Llew Wanders the World

My first impressions of Malaysia came from the border town of Johor Baru, just across the causeway from Singapore. To my surprise, it didn’t appear all that different from Singapore. True, the buildings looked just slightly more run down than those across the strait, but in general the city looked quite prosperous.

Obviously this couldn’t continue. Singapore is a city of 3 million on a tiny island and while Malaysia is densely populated, it differs in that it has actual countryside to pass through. The train trip was very comfortable, despite the fact that we’d taken second class seats. The car was air conditioned and the seats (as well as the fellow passengers) were quite pleasant. This was miles away from some of the horror stories I’d heard about train travel in developing countries.

The trip from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur sped by, as did the landscape outside. For huge swathes of time, one would see little other than oil palm plantations with a few rubber plantations thrown in to break the monotony. Now and again however, the train would slow and pass through or even stop at a village or town. While there were sections of the villages with sheet metal shacks and garbage piles in the creek behind, the settlements we passed were generally quite pretty and looked like pleasant enough places to live. Even the small individual shacks that the train passed as we traveled through the countryside looked idyllic.

After the seeming calm of provincial Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur was a bit jarring. Its railway station was spectacular. Modern and spotlessly clean, it was clearly one of many “showcase” buildings in K-L. Our first order of business upon arrival was to arrange train tickets for the remainder of our (in case you hadn’t read recently, I’d met my mother and father in Singapore and would be travelling with them for the next three weeks or so) journey up to Bangkok. This was accomplished with relatively little fuss, although it turned out that for a large chunk of our trip (12 hours or so, including an overnight section) only second class seats were available. The fact that it was second class wasn’t a problem, but the fact that they were second class SEATS rather than berths wasn’t cause for great joy. Given that there was no real alternative, however, we collected our tickets and dropped our bags at the left luggage office in preparation for a day’s walking tour around K-L.

We hopped on the very modern and efficient K-L light rail system (I suspect you’ll find me continuing to use those words often to describe rail based public transit in Southeast Asia) and headed into town.

Our first stop was a natural (indeed, almost obligatory) one for a structural engineer: The Petronas Twin Towers. At 452m, these two buildings that form the headquarters of the Malaysian national oil company are the tallest buildings on Earth. Completed in 1998, the towers were constructed with Islamic motifs prominent in their architecture. At the 41st floor level is the Skybridge, which was dropped into place from above as a single piece and which connects the two buildings near the middle of their occupied floors.

I (and my mother) were terribly disappointed when we arrived and discovered that, while free tours of the buildings went on well into the day, all of the tickets had already been distributed. We had to content ourselves with views of the towers er… towering above us from ground level. The inside of the buildings was also quite impressive. The card-based access control for the building was pretty cool, and the architecture and interior design were beautiful (and thankfully much more subtle than some of Singapore’s skyscrapers.)

From this point we decided to travel on foot for the rest of the day, though in K-L this was easier said than done. While there were a fair number of pedestrian overpasses, crossing the road in areas without them could be, well, challenging, especially for my mom, who gets nervous crossing minor arterial roads back home in Toronto.

The traffic signals for cars worked faultlessly, but the pedestrian signals were often disabled and occasionally non-existent. In these instances, we used the sensible strategy of standing beside a local who looked ready to cross and venturing out into the street when he or she, or better still, they did (the saying “there’s safety in numbers” applies particularly well to crossing busy streets in Asian cities.)

Not only was simple locomotion difficult, orientation proved (once in a while) to be a problem. Thankfully the Malay language uses the Latin alphabet (same as English) so once we’d found a couple of street signs, a major hotel, or an LRT stop, it wasn’t TOO tough to place ourselves on the map and determine where we should go next.

Our walk took us through the historic district of the city, which was interesting and contained many relics of British colonial times (as in Singapore, the English used in Malaysia showed very distinct British influences. Particularly interesting is the way that English words have been adopted into the language, but with slightly different spellings, e.g. Sentral)

We continued on through the bustling streets, and with a bit of help from a kind local lady, found our way to Chinatown. If the streets in most of the city were busy, here they verged on chaos. This was most pronounced in the Petaling Street Market. Throngs of people, locals and tourists alike jostled their way up the covered pedestrian mall browsing through the tables and stalls of goods. In addition to delicious exotic fruits, there was knockoff designer clothing of all types, pirated CDs, home (or more likely small factory) burned DVDs, and more computer software than you could shake a stick at. This place was an intellectual property lawyer’s worst nightmare!

