Sri Lanka

Well, you can find lots of things in Sri Lanka but an internet cafe is very hard to track down, so I've been AWOL from cyberspace for a few weeks.  And...I don't miss it at all!

At the moment I'm staying in a small town right on the south point of Sri Lanka, called Galle.  There were Moorish (Arabic) traders here about 200 years ago, and since then a succession of colonizers - the Portuguese, Dutch and English.  This little town was the epicenter of trade for Sri Lanka so all these cultures ended up planting themselves there, along with the local Buddhist Sri Lankans.  As you can imagine it makes for an interesting religious and architectural mix!

Most of the houses were built within a large sea fort, about 300 to 400 years ago and are a mixture of Moorish and Dutch colonial style.  Because the town became a backwater and had no economic development in the last 100 years or so, nearly all the houses remain in their original state, so, wandering the streets is just beautiful.  I rented myself a little bike, and am getting about easy.

On my deadly treadly in front of my place

If I walk about 20 meters down the end of my street I am then right up on the sea wall (which is what helped save this town from the tsunami...500 meters down the road, out of the fort, there are still 1000 people unaccounted for to this day).

The ramparts. My house is about 20 meters down from the house you see on the corner.

View of the town and lighthouse from the ramparts.

I feel like I am living in an episode of Grand Designs because half of the houses are now being renovated or completely re-built in heritage style so it's really interesting to wander into some of the projects and have a look around. 

My place is fantastic, I just love it.  I got a big bargain, only $14 a night. Here are some photos of the house...

The only problem is that it is booked out over Christmas/New Year, so I'm not sure where I'll go during that time - there aren't many budget options in Galle, it's normally quite an expensive place to stay. 

The locals here are really friendly.  I can really tell the difference between here and, say, Indonesia.  In Indonesia I am almost always the wealthiest, most educated (and of course, 'strongest') person in the room.  Here it is quite different.  It is obvious that there is money around, and that people also have an excellent standard of education.  There are lots of young professional, and  most people are happy to engage in conversations about world events, politics etc (not something you normally get in Indonesia).   The lesson from this is:  if you must be colonized by anyone, be colonized by the British (and definitely not the Dutch!)

 A few more photos...

  

Monkey mayhem in Sumatra

Hi all,

A little post from Bukit Lawang, Sumatra.  I was about 4 hours drive from Medan, right in the jungle.  It was gorgeous, very quiet and beautiful.  I even managed to find a place where I didn't hear the Mosque call to prayer at 4am. Hallelujah! (Or whatever they say in Islam).   I stayed in a lovely little bungalow right on the river with a private garden.

Even by Indonesian standards the locals were extremely friendly - I literally had a queue of people asking me to come visit their families. However, I received a disappointing number of marriage proposals; not one!  (What's going on?  I thought I looked like Angelina Jolie to the Indonesians!)

Me looking strong, rich and pale.

 Maria has kindly corrected me by saying that I look more like the Gina Rinehart of Indonesia  -  big, white and rich.  I have to say I got tired of telling Indonesians that, 'Oh, you're so strong and so pale' doesn't quite cut it as a compliment in Australia. (By now I know better than to tell local women they look so thin and tanned, because they all want to look fat and white.)

 Osin, one of the women who worked in the place I stayed in, invited me down to the local village to meet her family.  Her house, and all the houses in the village were so basic - 5 people living there with just two rooms, no bathroom, no glass in the windows, and woven palm fronds for the walls.   

Osin in front of her house

The bathroom/toilet/laundry for the whole village is this canal, it's pretty much the social centre of the whole village - although I'm not sure how sanitory the whole thing is. I think the baby bath in the photo above was provided by a charity, probably because the infants were getting sick (or washed away) in the canal. 

So, onto the monkey mayhem.  This photo isn't very clear, but if you look closely you can see six of the little buggers heading into my room.  Agh!  I foolishly left my door open for a few minutes and they swung in off the trees.  In 5 minutes they broke a plate, pood on the floor, emptied my rubbish bins and took my food!

But, some of them look cute.

Finally, my two favorite photos.  This is the school bus - Indo style.  If the inside is full, just let the kiddies sit on the roof!  After all, what could go wrong??

And, this is a photo of the kids next door having their afternoon bath in the river. My fave photo.

A quick trip to Georgetown, Penang Island

I went over to Penang island on the ferry last Sunday and spent an hour or so just wandering around the centre of town.  It was an old Chinese and British trading post and has Chinese, Indian, and British colonial architecture – very beautiful, and remarkably well preserved.

 There’s hardly any modern development in the area, and its just been made a UNESCO world heritage site, which means that no more modern development is allowed. Unfortunately, it also means that the property prices are starting to go through the roof, and the locals are being priced out while old shop-fronts get turned into chic cafes and B&B’s.   Fortunately, that  process is at its beginning stages, so the place still has a very authentic feel to it.

