Malaysia Stopover

I: Kuala Lumpur, Capital of Malaysia

Mon, 8 Jan 2007 17:40:46 -0800

a: Kuala Lumpur.

Going from California to Kuala Lumpur, or KL, as the locals call the city, is not straightforward. For the best rates, as well as for the best service, you take Singapore Airlines, which flies you to Singapore via Hong Kong. So that is what we did. When we arrived in Singapore some 18 hours later it was raining, but we just waited in their wonderfully appointed airport. The place is an architectural gem, with an orchid garden, free internet access and a large variety of eating places. If you need a place to sack out before you catch your connecting flight, they have a hotel where you can rent a room for a minimum of six hours and then in increments of an hour. All of this without having to leave the premises and going through customs. In the 24-hour food court they serve good local food; try the laksa and nasi padang when you are there. So much better than what you can get in the States, but still not as good as what you can get in Penang.

Soon we boarded our plane for the short 45 minute hop to KL. The Kuala Lumpur International Airport is just plain KLIA. It has not (yet) been named after some dignitary or rock star. It is located some 30 miles from the town of KL itself, so we took a taxi with a prepaid voucher to get to our hotel. The taxis in KL are world-famous for ripping off both the suspecting as well as the unsuspecting passenger at every opportunity. Before you get into a taxi, you better agree on a fare in advance. There are about 3.5 Malaysian Ringgits (MYR) in a US$, and the prepaid voucher was RM 67.

The Marriott Renaissance Kuala Lumpur looked quite opulent from the outside, well befitting the 5-stars they have bestowed on themselves. The rooms were large with a huge super king-size bed. There was a nice view of the town from our room, except that somebody was building another huge tower complex in front of the hotel to effectively block the landscape in the very near future.

left: View of KL from our hotel room. KL is a modern city with lots of skyscrapers. And, as befitting the tropics, lots of green.

From the hotel we took a 15 minute walk, which is quite a distance in the heat of the day, to the KLCC, or Kuala Lumpur City Center, located in the Petronas Towers.

There is a nice food court in the KLCC and during our stay in KL, we often came there because the food was tasty and the prices were very low. You can get a good meal for around RM 5 or less, which works out to less than US$2.

right: Breakfast for two for less than $6. Flavored rice with helpings of local dishes and a bowl of tasty congee with condiments and egg, and two cups of tea with milk.

b: The Petronas Towers

The Petronas Twin Towers were, until 2004, the tallest buildings in the world, until Taipei 101 was completed to take that title away. But it is still the tallest twin tower in the world. These massive buildings are the landmark of Kuala Lumpur. It has 88 above-ground plus 5 basement floors with an official height of 1,483 feet. Although the towers are constructed mainly of reinforced concrete, they have a steel and glass facade designed to resemble motifs in Islamic art.
Malaysia is a Muslim country.

High-strength reinforced concrete is less expensive than steel, and twice as effective in sway reduction compared to steel. But the building is then twice as heavy, so the foundations are also extra heavy.

left: The right Petronas tower at night. You can see the bridge at the 41-42nd floor.

With so many floors, it is a long way to climb to the top, so each building has 29 double-decker passenger elevators, where the top deck would stop at an even-numbered floor and the bottom deck of the elevator would stop at the uneven-numbered floor below. The only person who was able to get to the top of the tower without using an elevator was the French urban climber Alain “Spiderman” Robert. Using only his bare hands and feet, without safety net, he successfully climber the Towers on the morning of September 1, 2009, in just under two hours. His two previous efforts failed because in both attempts he was arrested on the 60th floor, 28 floors below the summit. Even though entrance is free, they don’t really approve of people getting up the tower on their own.

Up high the towers are connected to each other by a double-decker skybridge on the 41st and 42nd floor. It is actually not rigidly connected to the towers because of the possibility of catastrophic failure as the towers do sway during high winds, and not necessarily at the same distance and in the same direction. So the bridge actually slides in and out of the towers. This bridge is 560 feet above ground level, and 190 feet long.

right: View inside the Skybridge. You can see the huge twin solid cylindrical sliders on the ceiling to the back, which slide in and out depending on the relative position of the towers.

The views from the bridge are impressive, especially on a clear day.

below: View to the back of the towers, showing a beautiful park inviting you to walk and enjoy.

Except it was too bloody hot during the day when we tried doing that when we were on terra firma again.

below: This is the view to the front of the towers. As you can see, there are six lanes of traffic going each way. KL is a pretty busy metropolis

Visitors are allowed on the lower bridge at the 41st floor, but tickets are limited to about 1000/day and must be obtained on a first-come first-served basis. Casual visitors are not allowed into the upper parts of the Towers, and entrance is only allowed for tenants of the building and their guests. But there are other sections in the lower part of the Towers; they have exhibits, shops, department stores, a concert hall, and are therefore open to the public.

When we visited the Towers, we were first treated to a movie of the Twin Towers, followed by a tour of some of the other stuff present, including the Concert Hall and the opulent Petroleum Club. It was an impressive accomplishment. The system was also very organized as it handled the steady and large stream of casual visitors.

