December 8, 2009 Rebak Marina, Langkawi, Malaysia

Continuing our George Town tour….  (We noticed that the city spells its name George Town and the highway department spells it Georgetown.  We were guessing one is local and one is federal)

Jin Xiu Art Gallery and Tea House 58 Muntri Street, George Town

It was lovely, cool and very relaxing.

Elizabeth going through her mail while we wait to order.

We ordered Puer tea which is a milder tea better to drink on  an “empty” stomach.

Although it was around lunch time, our second breakfast that morning kept us from being hungry for lunch. We were just tired and thirsty and tea was just the thing. The owner recommended puer tea. I remembered Stella (from Seahorse Marine) mentioning it when we were in China and also, the calligraphy teacher of Jingan had served puer tea to Sallie and me.

One of our stops earlier in the day was at the marina in George Town. E and P had stayed there for a bit and were having mail sent to them in care of the marina. That’s how cruisers receive mail and shipments. If you are lucky, mail/shipments will arrive on time; if not there are different options. You can wait for it to arrive. You can leave and hope other cruisers will retrieve it and bring it along to you. It can be sent back to its place of origination. ….. Usually though, if you stay at a marina for a month or so, your mail or package will arrive during that time. Other confusing things can happen when a resort and marina share a complex and the package doesn’t go to the marina office but rather to the resort front desk where often staff won’t sign for it. (No matter that you specifically asked that it be delivered to the MARINA OFFICE.)  We had that happen in KK. 

Our tea is being brewed for us.

I asked this young man how he came to be involved in the tea business and he said that serving tea was an art and that’s what attracted him to it.

There is an art to brewing, serving, and drinking tea. The tiny pot is refilled from the never empty glass pot of boiling water which is kept hot over a small candle. Boiling water is poured over the tiny ceramic pot to keep it hot. You drink from tiny cups, but if your tea gets cold you can pour it into the base of the tea tray through the slots and take more tea. And the cup nearest you actually belongs to the person opposite from you. I always mixed that up so we just drank from the cup nearest to us. I had experienced much of this in China acting as tour guide around Jingan for other visitors.  Everyone who visited wanted to buy tea pots and tea so we visited all the shops and drank lots of tea in similar tea “ceremonies”. But it is always a welcomed treat.

This tea house is also an art gallery. The current exhibit was the works of Charles Chauderlot.

www.charleschauderlot.com is his really fascinating web site

The exhibit was called Memories in Ink (of Penang) done in Chinese ink and brush.

Same temple, different view and nowhere near as interesting. You can see the large pink joss sticks on the right side of the photo since we are on the side street between the temple and the row of shops. At least I think it’s the same temple: I do remember the pigeons.

I’ve obviously cropped this and it’s off kilter, but you can still see how wonderful it is.

Mr. Chauderlot was invited by the Chinese to paint usually restricted parts of the Forbidden City and was later commissioned by the government of Macau to capture the city with his art. Had we been in the tea shop the previous day we would have met him at the opening of the exhibit. RATS!

A collection or priceless teapots! Tea pot warmers are on the top shelf.

Everything was decorative, even the chair seats if you can see the carving.

Local ladies having lunch. They gave us smiles as we left.

Looking out to the street.

We had a wonderful time, drank lots of tea, lots and lots of tea…and then refreshed we moved along to see what we would see. And what we would see would involve eating chocolate! And that will have to be left for another email.

Ru

DoraMac

ps: Tomorrow we’re off with a Rally tour of Langkawi for the day.  We take a small marina ferry for the short trip to the mainland and then join the Rally bus for a tour and lunch.  For the past two and a half days Randal and I have done nothing but clean the boat.  Randal works outside and I clean inside.  We’re both looking forward to a day off.  I stil have to clean the forward cabin, aft cabin and the galley. (It took me two days just to clean both “heads” and the entire saloon. To let air circulate many of the cabinet doors and the bottom half of the “head” doors have slats and getting the dust out of those slats takes forever.  I found that if you wet a rag and drape it over a small spatular, you can get that between the slats and rub it back and forth several times.  Takes forever!)   Both of us will clean the pilot house.  Because of the salt, boat yard grit, and just life we have to clean from floor to ceiling and everything in between.  But then I can ignore it for another several months of so, at least this heave duty cleaning.  Is it baseball season yet?

pps: Sorry about the missing photo of Mr. Lee, the joss stick maker.  It was in the email before I sent it.   But it wasn’t mine anyway so I guess the fact that it disappeared is fair.  

Thanks in large part to Elizabeth being such a wonderful guide I was able to see many interesting bits of George Town in the very short time we were in Penang. ( I should also thank Patrick for parting with Elizabeth’s help for the day and Randal who always encourages me to see the sights while he tends to boat needs.) Please, Elizabeth, correct me where I go wrong or totally make things up!

