Hester's Head

Our trip home continues. There are a few port visits on the way home 'to achieve some DFAIT objectives' but also for some rest and relaxation. Did I mention our fuel stop in the Maldives? I was duty there so I didn't get ashore to do anything. It looks like a beautiful place with beautiful resorts that I want to go back and visit. The place is all islands - the airport is it's own island. There are Airplane taxis to take you from island to island.



Our latest stop was in Port Klang on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula.

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There isn't a whole lot to do in Port Klang so it was fortunate that we were about an hour bus ride from Kuala Lumpur. That was the longest part of the trip to my hotel - the NOVOTEL. Taxis are remarkably cheap in KL and there are various ways of paying your fare. You can barter with the driver, pay by the metre (very rare), or pay up front at a taxi voucher station. All three leave you open to getting ripped off. The bus dropped us off at Times Square very close to a taxi voucher station. I asked to go to the Novotel and was charged 7RM (Malaysian Ringgit - 7RM is just over $2; each Canadian dollar was about 3 ringgit) and given a voucher. Three of us got in the taxi and I handed the driver the voucher. He went down the street, turned around, came back, went down a back street, turned around, came back, went through a parking lot, across the street, and then stopped in front of the Hotel Nova. That's not where I wanted to go, that's NOT what it said on the voucher. He said that's what I paid for. I showed him the voucher. He said I bought the wrong ticket. I said it says "NOVOTEL" right there on the voucher. Mike pipes up to remind me that I paid $2. I said "Excellent point, let's get out." We got directions to the LRT and headed off. Another taxi driver hailed us and offered a ride. I asked how much to the Novotel, and ensured he knew the difference between the Hotel Nova and the Novotel. He assured me he did and that 10 ringgit was a good deal. I said ok and we made it to the hotel without any further issues. Except... I had only told the front desk my name when they told me I had a message from the Canadian High Commission. What the? I stared at the guy as he was giving me the mobile number and work number of the High Commission. After looking around the room and checking out the view (it was all construction and no Petronas Twin Towers) I made the call. I was told that they called me because I had volunteered to do some work at an orphanage and that they wanted me to know that Amarjit would pick me up at my hotel at 0740 in a black Honda Odyssey, license plate number 22-103-DC. Ok. Cool. Awesome. It was starting to come together. We took the LRT back to the mall to get something to eat and do some shopping. Food was amazingly cheap as well - there were plenty of Chinese pastry shops that I LOVE. We shopped around, looked around, and I think the only Gary found some stuff to buy - he bought some things for his drum kit. I was still looking for an iPod, but there are still cheaper at Future Shop than anywhere else. I'll check out Hong Kong too, but I don't expect much different. For dinner we had some more Chinese - they even had abalone on the menu. You can't get it in North America - it's endangered our something. But I have had it as sashimi before and it was incredible. The steamed abalone I had for dinner was not near as good. But dinner was good; it was enjoyed by all of us. It also kept us out of a sudden downpour. We walked back to the mall from there - it wasn't far but it certainly was confusing. It should have only been a block but we couldn't seem to find it. We kept asking for directions and kept getting sent in various directions. We finally found it just as another downpour was getting started.
The next morning we met back at the mall for breakfast before heading to the Batu Caves. I had the same breakfast I had in Singapore - kopi coffee and toast with kaya. I didn't have the runny eggs, as I wanted to save some room for the Chinese pastries. We did the taxi voucher thing again - this time there were five of us so we took two taxis to the caves. 18 ringgit for each cab - about $6.

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It was quite a sight to behold even as you are driving up to the caves. There are Hindu temples, a great arch to pass through, a huge golden statue of Lord Murugan (don't ask, I don't recall), souvenir shops and vegetarian restaurants. The smell at the bottom is of an open sewer but that just encourages you to get climbing sooner. There are 272 steps to the entrance of the caves. There are tourists and pilgrims visiting the caves and everyone is greeted by monkeys. The further you go in the caves the more monkeys there are. The caves are huge and well prepared for visitors. The Thaipusam celebration is held here every year. That's a procession of a million people of which many have things to themselves - hooks through their skin hold lead weights, rods that pass through both cheeks, spikes digging into their flesh as they hold up decorations and other weights. It all seems too painful. They can walk up the stairs to the caves and walk on well-cemented floors once inside the caves. There are more Hindu temples inside. The caves are open to the sky in a few places so there is a considerable amount of light inside. At the very back of the cave there is a huge hole above so it is quite green. The monkeys here are a nuisance and there's a guy maintaining a shop to buy things for the temple that has a secondary job of running after the monkeys and chasing them off with an orange stick. If you set anything down the monkeys will come over and check it out. You can buy small flower garlands to leave at the temples, but if you set them down leave them unattended for long you will probably find that a monkey has rooted through the bag and ate the best of the flowers.

