independence square was surrounded by colonial buildings in a style the British considered "oriental". On the other side of the tracks were some quieter streets that still had some Chinese shops with wooden storage cabinets. lake Gardens housed some institutions in modern architecture. In front of our hotel was a square with the old clock tower and there were always people walking and sitting around.

Very special was a patch of rain forest on the hill with the telecom tower. It was the only patch in the area that was not cut down and however small, it instantly took you into a different world. The loud buzz of insects; old trees towering above; tiny heat seeking spiders and mosquitoes that immediately got hold of you.

Rain

This season's northeastern monsoon is the heaviest in 40 years. Together with erosion caused by deforestation this had led to severe flooding in the east and central of the Malaysian peninsular. Two hundred thousand people were evacuated, thirty were killed, some villages were washed away. After we arrived, the worst seemed over, and we had several days that were half clouded, half sunny. with clouds getting threateningly dark in the afternoon. When the sun was out, it was  instantly very hot. The last couple of days it has been raining a lot again, sometimes a true tropical downpour, sometimes for hours on end.

India

No, this trip isn't to India. But India hasn't left me.
In Kuala Lumpur the Indian community is very visible. Part is families that have lived here for generations after being brought here by the British. Part are migrant workers like you see here from all poorer Asian nations (Malaysia is the richest country in South and South-East Asia, apart from maybe mini-states like Brunei and Singapore). You can see South Indian restaurants that are 100% authentic; typical groceries with all the Indian brand articles; migrant workers  outside the boarding room amidst lungis and shirts, combing their hair, or on their day off standing in groups smoking, talking; the families go to the park and to the restaurants - also to the non-Indian ones. Fashion here is probably more varied than in the average Indian city, being influenced by North India and the west: sleeve-less churida's, high heels and short skirts mix with traditional sari's.