After the tour, we visited the very large “Petrosains Science Discovery Center”. As you may have guessed, the word Petrosains is Malay for “Petroscience”. And as you now may have surmised, Petronas is a major occupant of the Towers and Petronas, short for Petroliam Nasional Berhad, is the national petroleum company of Malaysia. Petrosains is a huge, and extremely well constructed exhibit covering science in general and petroleum science in particular, spanning several floors in the Petronas Towers.

You enter the exhibit area on a moving chair through a dark tunnel to the completely different world of the exhibit area. You go through a rain forest in Malaysia, then up the peak of a mountain, before diving into the sea and then through a video display showing the transformation of Malaysia into a modern country.

left: A pet Tyrannosaurus Rex in your backyard

In the “Exploration” section of the exhibit area you can “step” into a helicopter to “fly” to an oil rig in the middle of the ocean, where you can “walk” on a platform and explore a simulated drilling rig in operation. There are many interactive displays, science shows, a section covering the world of dinosaurs 200 million years ago, and a section covering issues to combat climate change.

below: Simulated platform with oil-drilling rig in the ocean

The there is the Molecule Nano World. where basic petroleum chemistry is made easy to understand by the displays of huge models of atoms and molecules.

And when you are ready to leave, you take the “Exit Ride”, with a video showing the hopes of Malaysia. The ride ends under a star-studded “sky”.

And then you can go shopping in the large and modern shopping center in the Petronas Towers.

left: Multilevel shopping center in the Petronas Towers building.

right: Nicely dressed Malaysian Muslim women in full shopping mode with their big bags. Across them is entrance to Isetan, a well-known department store in the Far East.

c: Chinatown

Chinatown, around Petaling Street, is also known as Chee Cheong Kai, or Starch Factory Street, because this used to be the tapioca-producing district. Like many other Chinese markets, the place always seems to be open and you wonder when they sleep. But it is best to visit the place in the evening to enjoy the night market, because during the day there is an air of somnolence everywhere because of the heat. Many places are even closed during this period. If you have to do some shopping during that time of the day, spend it in an air-conditioned shopping mall.

Chinatown is a very colorful place with little hole-in-the-wall and sidewalk restaurants; hundreds of stalls selling all kinds of stuff, mostly from China, ranging from toys to herbal medicines to binoculars to imitation leather goods and designer bags and everything in between, all at very low prices. You can bargain and reduce the price some more. I wonder how these people can make a decent living. Well, maybe they don’t. But compared to the European capitals, there is no pornography, at least not overtly; they are rather strict about that here.

Actually, there is not much difference between this and the other Chinese night markets all over the Far East. But it is still fun to walk around and look what is for sale, every time we visit a city and there is a night market. We had dinner in a small restaurant and we bought 3 Pashmina shawls for RM 80. which was probably way too much money for what you get. There are RM 3.5 in 1 US$. The problem is that the merchants immediately see that we are foreigners and the prices immediately go up. I speak fairly good Indonesian, but there are differences with the Malay used here. I also speak some Mandarin Chinese, but the Chinese mostly spoken here is either Cantonese or Teochiu. We would assume that they would give us a little bit of a status and some consideration, but the merchants really don’t give us much slack. Maybe a bit more compared to a Whylou or a white-devil Caucasian, but not much.

d: Other sightseeing stuff in KL

To get around in KL you need transportation.

left: View of downtown KL. People still walk outside, but you can always duck into an air-conditioned store, when you are getting too hot. You can also see the tracks of one of the Light Rail transit systems suspended in the air.

The buses are fine and inexpensive, but as foreigners it is hard to find out the schedules and the routes. A better deal is to use the light rail system, if there is a station close to the place of your destination. The fallback is of course the taxi.

One time, when we were in KLCC we took a taxi to Merdeka Square where the Government buildings are located, and agreed when the driver said it was close by and that he was using the meter. Well, the Indian driver made several major detours, saying that certain roads were closed, and when we finally arrived at our destination, he pushed another button on his meter and a surcharge appeared, making the total about three times what we would normally pay. We later found out that the surcharge was only if the taxi took you to the airport. I should have taken a picture of him and his meter at that time.

right: Merdeka Square Government buildings and modern skyscrapers.

After walking past the Government buildings, we visited the adjacent mosque.

Women visitors are required to wear head covering, because this is a place of worship. They provided this red scarf for us.

left: This picture was taken just outside the prayer area, which is a large open hall to the right.

We took another taxi to go to the National Art Gallery which, according to the tourist map we had, should be next to the National Library. We drove around but there was no National Art Gallery. We asked around, but nobody was sure where it was. It was there somewhere, but we couldn’t find it. And I understand it, we were not the only ones. Well, maybe the National Art Gallery was not worth a visit.

So we gave up and went into the National Library, where we became a member for Rm 1.30/per person. That gave us the privilege to use the internet. Except Yahoo was blocked for mail. It was surprising how restrictive the local authorities were. It was a major waste of time, since there was little to see and there were not even elevators to get to the 4th floor.

