Malaysia & Laos
February, 2013
Kerachut Beach, Penang National Park
Laos
Wat Xieng Thong, Luang Prabang
South East Asia
Malaysia and Laos
2013
Monday
Sitting on the balcony of the 19 th. floor of the Alila Horizons over looking the 30 million year old virgin rainforest, just 200 meters away. Anne-Marie and Margaret are eating rillettes, discussing the dangers of lychees in the jungle, and Ann Marie explained how she could smell a reticulated python under her house in Langawi, and how one peed on her after been caught in her storm drain. It had been eating her cats.
It all started with a cold dark wet snowy Monday morning in early February. A 6 am taxi to Victoria, train to Gatwick, airside by 7.40 {compare cost £56 with a taxi}. An Emirates Boeing 777.300, off in a dark snow storm after a 30 minutes delay waiting for the de-icer. Up up and away through the clouds to a bright dawn, a sun last seen weeks ago. Always reminds me of skiing, this time over the clouds. A full flight we are cramped in steerage. A beer and good lunch { see menu}
Article in FT; “News via an App or Browser; which platform” I am getting old!
Arrive Dubai 4.45 UK time, 40 minutes to make connection. On to a full Airbus A330, another meal see menu, arrive Kuala Lumpur 0.45 our time, 8.45 local time. Massive new terminal, embarrassing when compared to LHR, even terminal 5.
Tuesday
A shuttle bus , 20 minutes, to older airport TCCI, on to an Air Asia Airbus A320-200, arrive Penang at 3.00 afternoon local time. Plane full of local Chinese petit bourgeois, it is Chinese New Year, year of the snake.
Collected by Ann Marie, back , swim in their substantial swimming poll with its lovely landscaping, beer as clouds swirl around the jungle. Heavy rustling in the bamboo, black Langour and grey Macaque in an argument, two species fighting over territory, a parallel to current problem in Penang between the local laid back Malay and dominant hard working Chinese.
Wednesday,
Awake at 11 in the morning, swim, the to Georgetown to Sami’s Batik for M’s retail therapy. I wander. Noodle lunch, back for siesta. Indian meal at Duan Pisang Sri Ananda Bahwan. Not bad for 90 Ringgits. M buys dress with natural Rayon from a tree bark from China.
Bad night, kept waking between vivid dreams; Landing at Wandsworth airport involving time travel on a bus, visiting Tony’s new house , having an argument with a bus driver on Fulham road and running with M and walking through a building site from the airport to the bridge. The other involved chasing a thief through a school, half in a film half in reality!
Thursday.
Gave M a Valentines present, she forgot. Kanga the taxi driver collected us at 9 am, off to the Tree Top Jungle walk at Sungai Sedim past the new massive High-tech Park at Kulim, one of the worlds leading producer of microchips. We past dark foreboding forests of fern encrusted oil palms, which replaced rubber trees, and reminiscent of dark forests of fir. This monoculture has destroyed an eco-system
Happy, back after 35 years to the real virgin rain forest, a “Hill Dipterocarp Forest” full of Muranti species and my creeping Rattan Palm. [Have a small sample} My connection with the cane baskets mother made and I made at open-air school.
And of course Lloyd Loom furniture, especially dirty cloths baskets in the bathroom
A Nasi Goring Kampong meal at Lee Yah Corner, for 28 Ringgit for three, including Rempeyek biscuits. Village stir-fried rice with chicken.
Back via The Penang Bird Park, they have an extensive collection including marvelous large hornbills, eagles, owls, parrots, bulbuls etc, etc. Malaysia has 760 varieties of birds
Friday
Back from my jungle hike, and typing this in a tropical downpour and rumbling thunder. An excellent if very hot and sweaty, 8 kilometer hike up and down the jungle track to my idyllic beach. See photos and my first sketch with words. I just love the contrast between the white sand and deep green glossy leaved trees that overhang. Unfortunately there were a few other people there this time. On my way a Chinese man asked me where the rain was, I was sweating so profusely. I am now rather red, giving M an opportunity to have a go at me “You should have…..” “I told you to…..”