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There was a side 'dark' cave where you could go on a guided tour. There are more monkeys here and they seem to have even less fear of people. I had a water bottle hanging from my hand and a monkey tried to take it from me. He had both hands and one foot on it and was trying to boost himself up to get his fourth foot on it. The tour guide said the monkeys must be thirsty; sometimes they will sink their teeth into the bottle and steal your water. I pulled the bottle away and held it up - the monkey crouched low as if prepared to spring up in the air and grab the bottle. So I left. I'm not a fan of monkeys. The dark cave tour was over 30 minutes and included a few cockroaches, two dogs, and a LOT of bats. I saw a few circling around opens in the top, but they made a constant racket. We went quite a ways into the cave, close to 600m I think, and came back again. At one point we stopped and turned our helmet lights off. I put my hand up to my face and couldn't see a thing. I then waved it and imagined I could see that. I asked if we were there long enough that we would get some night vision, but the guide said to have that we would need at least some ambient light and that this was pitch black. Seemed pretty dark to me. This is the sight of KL as you exit the dark cave.

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After the caves we planned to go to FRIM - Forest Research Institute of Malaysia. So we had to take taxis. Taxis can be great, taxis can suck. This time they threatened to suck. It was 18 ringgit to get to the caves; they wanted 180 to get back. That was per taxi. They told us they would take us to FRIM and wait as we would not be able to get a taxi once we were there. Whatever. We argued and fought to get them down to 75 ringgit a taxi before we gave up. We walked away and they called us back and finally gave in at 80. The 5-ringgit difference was $1.67 so we agreed. Things were fine after that. We had to pay to drive through the gated entrance - the taxi drivers weren't fooling when they said that we would not be able to get a taxi inside. It was a holiday and there wasn't very much open. There was a 30m high walkway through the jungle canopy that was closed, so we went for a hike on the jungle floor instead. There was a pond there too - at first we thought it had huge koi, but it turns out these creatures are dragonfish.

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These beasts are 6-7 feet long with huge catfish like mouths. The taxi drivers found some bread and were throwing it in the water for them to eat. The fish would swallow it down with about two gallons of water. You can see that the water was very murky. It was rare to see their heads so when they passed by it would look like a long dragon neck going through the water. There were at least three of these fish, as well as some much smaller white fish (maybe 18 inches long) and some long thin translucent fish. And a couple small turtles that seemed to follow the dragonfish around. Our walk in the jungle was hot and steamy - to be expected, I suppose. The racket from the bugs was unbelievable. For the first 15 minutes I thought there must be some construction nearby -the insects sound like circular saws and power drills. One tree had two boxes high in its branches that I studied - I expected to see speakers. The sound was incessant and loud. Some smaller trees right on the path seemed to be the source when we came close - but standing three feet away and staring at it solved nothing. There were no obvious bugs on the tree - the trunks were bare enough to be plainly seen. Maybe there were a million big bugs inside the trunk drilling their way out. I can't tell you how crazy this sound was. Maybe it was the ants?

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After that the taxi drivers took us downtown Kuala Lumpur and dropped us off in front of the Petronas Twin Towers. They are magnificent stainless steel buildings. I have a LOT of pictures of the towers.

