Hi Everyone,

  Today’s Rally event is an all day tour of Johor.  The past  3 days have been dinners with traditional dancers representing Malay, Chinese, and Indian cultures.  There was a dance performed by tiny tots who looked just adorable and I did take a few photos: but you have seen it if you have ever seen preschool kids perform.  That was during the first day of events.  The next two days I spent on the boat trying to find a comfortable way to sit or lay down.  Years ago I hurt my back shoveling snow because even in Virginia we get snow.  I was in good shape from biking so shoveled for several hours.  The driveway which was huge, the front path, the back deck and a path out into the yard for Trapper, my lab.  It was that long ago because after Trapper came Pepper and then Belle.  It was pre-Randal but he hates to shovel so I would have been the one doing it anyway.  I actually used to like it.  Anyway, by the end of the path into the yard for Trapper I couldn’t stand up straight and the diagnosis is that I have a disc pressing on a nerve.  Every now and then it acts up: even bike riding the other morning didn’t help.  Biking usually cures everything.  So the past 2 days I’ve stayed on the boat with a heating pad and it’s not so much better.  But I’m going off on this tour and will last as long as I can.  Wish our friend Julia were here: she’d fix me up.  She’s a physical therapist and massage therapist and one time gave me a deep tissue massage that felt great when I could breathe again.  She used her hands.  But that was ages ago too and now they have those machines with electrodes.  And yes Julia, I will restart my exercises so maybe this won’t happen again.  (Famous last words.)

  The tour starts at 8 am and goes all day.  I’ll take my Advil with me and hope for the best.

Ru

Tomorrow early in the morning we’ll start off FROM PUTERI to Pinang, Besar, and Port Dixon on our way to Lumut, the next official rally stop. The first Lumut event is on November 17th.    We’ll anchor each night so this trip has no overnight passages.  We will spend 3 nights in Port Dixon where we will be at a marina.   Since we don’t have any night passages I’m actually looking forward to the trip.  And some of our anchorages might be good for snorkeling if we get there in time and the water is clean.  We haven’t gotten to do that for a while and we both miss it.  This isn’t necessarily unchangeable, but as of this minute it’s our plan.  Not sure about email along the way.  It just depends if there are cell tours where we anchor.  Our DIGI phone modem is working pretty well with the email here in Puteri though it’s slow loading  web pages.    Since the Sox are out of it, who cares and baseball trading really hasn’t started yet so I tend to just do email and then I’m off to read or paint.   I do still read the NYTimes Art and Book pages.  We’re flush with them now!  Thanks George and Eileen.  And last night after the Tuesday market I swapped some I’d finished reading with Julia Woolf.  We had some really good talking time with Julia and her husband Horst when they visited our boat after the night market trip and will see them again as we travel during the rally. 

So here it is.  Tonight we’ll get the boat all ready and be off tomorrow early.

Ru

DoraMac

Election day back home. 

  The rally events for this stop are over.  Folks are on their own until the next event in Lumut on November 17th.  Until then cruisers will stay here, go to Singapore, do whatever until they leave to make their way from Johor north to Lumut.  Today Randal and I went into Johor Bahru so I could go to the Johor Art Gallery.  It was a pretty long and not cheap trip but I think it was worth it.  The museum is small but there were several paintings that I really liked.  Then we had to figure out how to get from the Art Gallery into central JB and luckily a taxi came along as we stood there dithering since it would have been a really long not pleasant walk.  We ate lunch and visited a book store.  I took a pass on the 40 ringgit hair cut since I’m just too spoiled with the 10 ringgit jobs.  The last time I spent 40 anything on my hair was in Philadelphia, PA and it was the worst hair cut ever, EVER!!!  And the 40 there were dollars but it was the only place we found in the time we had. 

We did one day of official touring with the rally here in Johor State.  I give the tour a 3 our of 10.  The other official events I missed because of my back.  Oh well.  But we like Johor a lot.   And the visit to the local Tuesday night market last night was lots of fun.

Tour Johor November 2, 2009   Part one

“Johor, the southernmost state of Peninsular Malaysia is made up of eight districts…It has a long coastline flanking the Straits of Malacca on its western seaboard and the South China Sea on the east. Its capital city, Johor Bahru is the main administrative center for the state government…”

It was a long day with too much of it spent on the bus, but my back did pretty okay even when we had to climb the 7 flights of stairs in the Sultan Ibrahim Building and walk the 653 meters to the southernmost tip of mainland Asia at Tanjung Piai National Park. We left the boat at 7 am and climbed back aboard at 6 pm. We visited the city of Johor Bahru and Tanjung Piai National Park. There were stops in between at a pineapple plantation museum, a small roadside fish cake/banana chips facility, and lunch at a local homestay. I wish that the tour had been divided into two days, one full day in Johor Bahru and one out in the country. Luckily Randal and I have been to Johor Bahru so I don’t feel as if we missed out.

First stop was Sultan Abu Bakar Mosque

Outside the mosque.

