Category Archives: Malaysia

Sail Malaysia Kuala Terengganu

June 6, 2009 Ruth

Hi Everyone,

Email issues again. For some reason my outlook email won’t work with the Heritage Bay Marina wifi. And our new cell phone is just too slow so the outlook times out. I am going to try sending this email as an attachment.

Sail Malaysia Kuala Terengganu Day One

Hi Everyone,

We are in Kuala Terengganu, and a bit ahead of Sail Malaysia. We had some boat chores to catch up on and Terengganu has a marina where we can tie up, have shore power. Wednesday we had cruised from

7am to 3:30 pm; but the anchorage where we’d planned to stop wasn’t good enough so we cruised on until 8 pm and anchored at Pulau Kapas. Not only did we have to anchor in the dark, but the last hour we were surrounded by rain squalls and lightening. Luckily the heavy rain missed us and the anchorage was good. We slept well that night. Thursday we made the 90 minutes passage from Pulau Kapas to Kuala Terengganu. Our friends Ruth and Cliff on Icicle One were our travel companions and are here at Heritage Bay Marina too. Friday we all went off to see the sights just a quick water taxi ride across the harbor.

Just so you know where we are… Came across this street sign in KT and thought it was pointing to different restaurants named for famous places. Only when I was looking at the photos later did I see it was really a signpost telling a traveler where he was.

“As the capital of Malaysia’s oil producing region, KT has money and has used it to tastefully redecorate. Large brick sidewalks and elegant mosque-like shopping complexes have gussied up the place yet the soul of the former fishing village has been maintained.” Lonely Planet. My first impression is of a smaller Kota Kinabalu where we had spent a month last year. The first local person who asked where we were from had a daughter who studied English at a University in Tennessee and now taught at Malaysian university.

We took a marina water taxi for the 5 minute ride over to the city. We can take our own dingy when we refill the gas tank. It might be possible to bike also. The round trip water taxi is about $2 US per person.

The waterfront area. We climbed the stairs up tree covered Bukit Puteri ( 650 FT Princess Hill ) to see the remains of a fort, a sultan’s palace and a view of the city.

The cannons are aimed across at the marina and DoraMac! Notice the big cannon and little canon.

These cannon are named Meriam Beranak or “The Cannon that give birth” due to their positions that are close to each other and of different sizes. The cannon of bigger size is said to be the mother of the smaller size cannon.

“This throne was made by His Majesty Sultan Umar for His Majesty to sit when having discussions on various strategies with high ranking officials.” Or as Chad Mitchell Trio recited, ” No matter how high or great the throne, what sits on it is the same as your own!” as Randal is proving….. You know you are far away from home when you are in a place ruled by Sultans.

The world is the same all over. A “typical” scene of women in the dress shop and the husband being bored.

And “in the world is the same all over category,” this dad and his daughter were in line ahead of us at KFC. We went from chicken rice in Chinatown to ice cream at KFC.

After a walk around the part of town near the waterfront, we went to the wet market and bought some fruit and veggies. We were hot, tired and hot. So about 3 pm we water taxied back to the marina to rest up for the Night Market; a 10 minute (really 30 minute) walk away towards town. It was a hot walk and the Night Market was mostly food. Since we had planned to have dinner on Icicle One, we will wait until next Friday to sample the food. Back on the boat we found our electricity off. Some cruisers going off to the Night Market told me to find Steve on Wind Swift who seemed to know the most about electrical issues, the marina office being closed…. Luckily it was our friend Steve Calpin whom we had met in KK and whose wife, Valerie and I had gone exploring together. Actually, Steve had been to the boat the prior evening. Between Steve and Randal our electricity was back working, whew!!!

Randal and Steve working on the power cable that hooks us to shore power. This picture actually tells a great deal about cruising. Things are always going wrong. Cruisers have to know how to fix almost everything on the boats themselves. Cruisers will always help each other.

Today is boat chore day. Randal is changing oil filters and I’m doing laundry, blog mail, and then will clean the heads…. Also the cruising life.

