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.