By this point it was comfortably into the afternoon, and we still needed to eat before getting back to the station in time to collect our bags and check in for the train. Thus we continued our walking tour of Chinatown and made our way almost all the way back to the Central train station. We climbed up to the light rail to take it for one stop on the way back, since navigation for the final part of the walk looked tricky. This also afforded us with a lovely view out over the national mosque, old train station and many other landmarks, as the sun crept closer to the horizon.

We arrived back at the station with plenty of time to spare and stopped for a dinner of Malay food, which ranged from odd (but not entirely unpleasant) to very tasty. By the time dinner was over it was almost time to board the train, so we collected our bags and procured some snacks for the upcoming journey. Of particular note was the waffle I bought at a small bakery in the station. I picked it out of the display cabinet, but then had to sit and wait while a new one was made fresh for me. In the process I came close to missing boarding time for the train and hurried upstairs to meet my mom and dad with my time consuming pastry. People were just starting to head down to the platform when I arrived.

The overnight trip from Kuala Lumpur to Butterworth station (near the city of Penang) was less than entirely pleasant. This was due primarily to the lack of sleeping facilities. Indeed, not only did we have to try to sleep in cramped seats (amazing how they felt so spacious and comfortable that morning…) on a full train, but the lights weren’t even turned out. Thankfully I was able to pass the time chatting with a pleasant gentleman who was heading home to northern Malaysia and was happy to give advice about Butterworth station and Penang.

Throughout the evening I read a bit, played scrabble with my mom and dad, but was wary of pulling out my mp3 player to listen to music due to the presence of the young lads in front of me who sought my aid in unlocking a mobile phone that I got the impression didn’t belong to them.

Finally, with the aid of my earplugs I managed to get a bit of shut-eye, indeed, probably rather more than my mom and dad did. Thankfully we’d all awakened on our own by 05:00 or so, and were in no danger of missing our 05:45 stop at Butterworth.

As you may have guessed from the time, we arrived in the dark. We managed to drop our luggage off for collection that evening when we re-boarded, but were then faced with the problem of what to do at this ungodly hour. This was compounded by the fact that we had more or less no Malaysian currency left and the money changer didn’t open until 09:00.

To our rescue came Sheri, an American from Louisville Kentucky who spotted us the total 1.80 Ringgit (60 cents!) necessary for my mom, dad and I to take the ferry across to Penang. The trip across was pleasant in just about every way. I stood up at the front of the ferry while the “adults” chatted just behind me. The breeze blowing over me was almost perfect and the sun rising behind the ship over Butterworth.

We arrived in Penang and at Sheri’s suggestion (she’d been there before) headed towards the Eastern & Oriental Hotel (named after/in conjunction with the super-luxury E&O Railroad [$2700 per person from Bangkok to Singapore.]) We started walking and with the aid of some helpful folks just getting up for work determined that it was quite a ways. The last fellow we stopped not only gave us directions there, but even offered to give us a ride (he said he was very early for work.) We gladly accepted, and were a bit disappointed when the supremely friendly fellow declined our offer to buy him breakfast, or at least coffee.

We walked into the E&O (despite the fact that it’s sometimes called the Raffles of Penang, we had no dress code troubles here.) The lobby was visually impressive, made mostly of cream coloured polished marble, but the most amazing thing about it was the perfect parabolic shape of the ceiling dome. Any words spoken near the middle of the room would echo back to the speaker with astonishing clarity. After admiring the interior for a bit, we headed out onto the back terrace where we sat and enjoyed the sunrise and discussed plans for the day. We eventually decided that we’d hire a taxi for an hour or so to give us a driving tour of the city.

With a few minutes of Sheri’s deft negotiating later and we were set to go. The driver was a very friendly Chinese fellow (Malaysia in general and Penang in particular are very multicultural, with Malay, north and south Indian, Arab, British, Armenian and even Jewish elements mixing together.) Our driver toured us around the city, pointing out historic buildings, as well as significant temples, churches and mosques and offering commentary on all. Perhaps the most impressive of the lot was the Buddhist temple containing a huge reclining Buddha statue. I feel a bit silly having taken a photo of it, but he also brought us to what he claimed (probably correctly) was the prettiest Kentucky Fried Chicken (I refuse to conform to the restaurant’s marketing schemes to make themselves sound healthier by calling themselves KFC, thus eliminating the word fried) restaurant in the world.

