…and I’m feeling good.

The opposition took control of Penang (and a few other states) tonight.

Read here and here (ahh, good ol’ foreign media!).

It’s a very big deal over here, and could possibly mark a sea-change in the political trend of the country.

It was quiet in the bar tonight as a result of the election fever. A fact which I addressed when I first walked on stage and said “Thank you for being here… on election night”.

Someone whooped in the audience.

I said: “I hear the opposition won tonight”.

Another whoop.

Me: “Am I allowed to express an opinion?”

Voice at bar: “Yes!”

Me: “I’m glad the opposition won”.

Absolute silence… bar another whoop at the bar.

This may be my last post before I’m deported.

Penang, it’s been nice knowin’ ya!

I spent this afternoon with CC. Or to be more precise: CC, and a film SLR camera. Or to be even more precise: CC, a film SLR camera and my little Canon Ixus.

CC is not only a bassist and jazz fan, but a keen amateur photographer who works in one of the camera/photographic shops in the mall next door; and a thoroughly nice guy, to boot.

He is also, it transpires, a brilliant tour guide.

As he had the day off today, we decided to go on a little photographic expedition in Georgetown. I took with me the film SLR B has kindly leant me - and when I ran out of all 36 exposures (which took about, erm, an hour), I switched to digital.

First stop was lunch - curry mee soup served in typical Penang style, ie. down a ramshackle alley. And, rather bizarrely, with white toast soldiers with butter and some sort of sweet spread on them.

Second stop: roaming the streets of Georgetown, taking photos; and CC leading me into a massive building not unlike Smithfields Market, which turned out to contain second-hand book stalls that you could get happily lost in. Imagine the final scene of Raiders Of The Lost Ark, and you’ll get some sense of it.

Third stop: more streets and alleyways (and CC all along pointing out interesting places and buildings). By this point, I was using my digital camera:

The last one is an election sticker for the ruling coalition party - ‘Keep Reinventing’ being their slogan. Actually, say what you like about Malaysian politics (and I have) but their elections do at least brighten the place up - there are banners and flags everywhere, festooned across the streets, or waving on flagpoles along the sides of the roads. It’s all very festive, until you realise what they’re actually promoting:

Third stop: one of the Chinese jetties. It turns out that there are a whole series of Chinese jetties near the pier in Penang; Chinese in the sense that they were established long ago by various clans of Chinese immigrants, and are now inhabited by descendants or by those otherwise allowed to own a house there. Well, less a house as more a shack on stilts… But glancing inside you could see that these were pretty spacious shacks; and it was a fascinating little community that we walked through:

See? It’s not unlike a Malaysian Venice.

And so to the fourth and final stop: Cornwallis, the old fort in Penang that was established by, yes, the Brits. And here’s the intrepid Captain Francis Light himself:

Fort Cornwallis was actually pretty dire: a delapidated little area that was part museum, part falling apart, sea-faring theme park. They even blast out classical music as you walk around. And for no apparent reason, there are three semi-wild ponies roaming the place. Very odd.

One advantage to taking photos alongside someone who works in a photographic place is that, upon completion of the film, you can just hand it over to them for processing :-). If any of them turn out to be any good, I’ll get them scanned and posted too. In the meantime, you can see the rest of today’s shoot over here. And yes, they include obligatory pictures of - you guessed it - teeny tiny cats! Hurrah!

My friend N back home told me that he wants me to “have more adventures”.

So I told him about the following:

1. On Saturday night, I found myself drinking champagne in the VIP area of a nightclub with a) a guy who “owns” SE Asian streetwear culture (I think I understand what that means), in the way that one “owns” such things, as opposed to, say “owning” a car; and b) his friend, who seems to be the Malaysian, male, Paris Hilton.

At one point while I was talking to MMPH - or I, as I shall call him (as long as that isn’t too confusing, in terms of me not talking about I/me/myself. I’m sure you’ll cope) - he pointed out his bodyguards to me, who were inconspicuously dotted nearby. Well, relatively inconspicuously. They looked a little older, and slightly more bored , than the rest of the nightclub’s clientele. But then, looking bored is probably as de rigueur in a VIP area as drinking Moet. I don’t know. It was the first time I’ve done such a thing, and I felt like P Diddy.

2. On Sunday, someone I know out here called to offer me what can only be described as “protection” following last week’s nasty event. I think you’ll forgive me if I don’t go into details about this, but suffice it to say that the U word was used. The U word being the title of a film starring Kate Beckinsale.

*Gives wide-eyed stare*.

I have to say I am both comforted, and yet not, by their kind offer.

Now, are those adventures enough for you? Because I think they are for me.

More pictures from today’s lunchtime outing to follow…

My lovely new friends T2 (sorry T2, there’s already a T) and HH (Chinese Malaysians get two initials) picked me up at lunchtime today. We drove along the coast to Batu Ferringhi, where we had lunch, and then on to Penang’s Tropical Spice Garden.

