GEORGETOWN~Chinese New Year ~journeys 2010: journal with pfotos~Feb.26

~ Chinese New Year ~

Friday, Feb.26

I'm starting to wake up later in the mornings, still a bit confused about the time here...an extra hour of daylight in the evenings...compared to Thailand. I'm blending in I suppose because in Malaysia people generally tend to get up later in the morning, than they do in the rest of S.E. Asia.

I go down to Little India and have something to eat at the Indian's on the corner...drinks guy there tries to cheat me out of 30 sen...only ten cents...but it's the last time I go there! Then I wander the crowded streets witnessing some of Georgetown's celebrations.

Very quiet down there, due to it's being a Moslem holiday today, their Christmas I guess, as it's Mohameds birthday or someone's birthday. I need some cash and manage to change US$100 at RM 3.4. Been going thru 'bout $20 a day since leaving Vietscam!

The Saturday and Sunday are holidays too...Chinese Valentine's Day...the 'official' end of Chinese New Year. The whole week's been a holiday. There's some sort of celebration going on every day and night.

GEORGETOWN Around Town ~journeys 2010: journal with pfotos~ Feb.24

~ town and around ~

Wednesday Feb.24. Penang's cool, metaphorically speaking...the developed tropics...just what I need at the moment. I move way down cooler from the Sky to The Noble...situated in Jn. Pasar, a side street off the Indian money-changer street. The entrance to the Noble doesn't look very inspiring, but it's a well-maintained, friendly place and has everything I need.

It's the hotel a local lawyer I met when I got off the ferry took me to...but it was full at the time...being as it was, the end of Chinese New Year celebrations. It's not expensive for a modern, comfortable and clean room with shower (but no loo). The basic room costs RM20, with electicity and extra 1 and wifi 3; so it's RM24 all up. Some of the other cheaper rooms...around RM18, for example at the Traveler's Lodge...there are many others...are not as good value...that's very subjective. Number 66. They're nothing flash, but for Malaysia this room is very good value. There's a good, quiet fan and also a small a ceiling extractor fan, which helps to keep the place cool...also serves to get rid of my cigarette smoke, too. The shower is at the back and has a basin too. The only time you need to go over to the loo in the main building, is for a number 2...used plastic coke bottles get filled up nites. It's run by local Chinese and the staff here are efficient and friendly, migrant workers from Indonesia. As for the guests, it's frequented by local expats and return tourists...most of middle-age vintage...like me.

On the evening walkabout and come across a car smash. Traffic accidents...as we used to call them are not something I see a lot of this trip. Malaysia is full of cars, not m/cylces. Apparently the car that rolled was speeding through this intersection. No-one was injured...as far as I know. An ambulance did arrive, hung around a bit and then went back to base empty-handed.

Some nite-time snaps around Georgetown's Little India. I love the Indian food available in all parts of Malaysia...makes a change from rice and noodles. I generally eat local food wherever I go, only sometimes opting for a 'cheeseburger in paradise (Jimmy Buffet)'.

Storefronts in Little India...little further explanation needed. Little India video and music shops. When I wanted to snap a gold shop, the security there told me politely not to. I have found Malaysia people generally to be very, very polite...especially noticeable after living in Vietnam, where the opposite applies. On the honesty ranking they work out about the same...inherently DIS!

Later, in the wee small hours, I head with Mack and another American friend of his for an 'Old Trafford burger' on Chulia...and then back to base. They're cheap at RM3:50 for the simplest, RM4 for cheese in. A couple of these with fries and you DO think you're in paradise! Sleep right off. Just another day in the life of a budget traveler in Malaysia...simply Asia.

GEORGETOWN First Impressions~journeys 2010: journal with pfotos~Feb.2010

~ history too ~

“The 28-sq-km Pulau Penang (Betelnut Island) is the oldest British settlement in Malaysia, predating both Singapore and Melaka. It's one of Malaysia's major tourist attractions and has been a must-see stop on the Asian overland trail for years. With it's colourful, historically intriguing capital of Georgetown, superb food everywhere and easy-going kampung atmosphere, who wouldn't like Penang. On behalf of Britain's East India Company, Captain Francis Light sailed up and gained possession of the virtually uninhabited island in 1786, allegedly firing silver dollars from his ship's cannons into the jungle to encourage settlement. Aided by free-trade policies, Georgetown quickly became a prosperous mecca for merchants, dreamers, rogues, dissident intellectuals and artists".

