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Malaysia, Part 4 |
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Friday, February 29th Hazel and I bravely crossed the downtown streets to go to a park we had spotted. I say bravely because the traffic and driving style that we have witnessed is pretty special. There are pedestrian crossing lights but often no buttons to activate them. When the green man does appear he starts flashing almost immediately and you have to watch out for motorscooters anyway because they don't always obey the red lights. Another point of note is that lane markings are purely decorative. David and I have been taking turns sitting in the front of the taxi so we can share the fear. I haven't seen evidence of any car seats and have seen little children unbuckled in the back as well as very small children riding in between the parents on a motorbike. Very different to home!
(A Solanum in the park.)
There was lots of equipment spread out throughout, some designed for children and quite a bit designed for adults.
There was even a section of outdoor gym equipment like stationary bikes, elliptical crosstrainers, etc.
We spent a couple of hours checking everything out, picking up fallen tree flowers, taking photos of ourselves with our posies...
(Hazel took the one of me!)
...and chasing butterflies including this Chilaria othona or Orchid Tit (http://www.geocities.com/rainforest/vines/8983/butterflies/othona.html) which has fake antennae at the ends of its wings that twitch as if they were real antennae. We saw other butterflies and birds but none would stay still enough for me to get a picture. (This butterfly is part of the worldwide group called hairstreaks. Here's a brief video clip of one wiggling it's fake antennae. Requires QuickTime movie viewer. - Stan) David phoned to ask us to join him for lunch. So that meant braving the road crossings again. This time we were lucky and positioned ourselves in the middle of a group of locals and crossed when they crossed! I didn't think to take a picture of the food but I wish I had because it all looked beautiful and tasted amazing. David had barbecued chicken and I had grilled fish (with bones, not easy with chopsticks!). Each meal came with several small dishes of tasty things like soft tofu in seasoned soy sauce, delicious tiny anchovies that were chewy/crispy and salty/sweet, kimchi and watermelon. Hazel had freshwater prawn mee that she really enjoyed but it was difficult to eat as the noodles were long and impossible to cut and there was a lot of soupy broth. To share we had vegetable fritters, another type of soft beancurd in a delicious miso-like broth, some pieces of fried fish and a meat-filled fried snack. After lunch Hazel and I went on a mission to visit a toy shop we had spotted. It was another success as we found water wings! Our next stop was to a luggage store. For the trip we packed in two rucksacks and a small wheeled bag but we were finding ourselves short of space already. Rather than struggle I bought a medium sized wheeled suitcase.
Then it was time to head back and meet David and catch a cab to our hotel. We decided to stay at an airport hotel so that we would be near the airport for our Saturday morning flight to Penang. The Concord hotel was OK with the pool being about its best feature. Hazel enjoyed trying out her water wings, ring and ball. All the bedrooms have a Kiblat or Qiblat sign on the ceiling: an arrow showing the direction of Mecca. The hotel also provides prayer mats and the Quran. No Gideon Bibles here, that's for sure. Saturday, March 1st On Saturday morning we took a taxi from the Concord hotel to the KL domestic airport to catch our flight with Air Asia (a sponsor of Manchester United) to Penang. I love short flights where you are no sooner up than you are coming down again, like the Manchester to London shuttle. Hazel kept herself amused on the flight by "injecting" David with the syringe from her play doctor's kit and David listened to her knees and arms breathe with the stethoscope.
Once in Penang we caught another taxi to the Golden Sands Resort. I managed to get a couple of pictures of interesting buildings that we passed, possibly temples?, as well as one of Hazel snoozing. This was the first cab playing the radio -- Lite FM or some such -- with songs that you thought after all this time you were safe from, such as the classic Mandolin Rain by Bruce Hornsby and the Range or anything by Mariah Carey.
Our room is very nice and spacious with a bed spanning several timezones for me and David and a roll away bed for Hazel. The first thing we noticed outside was a hummingbird flitting about in the bougainvillea.
