Anchored further down the river away from the noise

Hi Everyone,

  It was a calm and quiet night!  We were far enough down the river that we didn’t hear the karaoke though I could feel the thrum when I woke at 3:45 am.  It ended at 4 am again.  This afternoon we’ll move down to the boat yard. We have to maneuver into position with the help of a tug to get our 34 ton DoraMac onto a travel lift and out of the water.  A lot is involved because of the wind and current.  One of the boat yard men will come aboard to throw the lines when that needs to happen. That was my idea. I’m not perfect at it and you have to be in this situation because it moves fast. It will be interesting and sort of scary and we hope it all goes as it should. I can’t even imagine though we did go through this once in China when we moved to a second boat yard. I didn’t throw the lines then either. We stayed in a hotel there: this time we’ll stay on the boat and climb up and down by a ladder.   I’ll take lots of photos. Life on a boat! 

Ru

Images of George Town November 19^th, 2009

Customs Building across from the city marina

Old and really old mixed. I was trying to capture the tree and wooden roof and not the man begging. Actually, oddly, I didn’t see him in the photo until I looked at it on the computer. It’s easy to just focus on my original subject and “not see” anything around it.

Chinatown

Lots of motorcycles and modern malls too. We were walking past here on our way to a mall with a grocery store and Maybank (Malaysia Bank.)

Street scenes

Rattan shop

I loved the trickshaw and didn’t notice the snazzy orange car until I looked at the photo. Randal had noticed the car and says it’s either a Porsche or a Nissan.

An alley way with a lovely painted fence and leaning light poles.

Restaurants open onto the sidewalk

A leather shop, like the rattan shop and many others open onto the sidewalk. That’s Randal’s shoulder and backpack strap on the right. Someday Randal will have leather covering the settee and chairs.

Interesting sign

Ruth Johnson

DoraMac

Hi Everyone,

  We had a lovely day today.  Last night not so great….

Why I Love Penang

I love Penang!!! We have been here for about 31 hours and I already know it’s going to be one of those places that’s hard to leave. One of the best parts is that our friends Elizabeth and Patrick from Labarque are here also. Their boat is pulled out of the water at the same boat yard we’ll go to tomorrow. Our boat will be pulled and the bottom will be repainted with anti-fouling paint. Other work will be done and we’ll spend several days there. The boat will be up on a giant stand (“on the hard” is the term) and we’ll live on it. We’ll have water and electricity, but no AC because the condenser is water cooled from the ocean water and we’ll be on land. I’ll do a separate email about it while we are there. We did live in a boat yard in China so this won’t be a totally new experience. And there will be no Penang karaoke bar blasting music from 10 pm to 4 am! It was totally awful though not really surprising (in hindsight.)

Karaoke Nightmare!  And it seemed such a lovely anchorage with wonderful cooling breezes. 

You can see our boat and the shore about 600 ft apart. Randal and I had been up since midnight when we left Lumut to do the 75 mile passage to Penang so went to sleep about 9 pm. I don’t know when the VERY HORRIBLE WAY WAY WAY TOO LOUD BAD SINGING started, but I know it ended at 4 am because I looked at the clock. In between we slept and woke and cursed and put pillows over our heads or closed windows and portholes and cursed. And I had actually worried that I hadn’t bungeed our swim platform gate that sometimes clangs.

This busy road was also 600 ft away and no problem at all.

Kind of looks like Roanoke near the river. It is pretty neat anchoring “in town.” We did it in Makassar, Indonesia and the restaurant/bar blasted us too. In Puerto Galera, Redang, Perhentian, lots of places blasted us; but not until 4 am. During Ramadan we heard prayers from mosque loud speakers, but that was different and I could accept that. But there’s no excuse for this and those folks will all be deaf one day, serves them right! (PS We moved the boat further down the river away from the horrid bar. And Elizabeth gave us each some ear plugs. After that we’ll be at the boat yard. We have been warned that when we move to the marina in town with the Rally we’ll be blasted again with horrible loud bar music. Next Malaysian official I meet at a Rally event will hear about it.)

Today Elizabeth took Randal and me on an introductory tour of George Town, a UNESCO designated World Cultural Heritage Site. (Patrick continued with their boat’s work.) The boatyard is a 20 minute taxi ride or a 40 minute bus ride from Historic George Town. Elizabeth and Patrick have spent many months over the past few years here and we met shop keepers who know Elizabeth by name. Chinese, Indians, Arabs, local Malays, Achehnese from the Indonesia, Siamese, Burmese, and Europeans have made for a complex city and culture. It’s great! We first visited the marina and reserved a spot for when our boat work is done. Then we walked along looking and listening to Elizabeth as we made our way to the Indian area for lunch.

Cable maker. If one could draw his would be an interesting face to try!

At his small shop this man twisted strands into cable. His wife ran a small restaurant where E and P have eaten roti many times. Elizabeth was greeted as an old friend. This was across the street from the big, fancy marina.

Woodlands Indian Restaurant.

For 7 ringgits (about $2) you could get one of these wonderful samplers of food. Luckily we walked for a few hours after we ate all that really wonderful food. That is Elizabeth next to Randal.  You might remember her as one of my craft adventure friends. There’s not much Elizabeth doesn’t know about world history or geography. She also taught in Malaysia in another life and was thanked by one of her former students in Terengganu while we were there at a rally dinner during the East Malaysia Rally. E and P aren’t on this rally but are spending time in the area. Amazingly, though we were all stuffed to the gills, Randal and I bought more food. We stopped at another Indian restaurant and bought some bread and chicken for later meals (dinner!) I was invited into the tiny area where the bread was cooked so I could take photos.

I kept trying to take photos as the young man worked and he kept stopping to pose! Then I walked outside and tried to take photos through the window so he opened the window and posed some more. The chicken kabobs were hanging on skewers and they were rewarmed in the oven. We were given chopped onion and lime and sauces with all of it. Total cost 13 ringgits $4 and there’s enough bread and dipping soup, because it is like lentil soup for two or three meals. We ate the 5 large chicken kebabs for dinner with some bread and cucumber and tomato.

I took lots of photos just during our quick walk around town which included some used book stores, a small art gallery, a local crafts shop, and a large grocery store. By about 4 pm it was time to catch the bus back to the boat yard where we had tied up our dinghy about 10 that morning. The yard is only a few miles from our anchorage. (Randal had wanted to see the boat yard and make final preparations for our arrival there on the 20^th. ) The bus was the long scenic tour but that’s okay. When we got back to the boat we put the dinghy back aboard and then pulled up anchor and moved further up the river away from the noise. Of course, maybe they just blast music Wednesday nights. That would be nice since we’re not that far up the river. We’ll see.

Ru

DoraMac