As of 6:30 this morning, we’re back in the UK for a week, and are already savouring the cold weather!
We’re around for a week before flying to South America early next Thursday. If you’re in London, join us for drinks at the Southwark Tavern on Tuesday 31st from 8pm.
Cheers!
Simon & Laura
The leaning tower in the Teluk Intan Town Square, with lanterns to mark the New Year
The past week’s been a blur since arriving in KL and meeting Pey Shan and her fantastic family. We travelled to their home in Teluk Intan, a few hours drive north of the capital, a quiet town in which we refreshingly seemed to be the only westerners. Our journey now takes us to Dubai, then Gatwick for a week of catching up before heading out again to South America. We’re already planning some time on the beach to get us through the stress of it all!
Chinese New Year was brilliant, a lively buzz of colour, drumming, lions, and lots and lots of food. The festivities begin on New Year’s Eve with ‘Reunion Dinner’, where the whole extended family comes together to eat and catch up over platefuls of delicious food. We were very warmly welcomed by the Heng family and spent a tasty evening eating the collective soup called steamboat, as well as other delicacies. They also had some sky lanterns which we managed to light, launch and see sail away despite the best efforts of the wind and telephone cables.
At midnight is the ‘ancestor praying ceremony’, where respects are paid to the family ancestors, spirits represented through various icons on a shrine. Huge incense sticks are lit and while they burn, prayers are said along with wishes for the future, made in the all-important southerly direction that we’ve found everywhere in Chinese culture. Symbolic money and origami boats are also burned, something which we happily took part in after a good craft session of folding them first.
At the ancestor praying ceremony
Lighting the sky lantern
On New Year’s Day itself, we dressed up in the traditional colour of red (symbolising prosperity) and attended the annual Lion Dance at the Family’s shop, a leading tyre business in the town. Neither of us have ever had the chance to appreciate this spectacle up close, and it was a real treat, with two extremely dexterous two-person lions dancing for half an hour or so to ward off the evil spirits. The dance is accompanied by a drumming and cymbals, all in the Chinese spirit of auspicious celebrations being as loud as possible. Amid the clamour and brash ferocity of the lions, there were touches of absolute elegance, with the creatures variously worshipping at the shrines in the building, rearing up on just two legs to eat lettuce leaves suspended from a doorway (I can’t quite imagine a pantomime horse managing that!), and at one point turning a collection of fruit into a multi-tiered shrine with lit candles, and the lucky number 8888 spelled out in tangerine segments on the floor. There was also the very sweet sight of Pey Shan’s cousin’s young toddler being simultaneously intrigued and terrified by the lion, which itself loved toying with him. The lions themselves were a work of art, with the huge puppet heads replete with blinking eyelids and moving ears – as well as a flapping mouth to chase after the little kids!
The proceedings finished with a blessing of the family cars, with the lions ceremonially cutting open tangerines on their bonnets (with their teeth, of course), before – to everyone’s amusement – getting in to the front seat of the cars, revving the engines and honking the horns!
The lion dance in full swing
The cars getting their blessing from the Lions
The New Year is about welcoming prosperity into the household, with this marked by adults giving red envelopes with money to children and those who are unmarried. We were touched to also be welcomed into this tradition, with a number of different visitors also bestowing upon us a small red gift and hence some spending money to celebrate.
Red envelopes given at New Year
We drove back into KL yesterday, passing through tropical countryside to match the humidity and searing heat. The landscape is frequented with former tin mines, many now flooded into large manmade lakes, and others since converted into palm oil plantations, one of the few trees that will grow in the sandy soil left behind from the mining. From a distance, the plantations make the hills look like they’re covered in a green fur, with their thin spiky branches creating the illusion of soft hair. Up close, you can immediately recognise them as manmade, with rigid lines of trees perfectly spaced apart, despite a few wayward tree’s attempts to break the mold.