A sort of botanical garden-cum-jungle, the spice garden contained, among other things: herbs and spices in their wild habitat, rather like a zoo; the world’s largest leaves (possibly); the world’s coolest swing (definitely); a sign warning us not to shelter under trees, and to remain seated in the tractor; a cafe up on the hill which served massala tea; and a cat called Molly.

T2 and I sat on the huge swing and talked about our home towns, and school, and it was lovely. A truly calming, peaceful spot, where the breeze hit us and the swing swung with such smoothness.

And yet I felt a little lost.

I had an invitation to dinner tonight, too… But when I got back home (funny, I think that’s the first time I’ve called the hotel “home”), I showered off the day’s humidity (and anti-mosquito spray), called my parents on Skype - and was hit by a huge wave of home/friendsickness, and a desire for solitude and quiet. So I cancelled tonight’s dinner date (sorry, guys).

I’m sure that the vague sense of feeling ‘lost’, and the need for quiet tonight, are a hangover from last week’s events.

And thus, I suppose, it will go. Until it doesn’t go like this anymore.

And as the song says: along with the sunshine, there’s gotta be a little rain sometimes.

Here are a few pictures from the afternoon (with more here):

(Oh, and Tracy: you were right).

So, my Lost In Translation experience tonight was the scene where Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray go to a local club, invited by their local friends.

I would put up a screengrab, but my new Macbook won’t let me take screengrabs of DVDs. Poo!

Slightly less poo is the fact that, yes, I took delivery of that new Macbook. It’s a black one. Which feels both slightly corporate, and evil. Not unlike the Darth Vader of laptops.

Here’s a picture of me taken with it on the first day. (Aww, me and my Macbook - our first day! *Sigh*). Well, Rachel, you did ask for pictures of me enjoying my life out here:

Look! You can see my bed, and lamp, and everything. And I am actually enjoying life more than I may appear to be doing in that photo.

Second Link Of The Day. Take a look at R - the musician who I bumped into at the street market - performing with his two boys at last month’s event.

Here’s the video.

Not too shabby for a seven-year-old (drummer) and nine-year-old (pianist).

Note to self: must find out where Lucas got his ‘Musician’ T-shirt.

I wrote the following post last night, but the hotel’s internet server went down. So: Meanwhile, last night in the hotel room…

V is busy packing. Goodness knows how she’ll fit everything in her suitcase, given that she has bought an entire new wardrobe, and a wooden elephant. Being a 3D designer, however, and thus very spatially aware, she’s an expert at packing. I said that there must be a job in there somewhere. And then said: “Removal man”.

We’ve had a lovely last day, checking out the monthly street market in Georgetown - which felt more like a village fete than a market, and where we bumped into a musician I knew, who promptly invited me to perform at the event next month - and then heading up to Batu Ferringhi for the sunset and the enormous evening street market they have there. It was gift-shopping heaven - and I’m sorry to spoil the surprise, but… you’re all getting knock-off Gucci bags and Michael Buble CDs.

It’s been wonderful having V here. We’ve realised that we’re highly compatible holiday chums, finding ourselves being conversely up for it (whatever ‘it’ is) or wanting to take it easy at exactly the same times. She’s also proved to be a savvy financial advisor, especially when wearing a bikini. (I’m sure there’s a job somewhere in there, too.) I will miss her when she goes. And will also have a lie-down for about a week.

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a Spot-The-Ball competition (American friends, see here). This was Batu Ferringhi by sunset tonight. Can you guess where the ball is about to appear?

The correct answer is:

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.

I did something I’ve never done before in my life yesterday.

I drove a jetski.

Actually, does one “drive” a jetski? I know you ride them; but I didn’t just ride (on?) a jetski. Ohhh no. Because that would imply I was merely the passenger. Whereas I was, in fact, the driver.

And it was BRILLIANT*.

Honestly, I was happy as Larry, driving/riding that jetksi at full pelt off the coast of Batu Ferringhi, with A1 as my wingman. We had a blast - and I think I did pretty well considering that I don’t even know how to drive a car (although I do know how to ride in one).

The whole afternoon was lovely, and fascinating, as always. It’s about a 30-minute drive from the hotel to BF; and it was even interesting before we’d left the hotel area, when I saw one of these negotiating some speed-bumps. And yet the day got even better.

As we drove to Batu Ferringhi, A1 pointed out parts of the island that had been damaged by the tsunami in 2004 - including new flats that had been built for those who had lost their homes. Not surprisingly, these new flats were on stilts.

We then arrived at BF itself - and basically spent the afternoon eating lunch at a bistro on the beach, talking, sunbathing (V) and jetskiing (me and A1). A2 joined us for a drink at the end.

The pictures are here and here - and include photographic evidence of my Top Gun On Water experience.

And yes, it was a Bounty-like paradise. Perhaps the post should have been called ‘Doing a jazz gig… If you’re drinking Bacardi’:

*To be said in Rick from The Young Ones voice.