Censorship

Friday, December 18 - I guess it’s to be expected that a Muslim country like Malaysia is apt to apply a little censorship here and there. It’s always entertaining to hear how popular radio deals with some of the naughty words that our North American pop stars litter throughout their music though – even if, to our Canadian sensibilities, the offending lyrics often seem completely innocuous. Here are a few examples:

• In Paparazzi by Lady Gaga, “...Eyeliner and cigarettes” has been changed to what sounds like “Eyeliner and issgarettes.” Guess the lyric doesn’t have to make sense. It just can’t be offensive to Muslim sensibilities.
  
• In Sexy Bitch by David Guetta, the main lyric is now “Sexy Chitch.” Yes, I know what you’re thinking. And no, I’m not sure either why they didn’t just make it “Chick.” It would have been just as easy.
  
• in Hot & Cold by Katy Perry, the “bitch” in the lyric “Like a Bitch, I would know...” has been turned into a little electronic squelch that just sounds like the CD has an error on it.
  
• in don’t trust me by 3Oh3, the lyric “...I ain’t fuckin’ scared of him” uses the tried and true technique of just blanking the offending word.
  

I’ll keep my ears peeled for more silliness.

A few days of family

Friday, December 18 - Since coming back from KL on Tuesday, we really haven’t done much that you would consider touristy. We‘ve been shuttling back and forth to the internet cafe to book hotels and spending the rest of our days having family meals and visiting with family and friends.

So, not many photos – aside from a few food shots. But those are always nice, aren’t they? See below if you want more!

Today we’re leaving Ipoh for KL again. We probably won’t be back this trip, but there are greater adventures ahead. The next few days will be taken up with more wedding ceremony – and hopefully this time we’ll get to take part in some of the Chinese tradition that we missed from the Ipoh-based wedding weekend. So more photos coming soon!

Wrong side

Friday, December 18 - Junkii has been doing a great job of driving. He has really eased back into driving on the opposite side of the street with very little trouble. But there’s one area where he’s still faltering: and that’s simply getting into the car.

We’ve lost track of how many times he’s walked to the left side of the car with the ignition key in hand, only to shake his head and realize he needs to be on the other side.

Of course I’m not much better. The seatbelt has been giving me a bit of trouble. As a front seat passenger, I expect the buckle to be on my left side. And every time I go to get out of the car, I reach to the left side first.

We’re creatures of habit, aren’t we?

Hotel Shuffle

Friday, December 18 - Evidently Christmas and New Year is a busy travel time. Who knew? (d’uh). Okay, okay - lesson learned. Book the whole trip early and don’t leave hotel bookings until the last minute.

Actually, that’s not entirely a fair assessment. For our trip to Langkawi and our night in Georgetown, we basically just walked in off the street and found hotels with little trouble. And in fairness, we could probably do the same in Vietnam and Cambodia, but we like the peace of mind that comes with having things settled before we depart from KL.

So for the past couple of days we’ve been busy contacting hotels, scouring TripAdvisor for hotel ratings, and poring through our Lonely Planet guidebooks. It’s taken a lot of effort and several marathon sessions at an internet cafe, but we’ve managed bookings for all 5 stops on our journey.

The hardest part of booking in Asia seems to be that none of the hotels have booking software to confirm rooms right away. Instead, one needs to send an email to the hotel and wait to hear back from them about availability and rates. In one way it’s a pain because there’s a lot of waiting involved, but in another way, you’re actually dealing directly with the hotel rather than some piece of software. And the response time varies, but you generally hear back within 24 hours, if not within a few minutes.

The only real problem we had was with our booking in Siem Reap, Cambodia – where Angkor Wat is located. We need to move hotels after the first two nights because the first hotel is booked solid on the night of the 28th. Otherwise, all indication is that we’ve managed to find some well-rated hotels at pretty decent prices (mostly around $US50 / night).

Let the adventure begin!

Drinks with Friends

Thursday, December 17 - Turns out Pei Theng – one of Junkii’s closest high school classmates, who now resides in Scotland – is visiting Ipoh at the same time we are! Good timing, huh?

We were able to meet up with her and her husband Charles for a bit of dessert tonight. And they’re really lovely people, but the visit was far too short. Maybe we’ll make Glasgow a priority for one of our next vacations.

