Down to the Wire in Malaysian Election

Though Malaysia has a king which follows a line of hereditary ascension AND is elected Malaysia is mostly modeled on a parliamentary system. Despite the availability of Malaysians to elect leaders, more or less the same party has been in power since Malaysian independence 55 years ago. Barisan Nasional formed in 1973 as the successor to the Alliance is the ruling party and it has been that party or say coalition in charge as long as most Malaysians can remember. This party is mostly ethnic Malay and indigenous people which make up about 60% of Malaysia’s population. Interestingly, especially where I live in Penang, there are a lot of ethnically Chinese Malaysians often called the Straits Chinese (at least in Penang). In the last election BN was upset by the winning of other parties on a scale large enough to set up opposition parties in state governments. Penang being one of those as it is ruled by the Democratic Action Party (DAP) which is largely an ethnically Chinese party and part of the Pakatan Rakyat, an alliance between three parties including two others which Islamic leanings. This election is expected to be even more contentious and though BN is expected to win the overall election the margin is set to be close. Penang will almost certainly remain in DAP control, but who knows about other states.

BN has certainly been making an effort here in Penang. Last week they held a free banquet in Batu Ferringi which I heard hosted 3,000 people. I have heard that they are giving away free grain and other goodies to communities, especially ethnic Indians, in the hopes that it will sway voters their way.

Personally I hope the alliance wins more seats. BN has an ok record, but the racism and corruption are too much. I was talking with one of my students the other day, an ethnically Indian girl, who told me she had gotten a scholarship to a local college but choose instead to come pay for our school because after college she had little chance of getting into a university in Malaysia. When I looked up the statistics I saw she was right. 70% of slots are allotted to ethnically Malay while they make up only 50% of the population. This kind of overt racism, touted as a way to help the under-achieving Malay population, hasn’t worked. In addition, I need only look to the efforts on the part of BN to buy votes to see the corruption, but I’m sure that issue goes much deeper.

Last night my friend and I stocked up at the grocery store for what could potentially be a few days at home. The election is contentious enough in our state that our school even put out an announcement that Monday would possibly be a holiday if rioting occurred. I’m hoping that no one gets hurt of course, but it sure would be interesting if that were to occur.  Probably the most interesting thing for me is that the rioting may not occur along party lines, but racial ones. 

Siem Reap

A week ago I was in Siem Reap, sweating profusely as usual. Even though my desire to be in a cool climate is quite strong, my practicality in pleasing my wife is greater. This was my second visit to the temples of Siem Reap. and being wiser, when Aya and I were planning out trip and she talked about visiting temples for 6 days I knew that wasn't a good idea. Plus, I had been there and done that so I was more interested in sitting around the pool and taking naps. In the end we spent each day getting up early and heading out to view temples, back around late morning, lunching and napping, then getting back out again in the evenings to see stuff in town. A compromise because hey, my wife and I are a good team. We did spend some mornings going to temples, 3 mornings in all. The temples were beautiful. Built over a span of hundreds of years and differing dynasties they all have their own slightly unique designs, but as our tuk tuk driver said after our third day, "Why see more? same same." I remember on my last trip here with my friend Richard we struck upon the idea of being, "all templed out." I've had that experience many times now in different places and the bottom line is that even if you have the opportunity that you shouldn’t push yourself to boredom just because this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. We took it slow. We napped, had massages, went swimming in the hotel pool, etc. and saw the sights in our own sweet time. We also saw some other sights such as the History museum, did some shopping in the night market, went to the military museum, tried to go to Tonle Sap, etc.

One of the odd things about Cambodia is that USD is used more frequently than the national currency, the Riel. Although I haven't researched it, it would be my guess that the US dollar is stable relative to the Riel. Another odd thing, which I found through a couple of arguments with shopkeepers, was that people won’t take a damaged large bill (US). They all told me that when they bring them to the bank they are charged a couple bucks for the damaged bills. Why is this? An economic mystery emerged and I began to speculate. Is it because the banks are charged for swapping bills with new ones from the US? Is it because they are charged a disposal fee for the damaged bills? Is it to discourage counterfeiting? Still a mystery.