So we took a taxi back to Titiwangsa and from there took the Light Rail to Bukit Bintang, a major shopping center. The Lot 10 Isetan Hawkers Food Court was where we had lunch; the food was not very good. From there we ambled to the Sungei Wang Plaza, and on the 3rd floor were the computer and computer accessories stores.

We also stopped before the palace for some shots.

right: A horsed guard in front of the palace.

II: Penang

Sun, 7 Jan 2007 18:56:47 -0800

a: Flying to Penang.

For the agreed price of Rm 90, the taxi driver took us to the KL International airport to catch our Air Asia flight to Penang. Then we found out that Air Asia has its own terminal building a few miles further away. So back in our taxi to get there and I gave him an extra RM10 for the unintended detour. Much later I found out that there is actually a high-speed train connection from this Air Asia airport to KLCentral in downtown KL, the central traffic hub. And Air Asia also offers a low-cost bus service from their terminal to KL for RM 9. For an additional RM 9, they will drop you off or pick you up from your hotel. You just have to know these things.

To make things interesting, there are also three Light Rail systems, run by three different companies, who don’t believe in cooperating with each other.

Air Asia, a burgeoning budget airline has a modern fleet, the youngest in Asia at that time. We found out it is good practice to check on their fares if you have to fly in Asia. Because sometimes they have specials with ridiculously low prices. When I was looking at fares, Air Asia had a special discounted fare that day for the KL - Penang segment for the unbelievable price of RM 2.50 per person. KL-Penang is about 200 miles and RM 2.50 is about $0.75. It sounded unreal, but I booked the ticket anyway, because I certainly could afford to lose $0.75. But it was quite legitimate. But with airport taxes and fees the total was around US$10 per person. We paid more than that just for the taxi fare from town.

The Air Asia terminal in KL was just a huge hangar with bare walls, no fancy accoutrements or expensive architectural decor or furniture. Cold air was blasting everywhere from their air conditioning units. As we came inside, lightly dressed and all sweaty from the outside heat, it was pleasant for a few minutes, but then the cold air soon chilled us to the bone. And all our other clothing were in our checked luggage. I managed to pick up a humongous cold waiting for the plane to leave.

Everything else was spartan to the extreme; no porters, no staff to steer you to the right counter, no information booth, it appears. And because of the low fares, they only give a luggage allowance of 15 kg/per person. Which means that about everyone had to pay excess baggage fees, which was a considerable source of income for the airline. We had to pay RM 56 for the excess 7 kgs of our luggage.

In the waiting room we met a charming young lady named Tan Siew Ming from Penang, who offered to take us along from Penang airport to our hotel in the car of her girl-friend who was going to pick her up. We gratefully accepted her offer. We didn’t know what the girlfriend was going to think.

b: The Cheong Fatt Tze mansion.

It was still a long drive from the airport to our hotel, crossing the long bridge connecting the mainland to Penang island, where our destination was located; the Cheong Fatt Tze mansion in George Town. It is also one of the most unusual hotels in town with a lot of interesting history.

left: Facade of the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion in Penang. The building is also known as La Maison Blue.

Mr. Cheong Fatt Tze was born in 1840 and came from Guangdong province in China to Penang at the age of 16 practically penniless. But by dint of hard work, he became so successful that when he died in 1916, both the Dutch as well as the British ordered their flags in their colonies to be set at half mast. By that time he was a powerful Nanyang industrialist (the Chinese use the term Nanyang to denote the Islands south of China, which include Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia) and a first-class Mandarin in the Manchu government. He was called the “Rockefeller of the East, as well as being the “Last Mandarin and First Capitalist of China”. There are more honorary titles, of course.

right: A cool interior corridor of the mansion. In the back one can see a decorative spiral staircase leading to the second floor. The windows are of the bedrooms.

When he became rich as a merchant-entrepreneur, he built this opulent mansion at the turn of the 19th century. It was called “La Maison Blue”, a flamboyant masterpiece of 38 rooms, 5 courtyards, 7 staircases and 220 windows in the typical 19th century Straits Settlement style architecture.

There are Gothic louvered windows, Chinese cut and paste porcelain work, Stoke-on-Trent floor tiles, Scottish cast iron implements for the balustrades, and art nouveau type stained glass windows. The color of the mansion is very distinctively blue, obtained by mixing lime with the natural blue dye of the indigo plant. The walls of the mansion are covered with this lime wash; lime is very effective in the humid tropics, because it absorbs moisture and cools the house.

The most striking feature of the building is the porcelain works of art; they are called: “Chien Nien”, which is very intricate and precise cut and paste shard work. You start with specially produced rice bowls in a variety of colors, glazed on the outside and unglazed on the inside. Using special pliers, small pieces are then delicately broken off to provide small shards of colored porcelain, which are then pasted with a lime putty to form elaborate patterns and figures of men, women, animals, flowers and diorama scenes from Chinese mythology and history. Chien Nien is a strictly Fujianese and Teochow skill and the work here is the best outside of China.

left: Detail of one of the many porcelain artwork on the walls. A piece has fallen off the red figure just left of center. Each petal of the flowers is a shard of porcelain.