Next email some Night Market photos…

Ruth Johnson DoraMac

Kuantan, Malaysia, Sail Malaysia

Sail Malaysia Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia

June 1, 2009 Ruth

Hi Everyone,

We have officially joined up with Sail Malaysia. We left Tioman Island 2:45 AM May 30^th and arrived here in Kuantan May 31^st 2:45 PM after a passage of about 75 miles. We passed through one storm that dropped our visibility but didn’t generate waves so it wasn’t too bad (read that scary.) We were the 2nd boat to arrive; usually we are one of the last since we always seem to be playing catch up at these rallies. Because it’s better to arrive at an anchorage in daylight we plan our passages to arrive before dusk at 6:30 pm. We are still near the Equator so have 12 hours of daylight and dark. Leaving an anchorage at night isn’t so problematic because you are familiar with it and have laid down a track on the chart plotter to follow out from the anchorage. New anchorages are unknown so better to enter in the light of day.

Yesterday we took a taxi into the city to the Megamall. We found a DiGi store where we can buy minutes for our 3LG phone which will provide Internet access on the boat. We used it in the Philippines with lots of success and in Indonesia with little success (read that as good at times and terrible most of the time.) Service runs from the 1^st to last day of the month so we didn’t buy the service yesterday since it was May 31^st and the DiGi guy was afraid that it wouldn’t carry over if we bought it yesterday so we will return this morning. It costs about $45 US for unlimited service; we’ll try it for a month. As long as we have cell towers nearby, it should work.

Our anchorage, officially called Teluk Chempedak, is a bit rolly but quite nice. There is a lovely beach and several small eating places along with a Hyatt resort hotel. It is a 10 minute taxi ride to Kuantan, which is the capital city of Pahang, the largest state on Peninsula Malaysia (East Malaysia) . (West Malaysia is located on the island of Borneo and we will go there too.)

Yesterday evening we met on the beach for a welcoming reception.

Any time you go to shore you take your dinghy and most of the time you just leave them on the beach. If your anchor holds they will be there when you return. No one bothers them.

On the beach we found cruising friends Craig and Lynne from Solan, Margaret and Doug from Tonic, Elizabeth and Patrick from Labarque, Greg, Leanne and small Jack from Keshi. The welcoming event began almost immediately. We were given Pahang hats. There were short speeches from local officials and from Sail Malaysia organizers. There was a great band playing wonderful American popular songs, and a buffet of local dishes. A group in black T shirts with Marshall written in white letters seemed to be helping out and joined in the meal. I told someone that they reminded me of a motorcycle “gang.” She pointed to the motorcycles parked on the plaza and said they were a motorcycle “group.” Randal thinks the group’s name is Marshall.

The Marshalls….

Young men led off the festivities with a martial arts demonstration.

They were accompanied by a group of musicians playing traditional instruments.

We were invited up to the plaza area and given coconut milk; I’m getting used to it.

Our new hats, coconut drinks and bottled water. We are all at the buffet table loading up our plates!

Chicken on skewers, rice, fish, leaf-wrapped meat, cucumber salad and a rolled piece of bread.

All quite good.

While we ate the band played, Country Roads, Hotel California, some Credence Clearwater music… and they were very good.

And cruisers danced….

And checked out the Marshalls’ motorcycles.

It was a lovely evening. Today we’ll return to the Mall and take care of the phone/computer set up. At 3 pm we will join with the other cruisers for today’s rally event. We will meet on the beach at 3pm. Buses will take us to a local museum and then to a dinner. The sun is shining and all seems well.

Ruth Johnson

Doramac

Two little girls in pink. The one on the left is the 5 year old daughter of Sazli, one of our Sail Malaysia organizers.

This anchorage is a beach and resort area so there were lots of people around all day Sunday, enjoying the beach and food stands. Many of them came over to watch our festivities too which is always nice.

Malaysia

Tioman

May 29, 2009 Ruth

Hi Everyone,

Ten years ago Randal and I got married…Who would have thought ten years later we would be sitting side by side in a tiny internet cafe across the the world. This morning we donned wet suits and tanks and Randal cleaned our prop while I practiced staying under water in my scuba gear. Later today we’ll get some lunch, check out the tiny village here and then go back to the boat. I promised Randal salmon patties for dinner since he loves them.

