Back to Bangkok

Goodbye Bagus Bay with all the lovely long haired Batak boys, smiling and laughing, playing their guitars and singing in harmony in the bar.

Goodbye Lake Toba with its cool, clear water.

I caught a shared taxi from the Lake to the airport at Medan for three times the cost of the local bus .i.e. five pounds, rather than one pound fifty. The taxi business assured me that it was a non-smoking taxi, so I was understandably upset when the driver lit up. Probably thinking that I was threatening to jump out, the other passengers remonstrated with the driver, who threw the cigarette out of the window. It was a boring journey, but a smoke-free one.

The plane was full of Thai people, who laughed and joked all the way to Bangkok. But as we approached the airport, the pilot announced that we would be circling for a while, waiting for a slot to land. When we did eventually land the queues at immigration were enormous. Why is everyone coming to Bangkok on the 31^st January? It’s hot, it’s humid and it’s full of tourists. Anyway, by the time I got through immigration, caught a train into town and got a taxi the rest of the way, it was ten o’clock. In Apple guesthouse Mama was distraught. No rooms, she said. Carl, who had arrived the day before, having hitched all the way from Penang, had written my name on the board (Mama’s booking system) for the 31^st, but someone (her son, maybe) had rubbed it out and put someone in the last room. I ended up spending the night on the hard wooden bench in Mama’s sitting room. Mama tried to make it more comfortable by giving me a pillow and a sheet. It was still a hard wooden bench

Hot Springs, Lake Toba

As I walked the two kms to the bus stop I passed plastic sheets of rice, drying in the sun in front of people's houses. Then I came to a rice de-husking machine parked on the side of the road. It was just unloading three sacks of rice (presumably de-husked), before driving off. I suppose these farmers, who grow small fields of rice for their own consumption, employ the travelling de-husking machine to remove the hard, external husk from their rice crop.

The bus was playing Batak pop music so loud that the base was distorted. I cornered a window seat so that I could stick my head out of the window to escape the cigarette smoke and got off the bus at Simanindo, to visit the museum. It was housed in a traditional Batak house, with a thatched roof sprouting a small forest of ferns. Examples of Batak weaving, old carvings, woven baskets and various other artifacts were poorly displayed behind dirty glass in dusty cases, festooned with cobwebs. Streams of ants were running across the back wall of one of the display cases, threatening to consume the exhibits. The museum was dark, with no illumination, there were no explanations and no historical background.

Back on another earsplittingly loud bus to Pangururo, all the way along the coast of the island, past hundreds of traditional Batak houses, with intricately carved wooden facades and rusty corrugated iron roofs. It hardly ever occurs to anyone to paint the corrugated iron to stop it rusting. They seem to regard these roofs the same way they do the thatched roofs, which they leave to rot and replace when they disintegrate.

I didn't realise I was in Pangururo until people started asking me where I wanted to get off. It's a scruffy dump with pot-holed roads, rubble instead of pavements and a miserable assortment of dilapidated shacks and sheds. I headed in the direction they pointed, followed by peels of laughter. I hired a motorbike taxi, one of the Indonesian style rikshaws with the motorbike on the side. As he raced along the bumpy, twisting track for mile after mile, I began to realise why they had been laughing - it was a long way to the hot springs. Eventually we arrived at a rather uninspiring set of buildings.
"Where are the hot springs?" I asked inside the nearest bar.
"I have swimming pool" the woman said, pointing down some steps.

At the bottom of the steps I found several small rooms, each with a concrete bath into which spurted boiling water, then an entrance way led to a small pool of turquoise steaming hot water. The pool was completely surrounded by seven foot high concrete walls, not very inspiring, but very private. I was the only person in the place, so stripped off and put on my swimming costume. The water felt too hot to get into at first, but I got used to it quite quickly, alternately immersing myself and dousing myself with cold water.

As I left I noticed building works all around. Maybe other people are building pools for the mysterious tourists. Several cafes and bars were empty. I hitched a ride in a lorry back to Pangururo, and just as I was struggling to get my foot high enough to climb into the cab, Nick and Anna came by on a motorbike and waved. I guess they will have the hot pool to themselves, just as I did.

Lazy Day

Batak house and rice field on the island of Samosir in Lake Toba

I spent a deliciously indolent day, in the shade of a tree, by the lakeside, reading William Dalrymple's wonderful "From the Holy Mountain - A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium." I was always fascinated by Byzantium and remembered the times when we used to go looking for small Byzantine churches hidden away high up in the Dolomite mountains. I knew, of course, that the centre of Byzantium was Constantinople, but had never realised that early Byzantine Christianity was born in Southern Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, as well as Egypt and Palestine. The Armenian community in Anatolia were some of the earliest Christian converts and built some of the earliest Christian churches in 200 -300 AD. I knew about the genocide of the Armenians by the Turkish government, but I did not know that the Turkish government had continued to destroy their houses, their churches and even their tomb stones. They continue to deny the genocide and maybe they think that if all traces of the Armenians are removed from Turkey perhaps one day the world will believe that they never existed.

William Dalrymple went to places one couldn't visit today. It was pretty dodgy even then. So it's wonderful to read about his journey, a journey I will never make.

Back to Lake Toba.
Although created by the most cataclysmic erruption, the lake is calm and peaceful, a few people sunbathing, one or two swimming, some naked children trying to catch fish with a net.

Later in the day a fisherman paddled his dugout canoe across the water, then began letting his net out. He went round and round in a spiral until he reached the end of the net, marked by a plastic bottle. Then he paddled out of the centre of the spiral and began to paddle round the outside of the spiral, banging the water with a plunger as he went round. He followed the spiral all the way round back to the centre, banging the plunger down as he went. Then he collected his net back into the boat, collecting the small fish as he went.

More Lake Toba

I went for a walk, along narrow, winding road, past small houses with walls of wooden planks, windows merely a wooden shutter, open by day and shut at night. I came to a lychee tree with a flat roofed shed below. Two young Batak men on the roof were picking the spiky red fruits, that looked like clusters of tiny red hedgehogs decorating the tree. They were throwing them down to people standing below.
"You like?" they asked
"Yes I like"
So they threw some fruit encrusted twigs down for me.
Just then a Chinese tourist came by on a motorbike. He stopped.
"Can I buy some?" he asked in perfect English.
They threw some more down for him. He picked up a cluster, inspected it and dropped it.
"It's full of ants" he said "disgusting!"
He rode off. The locals burst out laughing. I ate his fruit and mine, blowing the ants off my fingers, thanked them and left, but not before being asked my name and nationality. They were surprised that I was going for a walk by myself.

Ahead of me the volcano walls rise steeply, though now clothed in a soft green cover of vegetation that turns into a thick band of forest towards the base.

Along the road, behind the occasional corrugated iron roofed house, there is a wonderful collection of tropical fruit trees, growing thickly together -banana, papaya, mango, lychee, durien, mangusteen, coconut and countless others that I didn't recognise. Then over to the right a stretch of luminous green rice fields. Behind me buffaloes roam free in the open fields.