.To preserve this jewel of a house, so that it would not be divided, Cheong Fatt Tze put the house and its contents in a trust, stipulating that it could not be sold until the last of his “official” sons died.

Well, this son lived to be 74 years old, and by then it was 1989. The building was in disrepair. There was a trust fund, which paid 250 dollars/month for the upkeep, which was a lot of money in 1916, but only worth RM 250 by 1989. So the last daughter-in-law rented out parts of the building just to make ends meet. The old man was a quite virile specimen, apparently, because he was already 75, when this son was born.

The center courtyard was the heart of the house and the source of “Chih” for the house. There are 4 pairs of columns surrounding the courtyard, under which gold coins have been placed to ensure prosperity.

right: Main courtyard of mansion

In 1990 a husband-wife architectural firm negotiated removal of the tenants and started the restoration of the building, using the same type materials as in the original and using the same building techniques. But Laurence and Mrs Lin Lee Loh did put in electrical lights and modern bathrooms and now they have 16 rooms for guests. More and more people now come here, and reservations have to be made well in advance because the place is so unique. The building has won many architectural awards, including a National Architectural Award for Conservation in 1995, a UNESCO Most Excellent Heritage Conservation Award in 2000, a Best Tourist Attraction Merit Award by Malaysia in 2003, etc. So far the Lohs have invested some RM 8 million in the venture, the money coming from private sources and bank loans. Even with continuing work on upkeep and restoration, they are now self-sustaining from the income from the guests, the daily tours, and rentals for weddings and other special occasions.

left: Bamboo still life in the mansion.

Breakfast was in an open building adjacent to the central courtyard. As befitting a place in Penang, breakfast was very good and varied, even though it has strong Western overtones. Most of the guests were taking things easy and were unhurried. This is not a commercial hotel, where you come just to sleep and bolt down your breakfast, but you are reliving a piece of history, a museum, and a very unusual place. The big treat was a historical tour of the mansion by Mrs. Loh herself. That was free; the three other tours during the day require admission fees and are led by a member of the staff.

One afternoon we ordered a one-hour massage for each of us. Two Indonesian women in their early thirties came and gave each of us an invigorating massage in tandem for which the charge was RM 85/person. For Penang that was quite expensive. But it appears that only a small pittance go to these women; most of the money goes to the pimp. The women are not much more than his indentured servants. This man recruited them in Indonesia, promising them a good job, arranged passage on a boat from Indonesia to Penang (journey of three days from Indonesia), gets them their papers, and supplies them with food and lodgings. In return these women have to work very hard every day. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them are also forced into prostitution. Anyway, it will take them years to pay off their debt, because the pimp also demands the tips from his women.

There is of course more to see in Penang than just this mansion.

There is an Indian temple with very elaborate decorations on the outside, depicting many Hindu gods. Very colorful and charming, but quite standard for Hindu Temples in the Far East.

right: Hindu Temple in Penang

left: Street scene in George Town, Penang. The houses are still colonial-style.

c: Food in Penang

How is the food. Good. I will probably never make a living writing about food, because I only have a rudimentary perception on how chefs create their masterpieces, notwithstanding watching countless episodes of the Iron Chef and the inimitable Jacque Pepin. Those are my wife’s favorite shows. So my taste is unschooled subjective. Which is just fine, I suppose.

The good cuisine here is the regional cuisine. You can get it from restaurants, in the evening outdoor hawker’s markets, in little roadside hole-in-the-wall mom-and-pop eating stalls, and in the food courts in the shopping malls. This is food for the masses, not only for the privileged few. Penang food is a little bit on the spicy side, which is just as well, because it will help preserve the food and reduce the chances of getting food poisoning, something we have to be aware of as tourists. Why the food is so good is because here they know how to use the right combination and amount of the many spices available.

Our first foray into food in Penang was to have dinner at the hawker’s market adjacent to Cheong Fatt Tze. Huge expectations; mediocre results. And over the days we were in Penang we did try the regional cuisine in the various venues, with mixed results, but the average was definitely still a B+ to A-. The best place we visited was Mama Restaurant, 31-D Abu Siti Lane, 10400, Penang, an establishment serving Njonja food. We had fish stomach soup, a delicately flavored shrimp curry, a sautéed vegetable dish, and some otak-otak, which is steamed fish paste in a flavorful pandan leaf, all for around $18. Excellent food. That was an A+

Njonja is Mrs in Malay/Indonesian. In the old days “njonja” was also the mistress of the house. If she was of Chinese descent, she would probably be middle-class and she would cook both Chinese and the local Malaysian/Indonesian dishes. This developed into the Njonja cuisine, a beautiful and tasty culinary blend of these two different cultures. But if the “njonja” was caucasian, she was upper-class and she would certainly not bother to cook, because she would have enough servants to take care of this onerous task. This was colonialism country, after all. So there was no major group of housewives trying to blend “Zuurkool en Worst” (Dutch for sauerkraut and sausage) or steak and kidney pie with the local cuisine of the domestic staff.