We left Sebana Cove Wednesday and cruised all say, 60 miles to Jason Ban where we anchored overnight. Ruth and Cliff on Icicle made the same passage and it was nice to have them anchored “next door.” The next day we finished the passage to Tioman where we have caught up with the Sail Malaysia rally. Both cruising days were smooth and sunny and I did laundry to pass the time. We might stay here one more night or we might take off tomorrow as the rally moves along. Everything is quite loose.

I will email when I can and send photos when possible. We have no internet connection on the boat where my photos are stored. I guess I’ll figure out how to save the photo emails on a donigle and see if that works. And I also have to find one of those web based photo savers too as Audrey keeps telling me.

So that’s where we are today. I will hopefully have more interesting emails to send as we take more part in Sail Malaysia.

Johor, Malaysia, Sebana Cove Marina

Doramac Update

May 25, 2009 Ruth

Hi Everyone,

Randal and I are back on DoraMac in Sebana Cove. Our cruising friends Cliff and Ruth from Icicle had been keeping an eye on her. They even had the fridge going when we got back about 9 pm Friday night Sebana time. We had spent about 20 hours flying and 22 hours of layover time by the time we got off the Singapore to Sebana ferry. Way too long! But all of the flights were smooth and the luggage arrived when we did so no complaints. Except for one. We flew Lufthansa/United and had a 12 hour layover in Munich. Nowhere in the whole second floor of terminal H area was there a water fountain. And, of course, I couldn’t bring the water I’d had from the previous flight. So it was $5 US !!! for a cup of tea. A bottle of water was $1.90 Euro which was about $3 US. How can you not provide drinking water for free to airline passengers?

Saturday, Cliff and Ruth had borrowed cruiser John’s car and we joined them for a trip to Kota Tinggi for groceries. Everyone was having a good time until the car’s electrical system stopped on the way home in the rain. Miraculously John’s mechanic was traveling the road to Kota Tinggi and had been alerted to our predicament. He stopped and using his battery started our car. Luckily the rain had stopped so we didn’t need the wipers or lights or AC so the battery charge lasted until Cliff dropped us off at Sebana’s main gate and drove himself on to Sungai Ringget to the repair shop. We returned to DoraMac mid-afternoon and I slept until about 6 pm. Sunday we were up early. Lang and Douglas invited us to go with them to Sungai Renggit for lunch. We made a quick stop at the grocery store on our way home. I lasted about 1 hour before it was nap time again. I woke about 6 and Randal and I joined the C dock happy hour for a bit. Then it was back to the boat to cook chicken for dinner that neither of us was awake enough to eat. We were in bed and asleep by 9:30 pm. This morning we were up at 3:30 am and I figured it was the best time to work on storing all of the groceries and stuff we’d left strewn about the boat since we got back. Also, the Internet is working somewhat oddly so you have to use it when it works.

Our Plans……

Some time this week we will be joining up with www.sailmalaysia.net. Many of our cruising friends, including Ruth and Cliff will take part. We will cover about 2300 miles and see many parts of Malaysia we have not seen. The rally ends in Kota Kinabalu where we had spent time but quite like it.

Passage To The East – Rally Schedule

IN SUMMARY, THE SCHEDULE IS AS FOLLOWS. DETAILS BELOW:

3 May – Penang

5 May – Lumut

10-12 May – Danga Bay, Johor Bahru

13-15 May – Puteri Harbour, Nusajaya

19-21 May – Sebana Cove, Johor

28-29 May – Tioman Island, Pahang

30 May-2 June – Kuantan, Pahang

9 June – Kapas Island, Terengganu

10-13 June – Kuala Terengganu

2-3 July – Kuching-Santubong, Sarawak

21-23 July – Miri, Sarawak

24-27 July – Brunei

1-2 August – Kota Kinabalu, Sabah

I did take hundreds of photos while we were in the US and will try to post a few. We spent time with my sister’s family, Randal’s family and lots of friends. We made new friends too! We thank them for taking great care of us during our visit. Except with our friend Julia in Hyannis, we tried not to stay longer than 3 days! Time flew!

I will try to share some photos if I have time before we leave. When we join the rally we will be anchored out a great deal of the time so communications might be sparse. Sorry. And any Internet connections might be very slow, so please save any emails with photos for when we are back at a marina. It is just very hard to download anything other than text.

So that’s it for this quick update. Time to get back to packing up the boat.

GO SOX!!!!!