Last night Maz and I were taken out for dinner with a couple of lovely (and very generous) people she works with. The guy, David,  is one of the founders of the school, and the woman, Yen, is doing the interior design for the new school.  Maria has met her Chinese twin in Yen, they are very alike. 

They took us to a seafood restaurant on the beach and the spread was amazing; the table was piled with places of food. We had cockles, clams, crab, prawns, shrimp, mussels and something  Yen called a 'praying mantis' - I think it was like a lobster with really long legs. 

The cockles were hands down the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted.  As I was putting on in my mouth I was thinking, 'that's strange, it looks raw and...is it covered in blood?'  then I popped it in my mouth and discovered why it was called a 'blood cockle'.  

I can't really describe the taste except to say that blood cockles make brussel sprouts taste like pavlova. I  was trying to be polite, because Yen and David were obviously excited about sharing all this food with us, so I tried to keep my retching to a minimum. 

Running a close second to the cockles was crab eggs; which look and taste like crab poo. (I was hoping they'd taste like caviar, but no.) Everything else was absolutely delicious. I have never had such a spread of sea-food before. And it is all so fresh. They have all the seafood in tanks as you walk in the door, so they just scoop them out and cook them. 

Me selecting my dinner.  Poor little crab,
it doesn't know I am about to eat its poo.

Butterworth, Malaysia

Hi all!  

I thought I'd post a few photos from here.  Maz's new apartment is really nice, and the view is wonderful. This is last night's sunset, taken from her lounge-room.  She has a nice little balcony at the front as well.  At any time there are usually 3 or 4 large tankers lined up to go into the docks, so we're also planning on getting some binoculars. 

We are looking right out over the Penang island.  If we had this view coming the other way (from the island to the mainland) it would cost about $2000 a month, but because we are in scruffy Butterworth, it is a bit cheaper than that.  (Ok, it's about 80% cheaper than that.  It really is scruffy over here).

I am Maz's interior design consultant, because the apartment is very neutrally furnished at the moment. Being a design consultant means that I spend lots of time on Ebay buying cheap posters, so I'm not sure how long my career will last. 

This is Maz's new school over here.  I couldn't believe how big it was, I'm not sure how 1.5 teachers are going to fill the 3 floors of that school, but they are obviously aiming high.  The first weekend was really busy, with lots of prospective students coming in to do placement tests, so they're hoping to get more teachers soon. The inside of the school looks fantastic; very professional and very orange.  It's a pity they didn't ask me to do their interior design because I could have got a great deal on some Friends and Seinfeld posters.  But, their loss I suppose.

 We are definitely NOT in a tourist zone here, I haven't seen another 'westerner' since I've been here.  The locals are a mix of Malaysian, Indian-Malaysian and Chinese-Malaysian. 

I was going to say it's a melting pot, but actually, it's the opposite because the 3 groups are quite distinct and even after they've been here 3 or 4 generations they don't mix that much.  Intermarriage  isn't common, and they all speak different languages and are different religions, so the differences between the 3 groups are quite obvious. 

They all seem equally prejudiced against each other - a Chinese person told us to be careful to lock the apartment because there were hordes of Indian youth delinquents around, then an Indian person told Maz to lock up her bike because 'those naughty Malaysian boys' would steal it.  So, everyone seems to think that everyone else is out to get them - which explains why this apartment building is guarded like fort-Knox.  They have 24 hour security guards, and everyone has these hideous grills in front of their doors, so you can't even knock on anyone's door!!  

Hideous grills - apparently you just shake them if you want to 'knock'.

The apartment building - looks quite good from a distance...

..but not quite as classy close up!

The food here is AMAZING, and ridiculously cheap - I ate for the whole day yesterday for $2.50.  And, it's just so tasty, they use fresh spices in everything and it all tastes quite different.  Poor Maz has had a big stomach bug so she's been eating stewed apples and mashed potatoes for a week.

OK, here's Mazzy signing off, Malaysian-style. Peace out. 

Lake Maninjau Photos

At last I have got myself organised enough to up-load some photos (although, since I sat on my laptop and broke half the screen, it is quite a task to use my laptop!  Agh.  I don't think I should be traveling with anything more technological than a ball-point pen.) 

So, here are some photos of Maninjau.  These first were sponsored by my 4 hour jet-lag...probably the only dawn I will see here. I took them right out the front of my bungalow, where the fisherman come to fish for little mussels.  I think this first photo is my favorite, I love it.

These are photos taken just behind my bungalow, in the rice paddy that you have to walk to to get to the road. 

These are the bungalows where I'm staying. Very cute (except for the barking dogs roaming the place).

 Afternoon tea...

 

And...sunset!  

Not bad for $10 a day!