Most things were priced as I remembered them. Tuk tuks were cheap, just 1 or 2 dollars per trip or 7 for a 1/2 day and 15 for a full day driver. Meals were slightly more expensive, but this would be expected as it has been 6 years since I was there and GNI per cap has risen about 30% since the last time I was there. What struck me most was the price of entry tickets/tours which have increased greatly. Our tickets to the temples were about the same as I remember, but at one point we went to check out a tour to Tonle Sap only to find out the tour company in charge of bringing people there wanted 50 dollars each person for the tour. So we turned around and came back to Siem Reap and went to the Military Museum (6 dollars each). This was even after our tuk tuk drivers offered to bargain down the price on our behalf to 40 each AND to loan us however much money we need. Such a nice guy, but we said no and that we didn’t have enough money. He must have thought we were dirty liars because we were staying at one of the most expensive hotels in town, the 5 star Sokra. What he didn't know is that we got a deal at 35 dollars a night compared to over a hundred normally and only because I booked at our original hotel for one day less than I should have. For 100 dollars we could have had two nights in a very nice hotel, massages each, and a nice dinner. Tonle Sap tour, not worth it.

 So I still haven’t seen Tonle Sap, maybe I will have to go back again in another 6 years. Probably the most interesting part of the trip for me was going over spots I had been to 6 years prior and seeing hordes of young college kids frequenting these places. One night sitting at Amigos I watched a group of people in their early 20’s chatting, smoking and drinking. The conversations were brash and timid all at the same time. You could tell that they were feeling each other out and that they always wanted to talk about themselves (who doesn’t?) and what they had done or seen. I am so glad I am not young anymore. Youth is great, but age brings wisdom. 

30,000 BC, the Information Age

"Ideas are the most valuable resource.  Humans have been anatomically and behaviorally modern for at least 40,000 years.  Take away our accumulated ideas, and we are cavemen." My friend David Jinkins said  that and I believe he is absolutely right.

This week I had a number of discussions with older colleagues at work that lead me to think again about how information is perceived, how vast a pool of information we have at our fingertips today. I was trying to explain the difference in information between 16GB and 16 MB (the amount of material I have made or gathered and the amount of files that were left for me by the previous teacher). I got mostly blank stares, but the difference is huge. I think I have witnessed again the idea of being on a generational cusp. Those who are just a bit older are used to seeing bookshelves and file cabinets as stores of information. Those a bit younger than me are used to looking at bytes of information. 

The very idea of moving from our caveman ancestors to what we are today is the accumulation of those ideas and the ability to store them outside of our collective memories. Information living outside of the human brain, living over vast spaces of time, must have been a fascinating prospect for Mesopotamians.

I still find it fascinating today. The printing press was the first boom in information, but by 1700 the number of books would only accumulate to about  60 stacks each as high as Mt. Everest. A staggering image, but keep hold your amazement. This was just the beginning though, humans were just to realize the true power of symbols, text was the only information technology people used, but in the 19th century things changed. A symbol of a hole or a blank space led to the creation of what some might call the first software, information to picture and back again. As long as you had enough symbols you could represent anything in the entire universe. By 1950 the  amount of information available to us had multiplied 6,000 times, or 360,000 stacks as tall as Everest. Of course those initial expansions in the way information was stored were quite bulky by today’s standards. By now the planet has built a lattice work of wires and non-wire information networks. Human computers, as they were once referred to, were crucial to the modern world, but the invention of the computing machine, the silicon chip, and the internet propelled us to where we are today. This accumulation of information by our collective society has allowed us in some ways to defeat entropy. Just by having information you could create order from disorder. By expending (almost) no extra energy you could defeat entropy, things were not destined to fall apart, but to become more complex. Of course that isn't exactly true, even the accumulation of ideas has to obey the laws of physics, but it would seem that it is only constrained by the eventuality of reaching the limits of storage, something that is becoming ever more expansive.

Every day in my life I carry a 1terabyte external hard drive to and from work. This is my library, literally. I have taken up just over 900MB which would probably be more information than any library I have ever visited contained in it. Next week I am buying a 1.5 terabyte because I am running out of space. This library in my pocket is no bigger than a small novel.  To me this is amazing. Probably even more amazing is that the current collective amount of data at my finger tips through the internet is now estimated to be about 1 zetabyte = 90 stacks of books reaching from earth to the sun. The implications of this are staggering.