I walked up a small grassy hill, from where I could see the lake stretching into the distance,  steep volcanic hills sloping down towards the water. Lake Toba is enormous. The eruption that resulted in this volcanic crater must have made the world dark for years and years. It must have been an eruption that went on continuously for years on end, if not decades.

Luwak Coffee

Luwak coffee is the most expensive coffee in the world and it's exclusive to Northern Sumatra.
In the early eighteenth century the Dutch established coffee plantations in northern Sumatra, planting various varieties of coffee, including Arabica, from Yemen. Then from 1830-1870 the Dutch prohibited the Batak farmers from picking coffee for themselves. The clever Batak farmers noticed small animals, called palm civits, eating the ripe coffee berries, and when they inspected the animals' feaces they found that the coffee beans had been excreted intact. So they collected the excreted coffee beans, washed them carefully, dried, roasted and ground them to make an exceptionally mild, smooth coffee. It was not long before the Dutch heard about this wonderful coffee and started drinking it themselves.

The coffee berries ferment inside the palm civit's digestive tract, where a unique combination of digestive enzymes breaks down the proteins that give coffee its bitter taste.

The Lake Toba Ferry

This is the ferry that takes us from Parapat to Tuktuk, across the lake. It plies back and forth all day until seven at night, which was why I missed it that first evening, not that I would have found anywhere to sleep, even if I had caught the last ferry.

Today, after moving house, to a nice little room with clean white walls - yes really! unbelievable but true - door with no cracks (so no mosquitoes) and little bed with not only a bottom sheet, but a top sheet too - first time ever! I spent the morning trying to draw/paint with the watercolour pencils that Robert gave me as a birthday present before I left. I can't say that my efforts are particularly good - it's a new technique and I'm learning - but fun.

Today I met Nick, a musician from Brighton, who had the great good fortune to move to Brighton ten years ago, "because it was cheap" and bought a house, which he now lets, and travels on the rental income, with his guitar. He doesn't really want to go back to Britain to live at all, though he makes occasional visits in the summer, when he can play music at festivals and travel around a bit.

I also met an American who has set up a business in China, manufacturing bling for gangster rappers in the US, but who is thinking of diversifying into publicity for travel in Indonesia. "This place is ready for this" he said, and I thought "Maybe they prefer to have fewer tourists, rather than more, like in Thailand" but I didn't say anything.

Bagus Bay is calm and peaceful, with a roofed restaurant area, open at the sides, with views over the scratchy grass, that passes for a lawn, the lilly pond and the containing wall to the lake beyond. Out on the edge of the lake people go swimming, boating (Bagus Bay has three little boats for anyone to use) or just sitting, as I, and Nick with his guitar, were doing.

I also met up with Peter, who travelled together with Polish Eva, who admitted that her English was so bad that travelling with her had been intensely frustrating. And the young American, who had travelled through Papua New Guinea, West Papua, Lombok, Bali, Java and now Sumatra. We met originally on the ferry, when he was grumpy and tired, not having slept a wink on the overnight bus from Bukit Tingi because he is so tall. The seats for sleeping on these buses are built for people about five foot tall. People over six foot cannot lie down. This evening he looked well recovered.

TukTuk

Home sweet home - my Batak house

I’ve been feeling sorry for myself the last couple of days – headachy, tired with a touch of diarrhoea and a sore shoulder. I think the food they gave us on the trek had something bad in it. The other people who were with me that day were ill the morning that I left, which was why we didn’t leave together as planned.

Anyway I feel a bit better today. It’s cloudy and not hot. Yesterday evening I dragged myself out to see some Batak folk dances and met up with some friends who were staying in the same place as me back in Bukit Lawang. The dancers, young girls, did not look very enthusiastic and the dances were less than inspiring. They bounced up and down on the spot and wagged their hands at us most of the time. I was not impressed. Then the older men sang some very jolly folk songs. These Batak men have amazingly loud voices for such tiny people, especially considering how much they smoke.
Batak

I should explain that the Batak are a group of tribes who all speak the same language – Batak and live in the interior of northern Sumatra. Right up until the nineteenth century there were no roads into the interior and the Batak tribes cultivated stories about their cannibalism, in order to keep people away. They traded in precious resins from rain forest trees, which they carried on their backs along footpaths to the coast. They developed a unique style of architecture and of fabric printing. Today the roads into the interior are pretty bad. A few intrepid tourists make the trip but on the whole the only major invasion into these people’s lives has been the government run palm oil agribusiness, which the Batak protested against, unsuccessfully.

Batak wedding

I was walking along the road this morning, towards breakfast, I thought, when I was hauled off the street and into a church, to attend a wedding. The Batak lady who grabbed me was short and fat and dressed like everyone else in a fancy sarong and a lacy top. She held my hand and drew me into the charch and sat down with me at the back. The church roof was like an aircraft hangar, with metal s truts criss crossing in a supporting network. Under this three completely different art deco chandeliers hung in single file down the centre of the church. A few light bulbs were working in two of them. The bride and groom stood absolutely still side by side at the front of the church, while the women attending the ceremony all sat in the centre of the church, wearing beautiful sarongs and long sleeved lace tops. All the women, including the bride, had enormous buns on the backs of their heads, woven into complicated patterns. Presumably these were false hair pieces, since few Batak women today still have the very long hair that would have been traditional.

After the service my friend led me by the hand to her sister's little restaurant and offered me some chicken and rice, which I refused. She and her family ate the chicken and rice, while I consumed a big bottle of water. Then they opened a durien on the floor and ate the slimy fruit with their hands, licking their fingers enthusiastically. They demolished the durien in about five minutes, then asked me to photograph the spikey skin, which I did. Then I was led back to the wedding reception, which took place under a wide awning in the space between some small houses. Mats had been spread for the women to sit and a band was playing traditional Batak music, much better than the musicians we had heard last night. The dancing, which seemed so lifeless last night, suddenly took on a whole other meaning, the hand gestures signifying welcoming salutations, as the dancers circled round, smiling at each other.

At a certain point the women sitting on the mats got up and put the tall sacks of rice they had brought with them on their heads. Gradually they formed a long snaking line, heading into the dancing crowd. Then they set off, dancing with the rice sacks on their heads, towards people holding large sacks, into which they poured their rice, one by one, until the sacks were full. All this took a very long time. It was two o'clock before they started serving the food, which was, predictably, meat curry and rice. My friend? guardian? left to deposit her rice and didn't come back for some time, so I made my escape. I was very hungry by now.