MY DoraMac

Johor, Malaysia, Sebana Cove Marina

Randal makes biscuits

May 25, 2009 Ruth

Hi Everyone,

Randal and I were up at 3:30 am this morning! Of course we spent most of yesterday afternoon sleeping and then were in bed by 9:30pm. Hopefully we’ll be on a Malaysia time schedule soon. And hopefully I’ll get used to the heat again. In the States we were COLD! Everyone else was enjoying spring; but we were used to summer all year round so rainy 60 degrees made us bundle up. Does blood really thin? I took photos or all of our family and friends; photos that are important to Randal and me. Some photos have additional stories so I’ll share those…like Randal’s sister Linda teaching him to make biscuits “like mama used to make.” Randal had tried making biscuits here in Sebana, but had little luck. They didn’t rise, they burned, and they were tough. Not good. He definitely needed help with his biscuits.

Randal and Linda in her kitchen. Looks just like the set of a Food Network cooking show. Linda is opening a bag of self-rising flour. Not sure what Randal is doing.

Mixing and measuring. Biscuits do best with Crisco and a very light hand while mixing the dough.

Biscuits in process

Perfect southern biscuits.

Ken, Linda and Randal

Just before we left Roanoke we had breakfast with Randal’s brother Eddie and his wife Judy and our friend Joe Deshiell. Judy made a huge southern breakfast with biscuits, sausage gravy, bacon, eggs, tomato, strawberries and lots of juice and coffee. Everything starts with a stick of butter! That’s how Randal’s mom had cooked and she lived to be 96!!

We had many wonderful meals with family and friends all along the way. Randal had requested a “lobstah dinnah” in New Bedford and our friend Harriet obliged. I ate wonderful fried clams at the Oxford Creamery in Marion, MA owned by Har’s niece. You could taste their time in the ocean….Yummm. I shouldn’t even start writing about the great meals because we had so many along the way and my fear is I’ll leave one out! Home cooked meals with family and friends were the highlights of our time at home.

Ruth Johnson

DoraMac

Malaysia, Sebana Cove Marina

Singapore Misc 2

March 24, 2009 Ruth

Hi Everyone,

One day I walked form the Dhoby Ghaut MRT to Chinatown. It was mostly a nice walk except for the parts where I can’t read a map really well and had to ask too many people who also don’t know North Bridge Road from South Bridge Road. And then it got really hot. And then I was almost 2 hours early for the “gallery event” I was going to and there was no library nearby to sit in and wait. And it was hot. So I took a detour to another neighborhood to explore and then got all turned around and sort of lost. A nice German tourist who had been in Singapore for about a day got out her map and luckily was going where I needed to go. And I was hot. I’d left the boat at 11 am and returned to the boat by about 8 pm. But I saw things I hadn’t seen and had a great popiah for dinner at the Maxwell Food Court. The “gallery event” was a small show at the art studio where I was taking my art classes so I really wanted to be supportive and take part.

The Dhoby Ghaut station is not far from Bugis and is on the direct line from HarbourFront where we catch the MRT. From the MRT station on Orchard Road I walked over to Bras Basha looking for lunch. I ate a great curry chicken wrap at the art museum cafe and then started walking, down Bras Basha Road and right onto North Bridge Road.

My first stop was at St. Andrew’s Cathedral. During our evening walk with Lang and Douglas we’d stopped at the church but weren’t able to look inside. We have a large St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in Roanoke and I’ve never been inside that one either though it’s a Roanoke landmark. Maybe when I’m home I’ll go see it. I had first labeled the photo as St. Andrew’s Catholic Church, but luckily checked and found that it is Anglican. Since Singapore had been a British colony it’s logical that it would be Anglican and not Catholic. The description of the Padang below is even more telling of Singapore’s colonial past.

St. Andrew’s Cathedral
“Rebuilt between 1856 and 1861 by convict labour, after the original was twice struck by lightning, St. Andrew’s Cathedral is Singapore’s oldest Anglican house of worship. It’s also a truly magnificent example of Early English Gothic architecture, with spires that rise 63m to the heavens.” Streetdirectory.com

The grey sky made me wonder if I was going to get drenched at some point, but the rain held off.

Very light and white perhaps because of the tropical weather though they do have AC which felt good.