Snake Temple

Last weekend I went with my friend Reed to the Snake Temple just south of Georgetown. I had heard about this place and wanted to see it, but my wife is deathly afraid of snakes so didn't get to until she was gone. Anyways, we rolled up to the temple, which is flanked by numerous shop selling rubber snakes and I heart Penang t-shirts to find a relatively normal temple. The only big difference being that there were vipers strewn about resting on alters, branches, and the tops of pictures. Signs here and there reminded us not to poke them and that we should not worry since they had no venom. Fair enough. There was a wall of pictures with people draping snakes on themselves. I can only assume this was a wall of death, intended to chronicle those who foolishly lost their lives by placing poisonous snakes on themselves.
The real attraction is next to the temple. For a 5 ringgit fee (about 1.5 usd) you can enter the Snake Farm. Not sure why its called a farm, but whatever. Right away when we entered there was this cage with a huge albino boa lolling in it. The guide told us that she and her mate (the smaller yellow snake she is encircling) had mated that morning and that is why she was so chill. I'm no snake expert, but I was skeptical. Anyways, the guide repeatedly told us to stroke the snake. I'm not a huge snake fan, take em' or leave em' I say, so I wasn't in any hurry to touch the snake. The guide proved how safe they were by picking up each snakes head and kissing it. Ok, I get it, the snakes are docile, still the kissing was a bit weird. Finally Reed got the gall to touch it and did so rubbing it from head to tail, which was about 6 meters. Apparently its good luck, but all Reed got was snake on his hand which he promptly washed off (losing the good luck in the process I might add). There were lots of other snakes in the "farm" all along a wall surrounding a courtyard. I would estimate in the walls there were about 50 different kinds of snakes in aquariums. Vipers, adders, even a N. American rattle snake. When we asked about it the guide hit the cage to rile it up and show us the rattle. We asked him if it was de-venomed like the others and he said no. When we asked if he had anti-venom he said no, but the hospital about an hour away did. Though a rattle snake's bite will kill in much less time than that so if bitten you better just make your peace. He then asked if we would like him to go behind the wall and stick his hand in the cage to rile him up more. Uh, no, thanks.
There were turtles, and iguana, a couple of other lizards, monkeys, and chickens. Two other snakes were of note. There was an 8 meter long boa, which was amazingly big. Its head was bigger than my closed fist. There was also a king cobra, pictured. King cobras are disturbing, not because they are cobras and deadly, but because they exclusively eat other snakes. Something feels wrong about that.

Singapore to Hong Kong

A quick trip to Singapore and then on to Hong Kong gave me a great break from the heat of Penang. Having lived in Penang for about 6 months now I think that I have become used to the heat each day. Now I only sweat constantly instead of constantly and profusely. I actually had a dream last night that it snowed in Penang and I can clearly recall dancing in my living room at the sight.

In Singapore the weather was mostly overcast and rainy, so that certainly contributed to it feeling cooler. I only spent about 36 hours in Singapore and I tried to do what touristy things there are, but since it was Chinese New Year half the stuff was shut down. I did see the Merlion, but I am still confused as to why Singaporeans worship a 5 meter tall half fish/half lion that is constantly vomiting. Its weird. I tried to go to the national museum, the horse races, Kinokuniya, and a number of other places all closed. Oh well, I will be back since it costs only about 30 usd to fly there! 

In HK the weather was perfect. Upper 20’s during the day and low 20’s to high teens at night. It was beautiful. If I could find a place with weather like that all year round that would be fantastic. The skies were also generally clear and HK is such a nice place because of all the mountains and waterfront. It really is a unique place. If you are looking at those photos and thinking, did he wear the same thing the whole trip? The answer is yes! (kind of) I packed a very light 4 day set and did washing at my friends so made a week long trip with about 7kg on my back. I figured, no one would really being seeing me more than once anyways so it wouldn’t matter (except for the people who read my blog, apparently). Yeah me for being practical!