Almost everywhere we’ve been in the past five months, the TV has been running a Malaysian Tourism campaign, ‘Malaysia, truly Asia’, so much so that the tune’s stuck in my head. It actually feels like a fairly accurate catchphrase when you get here, because this country is quite the melting pot for many of the different cultures of the continent. Indigenous Malay live alongside large communities of Chinese, as well as Indians – both Hindus and Muslims. It’s the most culturally diverse place we’ve been to in a long time, with our walks around cities going through Chinatown, little India, and past the mosque, Chinese temple, church, and then turning a corner and finding us next to the Hindu temple. It’s interesting to see that as a legacy of the British rule (albeit largely under slavery) that brought these people together, it is English, and not Malay is still the common language that unites the different groups, with signs and even radio stations often using English rather than the official national language.
On our drive, Pey Shan had also pointed out the ‘New Chinese Villages’, ghettos created to hold the communist Chinese community and contain their radical politics after the withdrawal of the British. Those people have since migrated to the cities, but it makes you reflect on just how far the country has come from the days of colonialism to have such a multicultural outlook, along with a thriving independent economy too.
At the Thean Hou Chinese Temple we visited with Pey Shan in KL
It’s a strange feeling, heading home after five months away. We’re sad to leave Asia after an amazing time here, so many colours, smells, tastes and experiences – but it will also be brilliant to see folks back home again and catch up, if only briefly. I think we’re both looking forward to those home comforts – brushing your teeth without needing to use bottled water, snuggling up under a cozy duvet, and of course the delights of home cooking. We’ve heard rumours that it might even be below 25 degrees back there, but are holding out on bringing an Indian summer back with us! Of course, having said that, it’s only for a week, so before we know it, we’ll be packing our bags again and boarding a flight – destination Rio and the energy of the Brazilian carnival.
Simon
We’d like to wish everyone a very Happy Chinese New Year!
We’re in Teluk Intan, Malaysia with our good friend Pey Shan and her family to celebrate the occasion, and are happily enjoying the festivities.
Last night we had a huge feast of steamboat, and we’re about to tuck into roast piglet for dinner. This morning we saw a fantastic lion dance, about more while we’ll tell you in a future post.
All the best for the year of the dragon!
Simon & Laura xx
The feast last night!
Our train to KL
Since we last slept in proper beds, we’ve taken four ferries, three minibuses, a coach, and two sleeper trains. Its been quite a journey!
Our final couple of days at Koh Lanta were spent enjoying the sun and dodging the occasional torrential downpour. Running out of the sun lotion we’d brought with us, and keen to save a few pennies, we thought we’d take the chance to try the non-branded sun lotion. Oh how wrong we were!
At half the price of the Nivea, and SPF 25, we went for ‘body moisturising lotion’. It was only while we were on the way out for the day that we realised it wasn’t water resistant, which isn’t exactly ideal when then planned activity is snorkelling. The thick cream was more the consistency of white emulsion paint than what we’re used to, but we went for it and after a day of being a primed canvas for the red of the sun’s rays, and feeling somewhat crisper than intended, we decided we should get something else for the rest of our time on the beach.
Next up, coconut oil lotion, SPF 20, of much better consistency, and with a great tropical smell. We spent a little over an hour lying in the morning sun covered in the stuff, before the distinct smell of something frying. Bacon for breakfast? Oh, hang on… We hastily retreated into the safety of our bungalow to face the reality that we’d effectively basted ourselves in cooking oil and then rotated under the solar heat like a sunday roast. We’d been conned for a second time – there was no SPF in this lotion, despite the claims of the packaging, but at least I can reliably tell you that chicken and coconut go well together.
So it was with some reluctance that we returned for a third time, to buy Nivea sun lotion. Expensive? Yes! Worth it? We’ll let you know once the sunburn has died down enough for us to brave the sun!
Yesterday we left Thailand after a couple of fun but rushed weeks trying to take in as much as we could. The few things we’ve seen make it stand out as a much more developed place than elsewhere we’ve been, with all the trappings of a modern capitalist society along with the wats and pagodas. Seven-Eleven stores are ubiquitous and practically on every street corner; Bangkok even has British chains like Boots and Tesco (branded Tesco Lotus). Thailand also seems to have a surprisingly progressive (or nanny state, depending on whether you’re a smoker) attitude towards cigarettes. Most indoor spaces are non-smoking, a far cry from elsewhere. Cigarette packets are covered in the most off-putting photos imaginable of the consequences of smoking, and in a precursor to the restrictions due to come into place in the UK, then cigarette packets cannot be displayed at the point of sale, instead being hidden behind a screen. Even some city parks are actually smoke free, something I can’t imagine ever taking hold back home!