Lake Toba

      Bukit Lawang

I finally succumbed to the jungle trekking in Bukit Lawang – against my better judgement. The paths are steep and treacherous, in places slippery from the previous day’s rain, in places interlaced by networks of roots with holes between them. Trees blown over by the high winds frequently block the paths, forcing us to climb over them or scramble under them. The jungle is dense with huge lianas that wriggle along the ground until they find trees to climb, and then they shoot up them like giant snakes. Some of the trees are massive, with buttress roots standing out from the base like huge wings. But I was disappointed that there were not more big, old trees.

Bukit Lawang is famous for its orang utangs, which make nests out of branches and leaves at the tops of the trees in the national forest where they are protected, and the whole purpose of the trek is to see them. Our guide knows all the orang utangs by name and he seems to recognise them when they are at the tops of the trees. One called Sandra, with long, soft, orange fur and a black face, came down with her baby and rolled around on the ground, playing with her baby. There is a breeding programme for orang utangs, and medical help is provided if they get sick. Sandra’s first two babies died, which apparently is normal, but her third baby, which clings to her fur as she swings through the trees, is already two years old.. There are other species of monkey in the forest, but they are very shy and move very fast. As I was climbing over one of the fallen trees, it collapsed under me and I hurt my shoulder. Our guide was very careful after this to help me over all the difficult places. I think he had visions of me twisting an ankle and him having to carry me back to Bukit Lawang on his back, which, he told us, he had done on occasion, when a tourist had injured themself.

We arrived back before the four o’clock torrential rain storm – you can practically set your watch by it, it’s so punctual, leaving all the more intrepid trekkers, who are going on two day treks, even seven day treks, still in the forest, in the rain. I was immensely glad to be back, went to wash the mud off – I was coated from head to foot – and went straight to sleep for several hours.

Next day I caught a local bus to Medan. About half an hour into the journey, ominous clonking sounds came from under the bus, which stopped. The driver climbed under the bus, while the passengers all got out and hung around, wondering what to do. I decided to try my luck hitching and headed off with my luggage. I failed miserably. Bus aft.er bus came by, too full to stop. One indicated the roof. Did I want to cling to the roof for three hours? I thought not. Finally a bus stopped and squeezed me in to the front seat, already occupied by the driver, two women and two children. I managed to get half one buttock onto the edge of the seat. Half the other buttock was on the door handle, which was a couple of inches higher than the seat. So I was at an angle, one leg on top of the other. Just when I reached the limit of what I could bear, one of the women got out. When we reached Medan  I handed the bus conductor a fifty thousand note. “OK” he said. “Not OK” I said; “the fare is twenty thousand. Give me my change.” He handed me ten thousand. “OK?” “No. Come on. Give me more change.” He handed me five thousand “more” I said. Another five thousand. Eventually I managed to extract all but one thousand (about 7pence) from him. It was like pulling a tooth.

Medan is a horrible, mafia infested, ugly town. I had been warned not to go there on my own. I don’t know what people thought would happen to me – rape, murder?? In the end the bus from one bus station to the other ripped me off (about a pound) and somehow my sunglasses, which were on my hat, managed to disappear. (oh well easy come easy go – I found them on the ground in WOMAD festival).

The local bus from Medan to Lake Toba is full of men who smoke continuously. I had been warned about this. But I had also been warned that people smoked in the air conditioned buses, which I thought would be worse. At least the local buses have windows. Indonesian men smoke everywhere and Indonesian women, who don’t smoke, put up with it uncomplainingly. What I hadn’t bargained for was that the windows were high up, so the smoke just blew back through the whole bus. By the time we got to lake Toba I had a sore throat and a headache.

The bus got to Lake Toba too late to catch the last ferry, so the bus conductor said

“No hotels here. Last ferry gone. Get in bus,” hoisting my luggage back onto the bus, and off we went back up the hill. The bus stopped. “Plenty hotel here” he said, hoisting my luggage down. The first person I asked suggested I try the hotel opposite. I dragged my luggage with difficulty across a piece of rough waste ground, to be met by a child who spoke no English, but who indicated with signs that she had rooms. I asked her how much and eventually managed to persuade her to write the price on a piece of paper – 200,000! (about £15). I left. Round the corner I found a place for 30,000 (just over £2).

Lake Toba is inside an ancient volcano. Sheltered by the steep sides of the volcano, the water is glassy calm.

Next day I caught the ferry across the lake to TukTuk, a small town perched right on the edge of a circular peninsular. TukTuk is full of hotels, guest houses and homestays built in the traditional manner, but with corrugated iron roofs, which have been left to rust. It was difficult to find anywhere to stay because the place was inundated with Chinese people, who had come here for the Chinese new year. Everywhere had hiked their prices. It seems that the Chinese are considered very rich. It also seems that they are prepared to pay.

I found a room – actually a traditional house. It looks nice from the outside but is very dark inside and has the most uncomfortable bed I have encountered yet in my travels. Hard mattresses I can cope with but hard lumpy ones that dip in the middle are a bit more of a challenge.

Indonesia

How can Indonesia be a country?

It is an archipelago of 13,677 islands, sprawling 6,400 km through a part of the western Pacific known as the Ring of Fire, because it is home to over 400 volcanos, about 75 of which are still active. There is an average of ten major eruptions a year and the two greatest volcanic cataclysms (Krakatoa and Tambora) occurred in this area. There are up to three earthquakes a day.

At one end of the archipelago, the island of Sumatra has always fought for its independence, against the various nations who tried to colonise it, including the government of Java. Sumatra is the fifth largest island in the world and the most fiercely independent part of Sumatra is the province of Aceh, which continued to fight against the government of Java, which continued to supress them brutally, until the area was hit by the tsunami in 2003.

At the other end of the archipelago Irian Jaya, formerly West Papua, is part of Papua new Guinea, an independent country  just north of Australia, until  the government of Java decided to ship thousands of landless peasants from Java to West Papua, where they “gave” them plots of land and left them to get on with building houses and growing food. They re-named West Papua Irian Jaya. The West Papuans fought to defend their country, but armed only with spears, they were defeated by the superior numbers and weapons of the forces from Java.

On the other side of the Malaysian peninsula the island of Borneo was arbitrarily carved into two parts, the northern part ‘belonging to’ Malaysia while the southern part ‘belongs to’ Indonesia. I feel sure that Borneo would prefer to be a country in its own right.

Bukit Lawang, Sumatra

Everthing everyone said about the terrible roads in Sumatra is true. They are pockmarked with potholes and huge craters, and the traffic tries to slalom between the holes and craters, regardless of what is coming in the opposite direction. At times the tarmac is missing from the road surface altogether, which slows the traffic to a crawl amidst clouds of billowing dust. Our minibus had doors that didn't shut properly; there was a half inch gap between the doors and the frame of the minibus. The engine cover was in front of the back seats warming up everyone's feet nicely and oil leaked from the dashboard onto the feet of passengers sitting in the front seats. The driver stopped for anyone who waved him down, until no more passengers could squeeze in. At this point people climbed onto the top and sat with our luggage on the roof rack, as the minibus careered round corners, potholes and obstacles in the road.

