Updated: 5-10-06............................................................105b.
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May 29, 2004
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From my trip from Singapore to Bangkok in 1978:
If the Internet had been available and if there was a CouchSurfing.com back in 1978, I would have suggested that Al, Pam, and Noreen join and we could all be in each other's Friend Network and have kept contact through time.
I have about three fourths of the slides that I took on my Asia trip scanned. The Canadians have never seen them. When I am traveling, it is usually "high-value" time that I am experiencing. I shared the portion of my trip with them from Singapore to Bangkok...five or six days, if the 24-hour train trip from Penang to Bangkok counts.
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Not a very comfortable way to spend high-value time...24 hours from Penang to Bangkok!
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Leaving Singapore
I was up early that morning so I could be sure to get a good seat on the first train to Kuala Lumpur and be near the head of the customs line. Had what I needed for the ride, a liter and a half of drinking water and the new English language Time Magazine to read. I did notice two good-looking girls too far back in the line to talk with...maybe later in the train.
I got the seat that I wanted and settled in and read a photo story of the restoration of the largest Buddhist temple in the world...Borobudur (a replica of the Great Cosmic Mountain of the Universe), which I had visited the week before. Shortly, I thought that I would check the train's drinking water supply at the end of the car. When I stood up, there were the girls a few rows back, trying to put their packs up on the racks. As I was waiting for one to give the last push into the rack before I went by, lo-and-behold, that pack fell right into my arms. Right away, I figured that was a good omen for the train ride...and if that backpack fell on purpose, it was a stronger omen. I got the pack up and then we exchanged some greetings. Pam and Noreen were both teachers and Canadians. Noreen was teaching in Japan and Pam was teaching in Toronto. I was still teaching in Ojai.
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Pam and Noreen
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I continued on to the back of the car to check the water, which was fresh... I could use that water to drink and save mine for later on. I went back to my seat and continued reading Time. In a little while, the girls asked me if I would like to have some tea with them. There was no coffee, so I went for it. We chatted for a while in the dining car. I don't remember details of their travels, but a friend of Noreen's was a CUSO worker (like a Canadian Peace Corps) in Malaysia and she was going to contact him through the CUSO office in Kuala Lumpur.
I had this book which I shared with them during the ride:
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We decided that we would hang together in Kuala Lumpur. From the above book, we found two hotels in the cheap range. After we got to the Kuala Lumpur train station,...
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...we hired a taxi which took us to the rear of the first hotel in the book. "No way" the girls said. He then took us to the front of this hotel which the book said "is popular with clean rooms and lavatories" and cheap.
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Even though we found out later that it didn't have a good reputation, the rooms and lavatories were clean and we slept well.
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We went to the CUSO office and got word to Al. He was going to meet us the next day at the CUSO office. The girls and I wandered around KL for a while.
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The National Museum.
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Al met us later than planned because of a flat on his motorcycle. The first hotel that we didn't stay in, had a good reputation for steak dinners. That's where we all went and got to know each other. Al said that we could sell the remaining part of my train ticket to someone at the train station. He could speak the language and we sold the ticket quickly.
Al informed us that the best way to travel and the least expensive was by Mercedes taxi. The girls and I took a taxi to Taiping where he was living north of KL. He was working in the forest division near there. The girls and I had been talking about going to Penang Island, but Al said that he knows of an island that we shouldn't miss. He had been in Malaysia for a year and a half and hadn't been there yet. We could go to Penang afterwards.
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Al, Pam, a Chinese girl whose name I can't remember, and Noreen in front of Al's house.
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I guess you could say we CouchSurfed at Al's house. He didn't have any furniture, yet. When I woke up, it was hard to believe that I actually slept on just a beach mat on the concrete slab. Across the street was a house with two flags flying. Al said that the people who lived there had picked winning lottery numbers twice! Other people go to them to buy lottery number picks. The flags are their sign.
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Number Pickers.
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Pam and I went to get some nasi goreng and mei goreng for us to eat while Noreen and Al did some other chores. I saw this man and his cart and had to take a photo:
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We hired a Mercedes taxi to take us to Lumut after the girls bought some supplies in Taiping. You can find Taiping on the map. To the south on the coast you will find Lumut. Pangkor Island is off the coast near there.
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The taxi dropped us off here at Lumut's waterfront. We took the #10 ferry:
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When we were in Kuala Lumpur the first day, the English language paper's headline was: SEA KING TRAPPED ON MANGROVE ISLAND. I bought the paper and read the Sea King's history of "taxing" the towns and villages along the coast. The government's military had him surrounded on an island in a mangrove swamp in Al's forest division. The next day's headline read SEA KING ESCAPES! Anyway, we were in his territory, now.