Eric, the manager of Cheong Fatt Tze, offered to take us and a few other guests for dinner. He didn’t want to say where, just that it would be very good. That was very kind of him and so we accepted his offer with the proviso that he would be our guest instead. After all, the salary of a manager is not very much, and he had invited a total of 6, the two of us and a family of four from Sydney. Where did he take us to?. Surprise!!. Mama Restaurant, of course, where the food was wonderfully good and guaranteed to clog your arteries if you keep eating it for six months.

One day we had lunch in the “Opera”, a small, modern Chinese “fusion” type restaurant, on the short list of recommended restaurants from the hotel. It was just a 5 minute walk, but it was certainly no fun at all slogging through the heat of the day. Lunch started with a beautifully presented chicken wing, nicely spiced, and wrapped in a pandan leaf for additional flavor. The main dish was fish, also nicely spiced, but differently than the appetizer, and steamed in a pandan leaf. Dessert was ice cream and a fried banana inside a crisp crust of mille-feuille, maybe a little bit thicker than usual. All this for RM 16 (around $5). Beer was RM 10 a bottle, because the Government wants to discourage the consumption of alcohol. But so was the mango lasik, a blend of mango juice and a thin yoghurt drink.

right: Main entree at the “Opera”. The folded green banana leaf package contains the perfumed steamed rice. The fish is in the pandan leaves in the middle. There is a lightly dressed salad, and there are pickled vegetables and there is another dish on the side.

In one evening we took a taxi to the Little India area for dinner at Sri. Here they serve Indian food, using Indian spices and Indian cooks. The food was good, but Norma, my wife, thinks it is was not better than the Indian food we get in Berkeley, California. The picture below may surprise you, because you would be expecting something posh. But Little India is almost like a hole-in-the-wall take-out place.

left: Little India is a simple restaurant. Most of the eating places in Penang are simple and directed towards the average inhabitant.

Missing from this list are the top-end restaurants. No we didn’t go and eat at any of them. I don’t even know where they are in Penang. I have the feeling that in these high-end places the emphasis is on presentation and international flavor and less on adventure. You’ll often find the same stuff in other expensive restaurants all over the world.

You note that we were using taxis to get around. It is just too hot to walk or to take public transportation. Cheong Fatt Tze will get a taxi for you, who will charge you a flat rate of RM 8 for a trip to anywhere in town. And the same rate to pick you up anywhere in town and bring you back to the hotel. But the fare to the airport from our hotel was RM 38.

d: Pulau Pinang or Penang Island.

When I speak of Penang, I actually mean George Town on the island of Penang, which is part of the State of Penang. This island is on the West Coast of the Malaysian Peninsula, in the Straits of Malacca. At one time it was named Prince of Wales Island, when it was occupied by the British East India Company in 1786. It is about 8 miles wide, and about 12 miles long, from north to south.

George Town itself is on the Eastern shores of this island, facing Butterworth on the mainland over a narrow strait of water. To get to the mainland, where the airport is located, you have to cross the 8.4 mile long Penang Bridge. This toll bridge, also called Jambatan Pulau Pinang, was opened in 1985 and it is the longest bridge in Malaysia. It is a matter of considerable pride to Penang, that the bridge was designed by a local engineer. Toll for cars are RM 7.00. Before the bridge was constructed you had to take a ferry to get to the island, which was a time-consuming affair.

So we took a half-day tour of the island. Our first stop was the Snake Temple, in Bayan Lepas south of George Town.

As we entered the smoky temple we saw snakes everywhere; on the chairs, hanging over branches of plants in the temple, and in other unexpected places. Many of them are venomous pit vipers and they all look asleep, presumably being so rendered by the pervasive smoke of incense burning everywhere. However, there are warnings everywhere not to pick them up.

right and below: These bamboo “snake-racks” allow the snakes to settle comfortably in the surroundings.

These are poisonous green vipers. Note the brown discarded skin of a snake in the middle of the rattan structures.

The trilingual sign in Malaysian, English, and Chinese warns the visitors not to touch the snakes. If you do, it is at your own risk.

The temple is adjacent to a forest and the snakes are said to come from this forest into the temple on their own accord. Or maybe also because food, such as eggs, are provided for them. The caretakers tell us that the snake population has dwindled considerably over the years, because encroaching civilization has reduced the size of the forest behind the temple.

The temple was built around 1850 in memory of a Buddhist monk, Qing Shui, who lived in China during the Song dynasty (960 - 1279). Legend has it that this monk gave shelter to the snakes in the jungle, making him the patron saint of snakes. After the temple was dedicated to him, snakes appeared there on their own accord.

Behind the temple is now a commercial snake farm. The owner showed us a 7 meter long python and other smaller pythons.

right: A 7-meter long python taking his afternoon siesta.

There were a great variety of other snakes in glass terrariums, most of them venomous. Well, if you need some snake venom, this is a good place to get it.

