GEORGETOWN Celebrations ~journeys 2010: journal with pfotos~ Feb.

~ the whole week's been a holiday ~

There's been some sort of celebration going on every day...

...and most nights too!

...down at the historic part of town...

...and around the streets...

...colorful floats and marquis tents...

...and stage performances.

The Saturday and Sunday are holidays too.

Chinese Valentine's Day, the 'official' end of Chinese New Year.

The recent birthday of Mohammed also.

Down at the temple of Kuan Yin...

...colorful and fragrant...

Outside too...

...then also on Chulia Street...

...the crowds gather for the procession.

And the entrance to Kapitan Keling Mosque is looking fine in honor of the prophet's birthday.

[All photographs by David Robert Martin]

TELUK BAHANG ~journeys 2010: journal with pfotos~Feb.27 2010

~ a sleepless nite ~

"Teluk Bahang is less-developed than Batu Ferringhi...an overgrown fishing village with a dirty beach, but it has some real kampung atmosphere, few if any tourists and superb seafood, as well as hikes around the headland" (Attribution: South-East Asia Lonely Planet 2001:479). You get off the bus at the cirlce...the end of the bus line. You hang a left to the rest of the island... go straight or turn right to the National Park entrance and the beach.

Fri. Feb.26

There's a build-up to the outing. I meet up with Mack [a.k.a. Mitch here], a former teaching buddy in Phnom Penh, at the popular budget Jaya restaurant. It's on Jn. Penang. It's a popular place with locals and travelers alike...and for good reason. Strangest thing...I break an upper front tooth during the meal...not that this is a reflection on the food...just happened while eating some very tasty and not tough chicken. I don't feel a thing. Lucky not to swallow...

It takes me a minute or two to realize that it's from my denture! Just need to glue it back in sometime. Kinda cool though, to leave it the way it is...for a little while. Mack's an American, semi-retired and in his early 60s...a colleague English teacher I met in Cambodia when I worked teaching academic subjects and English there...at Pannasastra University for an under-paid and over-worked semester last year. He talks a lot, even for one of his nationality!

After wandering accommodation-wise together, I tell Mack my plan for the morrow morn...to go out by bus to Teluk Bahang. I'll be leaving earlyish around 7. Interested in coming along...meet you at the Jn. Chulia 7Eleven. Back at the room and I plan an early nite. But can't sleep. Sleepless nite: mild paranoia. Thoughts run around in circles in my head. Just worries really...about my mother's health but my desire to stay on here. Worries too, about money...why no update from Sacom?...maybe it (about US$1,300) is gone. Maybe the NZ govt. has taken it! Same could go for the Baht in my Thai account(about US$600). And the last Saigon earnings for ten days work in February, before I left go into VCB on the 7th March...about US$450 is locked there...since the Visa card expires day after tomorrow! And I haven't even started the travel I intend.

Actually, in reality, I should clip my travel plans and repay my son Kim the US$1,200 I owe him..."borrowed" two years ago now, when I first came to live in Vietnam...with no money and no English teaching job. Kinda cute really...instead of the son getting stranded overseas and wiring home for money. Escalating paranoia. Talking about locking things up...maybe they'll lock me up if and when I return to NZ...for not paying any of my student loan back yet that is. In the early '90s, I was forced to borrow when the 'then' government perpetrated “Lockwood's myth”. I had to borrow about NZ$8k I think, to complete my M.A. Now, in 2010, I owe over NZ$30k and I've never earned enough money either to start to pay it off or to be obliged to do so. That's because, after completing my studies, I 'worked' as a volunteer under the auspices of VSA in PNG for six years. And then I had a couple of years' transience over there and in Irian Jaya before returning to NZ mid '02 for nine months. I inquired about the 'Student Loan Amnesty' scheme in 2008, but I couldn't afford to join up for it. “Amnesty” too, implies some sort of reprive for wrong-doing... and I don't consider I done no $30k worth of wrong-doing.