“Padang
If you’re wondering what the green field in front of City Hall is; it’s the Padang, the ceremonial green of the city. The first National Day Parade was held at the Padang on 9 August 1965, with Cabinet members proudly watching from the stairs of City Hall. Here you will also be able to see 2 distinct clubs:

Singapore Recreation Club
Look at the left end. First opened in 1905, the club was a sporting and social venue for Eurasian men. In 1955, membership was open to all male Singaporeans, with female members admitted the year after that.
Singapore Cricket Club
Across from it, is the Singapore Cricket Club, founded in 1852 as an exclusive bastion for British and European elite. The end of World War II also marked the end of this policy; membership is now open to all. Go past in the evening, and you may see a few games in progress at the Padang; football, cricket or rugby.

Singapore Cricket Field.”
Singapore River Walking Tour Guide, Route 3 Streetdirectory.com

You can also see the huge ferris wheel I’ll never ride off in the distance. The ferris wheel was visible from almost anywhere in Singapore. We saw it when we first cruised to One Fifteen from Sebana. We saw it on our walk around Sentosa Cove.

I got myself turned around leaving St. Andrews from the wrong direction. If I’d asked for directions to Chinatown I might have had no problems. But I kept asking for South Bridge Road and no one on North Bridge Road seemed to know which direction was north or south. For some reason I felt asking for “Chinatown” wasn’t so politically correct. I don’t know why; it’s labeled that way on the Singapore map as is Little India. Anyway, it should have been simple with my map. I had gotten myself around Singapore pretty easily; just every now and then I get stuck. Finally I did start asking for Chinatown and the problem stopped though many people told me that it was too far to walk which it wasn’t.

Wedding photo ops seem to be everywhere in Southeast Asia. Not sure if this is the old Post Office or City Hall.

Next stop Tanjong Pagar, Chinatown.

Malaysia, Sebana Cove Marina

Singapore Misc 1

March 23, 2009 Ruth

3/23/2009

Hi Everyone,

I have hundreds of photos from Singapore that I would love to share, but I’ll try to show some restraint and not send all of them. The Internet comes and goes…so we’ll see if this will work.

Bugis area

Singapore Art Museum with a “temporary” blue sculpture. It wasn’t there the last time I walked past surprising me.

My favorite bookstore. For 2 Singapore dollars I you can buy some really good books. I buy mostly fiction; lots of “Oprah” books. It was also 3 for S$ 5 but I could always only find 2 until my last visit when I made myself find 3. They had a copy of Beryl Markham’s West With the Night. That’s one of Randal’s favorites and he likes to have several copies so he can give them away and still keep his hardbound copy that Bill Kimley sent to him. And I found two that I wanted. There are two tables just to the left of where the cart of boxes of books is in the photo. Luckily it’s not so crowded when I go because only one or maybe 2 people can browse at the same time.

I went through our growing pile of books and collected some we no longer needed. They were mostly the fiction that I had bought, but some others too. I took them with me to the Bras Basha Complex that has lots of used book stores and started with my favorite so they could have first choice. “Two-fifty” the owner said. “Two dollars and fifty cents?!” I asked? “Yes.” I felt that was insultingly little so told her I’d rather donate them to the library! (The library is just across the street. ) I knew I wasn’t lugging the pile of books back to the boat; but I wasn’t going to sell the lot of them for S$2.50! I went upstairs to another book shop and he offered me S$3.00. I told him I’d rather give them away. Now in all fairness to the first shop, they do sell the fiction paperbacks for S$2 so they can’t pay much. But the hardbacks go for S$20 and up. The second shop sells paperbacks for about S$12 and prices go up from there. I donated them to the library which made me feel better even though they wouldn’t let me have a library card since we were only in Singapore for a short time. I still have some on the boat to use for boater book swaps and to leave in the Sebana Cove small library.

Down one of the side streets off North Bridge Road. I love the multi-colored winding stairways.

A modern day rickshaw with a semi-ancient driver.

Malaysia, Sebana Cove Marina

Back in Sebana

March 19, 2009 Ruth

Hi Everyone,

We made the half-day trip back to Sebana Cove today and it’s SO QUIET HERE!!!! It’s amazing how much construction noise we always heard and other boats and radio music and even sharp bird calls and screaming peacocks in the small rotary garden outside the marina.