Unfortunately flights to HK directly from KL (where I had to route) were expensive since it was Chinese New Year. For some reasons flights to Macau were considerably cheaper. So instead of flying direct I went to Macau then took a ferry to HK. I was staying with my friend Alex, but the first night I would arrive a bit late and the day I was leaving I flew out early so I booked hotel rooms for both of those nights. I made sure to do it far in advance since it was CNY and I knew that prices would only climb the longer I waited.

Arriving in Macau my CNY experience started off with a bang. There is a ferry terminal a short walk from Macau’s airport and as far as I knew you could not reserve tickets, plus ferries left every 30 minutes so I was pretty sure I would be able to buy a ticket. Wrong. All sold out for that day. So I back tracked to the airport and caught a cab to the other and more active ferry terminal on Macau’s main island. Not too much luck there either, but at least tickets were available. I ended up getting super class for about 50 dollars on a ferry that was leaving in 20 minutes. Despite getting in the immigration line immediately I barely made the ferry. Now, I am sure that as some of you read this and you hear the word ferry you are imagining some bulky iron boat. Not so. These are more like large streamlined pleasure boats holding 100-200 passengers. Plus, you certainly aren't imagining the young man standing next to me who was practicing martial arts on a support beam every 10 minutes or so. The ride was pretty good sailing and I got a meal with my ticket which helped me to forget about the cost of the ticket. Unfortunately I didn’t pay much attention to where the ferry would land in HK and so had to take the subway to get to my hotel. After wandering around for a bit to find it I finally arrived around 9pm. Now, because I was travelling alone and not expecting to do much more besides sleep PLUS hotel prices were jacked up for CNY I aimed to spend about 75usd for the night which left me few options. I ended up making both my bookings at the infamous Chunking Mansion on Nathan Rd. The first night I was staying at the Paris Guest House. Immediately upon entering the mansion I was overwhelmed with a feeling that I had been here before. Ah yes, it was in 1995 when I watched Judge Dredd. The crumbling walls, the hustlers and people of varied ethnicity all squishing against each other in this dystopian place brought me back, to the future. My first instinct was to chuck it in and find a nicer hotel. This was even before I reached the place where I had booked.  

From there forward, it got even better. After I had ridden the elevator in which the regulars managed to cram an extra person in after the weight alarm went off, by standing on their tiptoes by the door I tumbled out onto my floor. When I entered a couple of girls entered at the same time as me. They got to the front desk first and asked the man if he had a room for the night. In my head I was saying, “ARE YOU KIDDING?!? It’s Chinese New Year. You must be daft if you think you are going to walk into ANYWHERE and get a room.” So my turn came and I told the man, proudly, within easy earshot of the girls, “Yes, I have a reservation.” and proceeded to give him my information. Now, at first I thought that either he was sick, or he was on drugs. His eyes darted around, he avoided eye contact, and shuffled a bit. Then he asked me to sit and quickly got on the phone and proceeded to converse in rapid Hindi. Long story short, the hotel had sold my room and didn’t have another one. I argued for a bit, then hit the streets in search of another hotel.

After four hours of searching I was walking back by the Chungking Mansion on Nathan rd. when I was asked if I wanted dope, nope, or a girl (standing right there), nope, or a room, oh… uh yeah. So I followed the guy up to his guest house where he showed me the “room”  which was smaller than a prison cell. By this time it was 130am. So when I asked how much and he said 100usd I said, are you kidding? Its 130, you won’t sell this room to anyone else tonight. How about 300hkd? (about 50 dollars) back and forth we went, settling on 400hkd, the exact amount of my refund from my reserved hotel.

From there forward things went pretty smoothly. I slept through the night only hearing, “No, get your hands off of me!” a couple times from the vents leading to the dark alley next to the mansion. The next day I met my friend Alex and we took a nice hike after he showed me the school he works at , HKIS. He told me that sometimes on Fridays he hikes home after work. Lucky. Bugger. A few days of hiking, sleeping, and eating well in the very pleasant weather of Hong Kong and the company of my friend was enough to recharge my batteries. I even went back to the scene of one of the best moments of my life, where I proposed to Aya. Since Alex lives about a 5 minute walk away it wasn't hard to find, but sure was fun. I pretended to drop the ring all over again. 

