Rain

Helen: We've been in Malaysia 3 days now. And it's rained every single day. Buckets and buckets and buckets. We are currently hiding in our hotel room (clean and friendly, but looks a bit Communist), waiting for the rain to stop so we can venture outside for supper (hmmm, shall we have noodles or curry? Had noodles for breakfast and curry for lunch, and both yesterday and the day before so it's a tough choice...)
Did manage a quick explore earlier though - went to a Khongsi in Georgetown (apparently the whole city is a World Heritage Site - there can't be many UNESCO WHSs that we haven't visited - everywhere we go seems to be listed) and got shown around by a very enthusastic little old Chinese man with bad teeth, a big smile and a smattering of English. He posed for photos with us and we promised to send him copies (he promptly pulled some business cards out of his pocket with his name and address on!) A Khongsi is basically a family compound - this one was beautiful and dated from 1820. There was a temple (lots of gold leaf and ancestral tablets (like gravestones) and living quarters - no one lives there now, but when the Chinese emigrated here in the late 18th and early 19th centuries they grouped together in clans to support each other. (The clans then evolved into Triads and they started killing each other...) Clan life is still v important today and we saw lots of people lighting incense sticks for their relatives.
After that we took the funicular railway to the top of Penange Hill - I've never made it up 800+m so quickly! Took us over an hour to walk down again, spotting monkeys all the way (specially cute ones with black fur and white eyebrows/round their lips. The macaques weren't so friendly. They barred their teeth and started growling at us and we were stuck for a few minutes not knowing how to get past them!)
Generally v glad to have got out of KL - too big, too busy, and no charm. Georgetown is much more appealing. Lots of nooks and crannies and streetlife. Most of the population of Malaysia seems to be Chinese or Indian - both look like they've just stepped out of China/India respectively (I say authoritively, never having actually been to either place!) I don't know quite what I was expecting - but I was definitely expecting the Malaysians to be a distinct culture rather than two imported cultures.
The countryside in between KL and Penang (as seen from the bus) was strange - lots of palm oil plantations (aren't they responsible for killing off orangutans?) and peculiar new build estates that seemed empty (no lights on, no cars, overgrown gardens). I swear the barrat box type houses wouldn't have looked out of place in the Rotherhithe and the Thames estuary. At the other end of the spectrum we saw a few lovely homes as well, at the top of Penang Hill where it's cooler so all the colonials built city retreats and sanotoriums. The houses were twee little olde English style cottages with picket fences and garden furniture like C's parents have in Surrey. And there was a red GR post box outside!! Bonkers.
Right, that's enough. Hasn't stopped raining, but my tummy's rumbling so will have to make a dash for it anyway. Off to Bangkok tomorrow on the train. Going to do a bit of pinyin practice this evening to make sure we don't starve in China.
Hx