I've lived constantly in S.E.Asia since coming over in April '03...mostly on the bones of my arse too, in Thailand, Cambodia and now Vietnam (Vietscam)....although the qualifications DO get me jobs. Good to acknowledge...for my own self-esteem that the NZ government didn't buy me the final years of my education, but rather that I worked bloody hard to achieve it...under stressful financial hardship, at that. Part of that hardship was due to having the upbringing of our two children, Kim and Ella, to contribute to. [my ex partner, Pam and me, I mean by 'our'].

And I kept up with necessary payments all through 'the student and volunteer years', paying the minimum required...no income! But then there's that one-off child-support payment in respect of Ella who was 18...of NZ$4k ...for the'03/'04 tax year, computer-generated, and based erroneously on 5 months earnings in '02/03, the previous year, when I worked in downtown Auckland as an English language teacher, and paid my fair share of child-support and student-loan repayments related to my income at the time...I was on about NZ$40k a year. 'You had no option' the sceptical reader might interject...'that's why you paid...because you had to', the same reader adds. But it was fair enough and I didn't pay because I had to...I paid because I could. In '03/'04, the tax year in question I was in Thailand, and in fact, I was either not working or for only Thai Baht 16k or about US$400 a month at government high schools...way under the repayment necessary income for the student loan and eligible for the minimum of child-support payments! And the onus of proof should be on me to prove that the computer is lying uder the law...it bills me as if I'm still earning NZ$40k. I've never consulted legal eagle on the question. Probably have to if/when I return...of legal aid would be more like it.

Remember, in the ealy '80s wasn't it?...that young dude, who strapped on some explosives and blew himself up at the entrance doors of the Whanganui computer centre building! And people wondered...still do, probably, if anyone remembers...WHY? 'Bloody Muslim terrorist' or 'Out of it on methamphetamones (sic)'. So, maybe not just paranoia that I worry about BIG BRO stealing me vacation money. In fact something similar happened once before, back in the early '90s when I was a poorer-than-poor student.

The social welfare cleaned out my bank account...for a child-support non-payment of the minimum monthly amount...about $30 it was. Put the account $10s into over-draft..there was only $20 in there, that's why I couldn't pay it. The ANZ bank then wanted to charge me $40, the standard overdraft charge at the time! In the local branch-manager's office, I explained that I hadn't authorized any overdraft on the account, mangling the ATM in front of him as I did. Account closed. Made my day. Might be wise just to enter NZ as a British tourist. I'm a 'subject' of Her British Royal Highness and am a UK citizen...parents chose to immigrate, mid '60s, to GodsOwn, which was a very, very good decision. Must find out from a NZ HighComm somewhere along the line...what the story is... before I return, mustn't I?

These are things that I rarely even think about, never mind worry over, these days. But this particular night, for whatever reason, I did. Can't blame old Mack in any way. But there's just one more thing, right now that I DO increasingly think about..without a hint of paranoia and that's about my retirement situation...something most of us do. Some start early and have no worries, but not me. I've never given it a second thought, until it's too late perhaps. At 57, I have no savings, investments or otherwise...nothing...'cept what I can carry. Must reside permanently in GodsZone for 4 years, I think it is, before being eligible for the old-age pension! AND...to maintain that privilage, one has to reside in NZ for at least 9 months a year. So...if any of you readers started early but you're kinda bored with your secure life back there or stressed out from working to provide for it, and sometimes have a rogue thought along the lines of “Wouldn't it be nice to be doing what Dave does”...maybe think again. Because Dave's probably gonna die with his teaching garb on and broke at that.

Or could another personal financial calamity yet be avoided at the last desperate moment...like a clown camel who clutches at the straw that's finally about to break his back...just manages to get rid of it at the last moment...and the other baggage...and metamorphizes into an internet millionaire. Apparent, transparent clowns make easy money in these post-modern economic times through 'Associate marketing', Forex trading or Search Engine Optimisation consultancies. Clowning aside, could not the writer, by retirement time in 8 years, end up buying one of those villas up on Gurney Drive, too, and sipping Martinis and G and T's on the verandah...with just the faintest of smirks on his weathered well-traveled face. Shat in his own nest all his life and then flew the coop. Nothing like a happy ending.