The fern; Dicranopteris linearis, resam
The moss; Selaginella willdenowii, paka merak
A small collection of natural objects, a nut, some pressed leaves, small bits of driftwood, and a large barnacle like a volcano, seeds of the Rattan Palm plus sample of stork, sample of the harsh white granite sand in a muji bottle. All for the box of curiosities, true souvenirs, taking a little bit of a place to maintain a sort of magic connection. Similar to my tendency to touch when overwhelmed by a place, connect to the genus locus of a place, its spiritual content.
I am puzzled by the statement the jungles in Malaysia are 80 to 130 million years old. i.e. here when the cretaceous chalk beds were being laid down and during the whole Alpine orogenisis.
“The Indo-Malayan rainforests are the oldest in the world….laying undisturbed for an estimated 130 million years”
Insight Guide to Malaysia
Surly some climate change was have affected it. But it does explain the incredible variety of plant species in the jungle, all looking rather alike, glossy ovoid leaves with drip ends, only the size differs. There are 2,000 varieties of trees, including 200 palms, and 150,000 species of invertebrates including 1,000 species of butterfly and 12,000 of moths. It is claimed that one hectare of jungle contains more species than the entire UK. Thank you ice age!
Must look into the rate of evolutionary change.
Saturday
Seriously at leisure, rather red and stiff. We cancel our trip to the Cameron highlands and go for an elegant lunch in the Farquhar’s Bar of the high colonial Eastern and Orient Hotel
Notes;
Orang utan Orange man
Orang asli Indigenous man
Orang tua Old person
Orang cacat Disabled
Chinese admiral Cheng Ho, 1411, explorer, when did China turn in on itself.
Sunday
Girls go shopping and I am free. First to the lovely Botanical Gardens, a beautiful lay out, most well kept and full of, for me, exotic species. Cannon Ball tree and Apple Palm, Podocarpus { conifer?} and dipterocarps, {Always I think of dinosaurs}
Then a real wander through old Georgetown, empty as it is Sunday. There are over 100 religious sites; Islamic, Taoist, Confucian, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist [Theravada and Mahayana] Christian [Catholic, Protestant, Methodist, Presbyterian} Walk down “The Street of Harmony” previously Pitt Street, start at St. Georges Church, then the Confucian Goddess of Mercy Temple, followed by the Hindu Sri Mahamariamman Temple and ending at the Kapitan Keling Mosque.
Notes;
The Leong San Tong Khoo Kongsi, billed “The Heritage Jewel of Penang. A heavily restored and redecorated association’s ancestor temple.
The Han Jiang Ancestral Temple of the Penang Teochew Association, Chinese emigrants in 19 th. Century from what is now the Chaoshan area of China
Dr. Sun Yat Sen, father of Modern China, lived in Penang and instigated the Xinhai Revolution.
Malaysia is the future; growing at 5%, unemployment is 3% and it wll have achieved developed nation status by 2018.
See the large bill board in Penang to buy an iconic piece of London at Battersea Power Station, recently bought by a Malaysian group of investors, and Air Asia owns the football team Queens Park Rangers, and promotes it in its in flight magazine
Monday
The flight to Kuala Lumpa on a Airbus A320-200, stay at The YouniQ Hotel, a new hip hotel in a very dull Bandar Baru Salak Tinggi Business Park and associated simple café, with alcohol free beer.
Tuesday
Up at 4 for 5 am collect back to the LCCT, Low Cost Carrier Terminal, for Air Asia flight to Vientiane, capital of Laos, and new full page visa in the passport. To the very nice Salana Hotel, check in early.
Visit the cities two main sites, That Luang, the great Sacred Stupa built in 1566 by King Sayasetthathirath, and the Patuxay, Victory Gate built in the 1960’s with American cement meant for the new airport, echoes of Nasser’s Cairo tower in Zamalek, Egypt.
