Month: January 2014

Reading

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Anyone who knows me knows that I spend a lot of time reading. Jim took this pic of me in our hotel room in Kuala Lumpur a couple of weeks ago. He had meetings over two days so we stayed the night in the Gardens Hotel. There is a spectacular shopping centre adjoining the hotel – miles of shops, including all the designer outlets – Gucci, Armani, Kate Spade, Michael Kors, etc, etc – and an amazing food hall. While Jim was catching up on emails, I ventured out in search of coffee. I eventually found the San Francisco kiosk, where they were amazed that I wanted no sugar in my coffee, and scuttled back to the room feeling very much the country bumpkin. I also had the prospect of a day on my own in KL, ending with finding a cab to take me to the company’s offices to meet Jim. It doesn’t sound onerous but the size of the city, the number of people and cars and the maze of roads and highways (called expressways here) was daunting. So a coffee and a bit of a read was what I needed before my big adventure. I was reading The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund De Waal. I’ve been tardy getting to this book, which was published in 2010 when it won the Costa Biography Award. It has been on my reading list since then, so when I saw a copy in Browsers in Hamilton, I pounced. I can highly recommend it.

Pangkor Island

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Pangkor Island

Last Sunday we drove from Ipoh to Lumut, a port city on the Straits of Malacca. We then got a ferry to Pangkor Island. This ferry has to rate as the most awful vessel I’ve ever been on. It is low-slung, sailing close to the water. All the passengers sit inside (fortunately with some cooling) and none of the windows open. I was lucky to sit beside a filthy window so that I could watch the horizon to keep the seasickness at bay. I had to very deliberately turn my thoughts from what might happen in an emergency, though there were life jackets on the overhead shelves. The first stop on the island was at a fishing village, where most of the houses were built on stilts over the water. Some fishermen lived on their boats judging by the hammocks and laundry hanging from the anchored boats. We got off at the next stop, which is the main settlement on the island. We then hired a scooter (I am grateful that my adventuring partner is a natural on two wheels!) and drove around the south side of the island. We stopped at a populated tourist beach to buy cold water and sat on a bench for a breather. A young Malay man was supine in a hammock close by. He came over to find out where we were from and was delighted that we came from New Zealand. His girlfriend had had a lovely holiday in what we ascertained was Rotorua from his description. He told us he was a part-time policeman and that he was spending the day “just smoking weed and relaxing on the beach”! We found a more isolated beach for a swim. The water was green, fairly clear and flat as a pancake – and I was with a surfer! It was not at all salty and had an almost oily feel to it. However, it was very refreshing on a day when the temperature had reached the mid-30s. Every settlement and beach on the island was marred by garbage. I struggle to understand why people who make their living from the environment pollute it. It is also not conducive to tourism. Next time we go for a swim, we’ll take a rubbish bag and clear the bit of the beach we want to sit on!

Tea time

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We drove up to the Cameron Highlands last Sunday. The road from Ipoh winds its way up, with the views becoming more spectacular the higher you get. We stopped at the first strawberry farm we came to. Here they grow the strawberries in pots hung from overhead lines. The strawberry farms are covered with plastic roofs, which are very unattractive. I bought a punnet for RM20 (about NZ$8) and have been enjoying them (though they are not a patch on the strawberries from the farm on SH3 outside Ohaupo!) We wended our way through various settlements, most of which are ugly conglomerations of shanties, shops, small eating places and lots of rubbish. There are also smart hotels and a golf course named after the Sultan, who seems to be a keen golfer if the photos in the foyer of the club are to be believed. We then came to the tea estates. We’d heard that you could get a Devonshire tea up here and were looking forward to the scones. The first two tea houses we came across had nothing like that but then we glimpsed a little side road leading to the Boh tea estate. After a hair-raising drive up a very narrow, rutted road, dodging fast drivers coming down, we got to the tea house at the top and there we found scones, strawberry cheesecake and aromatic tea served in pots. Wonderful! We climbed up to the viewpoint above the tea processing factory and I actually put on a cardi – it was only about 21 degrees up there! There was a marvellous view of the tea plants in their bright green rows, following the slopes all the way down the valley. We’ll definitely go back there with all our many visitors.

Thaipusam

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Last Friday and Saturday was the Hindu festival of Thaipusam. There are celebrations wherever there are significant Tamil communities and Ipoh is one such centre. Thai is the Tamil month coinciding with January/February and Pusam is a star, which is at its highest point at the time of the festival. Thaipusam is a commemoration of Murugan, the Tamil god of war, and devotees carry kavadi to the temple in penance and also to entreat the god for good fortune in the future. Kavadi may be as simple as carrying a pot of milk to the temple but it may also involve piercing of the skin, tongue or cheeks with skewers, or pulling a decorated cart by means of hooks inserted into the back. We went into central Ipoh on Friday night to watch the procession of carts. A family sitting on the steps of a bank invited us to join them at this vantage point. They were local Indians – a father, his daughter and twin sons – who had all come into the city on one little scooter. The children were very excited though their father told us that they were Christians. The Hindu people around us were beautifully dressed, the women and girls in magnificently coloured saris and bright bangles, the men in embroidered shirts. The carts came by pulled by men with hooks in their backs, some of whom also had skewers through their tongues and cheeks. They were accompanied by dancers and drummers. It was an amazing spectacle for these two pale Protestant New Zealanders and a fantastic introduction to the diversity of our new home city.

Cornwall Park

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Maungakiekie

Maungakiekie

On New Year’s Day, 20 days (and another life) ago, my daughters and I visited Cornwall Park in Auckland. We recalled the first time we’d picnicked there when they were two and four years old – they are now 20 and 22! We clambered up the circular pathways that lead to the summit, through paddocks of sheep, skirting the archery area, where a lone archer was honing her skills. Half way up a rain squall forced us to take shelter under an olive tree. Then it cleared the way it usually does in Auckland and we proceeded to the top, encountering a traffic jam and scores of tourists. I noted again Sir John Logan Campbell’s grave and thought about his splendid gift of the park to the people of Auckland. We slowly walked around, pointing out landmarks and reminding each other of places we’d lived and the loveliness of the city below, where they both live and where we’ll be returning when our work in Ipoh is done.

Sheep may safely graze

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We left New Zealand a week ago. After the shipping agents had packed up the belongings we are sending to Malaysia, we spent two days clearing out our little house in Ohaupo. We took several loads to the recycling centre and spring-cleaned the house. Lunchtimes were spent in the empty living room, sitting on the floor eating our sandwiches and fruit, looking out at the trees and paddock beside the house. This spring we’ve had calves as company but last spring there were lambs in this paddock. It was a delight to wake up and see them standing on their mums’ backs, hoping this would induce the ewes to stand up so they could have their first drink of the day, tails wiggling furiously. In some ways, it seemed the quintessential New Zealand experience and we were so lucky to have it.