After our driving tour was complete, we were dropped off at the historic Cathay hotel. We explored it briefly, and also crossed the street for a closer look at the beautiful indigo building (the mansion of a Chinese merchant) that we’d seen on our drive. After this, Sheri headed straight for the Penang museum while my mom, dad and I opted for a walking tour of the neighbourhood. And were very pleased we did.

About halfway through the short walk, we came to the Hainan temple. In 1995 this Chinese temple was provided with a new exterior in honour of its centenary. The carving this new exterior was the most spectacular I’ve ever seen, bar none. This includes gothic cathedrals, marble works in the world’s great museums, everything. At first glance we thought it must have been cast out of concrete somehow, so incredibly intricate was the stone work. The level of detail in the carvings was incredible, and even the minor panels that must have been left to apprentice carvers were beautiful works of art in their own right. After I’d taken some 20 photos of almost every aspect of the carving, I finally dragged myself away to the Penang museum.

It’s particularly sad that the museum didn’t permit photography, as it was one of the best I’ve ever been to. The museum’s collection was wonderful. There were items representing almost every aspect of life from each of the myriad cultures that built Penang. Not only this, but the interpretive exhibits were some of the best written I’ve seen anywhere as well. They engaged the reader wonderfully, and did a great job of expressing (and probably helping to foster) the harmony and respect between the races within the city. This wonderful museum will doubtless only get better once they’ve completed their interactive section (only the first exhibit in it was open when we visited.)

After a wonderful time in the museum, Sheri parted ways with my family and we headed out to find something to eat. We had a great Indian meal (the total cost of which, for all three of us, was under seven dollars) and also purchased further snacks for the train before going to meet Sheri for the trip back to the ferry.

We fussed and fiddled about, debating whether to walk or take a taxi, whether we had time for the taxi to take us to one more temple, haggling with the driver, all of which frustrated my dad a bit. In the end, however we did finally make it back to the ferry dock in plenty of time.

As we were boarding, a small Thai man started chatting in very broken English, first with me, then my dad, then once I’d found my place up at the front of the boat, with me again. It turned out that the fellow was a sailor from one of the boats in port at Butterworth. He was very friendly, and while he was very difficult to understand, he did his best to tell us all he could about the cargo coming in and out of the port, the intrigues of the police and customs officials, and his opinions of the merits of various nationalities as crewmembers.

We finally disembarked from the ferry and returned to the train station to collect our bags and wait for the train that would arrive shortly.

We boarded the train which left on time with no problems, headed still further north for the border with Thailand. The scenery throughout northern Malaysia was very similar to that in the south, with perhaps a few more rubber plantations breaking up the oil palms. I was surprised by how spindly the rubber trees looked, and by the fact that many of the plantations seemed to be overgrown and abandoned.

At perhaps 17:30 we reached the Thai border and the train stopped to allow us to go through customs. Aside from the immigration official having to re-write a few sections of my entry card (due to my abominable handwriting, even though it WAS in block letters) there were no hassles getting through. After making our way through customs, I was particularly relieved to have made it through with no trouble, especially given my scruffy looking beard, sandals and their connection with the sign on the far side of the immigration desks.

Before re-boarding we managed to spend our few remaining Singapore dollars (we were all out of Ringgit) on a few beers at the train station.

At each small station, Thai men and women would come aboard offering fresh fruit and other treats for sale at ridiculously low prices (I was a bit wary of eating some of the ones that had already been peeled, but I figured if the German ex-pat resident in Thailand for two years across from me was eating them, so would I.) Between these, the beer, some reading, some music and a chat with Sheri, the evening slipped away and I was soon happy to head to bed in my seat that had been converted into a bed in the open plan sleeping car.

We woke the next morning in the suburbs of Bangkok, and before we knew it the train was pulling into the first Bangkok station. Sheri departed here, while my mom, dad and I stayed on board to the end of the line, Bangkok’s Hua Lamphong station. Dad, mom and I packed up our luggage (ensuring that I didn’t forget my beloved stick) and headed out to find a taxi to start exploring a new country and city.

A quick thank you here to Sheri, who, with her previous experience of the city, made our time in Penang much more pleasurable than it otherwise would have been.

Tags: Malaysia and Singapore

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 12th, 2004 at 8:16 am and is filed under Malaysia and Singapore. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.