Back for an hours deep massage, M very happy, and supper of fish at the French run Douang Deuane Restaurant. Here we met two Belgian men, the first of many travelers conversations, M loves it.
Wednesday
Our Air Lao flight to Luang Prabang is cancelled so its back to town for a Vietnamese noodle soup into which one soaks salad at Pho Dung, 44,000 kips for two inc Beerlao
Finally fly out on a very new Airbus A320-214, for a twenty-five minute flight, to the legendary Luang Prabang, and I add to my collection of sick bags. The journey by bus takes up to 10 hours.
Notes;
Postcards are now redundant, one can whatsapp app a photo, or e-mail. Saving postage, the problem of bringing the card back unsent. Even better photo the postcard and send it, nearly always a better photo.
Thursday
Obviously I have been to busy/lazy to keep up with my diary, will add notes later
Sitting on the balcony of the Ramanyana Hotel in Luang Probang with a glass of Californian red wine. From a box! It is six o’clock in the evening and I am waiting for M before we go for some serious retailing in the night market, sorry present buying. I am just going to buy mini Buddha’s for a box, resisting the urge to buy old silver Piastre coins of French Indo-China, fakes as too light, old banknotes, stone axes, they also must be fakes, and pairs of strange figurines, male and female.
The dusk is creeping up over the hazing hills on the other bank of the mighty Mekong. Incidentally the 10 biggest rivers on earth. It is a perfect temperature as I look out through palm and tropical trees and the sound of Tut-Tuts busying away like large busy bees. The passers by are classic, pre kid back packers and post kid oldies. In Laos no one hoots their car horn, it is quite incredible, so gentle, it has to be the most laid back of countries
The hotel was built in eclectic vernacular, mock Tudor with low temple roof and gables. It was built by the French and given to the King whose palace was over the road. The communists overthrew him in 1975 and the palace became a museum to their unbroken rule from 1351-1975. The family disappeared up country whilst being re-educated, echoes of the Russian Royal family. Back the building, the eves are at my eye level with a charming fretwork fringe.
This has been our first day in Luang Prabang, and most successful, for M there is both the shopping, quality and tat, and food, street food last night for £8, a tasting Lao lunch today. M is quite fascinated and is doing a cooking course tomorrow whilst I explore the other bank of the Mekong. Then we check in to the Apsara Rive Gauche hotel before a Lao meal at the Tamarind. For me many Buddha’ s in their Wats, and a happy M.
It has suddenly become humid, just as the sun set, beads of sweat are appearing all over me, and totally windless. Now too dark to type, more later!
M got her presents and I got my little Buddha’s. Pleasant if unexciting meal where we met a middle aged couple who had been bussing around South East Asia for three months, cheaper than living in England. An example to us all, she was desperate to talk to us, even a husband can become boring.
Note;
Couple watching, who has the guidebook, who pays the bills, who walks in front?
Friday
Done the morning market next door to our hotel, bought some peanuts still on there stalks, then to the banks of the Mekong watching the women returning from the market with their two baskets on a bamboo pole. This is still a true market economy; with few shops they buy their needs fresh and daily. Now having breakfast, waiting for M. Can her the murmuring of the women selling the fish and exotic vegetables behind me. It is so quiet and gentle here. We get a tuk-tuk to the Apsara Hotel in the old town overlooking the Nam Khan River and its ferryman who takes us across the mythic “Stykes”. We have moved from the pre-kid “backpackers” to the post kids “trolleys”!
M goes off for her Lao cookery course and I take the Ferry across the Mekong for a walk in the country. Dusty road, traditional stilted timber framed houses with their ground floors now filled in with concrete blocks; modernity! Walk along paths past scrappy paddy fields, it is the dry season, and woods of big leaved trees, you can hear the leaves fall onto the litter below. Pick flowers for pressing, and seedpods. Why am I so obsessed with collecting seedpods?
Log thin boat back with three saffron draped monks and giggly girls.