Curiously, Thailand also seems to have an obsession with pipes. Absolutely everywhere, pipes seem to sprout from the pavement or floor to offer up a meter or a stopcock. I know I risk coming across as an obsessed plumber, but we haven’t seen this elsewhere – at every opportunity, there are pipes and dials and taps. I don’t know why, and I’m going to pass up the opportunity for some elaborate metaphor about control or austerity.
Meters and pipes on the pavement
This should have been the train to Malaysia...
Simon
The Malaysian border
A beach on an island south of Koh Lanta
We’re here in ‘peak season’, a notch up from ‘high season’ that I didn’t know existed until we questioned the exorbitant prices of all the accommodation. Fortunately after a night in an expensive basic dorm (500 Bhat, or £10 each per night), we’re staying in a nice bungalow a short distance off the beach, which even has a fridge and kettle to tend to our breakfast and lunch needs. It’s lovely to be able to stop briefly again and soak up the sun, even if that means we’re both now sheltering in the shade after becoming slightly more red than golden brown this morning.
On our first day here, it rained pretty heavily in the afternoon. We saw the dark clouds sweeping in over the tree covered hills inland, and since we were on the beach, decided to head for the sea to see it through. I’ve heard people describe the sea as ‘boiling’ in a storm but never quite understood. Standing there as the heavens opened, it was more like the sea was carbonating around us, an effervescent bubbling of translucent blue. The tiny falling raindrops were themselves almost imperceptible and certainly invisible; far more significant were the upward rebounding splashes from the salty sea as each raindrop hit, their speed meaning that much more water leapt up than was coming down from the clouds. It was a strange taste sensation too – turn your head downwards for salt, and upwards for the sweetness of fresh water.
Yesterday, we went on a boat trip to go snorkelling and swimming at ‘four islands’, an hour south from here. I’ve never snorkelled before; it was fantastic to catch a glimpse of life beneath the waves, even if the coral reef where we were was sadly dead. It was one of those truly eye-opening occasions (albeit tempered by a face mask), with alarmingly spiky brown sea urchins nestled in the rocks beneath, and thousands of little fish swimming around, some solo and in fluorescent yellows and electric blue, others like tadpoles swimming in shoals in their hundreds around us. At one point, one of them had a nibble of my leg, but it seems it wasn’t a piraña, as I’m still here to write this! There were also jellyfish in a bewildering (and concerning) range of sizes. The first one we saw was football sized and a see-through shade of light blue. Having mastered our underwater signals, we both indicated we should avoid it (pointing at it with expressions of sheer horror on our faces), and later on, that there were actually quite a few around to be careful of (communicated by swimming quickly back to the boat and climbing out). With the sun shining through the surface creating shards of rippling bright light down to the sea floor, it was quite a spectacle as the jellyfish came into view through the clouds of dust. Some had a purple edge to their body, which was about an inch in diameter, with a long trail of tentacles behind. And then when you looked closer at the clouds of dust particles suspended in the water, you realised that many of the particles were actually also jellyfish, tiny creatures only a few millimetres long, in a swarm of thousands together. It was definitely time to get out, as a sting to my arm soon confirmed!
Inside Emerald Cave. The black hole behind us is the only way in and out.
Sunset from Phra Ae Beach, Koh Lanta. You can see Koh Phi Phi in the distance on the right.
Even here in stunning Southern Thailand there are reminders of recent horrors – in this case, of the 2004 Tsunami which wrought destruction globally. Every few hundred metres along the road is a sign with directions for the evacuation route, and huge sirens stand tall on towers over the prominent beaches. Of course, this is what was required to ensure that all-important tourism returned to these islands after the deaths of holidaymakers; one can’t help but wonder if a system is quite so well established in the multitude of rural coastal communities where whole towns and villages were decimated by the destruction that day. And of course the tsunami was globally visible, played on the world’s TV screens via the camcorder scenes of destruction from beach resorts. The threat of climate change, which will affect many more lives if estimates are correct, is one for which the warning sirens started sounding many years ago, but where we all seem to still be on the beach, admiring the view while on our cheap flight holidays – and indeed our round-the-world trips.
Simon