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There are 1600 free tickets handed out each day if you want to go to the skybridge on the 41st floor. You had best be getting up early as the tickets go fast. I never made it and I don't of anyone who did. We wandered around it a bit. But the mall on the bottom few floors is another one of those places where there's nothing for me. We went for a drink down the street at the Beach Club and then walked across the street to have dinner at the Thai Cowboy restaurant. It was hard to get food but we were finally told we could sit outside and get some Thai food. The food was very good and the place was very nice, except for the occasional flow of hot humid air over us. Either a fan was being turned off or some boilermaker was being turned on, but it would be unpleasant and uncomfortable for about a minute. Malaysia is a Muslim country, so it's not easy to find alcohol. There was a cabinet of it beside our table, but all the bottles were the same and had labels with a name, number, and a date on them. I asked and found out that they were bottles of Chivas. You can buy a bottle there. They label it for you and you have two months from the date you purchased it finish it. Kinda cool. Kinda wished I had taken a picture of it. There was a little more rain, but it wasn't too bad this time as we headed back to the twin towers to take some pictures of them at night. I wandered around again but still bought nothing. There was a Burger King but I wasn't interested, as we had already eaten.
The next morning Amarjit picked me up promptly at 0740 in the black Honda Odyssey. There was a crew of about 20 of us from the ship and several from the Canadian Embassy doing some volunteer work. Those of us they picked up from the hotels hadn't had breakfast so we asked to stop somewhere. Amarjit stopped at McDonald's, but it was too early to go in so we "walked" through. You had to be careful what you ordered. The prices were cheap so you didn't know you were ordering a meal when you asked for a sausage egg McMuffin. The first guy through ended up with two sausage egg McMuffins, two coffees, four hash browns and an orange juice. The counter person didn't instill confidence so it was hard to predict what you would end up with, but we had no problems. Everything has to be in its own bag though. Each Chinese pastry in its own bag, then everything in one big bag. The McDonald's coffee in a plastic bag, the hash brown in a small brown bad, the McMuffin in a small white bag - then everything into a big bag.

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Rumah Shalom means "House of Peace." There are three homes - two for girls and one for boys - where they have children who have been abandoned, assaulted or sexually abused. There was some yard work to be done, some painting, and some plumbing.

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The plumbing was all 1/2 plastic pipe and the walls were all concrete. Not a good mix and it made it hard to get things done. This sink in the bathroom was an unthreaded tap sitting on top of an unthreaded pipe - a facecloth was providing the friction to hold it together and minimize the leakage. The good thing is that entire floor is like a shower stall - it is sunken (a bit) and has a drain. You could spill all you wanted on the floor and it will just drain away. The tough part was getting the water turned off. We went to the street to turn the water off but that only turned the water off to the first floor.

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We were finally told that there was a tank in the attic that fed the second floor. Gary volunteered to go up there to shut it off. The first valve he attempted opened something that shat out this black murky water with black bits in it all over the bathroom floor. The pipe was sticking only about an inch out of the ceiling and this murk missed me by less than a foot. I yelled at him to turn it off without cursing too much in front of a couple of the little boys who trying to help out. (I don't think I was completely successful) But they took it all in stride (the curses and the mess) and grabbed a ladle and washed all the muck down the drain. How they could stand there in their bare feet was completely incomprehensible to me. Gary finally discovered which pipe he needed to turn off and then found that there was no valve. We never did get the water shut off. A couple guys from the embassy helped out. They took over - I made no effort to stop them. We worked fast, cut some pipe, covered it in glue, plunked it on, and held it for a while. The leak was stopped and it looked good.
There was another leak in the courtyard that was just as challenging as it was where the pipe exited the cement wall. The embassy guys had no qualms about chipping away the wall to get enough purchase to fit another pipe over and get it done. Gary and my first two tries (might be more than two - we tried a number of different things until we cracked the pipe and ruined it for good) were only partially successful. At least here we could turn the water off. Our crew also helped install a fan in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Malaysian plumbing made me feel queasy, but I wanted nothing to do with Malaysian electricity. Gary also fixed the handle of the downstairs toilet. That wasn't as tough, it was just the attempt to describe what was needed and then having someone get it from the hardware store.