As we went further and further from the city of Medan with its endless sprawling suburbs, the villages grew smaller and smaller, always surrounded by the ubiquitous palm oil plantations that are spreading like a fast growing, green cancer, devouring the lush, tropical rain forests that once covered this beautiful island.

I was travelling with a young German couple, who I met in the airport in Medan. (The ferry from Penang to Sumatra  went out of business due to the excessively cheap plane tickets everyone could buy in Penang, so, reluctantly, we flew from Penang to Medan, in Sumatra.) When we got on the bus a man from Bukit Lawang got into the front seat. He greeted us with a smile. It started to rain. Our luggage was on the roof. Eventually the driver climbed up and took it all down and stacked it inside. When the rain stopped he put it back on the roof again. The man from Bukit Lawang chatted to us, showing us photos of jungle trekking. "Here we go" I thought "He's going to take us to a guest house and pressurise us into paying loads of money to go trekking."

After several hours we came to Bukit Lawang bus station - a piece of rough ground where mini buses seemed to park more or less anywhere they liked. Our 'friend' from Bukit Lawang piled us into two motorbike rikshaws and jumped onto the back seat of one of the motorbikes. Sure enough when we arrived he took us across a wobbly, swinging bamboo bridge to a guest house, where he seemed to know everyone. The rooms were cheap so we checked in. Then he sat with us and started the hard sell. I walked away and left my new found friends to argue with him about prices and numbers of days hiking. He ran after me and asked "Do you want to do one day's trekking tomorrow? I can give shoes. What size your foot?"

"No thanks. I don't want to go trekking."

Bukit Lawang was presumably a tiny village by a river overshadowed by steep, forested mountains on the edge of a national park. then some years ago it became an obligatory stop off on the tourist trail. So bamboo huts and small tasteful guesthouses sprang up like mushrooms. Then, according to some people, tourism waned due to long haul flights no longer stopping in Sumatra, according to  others this is the low season, because it's the rainy season. April is supposed to be high season, but I would have thought it would be too hot. Anyway for whatever reason tourists are very thin on the ground and most of the guest houses are empty. Hence the touts riding the buses to drag tourists to their guest houses and sign them up for expensive treks.

My room had a hole in the floor, mould on the walls and a hole in the mosquito net. I decided to look for something better. Many of the guest houses seemed to have no staff - maybe they had given up and gone to sleep in a back room - but I found a room with traditional woven bamboo walls, right on the river bank for £3. One of the young men who worked there came with me to fetch my luggage. He told me he was a flexible Muslim, meaning he drank alcohol and charmed the young female tourists into his bed whenever he could. "I want to marry western girl" he told me "but very difficult. They stay with me few days, then leave. But I try and try." Like many of the young Indonesian men aiming his sights at young western women, he kept his hair long. I'm getting a feeling of deja vue. Wasn't it like this in Bali thirty years ago?

www.sumatra-indonesia.com/jungleinn.htm

This hotel is thriving. The rooms are beautiful, with private balconies looking out into rain forest. The is restaurant stylish with hand crafted furniture. They charge ten times what the other places round here charge and they have a continuous stream of guests!

What a relief to have left the city. On the last night in Penang, where ten of us were paying £2.50 each for a bed in the dormitory with one fan, it seemed to be hotter than ever. A  slight breeze from the fan just reached the left side of my bed but not the right side, where mosquitoes were free to linger, waiting for a chance to home in on a piece of unprotected skin - usually my face - and launch an ariel attack. I tossed and turned, sweated, and turned some more. Eventually I got up and crept out to the terrace to read my book. People came and went along the corridoor constantly. Carl got up, got dressed and took his computer downstairs. Chinese voices rose up from the street below. It was one of those nights.

Here you get a whole room for £3 and apart from the occasional motorbike, no traffic. Just the deafening sound of crickets, followed by a thousand Japanese drummers on the roof, as torrential rain drums on the corrugated iron. Then a little later a band of shrieking monkeys running through the guest house compound. It's hot and very very humid but nights are not hot like in Penang.

Kek Lok Si Temple

The Chinese have the biggest, blingiest, most extravagant temple in Penang, which says a lot about who has financial control here. Staggered up the steep hillside it has numerous side temples, subsidiary temples, courtyards, flowering plants and a turtle pond overcrowded with turtles. People buy green vegetables to feed the turtles, some of whom lie on the bottom of the pond, especially the bigger ones, for long periods of time, apparently not needing to breathe.

A cheerful gang of Tamils are dismantling scaffolding from one of the subsidiary temples
The whole temple complex is festooned with thousands of red and yellow lanterns and enormous paper dragons, that will presumably light up during the new year festivities.

An inclined lift takes you to the main temple, a towering edifice above a giant bronze statue, in a wide courtyard. A stall sells roof tiles for the temple and different coloured wishing ribbons:

red       for support from eminent people; auspicious wishes; booming business; constant happiness
orange for continuous run of wealth luck; wishes come true; all things as wish for
green   for bodily health; world peace; favourable results
purple  for successful career; increase in prosperity; longevity
pink     for family to be safe; coming and going safely
yellow for smooth working conditions; success in everything; being together forever; being coupled and paired
blue     for living together harmoniously, academic progress, excellent academic results

People buy the wishing ribbons and, in another part of the temple, tie them to a wishing tree

When I emerged from the temple I asked a few people the way to the train to go up Penang Hill. They all pointed in the same direction. So I set off on foot, up a steep, winding road, shaded by dense jungle. I sweated and walked. Eventually a car stopped and gave me a lift.
"No train up here" the Chinese driver said. "We're going to look at a lake, then we take you to the train."
"The Chinese control the economy in Malaysia" I said
"The Chinese pay 95% of the tax in Malaysia. All the rest of the nationalities pay the remaining 5%"
"So all the major businesses are Chinese" I said " but I want into a bank and all the cashiers were Muslim Malays."
"It was probably a State Owned bank" he said. "Malaysia is not a very civilised country. They are not civilised on the East coast. They all live in villages."

If it were not raining and flooded on the East coast I would go there and up into the Cameron highlands. But too many people have told me how cold it is there.

The train goes up to about 800m, near the top of the hill. The air is cool in the shade, hot in the sun.
The Penang hill hotel was built by the British a hundred years ago, with a wide verandah that looks out over Penang, the coast, the sea and the mainland beyond, and beyond that the misty hills in the distance. The verandah is full of green leafy plants and a snake lies curled up asleep in the rafters. Apparently the hotel staff feed the snake.

Chinese new year

Shop houses in Penang

Chinese new year is not until the 23rd January but preparations start early.
In a Chinese temple in Penang I across a Chinese couple, sitting on two low stools, with a little table between them. On the table was a pile of pieces of paper, printed with gold squares on one side. They were rolling these pieces of paper into tubes, then folding in the ends, to make loose packages, which they dropped into a box.
"What is that?" I asked
"Difficult to explain" the woman said "Money for the next world.
Because it is the new year we come to the temple to  honour our ancestors. Then we must ask if they are happy for us to offer them this money. If they are happy we burn the money in a ceremony."