It took 8 years to build and was completed in 1900. Our guide said that the interior walls were painted with egg white mixed in with the plaster. And when questioned about it he repeated that it was really egg white on the walls and also that there were absolutely no cracks anywhere in the walls. I know egg tempera uses egg yolks as part of a painting medium, so maybe the egg white is used here somehow. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed inside. The outside was so colonial looking that I was really curious what the inside looked like. I asked why the mosque spire had no crescent and star. Answer, the “crescent and star” was the symbol for Islam and the mosque itself being a symbol of Islam, it didn’t need it. Almost all other mosques we have seen have had the crescent and star and we have had discussions as to which way the crescent opening faces.

It was a very pretty building overlooking the Singapore Strait separating Malaysia from Singapore.

Something about it reminded me of the really old Portuguese church that we had seen in Macao.

Next we went to the Sultan Ibrahim Building.

One of our three buses parked in front of the Sultan Ibrahim Building.

“A famous landmark in JB featuring local and colonial architecture, this building was once used as a fortress and command centre during the Second World War. Today, it houses the state secretariat and other offices of the state government. For visiting purposes kindly obtain prior permission from the security personnel on duty.” All that emphasis is from me. The last time we were in JB I tried to visit and the security personnel didn’t even let me get close. That time I had worn shin length pants and sleeves but no luck. This time I came prepared with long pants, socks, a shawl… but no need especially compared to what most of the other women were wearing. Most of the government offices have actually moved to a brand-new-still-partly-under-construction complex not far from where we are berthed at Puteri. Of the old building we only saw the lobby and the aging theater on the ground floor before we climbed the 7 flights to one of the top floors with a great view of JB, the Straits and Singapore. The building must have been very impressive in its bustling days but now reminded me of a cross between an old castle, the old New Bedford High School and the government building in Buffalo where we could at least take the elevator to the open viewing floor. You can’t tell from this photo but there was lovely landscaping. This is the building surrounded by the fence that I had tried to find an opening into and failed last visit. I had hacked my way through brush and over ditches only to find myself having to retrace my hot dirty way back around to where I had started. Then they wouldn’t let me in to the building. Fond memories. That was last trip. Helps to be on a tour sometimes.

View from the top. The building with the dome is in JB, Malaysia and the other buildings are in Singapore. It took us a half of a day to go from our boat at Puteri to our hotel in Little India. You can go from Roanoke to DC is almost the same amount of time but then you aren’t changing countries.

I’m standing with two of the building’s guides. I look like a giant! And except for the red bag I had bought in China I look rather bland compared to my two friends.

Great space and wonderful views.

There was nothing up there but an empty space with these wonderfully shaped openings and a great view. It was definitely worth the climb since “the aging lift” just couldn’t handle the load of getting over 100 huge western sized people up there. Several folks skipped the climb and walked off to find coffee and snacks. I wish we’d had time for both since lunch was a long way off.

After the Sultan building we headed out of JB into the countryside. Our next stop (and the next email): the Pineapple Museum.

I am going to send out an email showing our passage schedule from Johor to Langkawi.  Lumut, Panang, and Langkawi are official rally stops.  The rest are places we’ve chosen as we make our way to the official stops. 

Ru

DoraMac

Hi Everyone,   We’re back at the boat after our quick trip to Singapore.  It was a rush but a good trip.  Ru

Singapore October 2009

Just a few photos from our very rushed trip to Singapore. We went Saturday morning and returned on Tuesday morning. Randal needed some boat parts and we both wanted to load up on books. We also wanted to see friends and that was the most rushed part of the trip: just enough time to say hello and good-bye. But we’ll see Marie-Louise and George again other places during our travels. Foolishly I left our contact info for Steve and Valerie on the boat and emailing didn’t work so we missed them, RATS!

We left Puteri Harbour at 9 am when the courtesy van took us to a nearby bus terminal where we could catch the Causeway bus to Singapore. Though Singapore is only over the river and down the road, it is a separate country so that meant exiting Malaysia and entering Singapore with all of the paperwork involved. The bus drops you at the Malaysia immigration building and you go through, get your exit paperwork done and then go back to the bus. We had forgotten to fill out the short exit form because we have been changing countries by boat for a while now and the paperwork for sea travel is different than by land travel. By the time we had filled in the short form we got caught in line behind a crowd from a tour bus.   Our local bus didn’t wait so Randal and I had to take the next one coming through that would take us to Singapore. It came in about 20 minutes. Next we had to get off that bus and go through customs entering Singapore. Finally we caught a bus to take us to the Singapore MRT which would get us to Little India and the Broadway Hotel on Serangoon Rd. We have stayed there on previous visits and love the area. Our short trip had taken us the entire morning.

Little India was decorated for Deepavali. According to our Rally info sheet, the Hindu holiday of Deepavali was celebrated on October 17^th and is the celebration of the triumph of good over evil. Called the Festival of Lights, it is always celebrated in the 7^th month of the Hindu calendar. The streets of Little India were still full of the decorations.

