KUALA LUMPUR and MALAYSIA

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So please Look Now at the Blog Archive which you will find on the Right Hand Side under my picture and profile.

In order to access the later chapters it is necessary to return to this first page which can be done merely by using 'Home' on your keyboard. Click on the 'chapter title (post)' you want to read next.

This blog is essentially a transcript created in 2015 from the notebook written at the time plus many photographs which at the time of writing commence with Berastagi on arrival in Sumatra. The reverse of a live blog the posts here appear in the chronological order like chapters in a book. It exercise will take some time to produce this record and is unlikely to be complete before October 2015. Unfortunately no photographs are available before reaching Sumatra.

 

Introduction to Story

Joan and I retired together at the end of April 1996 greatly looking forward to the opportunity to practice the International Backpacker skills we had developed gradually during every working holiday since Nepal in 1989. No longer constrained by holidays from work, two weeks after retiring, still feeling in the prime of life, we started on this the first of many lengthy trips, little imagining the problems of health and fitness just one year ahead. 

We opted for 60 day trips as that was a normal break point on insurance schemes. A length which was found to suit us well, mixing extensive periods of independent travelling but allowing time with family at home. Backpacking is essentially 'Pay as you Go' with little initial cost beyond air fare - but reliable insurance for Medical treatment Insurance including repatriation if needed is vital.

17 April 1996  KUALA LUMPUR

A National Express bus took us to Heathrow where we boarded a 12 hour flight with BA to Kuala Lumpur arriving at 3pm. We were lucky to learn a great deal on the plane during breakfast as we sat next to a US citizen selling pulp making machinery for the Finish company Alstrom who had travelled extensively in SE Asia from his base in Jakarta, China, India, Malaysia and Indonesia. He had previously worked for Alstrom in Japan, and had travelled widely on holiday including camping trips up the Amazon.

He obviously thought we would like Java or Lombok (see Bali Blog in 2000) better than Sumatra and warned about the danger of accidents during bus travel at night, to eat in open air restaurants but avoid shrimps and cold water. He recommended Shanghai and thought Beijing would need a week (as we found ten years later in 2006) - but this years holiday was to be China and Tibet China. 

We shared a taxi with two young Gerrmans headed for the bus station and eventually found a bed at Kawana Tourist Inn nearby for 35 Ringitt (£1 = 3.4R) in a very small room with tubular beds. At 5:30 just as a torrential thunderstorm with lightning started we ventured out in search of food and were quickly soaked in spite of Joan's umbrella. Unconcerned Malays were returning from work and nonchalant school kids from school, walked slowly but soaked, whilst we sought shelter in a bus stop. Forty minutes later the rain had reduced to European dimensions - such is the tropical rain. We ate in a help yourself Chinese cafeteria from rice and a selection from around 20 dishes for around £1 each.

In the days before the extra high skyscrapers the ornate railway station was the major sight where we bought tickets for our onward journey to Butterworth. As we walked out of the station I walked over a chain then over the deep drain gully it was protecting, Joan followed me over the chain but thought the gully would be covered by a steel grid fell into the gully, badly bruising her shin and oozing blood into her sock. Nevertheless she managed to hobble to a taxi back to the Inn. Completely thrown we sat on the bed, cleaned the wound with TCP pulled the cut together with steri-strips, used one of my ankle supports to hold back swelling and decided to review the after effects in the morning.

Doubtless I should have taken her to the hospital next morning but at a complete loss as to its whereabouts or procedures we rather stupidly decided to carry on for a few days. It worked out OK if initially painful. We still refer when things unexpectedly go wrong and we are lost for decisive action as Kuala Lumpur's. It confirmed a view that pavements were the chief hazard of Asia, because of deep drains, unevenness and holes often over drains. I remembered how the first day of almost every visit I had fallen tripped on the pavement carrying a heavy rucksack in the tropical heat.

  19 April 1996

Ankle now Joan's major worry but better than in middle of night, taken as a good sign. I pay at reception explain the situation and ask about breakfast, he suggests Roti Canai (Murtabak)

 which is a pizza like operation performed on a griddle by an old Indian, onto dough is added an egg and onions etc. It was sold with dahl and two sweet coffees with straws, both in plastic bags, plus a 1.5 litre bottle of water, all for just 7.5 ringitts (about £2). We borrowed a plate from reception and sat on our beds to breakfast, but I still worried that we should have had the wound checked. 

I went out back into China town in search of plastic plates but all I could find was jewelry, clothes, shoes, food and knickknacks, so returned only with cashew nuts for lunch. I had regretted passing fruit shops selling Durian but in spite of the wonderful taste remembered from Thailand recalled also the terrible smell which I knew in the best of times would overpower Joan in our bedroom. Passing the very active bus station with its less than new mini-buses I noted from the route maps in Malay and regretted not working harder with my Linguaphone lessons. I had chosen to learn Malay because Indonesian is essentially the same simple language, a bad mistake as vital common words are often different in the two forms. Meantime the young Germans had come back especially to say goodbye to Joan, a nice gesture, they were still together when I returned. They were off to the Cameroon Highlands, a cooler tea growing area where a Malay acquaintance had recommended Daniels Guest House. We in fact went at the end of this round trip on our way back to KL. 