To the small ethno museum TEAC, demonstrating the four main ethno linguistic groups in Laos; Austro-Asiatic, the Kuhm, Sino-Tibetan, Akha, Hmong, Yao [H]mon and the largest group, the Tai-Kadai
A fast fried rice then back to the temple Wat Xieng Thong with a postcard, to compare and one hour “uncamerad”, attempting to sketch it, study the roof lines and gable ends. The decoration on top of the roof is a “dok so faa’ and the gable a “dok huang pheung”.
Supper was an organized tasting meal at the Tamarind Restaurant for twelve people. We spoke to a couple of German girls on one side and a really in your face Venezuelan girl and her quiet French husband from Toulouse on the other. We were the last to leave, and had difficulty finding the boatman. An evening of fascinating exotic foods, the demise of Europe and travelers tales of South East Asia.
Note
White Temple at Chang Rai, Buddhist baroque in style
How to categorize photos;, Cliché landscapes, flowers, Family, Us At, signs, architecture, Then and Now’s, Wat temples. And also what to do with them; a form of sympathetic magic, taking a piece of it home, to bore friends with.
Number of smart Chinese registered cars in Luang Prabang, a further sign of things to come! Copies of BMW four wheel drive cars.
Saturday
To the most incredible waterfall I have ever seen at Tad Kuang Si, some 28 kilometers outside Luang Prabang. Unlike most waterfalls that are in the treeless mountain this one falls through butterfly filled dense jungle. Initially a long fall through a fissure in the tree clad cliff, then the river rushes over massive steps into aquamarine pools where I swam. A truly “ hold the moment experience” cool water, dense trees above and bamboos around, all backed by blue sky.
A Tuk Tuk back only to have a serious stomach upset, now in bed dropping Immodium wile M has supper with a charming American couple we met at Breakfast. Every day new travelers with new ideas of where to go, what to see, and how long to spend traveling.
Sunday
Our tour to the Elephant Village at Xieng Lom, founded by Markus Peschke. A very well laid out and maintained home for 16 ex logging elephants. Two per elephant we went for an hours ride down to the river, along it and back up through the village. M became a mahout as we were waded along the Nam Khan River, really charming and natural. This was followed by a boat trip up river in a classic long thin canoe to the unfortunately dry Tad Sae waterfall. Finally a swim in the Shangri Lao swimming pool. Air-conditioned bus back and an immediate siesta, I am still in recovery mode. The other members of the group were all girls in their mid twenties, a sisterhood of travelers
Note;
The cock crowing in the smell of wood-smoke, the sound and smell of every village in the morning.
Drawings of 19 th Century Luang Prabang by Delaporte
Spirit house= Autels des Genies
The greatest fear of every tourist; the phrase that strikes terror; “ You mean you did not see/visit……..”
Monday
Last day in Luan Prabang, gentle cool misty morning, a swim, retro feel breakfast, pack, wait, and last wander around the old town. LP is very much a town of two parts; the old town on the isthmus with its two story balconied colonial villas converted into elegant boutique hotels and the commercial area around the palace with its simpler hotels and homestays, the first for the post kid trolley market and the second for the pre kid backpacker market. A full street food meal in the downtown area is the same as a coffee and croissant in the upscale designer discrete café’s in the old town.
The charming English owner wishes us good by and it’s off the LP’s human scale airport, where we walk across the tarmac to the steps of the plane, just like the old days. The owner Ivan Scholte is a great friend of Doodie Pearce’s son, who has just given up a city job to run a hotel in Goa. He is fascinated by our B&B business.
Into Vientiane, imagine South London built in the 1960’s with three story concrete buildings rather poorly maintained. Dull and fly blown. It is only relieved by the many extravagant gold and red Buddhist temples with their layered roofs dragon gables and towering gateways. They are busy both renovating and building new ones. Religion is booming, the communists have given up.