Elizabeth and Ruth drink tea, eat chocolate and meet an artist.

Our second Friday at the boat yard, Elizabeth was able to take time to guide me around George Town. Randal decided to go along with us, not to sight see, but to get some boat supplies. That Friday, unbeknownst to us, was the first day of Hari Raya Qurban, a Malaysian Islamic national holiday so all museums, some retail shops, and even most Muslim restaurants were closed. That didn’t spoil Elizabeth’s and my day at all but Randal, who had just come for one specific shop went home early and mostly empty handed. For Elizabeth and me, the holiday closings created the opportunity for different adventures.

Our first stop in George Town always being a second breakfast, we headed to our favorite Muslim restaurant only to find it closed for the holiday. As we toured the streets to find another, we ran into our good friend Ian from Reeflections II. We had first met Ian and his wife Robin in Sebana Cove at a dockside happy hour. Robin is the nurse who took care of me when I had my bout of food poisoning. We reconnected with them in Singapore and at that time Ian was the hero for climbing our mast several times to fix our anchor light. They were now in the marina in George Town where Robin was recovering from knee surgery performed at the local hospital. We ate breakfast with Ian and afterwards he and Randal went off for boat stuff and Elizabeth and I went off to see George Town. Had there been no holiday, our favorite green and yellow restaurant would have been open and we might not have met Ian.

On our way to find breakfast we passed by a man making popiah on Chowrasta Road. He makes them from 8 to 11 on weekdays. Like most shops, this one opens out to the road so you can watch the work being done: an interesting way to advertise.

Step one

Step two

Step three

“Popiah in Hokkien dialect translates to Spring Roll. If you’ve ever wondered how spring roll wrap is made, then this is the place to watch and learn. The owner can make a minimum of 15 pieces of spring roll wrap per minute! For those who aren’t familiar with the history of popiah or spring rolls. This ever popular dish has its origins in Northern China sometime during the Qing Dynasty to celebrate the good harvest. The Chinese believe that the new year’s cycle begins with Spring when everything comes alive after the cold, harsh winter. The original spring roll filling was made mainly out of fresh vegetables collected from the year’s first harvest, sliced, cooked and wrapped in thin dough” http://www.journeymalaysia.com/MI_penang3.htm provided the info: the photos are mine.

    When I had my art classes in Singapore, I had often gone for lunch at the Maxwell Food Court in Chinatown and always ate popiah. The stall didn’t make the wraps, but made the filling and the finished roll as I stood waiting. They were wonderful.

After breakfast Elizabeth took me to see the joss maker.

Some samples of joss

This is a photo of Mr. Lee but it’s from the website, he hurried away just as we arrived. We did see a box of joss sticks just like he is making in this photo.

Joss (Incense)

Unfortunately, when we got to his shop he only had time to tell us that he was off to see the doctor. But his story is really interesting.

“Mr. Lee Beng Chuan has been making joss sticks for decades now. This sprightly 60-some year old man and his wife continue to churn out joss sticks for a select group of loyal customers. Mr. Lee started out not as a joss stick maker but he was commissioned to handcraft dragon and phoenix effigies onto large joss sticks that were used for special occasions such as important Chinese festivals and birthdays. As his eyesight began to fail, he decided to switch to a labour intensive but less skilful career and hence making joss sticks instead. Today, Mr. and Mrs. Lee continue to churn out joss sticks for their very niche market. Although, Mr Lee used to produce thin jossticks – those often seen at alters in temples, he can no longer compete in pricing especially those from China and Vietnam. Instead, he makes shorter, fatter jossticks, which he says are more appropriate for his customers who many have moved away from houses and into apartments. In this way, the smaller jossticks would take a shorter time to burn and hence less smoke in the apartment.

Visitors can buy jossticks from Mr. Lee. He sells them in a variety of sizes. He will proudly show anyone interested, the process of making jossticks over and over again without missing a skip. However, Mr. Lee and wife speak only Chinese and a bit of Malay. On rainy days, Mr. Lee does other things apart from making jossticks, as the process requires quite a bit of sun. The final stages before packing is to dry the jossticks under direct sunlight for 2 days. Mr. Lee has lived in this house on this street for over 65years. He sadly reminisces days when the row of houses in which he still lives on were filled with folks working on all sorts of trades. As the younger generation went off to school and universities, they left their homes for luxuries of apartments and bigger cities. Many of the older generations went along and retired from their livelihood. Mr. Lee maintains that he and his wife would prefer to work for as long as they are able to ~ their way of life is what makes them whole.”