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On to Pangkor Island.
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(June 1st...too much going on to finish right away.)
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When we approached Pangkor Island, the main village came into view...I couldn't see a dock:
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I guess we didn't need one. The tide was out and we didn't get next to the little dock. We just ran up onto the sand. I took the photo below from the boat:
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We found the place that Al knew about to stay. The family had a registration boom in which we had to sign and put our passport numbers. Since 1929, I was the ninth United States passport signed in. (I did keep a short journal this trip, but I don't have it available so some details may be a little off). The price was right...about M$3.75 a night.
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Pam, Al and Noreen.
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...Not much of a photo, but a memorable moment happened on that little island.
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Noreen and I went to the beach by our hut. I looked at that little island to the left in the photo from the beach. I figured that I had enough time to swim out to it and explore it quickly then swim back before the tide changed and would be going out. I didn't want to deal with the current that would develop.
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The Water Monitor Lizard's Island.
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Water Monitor Lizard's Island... I call it that. When I got out to it, there were a bunch of huge boulders and a few small trees. It didn't take long to go all over it. On the side you see, coming from the island toward the bay, there was a nice looking grotto that required me to jump down four or five feet from a huge boulder to a flat rock down where the water was.
As soon as I plopped down onto the rock, a huge monitor lizard raised its head and looked at me from about five feet away. I could see long, strong, claws on its front right leg which was in the water. It stuck out its long, forked tongue waving it up and down at me...we locked eyes. I had mixed emotions. I would like to have had my camera because I was lucky to see it, but more to the point, I thought that if it came after me, I wouldn't be able to climb up that big boulder without it having a chance to get a bunch of bites and claws in.
It turned its head, back toward an opening to the bay, then looked back at me, waved its tongue, then turned around and slid into the water and away toward the bay. That little episode really got my adrenalin pumping. I climbed up out of the grotto very glad for the experience and that the monitor lizard decided to go the other way.
I decided to swim back right away. I was about two-thirds of the way to the beach side-stroking and thinking about the lizard, those claws, and its swimming ability. I wasn't looking ahead of me and didn't notice the chunks of floating seaweed. When I brushed up over one, my body reacted if it was the lizard. I remember it as if my body came up out of the water. When I saw the floating brown alga, I grabbed it and looked at it and felt sort of embarrassed. But, no matter. It was only me out there, all alone...except for the monitor lizard somewhere.
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We asked where the best nearby beach was. We were told it was around on the other side not too far away. I took a photo from the top of the road down to the beach and part of the beach, but it didn't turn out. Here is the one from the bottom looking up:
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Old story...this was the beach where I decided to end classroom teaching and get into travel:
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One night we were on this beach, watching orangish light flashing across the strait in the clouds. We decided that maybe a volcano was going off on Samatra. We were wrong.
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That night it rained and rained. We then knew why the little hut was on stilts, It was like a river underneath. (Later on, in Chaing Mei, Thailand, I found out it was a hurricane that later caused damage in Chang Mei...another story). Back to before the rains:
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No good photo, but there I am doing my laundry by hand.
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Al stayed back one day, maybe to do some laundry. The girls and I decided to walk around the island. We would meet Al in the village.
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As we were walking along, we came to where some men were cutting down a coconut palm. The way it was leaning over a house and they were cutting on the same side, I was sure it would come down on the house. We had to stay and watch the operation. Before it got cut enough to fall, ropes were attached to the tree and men pulled from away from the house, but parallel to it. The final cuts were done, the tree fell at an angle missing the house. The men opened up one of the coconuts and we enjoyed the drink.
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One night, two Australian yachts anchored in the bay off from our hut. We partied a while with them that night. The yachts were gone in the morning. You can see them in this night photo:
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I think we left for Penang that day. We took the ferry to Lumut, then a Mercedes taxi in the torrential rains. I took this photo through the window of one of the average looking houses in an area where wood was being burned to make charcoal:
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I certainly do a better with my digital camera.
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What I'm hoping might happen is that Pam, Noreen and Al might eventually go to this website and see these photos. Maybe using the Internet and CouchSurfing, that might happen. That's why I've included lousy photos. I'm going to upload this page and put the rest of the photos in Artmail 105c.
Pangkor links: Information........A Vacation to... ...and More Info
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