 They had finished folding the gold money and now started on a pile of "silver money".

In the evening an inflatable green dragon advertising Calrsberg went past the restaurant where I was eating with some friends, accompanied by a line of cheerful young Chinese men with drums. A few Malay men were joining in.

Yesterday evening I went to the cinema in Penang, to see a Tamil film, much to the amazement of the Indian (mainly Tamil) audience. "Can you understand?" several people asked me.
"I can read the subtitles" I said.
The screen in the cinema is enormous, the seats comfortable and the air conditioning too cold. The audience laugh uproariously all the way through the film.  We went into the cinema at 9pm and came out at half past midnight.

A Little Penang History

Penang did not suffer under colonialism in the same way as Melaka. It was never invaded by the Portuguese or Dutch and the British snuck in without causing alarm.

Neolithic people lived on the island of Penang, 5,000 years ago, not many, but the island was continuously inhabited by a few people up until the eighteenth century, when Arabs, Japanese, Jews, Armenians and Europeans all decided to come and live here. Syed Sheriff Tengku Syed Hussein Al-Aidid, an Arab from Acheh (Sumatra), one of the wealthiest Arab spice traders, built the Lebuh Acheh mosque in 1808 and allocated land and houses for the Muslim community. He encouraged Moslem traders from all over the Malay archipelago to join his entrepreneurial community in Acheen Street in Penang.

The Europeans grew spices in large plantations, employing people from Java and from India. The Javanese came to Penang in the early nineteenth century and gradually over time assimilated into Malay culture and religion. Refugees continue to arrive today, stealthily, by night, in overfilled boats. They are not particularly discouraged by the Malaysian government, who welcome the opportunity to increase the proportion of Muslims in Malaysia. Burmese refugees are not welcomed with open arms since a) they do not look like Malays and b) they are not Muslim.

The Siamese invaded Kedah in 1821and also came peacefully to Penang to trade and farm.
Indians migrated to Penang, where they traded and lent money.

The first wave of Chinese were traders who came to Penang in the late eighteenth century, married Malays, giving rise to the Baba Nyonya (Chinese/Malay) community. Their religion was a fusion of Tao/Confusion/ Buddhist and they spoke a fusion of Chinese, Eglish and Malay. They traded with South China, South Siam, Burma and the North and West Malay states of Kedah, Perak, Selangor as well as Sumatra.

The second wave of Chinese came in the mid nineteenth century, as indentured coolies, free labourers, traders and artisans. Rich Chinese merchants had opulent country mansions, sent their children to school in Britain or China and chose to marry among themselves, occasionally improving the breeding stock by acquiring a brilliant son-in-law from a poor background.

Today the Nyonya are becoming assimilated into the modern Malay Chinese.

The Malays came from Kedah, Sumatra and southern Thailand. They were fishermen and boat builders. The current government is Malay, so Malays work in the civil service.

The East India Company, set up in 1600 to develop Asian markets for Lancashire woolen products, was focussed mainly on India but by the eighteenth century, when they realised that the Malay peninsular had tin, they became interested in Malaya. Francis Light arrived in India in the mid 1760s, later moving to Phuket, where he set up an East India Company base for trade between India and Siam. Fluent in Siam and Malay, it was he who managed to persuade the Sultan of Penang to let the British occupy Penang temporarily, in exchange for military protection. Of course the British didn't leave. In 1800 the East India Company agreed to pay an annual fee of 10,000 dollars to his Majesty the Sultan Dhiauddin Mukarram Shah II of Penang.

According the the museum in Penang, the British never signed a treaty or agreement with the Sultan of Penang. The Sultan, afraid of the Burmese and Siamese, who were making threatening noises towards Penang, was swayed by the dulcet tones of Francis Light.

Back to Penang

When I came back to Penang yesterday I found Carl still here, still downloading music and now living in the dormitory, where he has secured himself a bed next to the door and, more importantly, to the electric socket. "Now I can download music all night" he told me, handing me my kindle, which he had looked after, carefully since I left. "No thanks, I don't want to share that room. I got a bit fed up with the graffiti on the walls."

The usual band of old men, washed up in Penang, were still hanging out around the guest house. But there was some new blood:

I met some French women today, who were working in China for several years, teaching French, and learning to speak fluent Chinese. One also studied Chinese medicine and now lives in Penang. A Japanese woman who lives in Penang told me, with a sigh, that she earns her living teaching Japanese. There is a huge demand for Japanese teachers here, it seems, but her real profession is graphic design. "Absolutely no graphic design here", she lamented. There is also an Iranian staying here, who also lived and worked in China and learned Chinese, studying at the University to learn it properly.

It's very hot and I'm off the the Cameron highlands tomorrow.

Ancient Money in Melaka

More Melakan History

The Kingdom of Melaka enjoyed a long and glorious history until the Portuguese attacked the town, looted the palace, stealing all the Sultan's treasure and some of the women and destroying everything else. One of the Porguguese commanders made off in a ship with the treasure and the women. The ship sank, much to the satisfaction of the Melakans, who subsequently retrieved their treasure (though not their women). The Portuguese tried to convert the locals, who were all Muslims, to Catholicism and failed. Many Melakans left, including the Sultan, who set up a new kingdom at Johor. Muslim traders from Arabia and India stopped trading with Melaka, which went into a steep decline. The Sultan attacked the Portuguese repeatedly. On one occasion he laid siege to the Portuguese and blocked their food supplies.

The small kingdom of Naning swore allegiance to the Sultan of Johor and helped him attack the Portuguese. When the Dutch attacked the Portuguese, the Sultan of Johor and the people of Naning helped the Dutch to oust the Portuguese.

The Dutch war against the Portuguese caused the death of 7,000 Melakans, 1,500 Dutch soldiers and 200 Portuguese descendents, partly due to the war, but mainly as a result of the Malaria epidemic that raged. 10,000 Melakans left Melaka and only 3,000 stayed.

Instead of rewarding the people of Naning for their bravery, the Dutch tried to tax them. Understandably, they refused to pay the tax. So the Dutch sent an expedition, under one of their captains, to read the riot act. Naning killed the captain and harbour master and 6 soldiers. War broke out between Naning and the Dutch. The Dutch governor fled, leaving behind his chest of 13,000 rial. In 1645 the Dutch retaliated against Naning, destroying homes and paddy fields. Naning tried to retaliate. In 1646 the Dutch attacked Naning again, this time destroying not only their crops, but also all their trees.

The Dutch handed over Melaka to the British.

In 1802 Dol Said was elected chief of Naning. He was the bravest chief they had ever had. In 1831 the British tried to tax Naning and of course Dol Said refused. In 1831 the British attacked Naning but were defeated. In 1832 the British cleared a 600ft wide road all the way to Taboh, Naning, destroying orchards and burning houses along the way. A furious battle took place between Naning and the British. Finally the people from Rembau helped the British to defeat Naning and Dol Said. This war cost the british £100,000.