Charles is kind of an interesting case, though. He was raised in Hong Kong, but he has lived in Scotland long enough to have developed a fairly heavy Scottish accent. We have plenty of experience with English-speaking Asians – nothing strange there – but it’s rare for us to hear them speak with such a strong British accent – let alone Scottish! It was both alien and perfectly endearing at the same time!

Ipoh Takeaway

Thursday, December 17 - Here’s a little slice of life from Malaysia. Any time you order take-out from a restaurant – and you can do that pretty much anywhere – rather than providing your order in styrofoam or foil containers, restaurants give you food in a bag.

Actually, the pull-string bag shown here is an Ipoh-only item. Other cities in Malaysia use bags (although we’ve heard tales that some KL restaurants are moving towards styrofoam) but only Ipoh uses this pull-string version.

Seems a shame – if you’re gonna use bags, you might as well have a pull-string.

Hotel Search

Wednesday, December 16 - Today we’re hitting the internet cafe to book our hotels in Vietnam and Cambodia. That portion of the trip is coming up soon, and we both want to be ready for it when it gets here. We’ve heard tales that Cab drivers in both countries can be pushy about getting travelers to stay with specific hotels (they get a commission from the hotels) – so it’s best to know where you’re staying, and insist on being taken there.

We’re hoping that we can find some good places fairly quickly using TripAdvisor and our Lonely Planet guide books – we’ve had good success in the past – and then maybe later today, we can hit the pool at the local country club where Junkii is a member!

A Fruit Juice too Far

Wednesday, December 16 - Back on Monday I let down my guard a little too much. I had been having no problems whatsoever with drinking local juices and with ice cubes in Ipoh. So I was pretty confident that I could enjoy the local cuisine without worry.

Wrong.

I ordered a fresh watermelon juice (which was very tasty and refreshing by the way) for lunch on Monday, and I’m pretty sure that’s where I went astray. A couple of hours later, I was having (ahem) digestive troubles, and my appetite was gone altogether.

I felt bad enough that I had to beg off joining the family for dinner that evening – a very disappointing turn of events given that we were slated to have coconut wine that night! I wound up staying home, not eating anything.

Food poisoning sucks!

From the cases of food poisoning I’ve seen before though, this was a mild case. One immodium took care of the digestive problems and while I still didn’t have a very good appetite on Tuesday during our KL trip, I did force myself to eat some bland food to keep my energy level up.

This morning I woke up feeling much better, and I wasn’t feeling dread at the thought of breakfast. Yay! My appetite is back.

I will be more vigilant about fruit juice in the future, but if I want to find a positive in all this, I probably lost some weight by not eating much over the past two days.

Batu Caves

Tuesday, December 15 – Today we took a day trip to Kuala Lumpur, ostensibly to pick up Junkii’s sister, but we took the opportunity to visit a large Hindu temple located just off the highway on the way into the city.

We first picked up Junkii’s brother – who had the day off from school – before heading back to the caves.

The temple is pretty impressive from highway, with a several-hundred-foot-high, golden Hindu god standing guard outside. It’s beautiful at night when it’s all lit up.

The main feature of the site is a set of 272 stairs leading up to the cave entrance. The stairs are crawling with monkeys though, so you have to be careful as you climb and keep firm hold of your possessions. Monkeys are not shy to approach you if they see something they want. Many of the families climbing up to make offerings of food had their bags snatched away.

Junkii took some nice shots from inside the temple, as well as a video of a monkey enjoying a bottle of Gatorade.

IpOh-No!

Monday, December 14 – Jeez! We’re already two weeks into this vacation! Time flies. We’re now facing the last few days in Ipoh before we head off to KL for the second wedding ceremony (we leave Ipoh on Thursday). And we won’t return to Ipoh again this trip. So we’re coming down to crunch time in terms of satisfying our Ipoh food cravings.

What’s worse is that we need to do a run down to KL to pick up Junkii’s siblings on Tuesday – and while it will be nice to see them, that means we miss the opportunity for Lunch in Ipoh. So we’ve had to narrow our dining options. Good news is, we’vee pretty much agreed on which spots we need to hit:

• Today we went for Dim Sum again. We had some of the same dishes, but a few new ones as well. For instance “Butter rolls” – which looked like shredded wheat filled with sweet custard – and a steamed taro cake. Unfortunately, we neglected to get photos of both dishes. We also had a dumpling soup, which was tasty.


• Lor Mee was a must, at least for me. It made for a perfect light lunch today.


• Tomorrow we’re having Bak Kut Teh for breakfast before the drive to KL


• We still need to get back to Auntie’s stall for another feed of Char Kway Teow – so probably Wednesday.