We hiked the Dragon’s Back one day, a very nice hike with great views and as we were spit out near Shek O we spotted a mini-golf course. Victorious.  One night we went to dinner with a number of other teachers from his school. It was enlightening. They were all a bit older, 40’s and 50’s and had lots of experience. The thing that struck me most was the average age and tenure of teachers at HKIS. It seemed to be an average age of 45 and a tenure of more than 10 years. I think my school would be about 35 and 3 years.

Spending time in HK was great, but all things must come to an end. As I was preparing to depart I decided that I had better get to my hotel a bit earlier in the evening this time to ensure I actually got my reserved room. When I arrived the man behind the desk asked me repeatedly, “You are Kevin Hurley? Did you come here before? Where is your booking number? How do you know this is you if you don’t have the booking number?” I had not brought the print out assuming that I wouldn't need to. I clearly could see my name written on the list of customers he had for the night. Only after I produced my passport to verify my name did I realize what was going on. They had sold my room to someone else who had claimed to be me. I wondered why they wouldn't just kick them out, but it was Chinese New Year and there was money to be made. That’s my guess. Fortunately this time things turned out a little better and the guest house next door had a, better, room available. All things went well and I took the ferry back to Macau and the plane back to KL and then Penang. As I left the Penang airport the sun was just setting. I got into my car, which had been baking in the sun all day. AS I left the airport I was ensnared in traffic and got lost in the myriad of one way streets of Georgetown taking about an hour more than it should have to get to my apartment. I was home. 

New Blog

Just an FYI. I have created a new blog. This blog will be focused on economics, which I teach. Much of the material is posted just to help IB Econ teachers find resources to teach with. In addition I will be posting about current economic events, which may be interesting to some of you. You can find the link in my blogroll on the right. Hope to see you there. 

New Year's Resolution

Its the eve of the new year and everyone who can will likely head out for drinks and an evening with friends. This morning as I looked through the usual papers there is the same reflection of "this year in pictures" to allow us all to look back at the year in full scope. Most of the people of fb have already started to post their New Year's resolutions. I never really understood the New Year resolution. Of course I have made some in the past. When I was younger I just went with the flow and kind of made a few because everyone else did. A few years ago I stopped doing that. I don't feel the need to have a special day to push the reset button on something. If people see a problem why do they need a special day to embark on improvement? I rather like to take the time when most people are thinking about their flaws and mistakes to recount the good things in my life and to be thankful for all the things I have had, all the wonderful people around me, and all the great things I have learned, seen, eaten, etc. Why lament life? Let's enjoy it. This year has been a particularly hard one and dare I say it isn't over yet. I have to admit that I am very tempted to look back on the year and see the hardships, but it would be foolish to let a few drops cloud the water and so instead I think it best to move into the new year with those good things in mind. Hey, I'm healthy. Lets face it, that is a big thing to be thankful for. In addition no one especially close to me has gotten sick, injured, or died. Now that's a good year. I think this is one thing people tend to be complacent about, but when you are sick you damned well wish you weren't. We should all relish the air we breath and the steps we take because tomorrow we may not be able to. I have a job, and its a good one. I've been able to save, pay off some debts, and generally keep myself and my wife comfortable. I am doing what I love and I have been able to become progressively more and more skilled and specialized in it. I have fought for this, but even so some people have fought even harder and have had to stop short of their dreams. I can be thankful that is not true for me. I've traveled. Anyone who knows me knows that travel is my life blood. This year I went to Japan, then traveled to many different cities in China, visited America and my home town, then to Malaysia via Hong Kong, then Japan again. I traveled more in this year than the vast majority of people do in their lifetimes. I am so lucky to have a life that allows me to explore cultures and experience new things. I've learned many things. I am always hungry to learn and this year was successful as I got my master in education degree (technically last December), completed 60+ hours training in IB Economics, attended seminars, was given a grant to study Chinese Film, and read a lot of books. People tend to put learning into a neat little category like I have, but its really so much more than getting a certificate or reading a manual.Its the people I have met and the knowledge that they have imparted to me that I value most. I've met wonderfully intelligent, humorous, caring, insightful people and some ignorant, bland, hateful people as well. People often discount the interactions they have with those they don't enjoy or agree with, but I think this is a mistake. They all teach me something about myself and about the world around me and often I receive my greatest insights from people who radically challenge me. If nothing else it tells me I am on the right path. I have great family and friends who have been supportive of my choices and have cheered my success. Most of all my wife who has done everything for me from making my lunches, rubbing my feet, and most of all following me around the world. If I didn't have her I would be incomplete. Though my success this year has been modest, I owe it to her. Let's face it, its been a good year and hey, the Mayans were wrong so let us raise a glass and look to the new year. Happy New Year everybody.