"Sun Yatsen planned the 1911 Canton uprising in Georgetown, probably in one of the local Hainanese coffee shops. Unmistakably Chinese, it's one of the most likeable cities in South East Asia, with bicycle rickshaws pedalling by atmospheric shophouses, temples and old building full of colonial grace”. [Attribution:2001: South-East Asia: On A Shoestring;11th Edition; Footscray; Lonely Planet Publications Pty Ltd 2001:475-77].

I just love going for walks and snapping what turns up, rather than setting out to photograph"a something famous". Still tired from the train trip, I take a walk and a few snaps of buildings that instantly catch my eye. Here's a good example: post-modern mosques?..or maybe it's originally rather older. Didn't do the research to find out...even the name...or location for that matter.

The well-known Sri Mirriamman Temple on the corner of L.Chulia and L.Queen in Little India, Georgetown, Penang. Most of the 'elaborately sculpted and painted pyramidal gateway tower (L.P. guide)' would have been in the darkness anyway.

Georgetown is, of course, renowned for its buildings...in particular the temples (Chinese/Indian). But it's the juxtaposition of old and new that strikes me first off. I'm not sure what but I just like these four...two of earlier and two of later vintage and their relative positions in the frame.

As I discovered on the first night, the room, on the main backpacker street, Chulia, at SKY hotel, is used as a short-time place by girls that hover outside around the corner, in the shadows, under the sidewalk overhangs after midnite...so it's a bit on the noisy side...from motorcycles and conversation... and general traffic. I sort of knew it was gonna be like that, but I like it because although it's on the main drag, there are no backpackers. It's RM25 a night and I can pick up the free wifi too.

On the second night at the Sky, I'm really tired...but can't sleep. So I check out 'puter...then there's a loud violent argument at the next room...prostitutes, pimps, customers...and violence. Anyway...that dies down...and then the landlady...drunk as a skunk... violently just about knocks me door down...tells me to get out now...I didn't pay the rent today (for tonite) like I promised. I give her the RM25... she'd probably run out of firewater... and now I do get some zzzzzzzzzs.....

BUTTERWORTH STATION ~journeys 2010: journal with pfotos~Feb.

~ butterworth station and ferry ~

The end of the line. The man in the photo has to ignore the taxi drivers and walk about 200 meters and then pay RM 1.20 to get over the channel to Georgetown, Pulau Pinang (US$1=RM3 at this time)...the ferry back to Butterworth is 'free'. I don't know if that's what he did, but that's what I did. Of course if you want to go over the 'new' bridge, you can.

And the ferry that takes me across...very cheap and convenient too. Just a couple of hundred metres walk from the platform.Not so good if you're dying for a smoke though, just off the train. The bridge is very nice too, off course. I came back over it on a bus from Komtar, Georgetown to Melaka a couple of weeks later...still much prefer the ferry. In fact the bus takes you to the train station after coming over to the mainland. If you catch the bus from Komtar in Georgetown to KL, for example, it goes over the bridge and up to Butterworth Station...much easier to just catch the ferry over and catch the bus from there...unless you're a bit kinky about riding bridges I suppose. And as I say...the return ferry from Georgetown is 'free'.

I was last in Penang in '75 and stayed at that time in Teluk Bahang on the north coast out past the high-rise hotels and apartments...but none of that then...out along Gurney Drive or millionaire's drive and past Batu Ferringhi.

Will have to go take a look.

THAILAND~MALAYSIA BORDER~journeys 2010: journal with pfotos~Feb.2010

~ train border ~

first impressions are important -right...and especially of a new country. So this tired sojourner appreciates the fact that the nice Malaysian immigration lady welcomes me into her country by asking me where I'd like her to put the stamp!

Also nice to enter a new country for 90 days free of charge. Maybe this passport, with its 2 remaining full pages is gonna last the whole 3 months' trip after all. I'm at the end of my second since leaving NZ seven years ago now and the last one cost me almost US$300...it has lasted only just over 2 years! Like the cost of visas and new passports is rarely calculated by the budget traveler...and that I certainly am...

It's a cost that I begrudge in a way... couldn't just be about being of Scots, could it? This is the 21st century after all...what's with all these expensive bits of paper...we're all citizens of the one planet after all.

If you can read it... a notice on the subject of dress attire on entering the Kingdom of Thailand...dating from an earlier ['60s] generation...mine. So all you 'hippies' out there that plan to spend time in Thailand...beware. But don't pay it too much attention if you've been yuppied since then.