From there the tour took us to the town of Balik Pulao in the “mountains” on the West side of the island. Most of the rural development on Penang island is on the East Coast; there are fewer settlements in the hilly West.

left: A bucolic stream next to the road.

The town was busy, because it was Sunday and there was a market going. A few miles further north we came to Kampung Sungai Pinang, a typical Malay village, where the houses are built on wooden poles, which are inserted in concrete blocks in the ground. The guide tells us that the population used to move often, probably because of the crops, and this way they can move the whole house easily from one place to another.

Going north we came to the fishing village of Pekan Teluk Bahang. There was a harbor with many fishing boats being moored there.

right:. A row of fishing boats at anchor at the Pekan Teluk Bahang harbor.

Close by there was a small batik factory, where local artisans were working on placing the patterns on the batik cloth, which can be cotton, silk, or rayon. The pattern is first printed in wax on the cloth and the color is then applied by hand in the empty areas. The wax pattern prevents the color from running. You will find this activity all over South-East Asia.

From there going northwest along the coast took us to Batu Feringgi, the coastal resort area in the north of the island. There are many vacation condos there, because the beach is nice with good sand on them and big boulders in between.

We skipped the pewter factory. Pewter is big here, because there are a lot of places where tin is mined. So the driver drove us back to George Town and dropped us off at the Prangin Mall in downtown, where we had lunch in the food court on the 5th floor. I can’t remember what we had and how it tasted. It could not have been very good or bad; we would have remembered.

left: In the Prangin Mall.

Prangin Mall is huge, noisy, and easy to get lost in. It is the largest shopping mall in Penang. The lower floors are populated by those huge faceless forgettable international department stores, but the higher floors are more interesting. Here you can find the local stores selling local stuff. On the other hand, shopping malls are now ubiquitous appendages in large cities. After a while most of them look the same. I am obviously a failed shopoholic.

III: Malacca

Fri, 5 Jan 2007 20:24:23 -0800

a: Going to Malacca

We had visited Malacca a few year earlier by taking a day tour by bus out of Singapore. Malacca City is situated two-thirds down the West coast, 148 km south of Kuala Lumpur, it is located 245 km north of Singapore.

From Singapore our bus drove over the Causeway through the Singapore checkpoint and then through the Malaysian checkpoint. There are many Malaysians who live in Johore Baru and work in Singapore; they have to cross this Causeway twice daily going to and from work. To reduce traffic congestion the Singapore Government charges S$30/day for cars coming into Singapore on workdays between 2 am and 7 pm. But not only humans and cars cross the border here. Singapore purchases water from Malaysia for S$0.03/1000 imperial gallons, and treats it to make it safe for human consumption. In Singapore you can drink water from the tap without any fear. They also sell part of the treated water back to Malaysia for S$0.50/1000 imperial gallons.

We had just settled down for the long drive to Malacca, when the the air-conditioning of the bus conked out. So we had to wait for a replacement bus which luckily managed to show up only 30 minutes later. Large sighs of relief as we drove off. But after some 10 minutes we stopped again; this time to visit a pewter factory. I suspect either the bus driver and/or the bus company gets a cut from the sale of their pewter to the visitors bussed in. With some thinking the bus driver could have telescoped these two events into one.

Pewter is 97 % tin, 2 % antimony, and 1 % copper. While each of the components has a very high melting point, this particular combination, which is a eutectic, has a melting point < 200℃, making it much more easier to process. There are many places in Malaysia where tin is mined in open-air mines. At one time, Malaysia was the world’s largest producer of tin. Now the deposits are getting exhausted and not much tin is mined anymore.

left: A pewter worker in Malacca

Pewter is melted in the wok on the far side and the molten metal is then poured (ladled) into a form. When cooled, the pewter is removed from the form and then, depending on what the final product would be, machined in laths to the desired products or just polished to a high sheen before being put on sale. Excess pewter is put back in the wok closest by.

After the visit it is on again to Malacca on the very good highway,

We saw many palm tree (Elaeis guinenses) plantations on both sides of the road. These trees yield palm oil, naturally reddish in color because of the high beta-carotene content and used as a very desirable cooking oil base. From the kernel is derived palm kernel oil, higher in saturated fats and hence higher in melting point. Both are major export products of Malaysia. These trees take 4 years to mature after planting, and their subsequent economic life is 25-30 years. There are some 140 palm trees in a hectare.

We also saw many rubber plantations, The rubber trees take 5 years to mature, after which they can produce rubber (latex) for 25 - 30 years also. They can be planted in a much more dense pattern than a palm tree. Some 400 - 450 rubber trees can be planted in a hectare. There were also plantations with young teak tress, and fruit trees such as papaya and durian.

b: Malacca

The name Malacca conjures vision of colonial buildings, pirates and the teeming bustle of the Tropics. It was actually not that long ago that pirates did indeed infest the Straits of Malacca. For a brief period, in the 13th to 14th century, the city was one of the greatest trading cities in the world, but today it is just a sleepy little town with a medley of historically and culturally interesting sites. Malacca does not even have a train station; the nearest one is located in Tampin, in the adjacent state of Negeri Sembilan. But it does have an airport, located at Batu Berendam, about 8 km away.