Coming Down The Waterfall

As I made my way down the path about 5 minutes in I crossed a creek and assumed that was the waterfall since there didn't seem to be anything else. I kept on the path, but it started to veer off in the wrong direction. Eventually I came to a couple of arrows stapled to a tree. Neither of which gave me good information, but one appeared to point to Batu Ferringhi (left) and I knew I wasn't going that way. I continued on the path going right, which at times was hard to pick out. It got very steep and I started to feel like I was on a path that no one had been on in a while. In some places there were even fixed rope because the slope of the hill was more than 30 degrees and slippery. I trudged on cursing my stupidity as the clocked ticked by. Just over an hour after leaving the tarmac I started to hear a waterfall and shortly I was spit out at its base. Amazingly beautiful. I poked around a bit, but there seemed to be only one way to go down a concrete path covered in moss. The path was slippery and a few times I almost did a full fall, but managed to catch myself. After a few minutes I ran into a barbed wire fence. I looked around for a path around, but there certainly wasn't another path and so I just opened the gate since it had a lock, but wasn't closed. This lead me into a water treatment plant, which turned out to be the oldest treatment plant in Malaysia. I wandered around, but couldn’t see how to get out so went to a shed where some guys were sitting and chatting. I asked the way out and they told me I shouldn’t be there. I told them I knew that, but had no choice in coming in since there was no other trail and could they please direct me out. They opened the gate for me and I entered the Botanical Garden and was shortly back to my car. 3 ½ hours after starting I was back peeling off my boots.

At the Top

Once I reached the top my legs were jelly. At the top there are a few shops/cafes and at the very top a temple and a playground. I sat for 15 minutes or so to guzzle some water and snack on pretzels before heading back down. Judging from the map I had looked at there was a different trail that I could take on the way back down and this one would pass a waterfall. I walked about 3km down the tarmac which was also difficult and got to the point where I thought I should get onto the trail. The map indicates a playground, but its more like a little resting area on the abutment of a curve in the road. Its not like it has play equipment. Unfortunately by the time I thought to take a picture I was already on the trail and didn’t want to go back so no pictures of the non-playground playground.

Entering the Moon Gate

Climbing Penang Hill is something that I have wanted to do ever since I got my job here and started to research the island. There was just three things holding me back. It’s really hot here, I am a bit out of shape (because of the next reason), and my job has been so busy that I haven’t had time. The time finally came. I had been doing research and most of the blogs and things that I came across talked about hiking Penang Hill by going up a jeep track. This jeep track is paved with resident houses along the way. This to me did not sound or look like hiking and if that was the only way up the hill then I didn’t want to do it. I did find a few other blogs that talked about hiking on trails and even this site which had a map that appeared to show an actual hike and not a walk up a road. However, I had used a map from this site the last time we tried to hike from Batu Ferringhi's Bayview Hotel and that met a dead end at a fenced off dam. Also the last hike I went on we didn’t really get started until around 8am and by then the sun was up and things were getting hot. I decided not to make that mistake again. I arrived at the Botanical Gardens early and was entering the moon gate(pictured) by 630. It was still dark and cool. Along the way I got a nice spapshot of the sun's first rays hitting Georgetown(pictured). Judging by the information I had I would take a trail starting at the moon gate, passing “station 5” (pictured) along the way and ending at “station 84” (pictured) where the trail met up with the jeep track for the rest of the hike. The whole time I was on the trail I didn’t see anyone else except two very suspicious looking guys with headlamps mulling around in the woods by station 5. That was about 7am. I decided whatever they were up to I didn’t want to know. The hike was great. Certain places had stairs carved into the hill or in a few places actual concrete, but most of the trail was dirt trail. More than a few times I had to whip out the camera to take a picture because my surroundings were so beautiful in the morning light. The hike is not easy, but I wouldn’t say its very hard either. It took me about 1hr 15min to reach Station 84, but I was moving at a good clip. Other predictions I read said it would take about 2 hours. Once I joined up with the tarmac at station 84 I saw a lot of people either walking or biking up the hill. It was slow going. Just about the entire 2.5km from station 84 is really steep. I believe I saw road signs indicating it was a 30 degree slope, but some places must have been steeper than that. Information I had read indicated it would take about 1 hour to reach the top from station 84. It took me 30 minutes, but again I was really moving. I even passed a mountain biker.

Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion

Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion or the blue mansion is a world heritage site in Penang so naturally I thought this would be a good place to visit with someone from out of town. I also had not been there myself so was curious as to what it looked like. We arrived just in time for the last tour of the day. There are three daily and make no mistake, if you don’t take the tour you can’t just wander around the house. We entered the foyer of the mansion to wait for our tour to begin, but when it did the guide took 25minutes of the 1 hour tour standing in the foyer explaining the mansion and history. Basically a Chinese migrant had come to Penang, amassed a fortune, and built this opulent house sometime in the 1800’s. It was then left to rot until the early 90’s when it was restored and given the heritage site distinction. The tour’s pace was aggravatingly slow and we were not allowed to take any pictures or stray from the tour. After 25 minutes we took about 10 steps and entered the inner courtyard where she went on for another 15 minutes or so before taking 10 more steps to enter an adjacent adjoining room. By this point we were all a bit itchy to see the rest of the house because we had basically not seen anything more than what was in our site line when we first entered. A few other people had the same idea apparently because they kept wandering off to take pictures only to be scolded by the house security to not take pictures and stay with the group. Eventually we said nuts to that and wandered around on our own for a bit, got scolded, and then left before the tour was finished. I would NOT recommend this if you are visiting Penang. It is a beautiful places, but aggravatingly restrictive. You would be better off doing something else.

Ben's Vintage Toy Museum

Ben’s vintage toy museum was something we just stumbled upon. I am not sure of the origin of the museum, but it appears as though the father collected the toys and now the son is running the museum. There are two floors, the first being shelves of smaller toys and the second being mostly larger toys. It cost us 10rm to get in which is about 3 dollars US. I don’t know if I would say it is worth the price. If you are into vintage toys then it probably is ok. I always get a bit creeped out by old toys. There is something sad and scary about toys that are largely forgotten with paint peeling off and such. It’s like I am entering world that was meant to be left behind. However, the owner was quite nice and the toys were also neat to look at so I would recommend a look.

Fox Hill

We chose to stay at Fox Hill more or less for the price and the rating. It was a very nice place. About a ten minute drive from the ferry terminal in Langkawi it was far enough away to provide quiet, but certainly not where you would want to stay if you didn’t have access to a car. After the owner provided us with her background story and told us that she talks to animals we were all a little hesitant about what this place was going to be like. It turned out to be really nice. Our bungalow was very roomy and well decorated. The property itself was compact containing five or so other bungalows and a common house on about 5 acres of land. There was also a pool. We oscillated back and forth about how much we liked the place. It was a nice place, but then the owner would do something to make it even nicer, but then she would do something to make us feel a bit trapped. Let me give an example. When we arrived she had asked if we wanted to go to the night market which we did. So she lent us a car to go and return in, no charge. Very nice. However, on the way out she had asked if we left a tip to which we said no (people don’t tip in Malaysia) which brought on a ten minute conversation where aya remarked on how Japanese don’t tip and tips aren’t expected in Malaysia to the owner saying that most places included a 10% charge but she didn’t so it was up to us, but most people tip. All the while we were in her car while she was driving. It was a bit uncomfortable. I would recommend you stay here if you want a place away from the city center and you would like help in planning your time in Langkawi. Don’t stay here if you want more independence and would like to be closer to the action.