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The embassy bought pizza for everyone! The big chore outside was cleaning the yard and painting. I helped a bit with this too, though I don't feel like I accomplished very much on the day. Our crew painted one outside wall of the house, the interior of the courtyard, and the interior of the wall surrounding the yard. There was also much digging in the yard, laying more dirt and planting quite a few plants. The yard, thanks to the paint, the removal of trash, and the plants, did look a lot better when we were done.
After this Mike and I went back to the twin towers again. We had some traditional Malaysian dinner there, looked around a bit, and I finally bought something. A pencil with eraser and sharpener for doing Soduku puzzles. We had some gelato before we were done for the day and left.
The last day in KL I went out on my own. I had a big day planned - I wanted to see the Old KL Railway station, National Museum, National Mosque, National History Museum, the Railway Administrative Building, Dataran Merdeka, Sultan Abdul Samad Building, Jamek Mosque, Cathedral of Saint Mary the Virgin, Sri Maha Mariamman Temple, the KL Tower (and do the Bukit Nanas Forest Reserve hike at the base) and the Malaysia Tourism Centre. I did it. It was a bus ride, four trains, a number of taxis, and a few miles on foot. A better map would have served me well. Better planning would have been better too. Later I was looking at the route I took and was shocked at the unnecessary traveling I did. Get a map out and check this out. I went from the Old KL Railway Station by taxi to the Nation History Museum, walked to the Bandaraya train station, took it past the Jamek Mosque to Plaza Rakyat station to walk through Chinatown to find the Sri Maha Mariamman Temple, got on the train at Pasar Seni and went back to Jamek Mosque station. I could detail it all like that, but it would wear me out almost as much as the actual trip did. Anyone want the details?

OKOK!

I took the ship's bus to the Times Square, had a Starbucks and more Chinese pastries for lunch. I took the Monorail to the KL Sentral Station, walked through there looking for the Old KL Railway Station (which was not anywhere nearby) walked through a bazaar, found a real liquor store that also had condoms - I had to buy a pack for $1. Just cuz!),

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I did some shopping under the hottest steamiest tarps and plywood ever. I bought an Arsenal jersey and a two t-shirts for $23. I fought with a cab driver that wanted to charge me 10 ringgit when I only wanted to pay 5 to take me to the National Museum. I keep forgetting that 5 ringgit is about $1.67. So I went and had a look around. It was a very nice place and had plenty to see. There were displays on hats their leaders had worn, the national car (the Proton - they have the first one, a 1985 Proton Saga) the Thaipusam celebration, the Batu Caves, games they play, and even circumcision. It's a big deal - a huge ceremony. The entire nation is involved in a Royal Circumcision. There was a panel of pictures from one boy describing the process.

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There is a special doctor for the procedure and it's a very special day. He said it hurt no more than an ant bite though. Those little ants I saw marching through the forest? I don't get it - they must have saber-toothed tiger fangs cleverly concealed somewhere. There was also a display of some artifacts that they've recovered from shipwrecks. A lot of the displays had buttons you could press to turn things on. I suppose so anyway, most of the buttons did nothing and a lot of the displays in this building had been removed. The highlight was a darkened display saying, "An unidentified object on the ocean bottom." You press the button and take a look. Thanks to my keen eye this object is now identified. It is an 8" long cannon. And it's not on the ocean bottom; it is 2" away under water under glass. I think they were trying to make it look like it was a LONG way away. I saw through that right away as they had failed quite spectacularly. Almost as spectacular as how Malacca got its name, but I will tell you about that later. You can read it for yourself.
From this museum I had conflicting instructions on how to get to the National Museum. A lady told me to turn left and go over a bridge. Two guards told me to turn right and follow the road. After looking at a map (much later) I can see that it was a lose-lose situation. I would either go over a bridge and get lost in the KL Lake Gardens or get lost on the highway. The map shows no route if I head left and it shows big thick lines and overpasses if I head right. Get lost on the highway I did. I went right and took a lot of left turns after that. Get a map. Don't make me tell you again.

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I did find the Old KL Railway Station first. Cool. (I'm trying to cut down on the pictures - I think I was a little generous with them last time, I don't want to spoil everyone) I had a look around, took a few pictures (I only took 280 in KL, I didn't go crazy like Dubai), looked across the street at the Railway Administrative Building and wondered what that was. I went around it, found out, and saw the National Mosque across the street. I'll go find some more pictures - what was I thinking when I included only 24? I did a lap around the mosque - it is very funky. Its dome had thirteen ridges for the Malaysian states and is a 5-pointed star for the five pillars of Islam.

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I walked back to the train station and took a taxi to the National History Museum. This was a very well done museum. The have the history of the country from ancient times, follow it through its many permutations. An area was even called Malacca for a time. The naming is interesting, I think.

