Hey hey, we saw monkeys
Another day of sensory overload yesterday.
Honestly, more happens to me in one day here than in one week back in England.
I think my brain might explode.
In theory, Saturday began as Friday night’s gig ended: meeting more new people in the bar, going nightswimming by moonlight (which deserves a quiet night - and we got one), and going to bed at 5am. Not a terribly smart move given that we had to get up to an alarm, but still.
And the reason we were getting up to an alarm was that a lovely businessman here, who’s been to the bar a few times, absolutely insisted that V and I used his chauffeur-slash-bodyguard to drive us wherever we wanted around the island while he himself was away on business in London.
TK’s act, I’m learning, is typical of Malaysian generosity - which goes completely above and beyond what you usually encounter in the West.
And so it was that B collected us in a ridiculous black 4×4 with chrome bumpers - although this actually turned out to be less ridiculous when we had to scale Penang Hill in it. First off, took us for a multi-course Chinese lunch, over which he presided like a generous father figure (my life as a film, part three: Eat, Drink, Man, Woman) before driving us to Kek Lok Si Temple.
Kek Lok Si is supposedly the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia, and it looks something like this:
and this:
It was breathtaking, made up of multiple buildings on different levels (which are still being added to), decorated in brilliant colours - and made even more colourful by the hanging red and yellow New Year lanterns which currently adorn it.
I had another Lost In Translation moment when, as Scarlett does, I wrote and hung a wish on a wishing tree (in LiT the wishes were white, but here they were multi-coloured). My wish is in the foreground, on red. No, I didn’t write it in Chinese. It’s on the back:
I felt quite emotional when I wrote it, too.
After the temple, B drove us to the botanical gardens, which V and I mainly wanted to see for a) the greenery and b) the monkeys.
The monkeys apparently bite, and there’s a fine for feeding them, but I couldn’t get enough of them. Especially this one:
I even saw them fighting and having sex. Yes, the monkeys were that good.
From the botanical gardens, we drove up Penang Hill - which is a) a four-hour walk, and b) an incredibly steep gradient, and therefore c) only to be attempted by lunatics.
Or by softies in 4×4s.
Here’s the view from the top:
- which in parts was just so, so beautiful:
The English, shortly after setting foot on Penang in the late 18th century, built homes up on Penang Hill (and originally cultivated it for strawberry-growing - hence its old moniker Strawberry Hill), because it was cooler up there and therefore more bearable to their delicate English constitutions. Apparently, in the days before the road and the furnicular, they used to be carried up by sedan chair. As I remarked to V, going up in an air-conditioned 4×4 is probably the modern-day equivalent.
More pictures from our Big Day Out here.
February 25th, 2008 at 4.04am
Max looked at the photos on the computer and his comments was ‘more monkeys’. So Andrea, you have your first photography request. (BTW I have to admit, he’s used to being obeyed…)
February 25th, 2008 at 8.59am
Hugh got internet in his house tonight. The lack of which I am sure you will empathise with. Only that to achieve this he had to deal with the monopoly supplier of a phone-like things of which story is like a Kafka novel. His previous sole internet opportunity was at 6.59 - 7.00 each morning in his ‘office’ (the photocopying machine room) before his wallah comes in. Not quite an executive suite. Hence our joy …
We managed (much to the surprise of our respective lappytoppyi nternetty skills - minimal) to achieve a msn conversation, da dah de dah with web cam! So now I know how bad his hair looks 2 months after I last saw him.
Anyhow. I digress.
The conversation included an experience of icons that one can include (which Hugh agreed was banal and during which I thought of all the DIY I could be getting on with), some essential exchanges of information and longing, and then some updates on internet activity in the last six months. And hence I sent him the link to this blog, reminding him that this was the long lost friend who happened to be on line the first time that I learned about MSN messenger (when we were in the internet corridor of our hostel in Colombia in December 2006) and she was the person who I had been at University with in the *ahem* late 80s early 90s. So he looked at the site … And he remembered, he respected, he revered and his comment was …
“Lovely arse”
xx
February 25th, 2008 at 12.44pm
Rachel - haha! so, so glad you and H now have internetconnectivity. you must use Skype, it’s blooming brilliant for webcam (and normal telephone) chats.
Charlotte - Max’s request is duly noted, and I shall do my level best to obey him.
February 25th, 2008 at 7.32pm
Back to that ‘monopoly supplier of phonelike things’: Skype is banned. Apparently one can get around this via something called a ‘hotspot’ I think, but this procedure out-techs both H and I. So I’m doing better and going there in person. They’ll call me Associate Professor no less, in the Department of Psychology where I’ll have to teach 3 hours a week (which is quite reasonable/lucky considering I have a degree in Modern Languages). This is all secured bar the contract, which is not speedily secure at all really considering the Dean of the Faculty claims that the Egyptian administration is proud that they have mastered French bureaucracy and improved upon it.
There are at least four five star hotels in town - Al Ain, Abu Dhabi Emirate and another two in construction. Our ‘local’ has in-bar entertainment which comprises a set of South American and rather bored looking lovelies. I’ll make enquiries for you should you eclipse all that Asia has to offer.
xx
February 26th, 2008 at 3.34pm
wow - congratulations, R :-). will you be teaching the pyschology of modern languages, then? and when do you go??
and yes, let me know what the possibilities are for a gig out there! I shall leave no 5-star hotel unturned in my quest for international jazz fame.
xx
February 26th, 2008 at 4.21pm
Psycho Modern Linguistics: I like it! Probably something rather more tedious like educational evaluation or research methods. *Yawns* Three hours a week though - and 70 days holiday!! So, lots of time for being your groupie. x
February 26th, 2008 at 4.39pm
glad to hear it. being my groupie is a full-time job. x