Our room overlooks the back of the hotel onto the main Batu Ferringhi strip and the hillsides.
We took a walk around the hotel to check everything out, including the beach, and then got changed into our swimming costumes to hit the pools, of which there are several.
For lunch we ate in the Garden Cafe and I finally had my young coconut drink. I am amazed at how much liquid it held!
The children's pool is great because it is covered with a large blue tarp to keep it shady. There is also a water slide pool which Hazel loves. Her swimming has come on in huge leaps since we've been in the water so much. She can now swim underwater for three strokes when she is concentrating. We're now trying to get her to do the same with her head out of the water, which you would think would be easier.
Video of the Big Splash! (Requires Windows Media Player)
After more swimming and pottering about we had dinner at one of the other restaurants at the hotel, Sigi's by the sea. They had a special hawker style buffet. Nowhere near as nice as the proper hawker food we had in PJ, but none too shabby. Hazel took advantage of the buffet and had a plate of fried rice followed by three desserts! Only small ones, and she has been doing a lot of swimming... While we were at dinner a storm hit. The thunder and lightening and heavy downpours were quite impressive. When we got back to the room we could hear the call to prayer from over the road. It's really loud so no excuses for saying 'I didn't hear it'. It seems to happen a couple of times in the evening and also at about 6am. We have a Qiblat arrow in this room, too. Don't worry, we have no intentions of converting, it's just interesting. Hazel is still interested in the different Indian gods we saw and wants to know all their names. Maybe we can find a book that shows them. Sunday, March 2nd
Well, we didn't venture very far on Sunday. To the pool, to the bar, back to the pool, to the room and to the beach. I started the day by attending the Tai Chi class. To be honest I was a bit disappointed. I really enjoy the tai chi class I take in Congleton which focuses mainly on learning a set form of exercises and we learn bits about the theory behind it along the way. The master who runs the course here just wanted to talk about Tai Chi and ask questions that you got the feeling you would get wrong no matter how you answered. It was just myself and another lady who didn't speak much English so she commandeered her husband to come and translate. At the very end of our lecture and grilling we did about 5 minutes of exercises. Oh well. Afterwards we headed off to breakfast at the Garden Cafe. The buffet selection is huge with a wide variety of eastern and western foods. The eastern selection includes congee and toppings, dim sum, nasi lemak and toppings, roti and various curries. The western selection includes made-to-order omelettes, pancakes and French toast with maple syrup, eggs and hashbrowns etc. Plus lovely fresh tropical fruits, cereals. There was a couple having breakfast at the same time and the woman was wearing a niqab or burka, the full gown and headdress allowing only her eyes to be seen. Hazel was intrigued and wanted to know how she would eat. I thought perhaps she would unhook the veil away from her mouth but she didn't, she just lifted it slightly to slip the fork underneath.
After breakfast we got ready for the pools and spent pretty much all day out there. Hence the sunburn on my shoulder. We've all been really conscientious with our suncream but it still sneaks up on you.
There are very few dogs around. These in the picture are two of only three I've seen our whole trip. At least it means the pavements are clean of dog mess.
In the evening we went to the beach to see the sunset.
We were going to head across the street for our supper but in the end we just relaxed in the room, still full from lunch at the poolside bar. We have also decided not to take the ferry to Langkawi. For several reasons: David gets seasick easily and the nearly 3-hour crossing has the reputation for being choppy, I didn't want to get up at a ridiculous hour to get to the ferry terminal to catch an 8:30am ferry, and we couldn't find a reliable source of information to tell us where in Penang the ferry actually leaves from! We had considered flying but the Air Asia route from Penang to Langkawi is no more. However, in surfing around to find out where the ferry terminal is, I discovered another airline called Firefly that covers the route. So we are catching a half-hour flight on Tuesday at 2pm-ish. Much more civilised! |
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