(Up till now I had made a point of studying languages in phonetic form of the countries being visited, a skill especially well developed after several trips to Thailand before retirement. Giving the confidence which later allowed me to act as guide taking our the family of children and grandchildren off the beaten track throughout both east and west coasts in southern Thailand in 2000, hiring a series of minibuses and finding destinations, hotels without reservations and restaurants.)

At 5pm Joan left her bed for the first time in 20 hours and made her way gingerly down the steps, far better than we had hoped, and so to a second Indian Murtapak for dinner. We noticed that people in the street were buying a single cigarette, reminiscent of the poverty of the England of our childhood in the WW2.

Sat 20 April Georgetown Penang

With relief for Joan was regaining confidence, we set out at 6am for the train to Butterworth, and breakfasted on waffles and coffee at the station. Very comfortable with far more leg room than in the UK. A man came round to give each passenger a plastic bag for their rubbish and returned at intervals to mop the floor. We were bombarded with video promoting Sarawak, then a life story of a man brought up by monkeys being hunted with poison darts who eventually found his right place in high society. A girl across the corridor with a badge of Industrial Technology was reading up on Polymer Chemistry.

Arrived on time in Butterworth and caught the cheap ferry to Penang with the seats facing backwards - to protect the passengers against sudden collisions? Liked the look of the budget and now recommend the Swiss Hotel, comfortable beds in a large room with superb wooden floor, with shared toilets in a newly built block at the rear of each floor.

Went to a Chinese complex for dinner and were drawn to a stall where you chose from 10 ingredients (fish balls, meat balls, cinnamon balls, fish with spring onion, mushrooms, greenery, sweet peppers) which they turned into soup, and bought it to your table. We went back for more the next day with satay, their customers were predominantly Chinese with very few Europeans. 

21 April

Not sleeping properly yet, due to unaccustomed heat?, lying awake until 6am. A quick late breakfast of toast and coffee and off in search of a bus to the beach resorts, Batu Perringgi (all hotels) and Teluk Bahang where we got off, bought mangoes and bananas and walked to the nearby fishing village shelter from the tropical rain and then walked 2km along the beach. Where there were tent shaped huts and around 50 young Malays wearing Outdoor Experience T-shirts. Had a swim but water murky hiding the rocks below rather than dirty and far too warm to refresh - don't rate Penang highly as a beach resort. Had a banana pancake, also called chanai. Joan concerned with swelling of her cut leg but it improved overnight.

After the Sunday meal went into a tea shop back in Georgetown, and discovered a full basement of Malays of our age all expensively 5USD drinking small bowls as a Sunday treat. The proprietor explained it was Chinese medicine for chests made of hibernating frogs saliva in a sort of birds nest soup. Had the best sex after months of waning manhood and concluded its popularity was due to aphrodisiac properties.

22 April 1996

A bus to Balik Pulau took us passed the snake temple and all around the east and south of the island of Penang. Excellent lunch of Alam Laksa thick fish soup with chilli, pineapple slivers, mint and onions. Bought micropore with antibiotic as a reserve, vitamin C tablets and straight dressings from a pharmacist who thought Joan's leg was healing well, she was once again walking normally though still concerned about her ankle. 

On return we bought tickets for the next day's ferry to Medan, Sumatra for 160 Ringitts each. Changed $USD travellers cheques at a money changers into Indonesian Rupiah, because banks would only convert to Malaysian money. The exchange rate was 2,403 Rupiah per $USD. A year later in the 1997 Asian financial crisis we got 17,000 Rupiah for £1 when supporting student Juliater, soon to be met on this journey in Sumartra and become a longstanding friend.

23 April

Round the island again this time stopping at the Snake Farm a tourist trap. Live snakes but kept dozy and harmless by incense by day are draped in candlesticks and trees around the alter. A photographer was busy taking photographs of tourists draped with snakes with crosses painted on their heads, a sign they were safe? At night they eat by sucking from chicken's eggs. 

Next stop was for a Butterfly Farm which was continually watered presumably to keep it cool. It was planted with a variety of flowers and fruits on small tables, each chosen as an attraction to a particular type of butterfly. Not content there were cages of lizards, scorpions, grasshoppers, stick insects, leaf insects and snakes.

A last taste of our favourite soup Yong Tan Foo and a drink of herbal (cold from an ice box) sweetened with honey. Yes we will certainly will be happy to return to Penang for the end of our trip.