It is really difficult to see this as a communist country, except for the occasional state run hotels and restaurants. They are so similar to Eastern Europe in the old days, large plain rooms with uncomfortable furniture, all very puritanical. It is Chinese style communism, free market enterprise but do not question social or political policy.
Air Lao flight back to Vientiane, in the same very new Airbus A320-214. We are given a bottle of water and a bag of dried fruits. The airport at Vientiane had, blazoned over its extension ways, “ICBC, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China”. Similar to Heathrow with its “HSBC ………” The banks have won.
A pleasant meal at Douang Deuane, we shared an excellent Quenelles, Mok Paa Fok, for 30,000 kips and I had fried rice with chicken with extra pineapple for 24,000 kips. Long chat with sweet young Dutch girl, currently travelling alone, and feels completely safe. Back to the lovely Salana Hotel, by 11.30 this capital city is totally quiet, no cars or pedestrians in the streets, there appears to be an unofficial curfew. Another strange thing, there are a lot of large white four wheel drive cars driving around with darkened windows, NGO’s or Government officials
Tuesday
Back to airport in soft morning light to catch Air Asia flight to Kuala Lumpa, our luggage together weigh 39.44 kilos, just inside the limit but our trolleys are over 8 kilos, we take out books and jackets, re weigh, and are awarded with a label. Another hurdle jumped.
Now on the refreshment free Air Asia Airbus A320-200 flying over Thailand on the 2.5-hour flight south to KL. M is watching her Inspector Montelbano on her ipad
Land at LCCT, take the bus to KLIA, check big bags into left luggage, noodle & fried rice lunch and then the KLIA Ekspres train direct into KL in 28 minutes for 70 Ringgits return. A plethora of multi story office blocks dwarfing the few colonial building left, and the neo-Tudor Selangor Country club, so beloved by the British. But the main objective is away from the downtown, the new district dominated by the Petronas Twin Towers, like two piles of thick silver coins, and the five level shopping mall, seriously up market with marble floors throughout. Think of a pair of Shards on top of Westfield. Poor KL is very dull modern, as opposed to Bangkok, which is fun modern. Can this be attributed to the puritanical aspects of Islam?
Back to the airport to meet Kamal, Heba’s friend from school, who has her own law firm in KL, with a driver and housekeeper. She buys us a very pleasant Asian meal in the airport. We discuss Heba and the threat posed to Malaysia by the growing Islamic fundamentalism, often driven by the young, which she finds worrying. She says many wealthy people are taking precautions, often buying property in UK, Battersea for example
Notes Books on Laos
“Travels in Siam Cambodia Laos Annam” by Henri Mouhot, 1858- 60 published by White Lotus. He re-discovered Angkor Wat and is buried in Luang Prabang.
“Travels in Upper Laos and Siam, 1882” by D. Neis, White Lotus
“Travels on the Mekong” by Louis de Carre with sketches by L. Delaporte.
“The Mekong” by Milton Osborne
“The Ravens, Pilots of the Secret War in Laos” by Christopher Robbins, Asia Books.
Notes Books on Trees
“A Field Guide to Tropical Plants of Asia” by David H Engel, Marshall Cavendish
“The Book of Leaves” by Allen J. Combes, Chicago University Press
Notes on Towers
The Burj in Dubai 829.8 metres
The Petronas Tower, KL 451.9 metres
The Shard, London 309.6 metres
Wednesday
We hang around the increasingly deserted airport until our flight to Dubai is called. Once again M always seems to be six people ahead of me as we queue. We have secured seat reservations but still she seems urged to get on the plane. Take off at 2 am, doze and watch films for 7 hours to Dubai. Transit through the mile long retail concourse. At six in the morning it is like Oxford Street on a Saturday. The whole bleary eyed world is passing through, 56 million a year. Now en route to London, delayed by over two hours, due to fog. I remember the foggy Dubai mornings when I worked there over 35 years ago. I really must go back and see dear Al Nasr Leisureland which we built and opened in 1981.
Alex
Great post dad! Keep it up x