No. 1 Lorong Muda. Operations hours: 8.00am – 11.00am (also depending on the rain, weekdays).

http://www.journeymalaysia.com/MI_penang2.htm#5

We walked over near the Esplanade to catch the free bus that takes you around George Town.

I took this photo from the boat as we passed by on our way to Langkawi. You can see the style of the government buildings along the Esplanade built by the British during the 1800s and early 1900s

St George’s Church, dates from 1818 and is the oldest Anglican church in Malaysia.

According to http://www.tourismpenang.gov.my/heritage_st_georges_church.html it was built by Indian convicts. I think Elizabeth said it was being renovated. In any event we didn’t go in but waited just in front for the free bus that takes you around George Town.

Elizabeth looks at the map to plan our next stop…to find some art.

Drainage ditches ran along the sidewalks so you had to plot your way.

Lots of trishaws around but I would guess they are mostly for the tourists.

Not everything was famous but it was all lovely to look at.

Just wandering the small streets gives you lots to see.

While I was noticing the lovely tile and woodwork in front of this building, Elizabeth had noticed the inside which was a tea shop. We went in for tea and also found art.

I’ll tell you about it next email…..

Ru

DoraMac

Kuah, Langkawi, Malaysia (70 miles north of Penang)  December 6, 2009

Hi Everyone

Fireworks at Kuah

Midnight fireworks under the full moon celebrated DoraMac’s arrival at Kuah, Langkawi!

Actually we don’t know what they were for but they were much nicer than 7 hours of screaming karaoke which we’d had at anchor in Penang. They did wake me up so I got up to watch for the 10 minutes or so that they lasted. But, after a 10 hour passage with winds and swells just off our starboard bow, I was tired enough to easily fall back to sleep.

We left Penang at 7:15 am and after a 71 mile passage arrived at Kuah, Langkawi at 5:15 pm averaging about 7.1 knots. Remember that shiny propeller and newly painted hull? Thanks to a clean prop and newly cleaned boat bottom, we are probably averaging one more knot per hour than when the boat was dirty. That may not sound like much but over 70 miles saved us at least an hour or possibly more of cruising time. And that can mean the difference between arriving at an anchorage in daylight rather than in the dark. 

See where it says SOG: that’s speed over ground. 8.9 kt (knots per hour.)

Our recent cruising speeds with adverse currents, winds on the nose, and a very dirty boat have too often been under 5 knots. Yesterday when we were cruising at under 7 knots we felt slow! The wind didn’t seem all that strong until I tried to hang up the bedding I had washed. Hanging the wet quilt- cover on the port side clothesline wasn’t so bad. But when I tried to hang our queensize bed sheet on the starboard side, the wind made it so impossible that Randal had to come down from the flybridge to help me. Everything was dry in no time. Trying to stay on my feet as the boat rolled and also hold onto the bedding as the wind tried to whip it away was a bit tricky, but nothing was lost and we finally have clean sheets. It is all of that boat movement as you try to move about the boat, sit in the small helm chair on the flybridge, or even lay down to rest that makes it so tiring.  And we just have gotten little rest in the past 3 weeks between passages and boat yard work.   My next big task is to clean months of cruising dust and salt crystals and 2 weeks worth of boat yard grit from the inside of the boat. Though Rebak, our destination on Langkawi offers a lovely marina, my goal is to clean the boat rather than hang around the pool. But I will paint! And read.

One last fireworks photo.

So later today we’ll move over to Rebak Marina. I tried their website to share but it doesn’t seem to be working so you’ll have to wait for photos, but it is supposed to be lovely. It is an island and there is a free ferry to the mainland several times each day.

Ru

DoraMac

Anchored near that awful karaoke bar between Batu Maung and George Town

Penang, Malaysia

Hi Everyone,

   We left the boat yard: yippee.  We had to say good-bye to Elizabeth, Patrick, and LBD: very sad.  DoraMac was put back into the water about 3 pm and it is much easier than coming out by a long shot.  Then we just cruised back to a spot to anchor for the night stopping a bit too close to the karaoke bar.  But it was the rain that woke us about 2 am so we had to close the boat up anyway and that muffled the much of the sound which ended at 5 am at the same time our clock alarms went off.   Today we’ll start for Langkawi our ultimate destination, Rebak Marina and anchor midway tonight.   We’ll arrive in Langkawi Sunday and move over to the marina Monday.  We’ll stay at Rebak until the end of December.  While we are there I look most forward to cleaning the boat yard grit out of Doramac who needed a good cleaning anyway. 

   I did some great touring of George Town with Elizabeth and will write that up and share the photos. Patrick and Randal gave each other moral support doing boat work, though Elizabeth did a lot of the primer painting following after Patrick’s sanding.  I was the one who was mostly spectator in the boat work department.  But it will take forever to clean inside the boat and that’s mostly my job.   I should catch things up in Rebak. 