We have lots of friends who are still here: Marie Louise, Cliff and Ruth, Aletea and Steve and others. Tomorrow we’ll take the van to town for some last minute shopping to hold us till Wednesday when we’ll leave for home. Well, shopping for me and a roti for Randal.

The Internet at Sebana developed issues while we were away and only works intermittently. Not sure if this will go.

That’s it for now.

ps since the internet is so slow, short notes back are great, but I won’t be able to get photos or anything long to download

Malaysia

Around Sebana

December 29, 2008 Ruth

Hi Everyone,

“Nice to hear all in jolly and good mood for the new year 2009. In fact in Islam calendar next Monday 29th December will be our new year” That was from our friend Emilda in Kuala Lumpur in West Malaysia. Here in Sengai Rengit banks are closed on Thursday which is the “Western” New Year. While we were in China we celebrated Chinese New Year. In the Philippines at Puerto Galera we celebrated “Western New Year.” This year we’ll probably be asleep by 10 pm which is how we celebrated New Year’s Eve in Roanoke, VA. Whenever you celebrate New Year, we hope next year is better for the world than 2008 has been. Maybe we’ll just wait and celebrate on Inauguration Day.

There are some new signs on Marina Drive.

I truly am one of the folks who needs a sign like this. I am always tempted to feed them. But they do all right on their own……

This fellow and some friends weren’t so very far from the sign. I don’t know what it is they were eating.

The small Macaques are kind of cute. The larger ones are too wary of humans so look sort of threatening, like a country dog you don’t know. These photos are with a zoom. If I had tried to get close, they would have run away. I guess…. I was biking yesterday and rode down into a one-road neighborhood off the main coast road. There were monkeys overhead running on the telephone wires and in the trees. Then one came running down the middle of the narrow road towards me. I kept waiting for him to run away but he just kept coming. I did my dog running at me yell, “GO HOME!!!” The monkey ignored me and kept running past me probably to hook up with the other monkeys in the trees. The running monkey had a blue rope around his neck and a small piece trailing behind him. Someone told me later that the monkeys are trained to get the coconuts down from the trees. I guess that one had quit his job and taken to the road.

Just where this sign is Randal and I had seen a family of wild boar. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera. But one whiff of a human and they run away. Same with the monitor lizards. I haven’t gotten a photo of them either. The funny thing is that there is no image on the other side of the sign so if you’re coming the other way I guess you just run right into the wild boars.

So to get from one end of the Marina Drive to the other, one must watch out for boar, elephants and, refrain from feeding the monkeys. Won’t find those rules in Roanoke County, VA.

Malaysia

Good Cheer

December 25, 2008 Ruth

Sebana Cove, Malaysia

Randal is off in the galley finishing his barbecue pork roast and gravy, his SECOND apple pie, and is about to begin making biscuits. My only job has been to clean up lots of dirty cooking pots, pans, and utensils. We will join about 25 other cruisers for a pot luck lunch on the dock. The French folks are making French dishes and the Italians are making pizza! There will be turkey and cranberry sauce and who knows what. I did a quick bike ride this morning while Randal made the second pie. Now I can eat! We are also going to do one of those crazy gift swaps. The rule was to take something from your boat that you really don’t use and wrap it because someone else might use it. Randal, however, couldn’t resist buying some real kids toys in town to add to the mix. His employees used to fight over them at the company gift swap. Happily Brian Vaughan was visiting the boat yesterday afternoon so volunteered to wrap the no shape gifts. I had too many years of wrapping about 50 gifts for Randal’s employees’ gift swap. Randal had supplied all of the gifts, the employees supplied the fun of the exchange.

So for everyone who celebrates holidays at this time of year or just enjoys joining in their friends’ celebrations, we wish you, and our new President! the best of holidays and a happy and healthy New Year.

Randal making the first pie yesterday. Smiling and enjoying a Scotch on the rocks.

The pork curry-barbecue was in the slow cooker. Today with the rush to make a second pie, finish slicing up the meat and make the sauce and then biscuits on top of the. Well, lets just say there is not so much smiling and definitely no Scotch!

We just had a visit from Santa! Tropical Santas don’t need as much bulk to keep them warm the way they do at the North Pole.

And to all a good night.

Ruth and Randal