Under the British, Lord Farquhar caused untold hardship when he decided to dismantle the fort, in case the Dutch regained control of the town and started to compete with Penang. He forced the local Melakans to try to destroy the fort and many of them sickened and died as a result. Then he started to dynamite the fort and ordered the forced evacuation of the Melakans to Penang.  Apparently it cost the British a fortune (£70,000) to almost destroy the fort.

At this point, 1810, Stamford Raffles arrived in Melaka and put a stop to the demolition and prevented Farquhar from moving the people of Melaka to Penang. Not because he was a humanitarian, but because he wanted to use Melaka as a base from which to attack Java. He gathered together 100 ships, which were anchored off the Melaka harbour. In 1811 the ships sailed to Batavia, where they landed in August and by September they had conquered half of Java. Then the Dutch surrendered.

Semantan, Pahang uprose against the British in 1891 and captured Lubuck Terna police station. Other leaders were inspired to organise a state-wide rebellion, which failed, due to Malay leaders who were still loyal to the British.

After the British-Siam treaty was signed in 1902, Siam agreed to appoint British advisors in states under its influence. Siam would dominate foreign affairs of Kelantan and Terregganu and receive ten percent of the income from these states. The British stripped local officials of their authority and taxed the locals. In 1919 the British advisor to Terengganu introduced new rules, limiting the freedom of the Terrengganu people. To add insult to injury, the British soldiers were rude and penalised those who did not obey the new rules. This resulted in rebellions in 1922 and 1928. The rebels captured the government buildings in Kuala Brang. The British police tried to recapture them unsuccessfully. The British sent the army to quell the rebels.

In 1941 the Japanese invaded the Malay peninsular and in 1942 Malaya surrundered to Japan. The British were taken prisoner. Allied forces parachuted into the Malaya jungles to fight the Japanese, who left in 1945. Malaya was once again under the rule of the British.

In 1950 there were riots in Singapore when the British courts ordered a Dutch girl, brought up in Malaya, to be forced to return to Holland against her will. The riots expressed the deep-seated anti-colonial feeling in Singapore at that time.

A sad story

This evening when I came back to my guest house I didn't see the young woman who looks after the place. I went through to her room behind the screen to knock on her door. Before I reached the door she called out to me. She was sitting on the sofa and as I went over to her I noticed that she was crying, silently. What's the matter? I asked her. For a while the tears streamed down her face and she kept wiping her face with her wrists.
Eventually she said "I very bad wife."
"Why?" I asked.
"My husband in jail. He very good man. He fight Indian man with chop sticks."  She made a stabbing motion near her left eye.
"I know my husband. He never fight. Indian man attack him in cafe. He fight Indian man with chop sticks. He go to jail. Indian man not go to jail. Not fair. My husband Chinese. He say me marry someone else"
"Did he think he would be in jail for a long time?" I asked.
"Yes. So I marry Pakistani guy. Now I pregnant. I not want this baby. I want baby with my Chinese husband. My Chinese husband want baby. Why I not pregnant with Chinese husband? We sleep together every night two year. With Pakistani guy so quick. We marry in December 2011. Already pregnant. I not want this baby. I love my Chinese husband."

She went to get an out of focus photo of her Chinese husband, held it in her hand and stroked it.
Then she found a photo of her Pakistani husband on her phone. He looks a bit of a stud.

"What does your Pakistani husband do?" I asked.
"He work in KL. When finished he work in Melaka. Then in Singapore. We go to Indonesia. I not want to come back to Malaysia. I want to live in Indonesia."
"Are you from Indonesia?" I asked.
"Yes"
"My Pakistani husband very happy. He phone me five times today."
"You told him you were pregnant?"
"Yes."
"Have you told your Chinese husband?"
"No. I not know what he do if he know. He want to die. I want to kill this baby."
"You won't do that."
"I not know what to do. Baby not bad. But not baby with Chinese husband. I love him."
She stroked his photo again.
"Can your Pakistani husband get a job in Indonesia?
"He have very good job in Malaysia. He make a lot of money. I not interested in money. My Chinese husband very funny. He make all guests in hotel very happy. Now he not here."

Just at this moment her mobile phone rang. She picked it up and started animatedly. I left her.

Chinese cemetery Melaka

The Chinese cemetary in Melaka is huge- 25 hectares of wooded hillside, which is just as well because the graves are huge. I walked up the hill, which seems to serve as a favourite jogging spot for Malay and Chinese men. The graves are huge circles with a small wall in front and a bigh wall at the back, inscribed with Chinese characters, often picked out in gold leaf, surrounded by stone carved with leaves and flowers.

 For some reason blogger isn't letting me upload photos, so I put an album on facebook.

Melaka by night

 Melaka is pretty by night. Red Chinese lanterns festoon the streets and people sit at outdoor cafes along the riverside. But strangely, almost everything else is shut at a quarter to nine in the evening. Even stranger, next day almost everything was shut at nine in the morning, except for the Chinese shops and restaurants.

At an outdoor Chinese cafe I met a delightful family from Singapore. They spoke to their baby in English and a Chinese dialect. He will learn Mandarin, another Chinese dialect, English and Malay. This is normal in the Chinese community. The father, who is an importer of fine foods and wines from France, agreed with me that French wine is far superior to Australian. Yes he went on trips to France to source his produce. He even imports tomatoes from France. "They are so much tastier than the ones we grow here" he said. He flies his food in twice weekly, carefully packed in ice. Singapore has to import practically all its food.

We were served by a Chinese waitress with a lot of attitude and a fearsome scowl. I couldn't understand what she said (in Chinese) when I sent back the tea she brought me, in a mug with teabag and milk! but it sounded marvelously rude. From time to time she brought round a tray with little plates of all sorts of different things: white and green miniature steamed dumplings and all sorts of other things made from sticky rice powder, meat, vegetables, red bean paste and tofu in every conceivable combination. The pretty arrangements of the dishes contrasted with her formidable scowl. The family from Singapore strapped their baby onto the chair with a marvelous cloth invention, which they told me was made in the UK!

I eventually managed to get a pot of Chinese tea without sugar or milk (or teabags). I thought the waitress was going to throw it at me! It was delicious. I drank the whole pot and refilled it with hot water twice, while the Singaporean family ordered dish after dish and the granny forcefed the baby his baby food with a spoon. No messing with these Chinese grannies. The father gave me his card and asked me to get in touch when I went to Singapore - if I went to Singapore.

Later in the day I watched a funeral procession in the street. At the front of the procession people carried big Chinese lanterns (not lit because it was the day), followed by a brass band playing Auld Lang Syne, followed by a hearse covered in flowers - not on the top of the hearse, but on the sides - followed by mourners wearing white hoods and either blue or green trowsers, followed by mourners in cars. At a certain point they stowed lanterns and instruments in a van and the whole procession got into a bus, apart from a few who couldn't fit in, who hitched rides in the cars.