Saturday we met Marie-Louise our cruising friend from the boat Dessert First for an early dinner at the Vivo City Mall. Marie-Louise has been “working” in Singapore as a volunteer consultant helping to develop the type of retirement facility for the elderly that she worked to establish in San Francisco for the Chinese community. Singapore is using the model that Marie-Louise developed so they are picking Marie-Louise’s brains for ideas. Luckily Marie-Louise has lots of brains so she can afford to let them be picked. My brain was not working and I forgot to get out my camera before we parted. But you can see lots of Marie-Louise on our website and see the wonderful slide show she created from our time in Singapore early last spring. We ate in a restaurant called Marche and it was very good. Luckily we went early: when we finally left there was a very long line waiting to get in.

Scene from the Vivo City Mall where they were already reminding shoppers that Christmas will be coming. An image very different from what you see in Little India or Chinatown. This could be any big city mall in any country.

Sunday we went off to meet George who is married to my college friend Eileen. During our trip back home to the U.S. this past spring we visited them and had a really good time. George was in Singapore on business. He brought us wonderful stuff from home: books, booze and real Ghirardelli chocolate! Eileen and George had chosen a selection of books that should keep us busy for quite a while. The new Dan Brown, Paul Theroux travel books and some old favorites so I can discover Nancy Mitford. We spent a wonderful long lunch with George where we toasted the absent Eileen, back home working and attending to their new very adorable puppy Rambo III.  Mid-afternoon George went off to his business meeting and Randal and I walked back to one art supply shop and another art supply shop looking for copper powder that Randal needed , but “no have” as they say here. Then we went back to our room in Little India and began to read. We’d eaten such a huge wonderful lunch that even I didn’t want dinner. Well maybe a few of those pieces of chocolate!

George and Randal

Monday Randal and I went off on our separate tasks. Randal was off in search of boat stuff and I went off to look for an instructional drawing DVD. I knew that Kinokuniya, the largest bookstore in SE Asia didn’t have any because Randal and I had been there Saturday afternoon. He had gotten American Caesar about Douglas MacArthur and General Patton: A Soldier’s Story. I got the new AS Byatt, The Children’s Book. It follows the fictional lives of children’s book authors and I thought it sounded interesting. Those books plus the pile from Eileen and George will set us for a good long while and make us the envy of other cruisers. We’ll share when we finish. Anyway, I decided to walk to the Borders Bookstore in Wheelock Place on Orchard Road. It took me about an hour of steady walking but I like walking in Singapore. I was disappointed to find no instructional art DVDs of any kind so instead settled for some of the new Watercolor magazines, “The International Herald Tribune”, and “The Columbia Journalism Review” so I could read the articles about how well or not journalists cover the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Oprah was tempting but I decided to save my money for coffee and a cranberry muffin in the coffee shop. Then rested and fed I started back to Little India. My mission there was to find a replacement for my recently dearly departed white blouse. I walked and looked and said, “no thank you,” a thousand times. Just couldn’t find anything I loved so that will be a quest for future travels. But walking through Little India is fun and I really didn’t need anything so it was easy just to look but not to buy anything.

We spent Monday evening resting and reading: Randal had walked a zillion miles too and did manage to get most of what he needed.

The room did have a TV. The main English language channel was CCTV, Central China Television which was what we watched during our time in China. It was nice to see “familiar” faces doing the news. But mostly we read.

A slice of Singapore. The view from our room in Little India.

Randal checking the Street Atlas while a local looks on. Often people will come up and ask if they can help direct us.

We walked past the Singapore Art Museum. Hard to imagine that his sculpture was moved here and Randal almost had me convinced that it was so huge that it must always have been there. But I had been to SAM several times during our 7 weeks early in 2009 and remembered it not being there. I was right and it is part of a traveling exhibit. I guess it is almost sacrilegious to say it reminds me of those horrible creatures representing chest phlegm in the cough medicine commercial on U.S. TV. It is pretty impressive when you pass by.

“Li Chen is regarded as one of the leading sculptors working in Asia today. His powerful, large-scale bronzes fuse Chan (Zen) thought with contemporary art practice. Li, who lives and works in both Shanghai and Taiwan, began his largely self-taught career by producing traditional Buddhist sculptures. In the 1990s, he freed himself from the restraints of the traditional canon while retaining a profound spirituality in his work. This was further deepened through his study of scriptures in Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. In 2007, a large scale exhibition of Li Chen’s work was presented at the 52nd Venice Biennale and in 2008; his work was recognized at a major solo exhibition titled In Search of Spiritual Space at The National Art Museum of China in Beijing.” From the SAM website.

I thought it was funny that they called the “Walk” symbol the “Green Man.”

Bus terminal in Johor. Actually the small station with the several food stalls was at my back. Not sure what is structure was across the small yellow bridge. But it is definitely a much different scene from Singapore

It was a really fast and calm trip other than for the hundreds of commercial ships we had to negotiate past, around, behind and in front of.   I’m not kidding when I say hundreds.  Our AIS system lists up to 100 ships in the vicinity of where you are and the list was always full up to the 100 limit!  But we arrived early and there were 4 marina workers to help catch our lines.  They seem to really be trying here to attract cruisers though the place is really in the initial stages of development.

  Tomorrow we’re off to Singapore.  The marina will drive us to where we can catch a bus in town.  How’s that for service!

Ru