A town called George

STATS: Day count=12; Illness count=1.5 (sunburn pain reduced, big toe recovered but Em has a cold); theft count=0; rip-off count=0; tourist screw-up count=0.5 (no change); photo count=178

Currently in George Town on the island of Penang in Malaysia.

I’m still wearing my Liverpool football shirt with (dented) pride. I know our form has been abysmal of late and unfortunately I’m aware of the FA cup defeat, but someone has to set the standard out here. The sale and wearing of Premiership football stuff out here is rife. Liverpool gets a good showing (I suspect some may be in hiding due to recent form) but Man U is prominent, and we cant really be putting up with that. Arsenal shirts are pretty rare, luckily, and Chelsea support is non-existent, as it should be. I saw one confused young lad with a Liverpool shirt on and a Man U cap. Poor kid. I was tempted to set him right on the perils of divided loyalties but his dad was with him and I thought that really ought to be a parental duty. I have yet to see a Gillingham, West Ham or QPR shirt. Then again, I haven’t seen them in the UK either….

Malaysia seems to have a great combination of cultures. Muslims alongside Buddhists alongside Hindus – all with (at least on the surface that we see) a healthy respect for each other. Very nice to see. Not quite sure what “Malay” culture is, but have put it down to being a fusion of the above.

We’ve visited a number of Buddhist temples – there’s a lot around here. I’ll have to read up on Buddhism as they seem to have innumerable gods and goddesses and stories and parables. Their temples are great though – lavishly decorated and very serene, but still seemingly ‘down to earth’. People pop in on their way to/from work to burn a bit of incense and pray to someone or other before moving on. And their incense sticks are impressive – one temple we visited limited the burning of sticks to a maximum of 4 feet!

Kek Lok Si temple is the biggest Buddhist temple in Malaysia. Set on the side of a hill it is a lovely sight. They were in the process of decorating it with lights, presumably for Chinese New Year – there was a picture in the temple of it lit up and it would be great to see it. Unfortunately we wont be here. I’m sure we’ll see more impressive temples on our travels, but this one was good. Hence the surge in the photo count!

Hindu temples are very colourful, but less impressive here. We’ll wait until we hit India. There did seem to be a rush on buying sugar cane on Wednesday around the Little India area – I asked a guy who was struggling valiantly to fit some 8’ sugar canes into his car what was going on and apparently there is the start of a Hindu festival (a sort of ‘thanksgiving’ I think – “Pongal”) going on. Was funny (and somewhat dangerous for pedestrians) watching the guys on mopeds driving round trying to balance sugar cane on their bikes!

Em is less impressed with this hostel. We will have stayed here 4 nights – it’s cheap and nicely located and, to be honest, we couldn’t be bothered to find another one. I think it’s ok but Em is happy to be moving on tomorrow.

Saw some kids practicing for a lion dance competition in one of the temples the other night. Wandered in to watch – they looked good to us (though who are we to judge such things!). Seemed to be having fun. In fact the kids here seem very well behaved (we’ve been on a number of buses around the area, usually packed with school kids) – they even give up their seats for old people – something I haven’t seen in the UK for at least 20 years! Obviously none have given up their seat for me, for which I have been very grateful! At what age does it become non-insulting to have a kid give their seat up for you on the bus?

I was looking forward to seeing the Snake Temple, just outside town. You can probably guess from the name the main attraction here! They have pit vipers all over the temple – apparently docile due to the incense burning but in recent times they have de-venomed the snakes “just in case”.  I was a little disappointed to find a load of snakes seemingly ‘positioned’ around the temple and in such a state of stupor that you could have probably picked them up, tickled their bellies, used them as a skipping rope and put them back without them noticing. Or so I thought…

Being a bit of a snake person I was intrigued at the two pythons they had there for show and were charging for photos. Being a bit of a tight person, I didn’t pay them to have my photo taken with the snake (I used to keep snakes, so being photographed with a python isn’t a big deal). However I was picking the snake up and generally showing I was comfortable with them (they looked well cared for). I asked if I could handle one of the pit vipers (which, for anyone who doesn’t know, are normally pretty poisonous). They told me that they hadn’t been de-venomed (which I was surprised at) apart from one that they showed me, which they said still bites. What the heck – I didn’t come all that way to look at pythons and strategically placed asleep vipers, so I picked it up anyway. It decided to wake up. No, it didn’t bite me (I think I managed to picked it up correctly to avoid annoying it too much) but at least it moved around a bit and showed willing! Didn’t get a picture of me holding it – felt that would be a bit unfair as it was the guy’s livelihood to take photos, but there’s a photo after I put it down.

Got our Thai visas. No problem getting them (hopefully they are what we asked for – 60 day visas). We were surprised we didn’t have to pay for them – I think you have to pay for 60 day Thai visas in the UK. You can get across the border without a pre-arranged visa, but for an overland crossing they apparently only give you a 15 day stamp and we figured we wanted to be there for Chinese New Year (14th Feb). We didn’t trust the “visa services” offered around town (though I suspect they were fine) so we went to the Thai embassy outside town ourselves.

Visited a beach the other day! Only for a couple of hours (while waiting for the visas). Very touristy, but actually pretty quiet (if that makes sense). Emma’s hands were described as “coconuts” by the wandering masseuse that gave her a free hand massage to try to drum up business. Not quite sure when he meant by this but he seemed to know what he was talking about. So Em now has ‘coconut hands’.

I’m always up for trying new stuff. So I ordered a strawberry Kecang dessert last night. Started well – big bowl of flavoured ice, some condensed milk and topped with strawberries and ice cream sauces. Very refreshing. It was only when I reached the sweet corn and kidney beans that I started to lose my appetite a little! Still, it was worth a try.

We’re off to Thailand tomorrow (Sunday) – heading for Trang (via Hat Yai). Seems a small place so not sure how long we will be there, but it avoids the current slightly dodgy situation in southern Thailand. Not sure about internet access and stuff there – may be off the radar for a short time…

Oh – I still haven’t found out why the moped riders wear their shirts backwards. Here’s a (poorly taken from inside a bus) photo to show what I mean. Maybe it is common throughout Asia but I’ve not seen it before. Update: I asked a guy today – he said because “it was hot” and pointed at the sun. He didn’t explain much more than that, but then he had just been accosted by a foreigner as he was about to set off on his moped and been asked a stupid question! Don’t quite get it still as they do it in the evening too. If it were just during the day then I guess to prevent their arms from getting too hot without the heat of actually wearing the jacket? still not convinced…