 This is a mosque, believe it or not! It's the Kampong Kling Mosque, built in 1748, in the Sumatran style. Melaka is very near to Sumatra and in the 14th century the Hindu prince Parameswara, from Sumatra, set up his headquarters in Melaka, bringing Sumatran people, art, architecture and customs to the port, which became an important trading centre for merchants travelling between India, China and Siam.

In the 15th century traders from India brought Islam to Melaka and from here it was disseminated throughout the Indonesian archipelago. The Melaka sultans ruled over the greatest empire in Malysia's history.

Then in 1509 the Portuguese arrived. In 1511 they attacked the port, built a fort and forced the sultan to flee to Johor. Portuguese missionaries tried to convert the Muslims to Christianity. It backfired on them. Indian and Arabian merchants stopped trading with Melaka, preferring to take their wares to Muslim Java and Muslim countries all round the area attacked the Portuguese constantly, until in 1641 the Dutch threw them out and Melaka once more became a centre for peninsular trade. Although the Dutch built churches, they wisely left the Muslims in peace. This mosque was built while Melaka was a Dutch colony.

The minaret of the Kampong Kling Mosque looks like a pagoda. The Mosque has English and Portuguese glazed tiles, Corinthian columns in the prayer hall, a wooden pulpit with Hindu and Chinese style carvings and Moorish cast iron lamp posts. A chandelier was added in Victorian times.

Goodbye Penang

And goodbye Carl, who stayed in Penang, downloading music, so that his laptop would be stacked, when he went to Africa. I woke at 5 and crept out, without putting on any lights, and consequently managed to leave my Kindle behind, with all the books I intended to read this part of the trip. Bummer!!

It was still dark at 6.30, as I and all the local passengers walked onto the ferry to take us to the mainland. No-one said a word. Not a chatty time of day. I managed to find the train station and sat down to wait for the train.

On the train, screens at the ends of the carriages show kung fu videos, interspersed with advertising for all the different routes and different classes of travel available. The movies are in English but the sound track is turned right down, so you can't hear any of the dialogue, but there is so much action, gun fighting, car chasing that it doesn't much matter.

Outside, the endless palm oil plantations are occasionally broken by the odd battery chicken farm, prawn farm or cluster of corrugated iron roofed single storey houses. Occasionally there are stretches of rice fields, coconut palms with layers of blue mountains in the distance. There are huge road building projects. It's raining on the east coast, which might explain the mackerel sky over us all the way.

At one point the railway track goes right through the middle of a lake, surrounded by forests and mountains, then through a swamp, with spikey swamp plants. About two hours into the journey the train went up over some thickly forested hills, through lush, wild jungle, looking down into wild green valleys. I wanted this to last forever, but all too soon we were back on the flat, looking at more palm oil plantations, almost always running along beside a row of hills,

I shared a taxi with two Chinese Malay PhD students, both studying in England, into Melaka. I checked into an old guest house that has maybe seen better days. The entrance hall is impressive, with a beautiful old carved screen and all the upstairs floors are old, polished teak, but the place looks uncared for and a bit dirty. My room is OK and cheap enough. But I have come to the canalside, quiet and peaceful, with tourist flat bottomed boats going up and down. The canal path is paved with red tiles and lit by old style street lamps. Little houses, bars, restaurants and hotels line the canal paths on both sides. This bar is run by an Australian, who plays piped jazz and seems to have a Malay wife. 

Penang National Park

I took a slow, tedius bus past endless white, high-rise buildings along the coast to Teluk Bahang, catching glimpses of dirty sea along the way. At the entrance to the national park they ask you to sign in, (they don't ask you to sign out) then let you loose in the park to wander the paths in the forest. Picnic tables and benches overlook the sea where the path is still paved and easy. But the path soon becomes a beaten track, with boulders and tree roots to step over, steep steps up and down, swinging wooden bridges over mangrove swamps and low branches to crawl under. In places they have built wooden walkways over the more difficult parts of the terrain.The paths are cool and shady, dense multilayered rainforest covers the hills, right down to the shoreline.

Out to sea there are floating villages, long tail boats and fishing boats. further round the coast there's an old jetty, lines of wooden poles sticking out of the sea - decaying remnants of old Penang. Fishermen were mending their nets in a blue and red striped boat. Troops of Malay Muslim girls, covered from head to toe, were walking the paths, their men walking ahead of them with huge pots of food. They didn't walk far. They found a place to picnic on a little beach, shaded by trees. The women sat demurely in little circles on the sand, round mats for the food. The men stand some distance away, minding the barbecue, chatting and smoking.

A group of young Chinese men and women, all dressed in shorts, teeshirts and trainers, come along, all chatting together, laughing.

Giant lizards scuttle away into the bushes when people approach. I saw one lying on a beach under some trees. It waddled into the sea and swam, like a miniature Loch Nes monster, with its nose sticking out.  It crawled onto a rock and lay there, turning its head, as though it was aware of me looking at it, then it slid into the sea, swam to the shore and dissappeared into the undergrowth.

Botanic Garden in Penang

Yesterday Carl and I set off early and walked to the botanic gardens (one and a half hours) through the old part of town and into the suburbs, where walled mansions are surrounded by green lawns and the streets lined with big, old trees, with brown, brittle, peeling bark. The suburbs were as immaculately manicured as the old part of town was shabby and run-down.

Leading up to the botanic gardens are a series of off-road paved walkways, covered by dense vegetation, shady and cool. A whole area is dedicated to youth, with fountains spurting out of a paddling pool, a waterfall splashing down a staircase, picnic tables and benches. The monkeys had congregated here, hopefully eyeing the picnicking families.

We got very hot walking back and then in the old town I managed to lose Carl, and then get lost. I spent hours wandering about, because I couldn't remember the name of the street where we were staying. I had brought the lonely planet with its miniscule map, but forgotten to bring a pair of glasses, so I couldn't make out the names of the roads. During my wanderings I came across a scuffy second hand market, muslim temples, Buddhist temples and rows of derelict shop houses, destined for demoliton. One shop house in the midst of all this dereliction still bravely carried on trading. The Chinese shopkeeper invited me to try umeboshi plums, spiced, sugared, salted dried mango, sugared, salted dried ginger, out of large glass jars. I bought some dried ginger. He gave me a bottle of water as a present, since all this tasting had made me thirsty. "No good government of Penang", he said, "destroying everything. You should go to Melaka. They know how to preserve old buildings there."

Conservation in Penang

Shop Houses Destined for demolition

These shop houses do not fall within the preservation area. All over Penang whole streets of old shop houses have fallen prey to devouring property developers, who, when they have succeeded in evicting all the tenants, bring the buldozers in, then build more ugly tower blocks.

Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion

14 Leith St, George Town, Penang

Cheong Fatt Tze 1840-1916, left his home in China aged 16 and travelled to Java, where he worked at every menial job he could find until one day he met and wooed the daughter of a rich merchant. He married her and his father in law, who had observed how  careful and hard working his son in law was, decided to fund him as a trader. Cheong Fatt Tze observyed the Dutch traders, for Java was a dutch colony at that time and followed in their footsteps. He soon became rich, acquired property and more wives, each one of whom benefitted his business. After several years he decided to try his luck in British colony of Malayia. He moved to Penang, where he bought a piece of swamp land in Georgetown, the capital of  Penang.

He was a Chinese Mandarin of the highest order, Consul General of the Ching Government, Special Trade Commissioner for South East Asia and director of China's first modern bank and first railway.

He cleverly incorporated European techniques into his typical Chinese Courtyard house, with 38 rooms, 5 courtyards, 7 staircases and 220 windows. The windows are art nouveau stained glass with Venetian shutters, the timberwork is Gothic, the cast ironwork Victorian and the latticework covered with gold leaf. The roofs, gables and verandahs are decorated with Chinese ceramic shard mosaics.  Fatt Tze imported artesans to carry out the work and the whole house was built according to Feng Shui principles. He designed it to impress the British and to provide an ideal environment to brin gp his sons. 5 shop houses opposite formed the original domestic annex for the mansion.

He had the outside of the house painted indigo blue, a beutiful calming colour and he made sure that everything in the house was beautiful, harmonious and representative of nature, abundance, peace and tranquility.

Leith st was once a beautiful avenue, lined with tall palm trees, with great houses sheilded from the street by walled gardens. Now most of these mansions have been destroyed. One or two have become hotels and restaurants.

A shop house in  Old Penang

Art Nouveau Building in Georgetown, old Penang

Penang

While I was staying at Apple guest house in Bangkok I met a well-travelled man called Carl, who told me about a cheap train to go south. "There's a train," he said "that goes from just the other side of the river from here, at 7.30am, to Luang Suam. It costs 90 Bart and it's very slow, stopping at every single station on the way. From Luang Suam you can get an overnight train to Hat Yai, which is right near the border with Malaysia.

I decided to go with him, since he knew the route. So on the 3rd Jan we set off early in the morning and caught the train (the only slow train) to Luang suam. All day we sat on the train, that gradually filled, until people were standing in the corridoor. The space between the two carriages was packed. It was a challenge getting to the toilet, which didn't lock. The toilet door slid open when the train braked, so one had to hold onto the door, while squatting over the toilet and holding onto one's trowsers with the other hand, to stop them slipping into the wet.

Just when the train was full to bursting, women selling every kind of food, except vegetables, climbed into the train and pushed their way through the crowds calling their wares in high fluting bird-like voices. Four women hauled up four large plastic cooling containers and several sacks of crushed ice. They proceeded to fill plastic tube-like bags with luridly coloured sweetened coconut milk and crushed ice. People bought and bought and the four women took it in turns to fill the bags and to take them up and down the train. In a few hours they sold almost all their ice. Other women were selling sausages cooked inside bamboo canes, steamed buns with meat fillings, grilled meat and rice and all manner of sweet jelly. The only things that looked safe to buy for a vegetarian were the fruit and nuts. We survived on a diet of tangerines, dried bananas, nuts, biscuits and a couple of squashed current buns that I'd bought the day before, all washed down with tepid water.

We noticed that the sky train was being extended to the south of Bangkok and the high rise buildings were already sprouting up. The countryside at this point was scrubby and desolate. Eventually we came to an area of emerald green rice fields, studded with tall palm trees. By afternoon we were travelling through a national park with jagged topped hills, like rows of broken teeth, brilliant rice fields and forests.  Later in the afternoon we entered a land of agribusiness with wall to wall palm oil palm and rubber plantations. It started to rain.

 The rain grew heavier and heavier and we began to pass flooded fields, rivers bursting their banks, trees under water, flooded roads and at one point the floodwater came right up to the railway track.

We arrived in Lang Suam in the evening and caught the night train to Hat Yai. We booked reclining seats - which turned out to be the worst possible way to spend a night on the train. Carl was next to a Thai man who kept sliding across onto Carl's seat and I encountered the same problem with a Thai girl in the next seat to mine. We spent the night trying to push our respective companions back onto their seats. the train stopped at numerous stations, where loud announcements would have woken us if we'd been asleep, and people getting on the train opened the door to the corridoor, letting in a howling gale and failed to shut it, so I had to keep getting up to shut the door.

Hat Yai is the last city before the border with Malaysia, so it caters for all the Malaysians who want sex, alcohol and general depravity that the Thai know how to provide so well. At 6.30am the city was dead, most of the shops and bars shut, the revellers asleep.

We walked out of the station in Hat Yai, looking for a bus. We walked a good hour before spotting one - or rather a bus saw us - and stopped and picked us up. It was going to the last town before the border. The driver looked exhausted with bags under his sad eyes. When we left the bus we went to buy drinks. A car stopped as we were drinking and offered us a lift to the border.

At the border, foot passengers follow a covered walkway, surrounded by smooth lawns, picnic tables, trees and flowers. The Malysian official stamped our passports with 90 days visa at no charge. It was the most painless border crossing in Asia that I've ever made.

Penang

Malaysia is governed by Malays but the banking system is run by the Chinese. Penang has the highest concentration of Chinese anywhere in Malaysia. There is also a large Indian population. Most of the Indians are Hindoo, the Chinese are Christian, Shinto and Buddhist but the official religion, and that of the Malays, is Muslim. So Mosques, Buddhist, Shinto and Hindoo temples justle for space, while on the bus veiled Muslim women stand next to Chinese girls in shorts and high heels.

Chiang Mai

There is a temple every few yards in Chiangmai, with beautifully carved wood and gold leaf.

Thailand was once covered with old trees like this. Now there is only regrowth on the hills but a few ancient trees remain in cities like Chiang Mai.

Bangkok

Apple Guest house

Apple guesthouse with very drunken Thai man

Cat Temple in Bangkok

A lot of cats live in the house behind the temple. There is a dog temple in the street behind, and a house full of dogs behind that.

New Year in Bangkok

I spent the evening in the jazz bar - "Jazz Happens", in the company of the mother of the child genius pianist who so impressed me two weeks ago. He is so small that he has to sit on the edge of the piano stool, so that he can stretch his right leg out to the pedal. The bar was full of Thai students. My friend leaned over to me and said "I feel so old here". Not as old as me, I could have added, but I didn't. She bought me a beer and when I came to leave I found that she had paid for the drink I had before that.

I still haven't met up with Pier Luigi Tazzi, who has been partying so much that he says he's not in a fit state to see anyone, but tomorrow we will meet in a part of town that I have yet to see.

And then the slow train south. . .