Not sure what dinner will bring for the last remaining days, but we’ll keep you informed. All we know is that we’re having coconut wine this evening – a drink that was illegal in Ipoh until only recently (we had some on our last visit in 2005, but we had to go out of the city limits to do so!)

Path of Stones

Sunday, December 13 – During our 2005 Malaysia trip, we stopped at a few temples in Ipoh. And one of them featured a path of rounded stones set in concrete. The path is intended to be used as a way to massage the feet as you walk on it barefoot. But honestly, it just hurt like the dickens.

Still, I was keen to try walking the path again to see if anything had changed. We found a kind of makeshift path at Kek lok Shi and I took a quick walk on it, barefoot. It was much less painful this time. Not sure if that’s because of the path or because of my feet, but it actually did feel kind of good this time. Maybe we’ll drop in on the path we visited in 2005 to see if I can stay on it for more than 3 seconds!

Ooooh, I hate turtles

Sunday, December 13 – There’s a turtle pond at Kek Lok Shi - just where the vendors end and the temple begins. And it’s disgusting. Turtles are already disgusting, and people who knew me from when I roomed with my friend David (who had two turtles) have certainly heard tales of just how filthy and vile these creatures can be. I’m renowned for my distaste for creatures. But the Buddhists seem to love them, collecting them in ponds of scummy, brown water.

The silliest thing about this particular pond – teeming with turtles crawling on top of the another – is that they have the audacity to call it “liberation pond.” Not so certain the turtles would agree that this is “liberation.”

Money Lenders in the Temple

Sunday, December 13 – Kek Lok Shi temple is beautiful - a large Buddhist temple set high on a hill overlooking the Air Itam neighbourhood of Penang. We grabbed dozens of images from our visit – but there was something really off-putting about the site.

you may be able to see in the photos below how high it is off the ground. And honestly, every square inch of space between street level and the doors to the temple are covered with stalls and shops and restaurants. Talk about commercialization! It’s sad to say that sucha beautiful set of buildings has been turned into a real tourist trap.

Of course we, being typical tourists, did our part by buying up a few trinkets for ourselves and as gifts. Well. When in Rome, er, Penang...

Found ‘Round Georgetown

Sunday, December 13 – We had limited time in Georgetown, so we agreed on two major tourist attractions during our stay – the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion and the Kek Lok Shi temple. Both sites were well worth the price of admission, but in between visiting these two attractions we parked our car in the middle of Little India and just wandered the streets of Georgetown. We had a tourism brochure that suggested two walking tours – one featuring traditional trades, and one featuring local foods.

Neither of the tours really panned out – mostly because it was Sunday and a lot of businesses were closed – but we did find a few images worth capturing along our trek.

Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion

Sunday, December 13 – First order of the day in Georgetown was to take a short tour of the Cheong Fatt Tze mansion. This is the place where we really wanted to stay the night (Instead of the Hotel Continental where we ended up). Our friend Ed told us about the mansion – which serves both as a world heritage site and as a boutique guesthouse all in one.

But we couldn’t book a room on such short notice. And after the tour, it was very clear why. The place only has room for 16 guests (8 couples), and it’s absolutely gorgeous!

The house was built by a very successful Chinese businessman in the late 1800s. He built it for his favourite wife (7th wife) and had it decorated to match her beauty. But it fell into disrepair after he died, and the the mansion was looted of much that Cheong Fatt Tze had put into it. New owners bought the building in the 1980s and undertook to restore it meeting the exacting standards of UNESCO. All that to say they’ve done a simply marvellous job, and the interiors are stunning.

Unfortunately for you, we weren’t permitted to take photos inside the house, but their website has some nice photos of the interiors, to give you an idea what we saw. We were, however, allowed to take photos of the exterior, which you can see below.

We definitely plan to make our way back to Georgetown next time we’re in Malaysia, if for no other reason than we both want to stay a night in the mansion. It only costs about C$100 a night for two people - perfectly reasonable, give the nature of the guesthouse.

Tiger Tiger

Tiger Tiger, Burning Bright

In my stomach, every night!

What immortal hand or eye

Could brew you out of malt and rye! (or whatever beer is made from)

Whatever it is, it’s yummy; especially from a cold fridge on a hot day. The only problem with drinking beer in tropical countries is that it warms up very quickly. So we need to drink more, quicker.

Not a problem.