The city was once so coveted by the European powers that the Portuguese writer Barbarosa wrote that "Whoever is Lord in Malacca has his hand on the throat of Venice." It was a major port along the spice-route, and its harbor bristled with the sails and masts of Chinese junks and other spice-laden vessels from all over the hemisphere. Because the city was originally built of wood, there are no crumbling and stately reminders of the power once wielded by the Malaccan Sultanate. The wood had rotted away over the centuries. But along shores of the Malacca River the scene has probably changed little as they have done for hundreds of years. Chinese merchants still advertise the wares inside their shop houses with bright red characters. Open-air fruit, vegetable, and fish markets sing with cadences of people bargaining in Mandarin. On the edge of the city is the largest Chinese graveyard outside of China, a sprawling zone of fields, trees, and uterus-shaped tombstones.

Although its origin is as much romance as history, the fact is that the new city was situated at a point of tremendous strategic importance, midway along the straits that linked China to India and the Near East. Malacca was perfectly positioned as a center for maritime trade. And so the city grew rapidly, and within fifty years it had become a wealthy and powerful hub of international commerce, with a population of over 50,000.

It was during this period of history that Islam was introduced to the Malay world, arriving along with Gujarati traders from western India. By the first decade of the sixteenth century Malacca was a bustling, cosmopolitan port, attracting hundreds of ships each year. The city was known worldwide as a center for the trade of silk and porcelain from China; textiles from Gujarat and Coromandel in India; camphor from Borneo; sandalwood from Timor; nutmeg, mace, and cloves from the Moluccas, gold and pepper from Sumatra; and tin from western Malaya.

Unfortunately, this fame arrived at just the moment when Europe began to extend its power into the East, and Malacca became one of the very first cities to attract its covetous eye. The Portuguese, under the command of Alfonso de Albuquerque arrived first, taking the city after a sustained bombardment in 1511. Sultan Mahmud fled to Johore, from where the Malays counterattacked repeatedly, but without success. One reason for the strength of the Portuguese defense was the construction of the massive fortification of “A Famosa”. The “Porta De Santiago”, is part of only a small portion of these fortifications, which survive today.

right: The remains of the Porta De Santiago

“A Famosa” ensured Portuguese control of the city for the next one hundred and fifty years until, in 1641, the Dutch took the city after an eight-month siege and a fierce battle at the end. Malacca was captured, but it was in almost complete ruins. Over the next century and a half, the Dutch rebuilt the city and occupied it largely as a military base, using its strategic location to control the Straits of Malacca.

left: Remains of a Dutch Fort, now a museum.

Close to the ruins of the erstwhile Portuguese Porta de Santiago are the remains of the Dutch fort, which has now been transformed into a museum. On the left wall are some tombstones of the Dutch upper echelon.

The inscription on this tombstone is in 17th century Dutch:
“Hieronder leyt begraven Reynier d’Dieu in syn leven oppercoopman in de de???comp overleden de ?? 1663”.

Unfortunately, some of the inscription have been damaged.
But from the available the text I was able to translate to: “Here below lies buried Reynier d’Dieu, in his life senior trader in the VOC ? (United Dutch East Indies Company), deceased on ?? 1663”

In 1795, when the Netherlands was invaded by the French Revolutionary armies, Malacca was handed over to the British by the Dutch to avoid capture by the French. Although they returned the city to the Dutch in 1808, it was soon given over to the British once again in a trade for Bencoolen.

We walked around around the city, mainly along Jonkers Street. This used to be the “Herenstraat”, which translates as the “Street of the Gentlemen” in Dutch. There is a Herenstraat in Amsterdam, which is a highly respectable street with stately mansions on either side.

Here, in Malacca, the houses were narrow on the outside, but they can be as deep as 150 meter. I don’t know whether they had the same system as in Hanoi, where in many areas the width of the houses is small, but they compensate by adding several stories and going quite a way to the back. This is because property taxes are based on the width of the house and not on the volume or size of the building.

We passed the reconstructed Stadthuys (Dutch for City Hall) and administrative center, replete with a small windmill. This area looks very Dutch.

left: Entrance to the reconstructed Stadthuys in Malacca. Next to this building was a (non-operational) windmill to give it a more Dutch flavor.

For lunch we had an excellent buffet at the Equatorial Hotel, presumably the best hotel in town. The buffet was amazing. They must have some 40-50 dishes from different cuisines.
The picture shows that they even have something unusual as fish head curry.

right: One of the many serving station they had for the buffet.

c: The Cheng Hoon Teng Temple

Then we stopped at the Cheng Hoon Teng Temple, which is the oldest Chinese temple in the country. It was built in 1646 by a Mr Lee Wei King with materials shipped all the way from China. The name stands for "The Abode of the Green Merciful Clouds”. Covering 4,600 square meters, the temple is a superb example of Southern Chinese architecture. Its gabled roofs, with curved ridges and eaves, are magnificently decorated with mythological figures, animals, birds and flowers in colored glass and porcelain, called Chien Nien porcelain art. The entrance is guarded by two lions, reminding worshippers to practice "filial piety" towards their parents, said the guide. I did not get the connection, but I suppose he knows what he is talking about.