Sat. Feb.27

Wake up after a couple hours shut-eye...probably about 6am...that's right...Teluk Bahang....it's still pitch black out there 'til 7. The coffee and cigarette routine...7.20 already...and it's an overcast day too...not much chop light-wise. To go or not? I didn't say to Mack I wouldn't go, if it was cloudy! Down at the 7Eleven...and there's Mack...standing outside, waiting. Well, shit, Mack's a friendly, in some ways likeable guy, but if he's awake he's talking...probably does too in his sleep, I wouldn't know and neither would he. So all in all it's a bit of a mistake to take him, but not a big one. No damage done really...apart from a headache...or perhaps that's from the fraught with thought nite before? Weather remains overcast 'til midday...and very humid too, out at Teluk Bahang. And I don't recognize anything from '75.

Off the bus and there's many people with ethnic roots in India. I don't remember it being like this in '75...such a long time ago. No ...back then, the place was like a local fishing village...sure, Chinese traders with dragon-chasing dens on the beach but few if any Indian people. Surely my memory serves me well. But then again, I was so fuckin stoned most the time in '75, that there could've been beings from any number of planets...and they'd've blended right in! No dens on the beach these days! No lions neither, nor dragons. The National Park is all new to me...can't remember mention of a park...popular and free...one can walk on round...but we don't. Head back to Georgetown around 1 o'clock...took forever...with many stops.

MILLIONAIRE'S ALLEY ~journeys 2010: journal with pfotos~Feb.26

~ unplanned expedition ~

Fri. Feb.26. Up very early...'bout 4am!...head out walking about 8am, thinking I'll catch a bus to Teluk Bahang, where I stayed in early '75. So I head over to the main road, like I'm itching to see the sea...maybe get a view across to the mainland then after that I'll catch a bus out from there. But instead, I end up walking along the shore-front properties towards Gurney snapping as I go. I actually made it to Teluk Bahang a couple of days after the Gurney Drive Expedition. Open-ended plans, indeed...that's what traveling is all about. Spontaneity's the key, right?

The beach is public right-of-way, yeah? Some people have other ideas, yeah. At one stage, some dogs bark at me and a guy...who happens to be Indian...security, stick-in-hand...bluntly shouts at me to “Git”. 'Beach's public, mate”, I shout at him and move on. I don't know if it is or not under Malaysian law, but later reason that, being an ex-British colony, it probably is. Private beaches, bah. As I continue I look along the sea-front towards Gurney Drive beach and Batu Ferringhi little of what one can see, apart from the sea was here 35 years ago.

So much for historic. Just inland is Gurney Drive, a.k.a. 'Millionaire's Alley', formerly with majestic, old mansions...for the colonial idle and wealthy. The Drive is now mostly developed into upmarket seaside hotels and apartments. They seem to be presently unoccupied, as far as I can tell. For we're now in the post-colonial 21st century and the local nouveau-riche don't take too many holidays from their money-making. I presume that they do get out here from KL or Singapore or Hong Kong or Bangkok to stay in their 'investments' only seldomly. As one looks up at the high-rise investment apartment buildings, you can feel a post-modern trendiness...the decadence perhaps? Some of these places might look pretty tatty in the not-to-distant future. An apartment here, costs...I don't know how much?

Again. I have the lingering thought that a lot of the up-market tourist-resort development in S.E.Asia which is already in place or underway...is due to the expectation that hundreds of millions of Asian package-tourists are on the verge of being economically able and willing to afford such holidays. Almost certainly they will reach that stage...like the mass-tourism that happened in the West from the '60s onwards...here in Asia one would think that it will probably hit sometime in the next decade. Independent travel is not really part of the 'Asian' way, either so when it does...wow there'll be some pretty new trillionaires...with places on Gurney, no doubt!

Some of the architecture on display is...interesting..? Some seem to come here now...to get educated here too. There's an nteresting blend of building styles that greets the students at Wawasan University... 'for the rich people'...it says to me...but the slogan on the gate says simply "for the people". Mao and uncle Ho's 21st century people, perhaps?