Penang to Langkawi and Back Again

Last weekend we had a friend visiting from Hong Kong and so decided we would do some touristy stuff since had done very little ourselves. Since he had about 4 days we thought we should split the time between here (Penang) and Langkawi. After doing some research we decided that the best route for us would be to drive to Kuala Kedah and take the ferry from there. At 23rm and 1.5 hrs it seemed like the best option vs. over 40 from Penang at 2.5 hours or taking a flight which was more expensive, yet faster, but wouldn’t mesh with our times very well. So we took the Kuala Kedah ferry. I was expecting something larger. What we got was more of a large cruiser than a ferry, though I imagine about 100 people were on board. The ride was nice enough. They played Expendables 2 and I napped most of the way there. I can imagine during rough seas it would be a terrible ride, but was fine for us. Arriving in Langkawi we were picked up by our hotel staff. As it turned out she was the owner. Long story short (believe me, it was long) she and her husband had recently retired and bought what was formerly a hotel property not intending to continue running the hotel. After allowing a few family guests to stay word of mouth spread and they got 5/5 stars on Tripadvisor leading to her opening up the place again under the old name, Fox Hill. The place was nice, but more on that later. The first night there we didn’t do too much. We had a dip in the pool, went into town to a night market to eat and peruse and then got foot rubs before heading back and to bed early. The next day we were up earlish and off with a car we rented from the hotel. We went to take a ride on the cable car, which I would say is well worth it for the views. The cable car had advertised itself as the steepest in the world. I haven’t confirmed that, but it did seem pretty steep on the ride up. The views were great. Next we drove to the island’s crafts center, not really worth it since the prices were out of our range. Finally on to Tanjung Rhu beach. After stopping for lunch at a roadside restaurant we located the beach and were immediately set upon by a tour guide. Our hotel owner had told us that it cost about 250 for a boat tour so when the guide said 180 we said yes. The tour was really fun for a number of reasons. The driver took us to see hawks feeding, a bat cave, a fish farm, a private beach, and lots of wildlife along the way. Driving through the mangroves was especially cool. We saw monkeys, dart fish, a monitor lizard, and lots of birds. The bat cave was neat, but kind of small. Near the end we had asked to spend some time swimming and so the driver took us to a private beach. We had it all to ourselves. As we sat in the bath warm water we watched fat purple storm clouds rolling towards us and finally decided we had better go. At that our driver came running out of the jungle in his tighty whiteys and swam out to the boat. Apparently he didn’t anchor it properly and it was floating away. He drove it back up to the beach and just as we were settling back in it began to pour. Rain was coming in sideways and it wasn’t long before we were all completely soaked. It was really fun and we all had a good laugh. Eventually we pulled in under a cliff outcrop to wait it out. We rung out our towels and waited a few minutes before the storm started to ease. Then we drove on to the fish farm. This was really interesting for me because I love fish. Not eating them persay, but just seeing them. We had a young man guide us around to different corrals and show us the fish inside by through some chum in and watching the fish scramble for it. The entire farm was a series of docks interconnected to form square areas were a large net had been attached so each square had different fish inside it. There was also a restaurant serving fish, if you can imagine. We saw Barracuda, grouper, and manta rays (pictured with mouth open) among others. After that the driver brought us back to the beach where we had a snack at a local booth before departing. On the way back to the hotel we went for foot rubs, again, and then arrived back for supper made by the hotel cook. It was delicious. The next day we were up early to get to the ferry and back to Penang. By the time we had taken the ferry and driven back it was mid afternoon. We decided to visit the Blue Mansion which turned out to not be as much fun as we thought. Being a bit dejected from that experience we headed home for a quick nap and then out to the night markets in Batu Ferringhi. Alex and I both bought lamps for our families for Christmas presents and then we had a drink on the beach at Bora Bora ending a long day well. On his last day we had some time before his flight so went to see Khoo Kongsi family …temple? It was quite hard to find and on the way we discovered Ben’s Vintage Toy Museum. After looking through the museum we had a walk through the temple and then went on to China House for lunch. China House is a really neat place. More or less it is a huge building with entrances on opposite sides of the block containing a couple of different restaurants/bars/art galleries that all seems to open onto one another. We had a lovely lunch and then shuttled Alex to the airport to say goodbye. It was very nice having a visitor and Aya and I enjoy having a friend that both of us like well. It was also good to have a catalyst for us to get out a bit to explore the island and neighboring Langkawi. Luckily for us he doesn’t live that far away and we will be making a stopover in HK on the way to Japan this winter.