. The temple is dedicated to Kwan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, whose statue is enshrined in the main hall.
The side halls are dedicated to Ma Choe Poh, the Queen of Heaven and protector of fishermen and sailors; the red faced Kwan Ti, god of war, patron of literature and upholder of justice; and Sui Tai, the golden-faced Goddess of Wealth.

left: The opulently designed entrance hall of the Cheng Hoon Teng Temple

In a rear hall, memorial tablets commemorate temple leaders. A carving on a stone tablet made during the sixth year reign of the Chinese Emperor Kar Keng, in 1801, state that the temple was named Ching Hoon (Green Cloud) because all merchants who bless the temple with wealth, will rise from the green earth to the pure, heavenly cloud. The temple is located in Jalan Tokong

Above: Some of the Chien Nien porcelain art on the gabled roofs of the Cheng Hoon Teng Temple.

In the temple there is a strong emphasis on what happens after death. The belief is that the deceased can be well provided by burning paper replicas of stuff they may need in the place they will be, wherever it is. It must have been a sneaky paper merchant who thought of this idea.

So in the shops around the temple you can purchase paper replicas of a large variety of necessary and luxury items for the dearly departed, such as money (always good to have), cellular phones and computers (they must have broadband internet access in Hell, Heaven, or Purgatory), exotic foodstuff (in case the food there does not agree with you), first-class tickets for Hell Airlines (in case you need to go elsewhere for vacation or business) and luxury items like cars and yachts (always nice to have as backup).

left: A top of the line paper boat to offer a wealthy deceased.
The paper boat pictured on the left is obviously not designed for speed, but does come with a well-caparisoned crew ready to party with the deceased and his guests. When the stuff is burned, the essence of the item presumably goes to the deceased, wherever he or she might be.

d: St. Francis Xavier.

Born on April 7, 1506, in the Castle of Xavier near Sanguesa, in, Navarre, Spain, St. Francis Xavier died on December, 2, 1552, on the Island of Sancian near the coast of China. After the Apostles, he is considered one of the greatest missionaries of the Church. In the last 10 years of his life he visited India, Malacca, the Philippines, Japan and China and made huge number of converts. He visited Malacca four times.

On one of his visits, the story goes that he lost his crucifix at sea. On that particular day there was a big storm and his boat nearly capsized. He held the crucifix in his hand and said a prayer, and then he dipped the crucifix in the rough sea, which immediately calmed down.
Unfortunately, the crucifix slipped through his fingers and it fell into the sea. He was obviously extremely saddened by the loss. But the next day, while praying for its return, he was surprised to see a crab crawling up the beach to him holding the crucifix in its claws. With great joy he picked up the crucifix and blessed the crab. And on the shell of this crab, there was a distinct sign of the cross. These species of crabs are still found in the Straits of Malacca; Portuguese fishermen believe they are sacred and are not to be consumed.
This crab, the scientific name of which is Charybdis feriatus, a species of the Malacostraca family, is now quite rare, because the mangrove swamps where these crabs thrive, have rapidly disappeared because of urbanization. The crab shown was caught in 2011.

right: A Charybdis feriatus crab with a cross on its back.

This story is obviously hard to believe, but there was actually an eyewitness to this incident. He was a Portuguese gunner, Fausta Rodrigues, who wrote it down in his dairy, which is now on display in the National Museum in Lisbon, Portugal. And in the Chapel of the Royal Palace in Madrid, Spain, the crucifix of St. Francis is displayed with the scratching of the crab's claws still clearly visible.

St Francis Xavier died off the coast of China in 1552 and his body was first buried in Malacca for six months before it was shipped to his final resting place in Goa, India. The Church in Malacca requested Rome to confer sainthood on Xavier soon after his death, but it took years for Rome to take action. In 1614, the Pope requested the right hand of the Saint to be severed from his corpse and sent to Rome. Blood was said to have gushed out of the hand even though he had been dead for 62 years. St. Francis Xavier was finally canonized a Saint in 1622. The remains of the right hand in Rome had become just a skeleton by then. But the body in Goa, with the right hand missing, remains incorrupt.

In 1952 the Bishop of Malacca decided to put up a statue of the Saint in front of the St Paul's Church. A Cararra marble statue was ordered from Italy, created by the famous sculptor G. Toni. It was installed during the fourth centenary celebrations, on March 22, 1953.

left: Statue of St. Francis Xavier without his right hand.

But soon afterwards, on a very quiet and wind-still night, a huge tree fell, burying the statue. On clearing the branches, the statue was found to be completely intact except for the right hand, which had broken off. On St. Paul's Hill one can still see the statue of St Xavier standing there, looking out serenely at the surroundings, without his right hand.