We should be heading out about 7 am when it gets light.

Ru

DoraMac

Jewish Cemetery

http://www.ttc.edu.sg/csca/rart_doc/RaimyCheRoss.pdf Trinity Theological College, Singapore

“Yahudi Road” Jewish Cemetery

Penang had a small community of Jews whom the locals called orang* Yahudi. Like the Armenians, they came from India along the trade route. The Jewish Cemetery, which has over 100 graves from the 19^th and 20^th centuries, is well maintained.” Streets of George Town Penang by Khoo Su Nin

*orang means men

Our very learned friend Elizabeth had loaned me her copy of Streets and though the word Jew wasn’t mentioned in the index, as I was flipping pages I saw the Yahudi Road entry and learned about the Penang Jewish Cemetery. For some reason that I might someday explore, I felt I needed to go visit it. Elizabeth was happy to include it in the tour of George Town she and I did one day when neither Patrick nor Randal needed our help. It was actually our last stop on a very interesting day, but it needs a story of its own. I will tell about our other adventures, each possibly needing a story of its own.

I did read Raimy Che Ross’s article and recommend it if you have an interest. If you start with page 10 you’ll start with what I thought was the most interesting part. I do wish I’d read it before we visited the cemetery. Today I see no signs of Jewish life here and saw none in any places of Malaysia or Indonesia that we have visited. Maybe that’s why I’m interested; because of the very, to me, visible absence. It also gives me a way to focus on one small subject; something I can relate to more than battles or politics. The religions of the area and the treatment of women seem to have captured me more than the plants, animals or even the beautiful scenery. Singapore, as you might recall, does have a Jewish community as does Shanghai in China. I did visit the Singapore synagogues but not the one in Shanghai when we were there. Next time.

You know how you always smile when someone takes your photo?

When I looked at the photo on the computer, a smile seemed oddly out of place. Walking through the cemetery, had I been alone, I think I would have cried. It was really what I wanted to do. I guess I felt some kind of link to this tiny, somewhat abandoned remnant of a community that no longer exists. I did leave some money with the caretaker who took us around. After reading the story about the cemetery, I wish I’d left more. At the time, although I felt good about my visit and the remembrance stones that I left there, it was unsatisfying not learning more. My thanks to Raimy Che Ross for telling the cemetery’s story.

The caretaker’s family has cared for the cemetery for generations. Read about it in the article; it is quite interesting. Written in 2002, it mentions that the current caretaker, Mrs. Fatimah (79 in 2002 and in ill health), is the grand-daughter of the original caretaker. Her daughter says that she does not want to live in a cemetery. We did not see her but were guided around the cemetery by a middle-aged man who did not want his photo taken. There were some young women there also, possibly her daughter Tipah who was caring for her bedridden mother when the article was written.

This stone is set just in front of all of the graves.

The article mentions that the graves are placed close together though there seemed to be plenty of room. Raimy Che Ross speculates that the cemetery wouldn’t be able to expand so land needed to be saved. The photo in Streets shows most of the land is still unused. The cemetery occupies 38,087 square feet “cleaver shaped plot” on what has now been renamed Jalan Zainal Abidin. Jalan means road.

The cemetery is on the outskirts of George Town. Raimy Che Ross speculates that perhaps is what has protected it all these years.

I think this might be the oldest grave. You can see by the “remembrance stones” that it has been visited. I don’t know how long stones would stay undisturbed, rain storms can have pretty strong winds.

This person’s last name is Cohen. Raimy Che Ross points out that all of the Cohen’s are buried together in the cemetery in respect of their status as “Cohens.” I don’t know if that’s true everywhere, but all of the few Cohens are buried together here. (I can’t possibly explain it, but the name Cohen is connected to those Jews who were the religious leaders.)

The grave of a British Soldier, a Cohen, killed in an accident in 1941. His grave is maintained by the Commonwealth Graves War Commission .

I thought this one was interesting with the different types of inscription.

We saw the graves of sisters, husbands, wives, brothers and babies. I’m glad that I went. Glad that Elizabeth was willing to share the experience.

Tomorrow we will take care of the port clearance paperwork in the morning and then relaunch DoraMac late in the afternoon.  It will be wonderful to get back to our cruising but sad to say good-bye (for now) to Elizabeth and Patrick.  We will just go back down the strait and then head off tomorrow for Rebak Marina near Langkawi.  I said “for now” because we’ll all be cruising around the same areas and will hopefully meet again along the way. 

Ru

DoraMac

December 3, 2009

Pen Marine Boat Yard

Batu Maung

Penang, Melaysia