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Malacca is still the name of the straits between the west side of the Malay Peninsula and Indonesia - it has staked a claim to fame as the world’s number one spot for piracy. (I may have mentioned in an earlier blog - there are a few hundred incidents of piracy here every year) I'm still not kidding.
I have a bathroom story at the museum that I will mention only by mentioning it. It's a story I don't plan to tell. I will tell you I had to pay 2 ringgit to an old lady when I left. I gave her all the shrapnel I had - less than two ringgits for sure. Thanks for nothing. Thanks for not having toilet paper.
I took some pictures of the Merdeka Square where the first Malaysian flag was raised in 1957. Malaysian is 10 years, to the day, older than me. I turn 40; they turn 50, on August 31st. They have a bigger party planned. And I can't go; I'll be stuck in Halifax.
I walked past the High Court and the Sultan Abdul Samad Building and completely missed the Jamek Mosque.

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I saw the Cathedral of Saint Mary the Virgin and a very funky fountain. A train went by so I went looking for the station.

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I should tell you about the mopeds. They have no rules other than stop at red lights. They wend their way through traffic, even if they have to take the sidewalk and end up packed at the front. So at every green you see a few dozen of these things zip off.
Anyway, I walked to Bandaraya station on the Star Line (which, as you can plainly see, is way out of my way. WHAT? I'll find you a link.) Or this.

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Here's the link to the map's website.

I started at the black dot - the green line are trains, the red are taxis, and the blue are simplified walking routes.

A guy gave me directions and helped me find the station I needed. Do you think I could walk 30 feet and remember "Plaza Rakyat"? I had to go back twice and the guy finally gave up and asked the ticket agent himself for my ticket. Thanks!
From the plaza I walked through another semi-permanent market/garage sail. I bought a $3 pair of Hanes shorts (not underwear) and MORE Chinese pastries. After asking for directions a few more times (fewer and fewer people speak English every year) I ended up in Chinatown.

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A group of school kids had a class project for me. They asked me some questions about Malaysia as they practiced their English skills. They intercepted me as I was trying to buy this year's All Blacks World Cup shirt. I got it for $11 and the merchant was very helpful in translating their English for me and my English for them. "Militia" was most confusing; it even took the seller several tries before I realized they were saying "Malaysia." I told Mike about that the next day and he knew where I was going right away. "They meant Malaysia?" It seems I'm not always quick and clever. After that and a few more stops for directions I made it to the temple.

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Now I needed directions out. I was directed to Pasar Seni station, which was remarkably close. I zipped to the Jamek Mosque and took some pictures of it.

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From the mosque I took the first metered taxi (it might be the only taxi with a metre in KL) to the KL tower. The metre started at 2 ringgit and ended up at 3.20. A dollar. That's it. It was also the end of the convolutions in my travel. The far right leg of the "M" now had a long narrow long on the inside that crossed and headed up to the right.

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I did a guided nature tour before I went up the tower. It was an energetic one-hour hike through the jungle. There were plenty of spiders to be seen and one monkey. The same monkeys as at the Batu Caves, but these guys have not been fed and the one we saw stayed 30 feet up in the trees 20 yards away. There was also plenty of bamboo. Huge tall bamboo. Some of it that used to be used as buckets when you cut the segments, and the same stuff they use as scaffolding in Hong Kong. (I've seen it - it's a little alarming to see 40 stories of bamboo scaffolding) We also saw Touch-me-nots. They did as described and folded their itty-bitty leaves when they were touched. The tour ended with us running for the tower as another rainfall opened up. On my way to the top they announced that the visibility was very limited. I walked around, took more pictures, didn't think the visibility was that bad, had my picture taken in front of the twin towers and then headed out.

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I thought it would be a decent walk from the KL Tower to the Malaysian Tourism Centre, but the rain was coming down hard. The taxi voucher station asked for 15 ringgit. She said "one-five ringgit" and I assumed that to be 1.5. Wrong? What do you mean? Why so much? I guess they charged that because they could. It was the most expensive leg of my trip. But the rain was coming hard.

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I had to run to here:

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Halfway there I was amazed at how wet I was. I walked around, looking around, and then the rain came HARDER. It sounded twice as hard. They had a good restaurant there so I had dinner there before taking the Monorail (as the rain started again) back to the Times Square mall and the bus back to the ship.
All my travelling, all my meals, drinking and eating, an Arsenal jersey, an All Blacks shirt, two t-shirts, and a pair of shorts cost me $40. That was my bill for the entire day. Gotta like it. Too bad it was so hot and rained so hard. It was another great port visit, perhaps the best one (I've liked them all a lot so far - I think Goa is still clinging to #1) so far. I hope I get a birthday invitation.