My plan is still to catch a bus. I get to the beach. By 10am I'm tired, hungry too, and the day is warming up. Must continue, although I feel like heading 'home' to the Noble. I just gotta get to the beach, at least. It'll be the first for me in an awful long time. Kep doesn't count. One thing's for sure...no Teluk Bahang today. I flagged the bus idea a couple-a-hours ago. Another day. It's been 35 years...what's another day. Eventually I do return to the Noble on foot, by road this time...calling in at a 'Giant' supermarket...to cool down. There's a place for air-con after all! Time to remember that skyward view as you leave the Gurney beach area on the road back to central Georgetown. And that shore-line up towards Batu Ferringhi...the rock of the foreigner it means. Well after Gurney, I didn't have the desire to visit the rock place...but I did see it's Hard Rock Cafe from the bus when I made it out to Teluk Banang later on.

Remember too the CCTV surveilance area notice; a not so wealthy individual is searching through the garbage cans...to the surprise of onlooking [Asian] tourists...the locals not in the slight bit interested. I know the feeling mate...don't think he'll find much in the ones I've just walked past though! Amazing what some people throw away, and here on 'millionaire's' alley you just never know... On the way back I'm temporarily disorientated even thought the top of the landmark Komplex Tunku Abdul Rahman Tower is visible. Komtar's in downtown Georgetown but it wouldn't be out of place up here on Gurney really either. For some reason though it's tallness aside, it's round shape means that it's not much navigational help...to me. Maybe it's because it looks the same from all directions. After I emerge from the coolness of the market, a friendly guy, who happens to be from India, puts me right...I wasn't too far away from where I thought I was, after all. And so I continue along for a few hundred metres and turn a corner and slog on down Jn. Chulia and into the fan-room at Noble...very hot again so cooling down gently for half an hour, before showering.

Reportedly, when Daniel Boone, the explorer of the American mid-West, was asked

“Ever bin lost out there, Dan”, he replied,

“No, never. Only temporarily disorientated...for a year or so at a time”.

I seem to remember, from somewhere, that he also said:

Come to think of it, Dan probably relied on the locals too, for directions and possibly other 'ection' words as well?

“When ya don't see no Injuns, that's where they're thickest”,

'Boone-talk' ...about [relationships?] when things are going great, all rosy...

After Gurney Drive I upload pfotos to the laptop...some well-constructed. This camera is a point and shoot...not designed to compose frames with...and the main problem is that the screen doesn't really give me too much opportunity...in full sunlight you can't see hardly anything at all. Guess I need a big [expensive] SLR to get round that one. But, I believe, there's absolutely no reason for not taking some passably good snaps, at least of buildings because on perusing the frames taken today, it's apparent that a 29mm lens is great...getting used to it might take a while.

And another thing...playing around with the exposure is possible too..just remember to re-adjust the settings back! Some of the day's pfotos seem to be pretty damn well-balanced...taken as they were in the heat of the day/moment...without too much effort, too. Using the grid overlay on the screen helps a lot...especially if there's a horizon involved! Maybe it's just that the earth, the planet, and everything on it, is pretty damn well-balanced anyway...you just can't miss...or beginner's luck.

A whimsy...

“Superior indeed, isn't it, to have a simple view such as this from one's verandah, don't you think old chap”?

“Indeed, it's everything”...it's what the Empire is all about...he's sure of that.

“Took the jolly old words right off me upper lip, old boy”.

The old days...the good days... the only days. He continues though...

“Relaxing with a 'gin and tonic', to such a view, of an afternoon, after having a difficult time of it”...needs no explanation.

“ I say old boy, really spiffing...”, as he stands up, stiffly...ghostly...as ghostly as his manner of speaking.

“So glad you could make it...again, Charles”.

“ Really can't imagine that there'll be that much left soon...only reminiscences”.

Superior view indeed...at least, what's left of it, he thinks as he returns gliding to his dozing great, great. grandson's 'intelligent' apartment, happy and totally relaxed but keeping to the shadows, as usual, as he goes...

...what's that...where's me shades, dear...I mean to say...