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.

Ru