Category Archives: Penang Island

Batu Maung, Malaysia, Pen Marine Boat Yard, Penang Island

Boat Yard Living

December 1, 2009 Ruth

Hi Everyone,

It’s hard to believe it’s December. There are seasons here, and now we are in the beginning of the Northeast Monsoon which is actually the dry season on the west side of West Malaysia. But no matter that, it’s always summer. I honestly wouldn’t mind a good dose of winter right now: at least for a day or so, though, actually, it has been more pleasant than blazing hot.

The Rally is now here in Penang and we did attend a day of events and dinner on Sunday. The events started at 1:30 pm, ended at 9:30 pm during which time we had 3 meals, each progressively larger! I’ll do an email about. The Rally came to our boat yard first and that’s where we joined on. Then we visited a Batu Maung “gated community” being developed for the uppercrust, the Specialist Hospital in George Town for the uppercrust. and last a George Town gated community for the upper uppercrust. I enjoyed the hospital visit the most because my sister is a NICU (baby intensive care) RN in Roanoke and lots of her friends are nurses and doctors. Because it was the Sunday of a holiday weekend, the hospital was very empty. But all of that will wait for another email. There was a really large dinner last night in town, but we just skipped it since it started at 8 pm and we’d all had a day full of chores. Since the first tour stop was here at the boat yard I’ve decided to tell you about that first and what it’s like to live here. I also have stories from a second visit to George Town with Elizabeth. That day E and I left the yard at 7 am and returned about 6:30 pm. We had a great day!

Boat Yard Living Pen~Marine Sdn Bhd www.penmarine.com

Living in this boat yard, “on the hard” is rather “difficult.” Living at the boat yard in China, in the water, was more like just living on the boat since we could use all of our systems, water, power, AC, heads(toilets.) Of course, compared to the way millions of people live around the world, any boat yard living would seem a luxury. And many cruisers don’t have AC, a washing machine or a frig: and they do just fine. But, compared to how most of you live, and how we are usually able to live on Doramac, our lives here at the boat yard are pretty primitive. We have no air conditioning, we only sort of have a toilet, and every time you leave the boat it’s down and up and down and up. The fact that we can use our toilet at all, and our shower if we want, makes our time here easier than many others. It just depends what’s happening under the boat whether you can run water in the sinks, shower, or washing machine. The toilet holding tanks always must be closed with no pump-out possible here as there is at some marinas or dump out as there is at sea: so when it’s full, that’s it! (In the too much information category, like all the other cruisers here on the hard, we have a “chamber pot” bucket with a tight top for the night time or when we’re just too lazy or too tired for one more trip down and up the boat. We can us our rear toilet, but do so very sparingly.) Noise, oddly, isn’t particularly bothersome except for the boat yard industrial sandblaster that was used for several hours a couple of days, and then last night work went on until almost midnight. Aye! Aye! Aye! yelled loud enough to hear over something mechanical is really loud! I recognized the Aye! as coming from our line handling helper who’d had to yell the same thing several times when we had maneuvered into the boat yard. Randal said that last night they were trying to get a really huge fishing boat up out of the water onto skids at the time of highest tides, which was late last night. They had no luck. Don’t know the end of that story other than the boat isn’t here at the yard. I quit trying to sleep and had some tea and finished my book.

The good point are we have power for the frig and water for washing, Elizabeth and Patrick are our neighbors, there is no karaoke, the boat yard canteen is good and cheap, the toilets and showers are kept clean, and the sweetest brown dog just loves us all. And so far it hasn’t rained during the day which would make trips to the “boat yard loo” even more annoying. Hopefully, if we’re lucky, painting the boat’s bottom with anti-fouling paint will be a biannual event and not more often than that. (The exception being that next year we’ll probably have to redo the paint so when we cross the Indian Ocean the boat will be in tip top shape.) Thankfully, most of the time, most boat work can be done with the boat in the water. We need to be in the water to run our AC because it’s cooled with sea water. If you can run the AC you can close up the boat and the boat yard grit doesn’t blow in and get on everything. I had visions of giving the boat a good cleaning while we were here. It will have to wait for the marina in Langkawi!

The foreground boat is Labarque. I climbed up and down their ladder for dinner the other night and realized how lucky we are with the swim platform ladder and the plywood steps the yard provided when they saw that I (and all of the other ladies who are no taller than I am) had a hard time stepping down onto the barrel and then wood block. It was too far from the last rung of the ladder to the top of the barrel. Obviously you do what you have to do; but I’m grateful that I don’t have to do ladders.

View from the pilot house as I type. Very faintly on the left you can see George Town off in the distance.

The boat yard offices and canteen which is not far from where the car is driving down the hill. It’s about a 3 minute walk from our boat. You can see the mountain behind the yard. There are enough mountains here to remind me of Roanoke. We are further to the left, not visible in this photo. I think that’s Nicholas’ sailboat.

The path to the showers and “loo.” Well worn! Elizabeth saw a large monitor lizard once but I’ve only heard him so far. Small butterflies and birds are more likely to be seen. And dog, cats and rooster. Local eagles are roost up in the trees on the mountain.

“Sit down” toilets on the ends and showers in the middle. The water is cool but it feels good with the heat. Attractive, no: functional, yes and pretty clean too. The rooster sleeps on the partial roofing that is just in front of those stacked barrels.

Boat work is being done all around the yard. These are at the far end of the complex. Photogenic wooden fishing boats are here too.

There had been a very large, 60 ton Polis boat next to us. Repairs/repainting completed, it left and has been replaced by a pretty blue and orange fishing boat which thankfully does not smell.

Just beyond the far gate is a small fishing complex of tiny wooden buildings and lots of small boats.

One of those wooden boat being repaired just across the way from us on the water side.

This is Little Brown Dog or LBD as she is called. So incredibly sweet and patient with children. So horribly jealous and mean to the other boat yard dogs. I bought some rawhide chew toys for her at Jusco and she gets one a day. Cruising friends of E and P who had also spent time here brought a big bowl of left-overs from the rally dinner last Sunday night. I noticed Helen collecting left over bits from all of the plates at our table and thought she had a dog. But, no, it was for LBD. I also give LBD crackers every morning and ear rubs any time that I see her. She sleeps under the boats so has blotches of orange anti-fouling paint on her coat. The rooster also gets morning crackers or old bread but he still is too shy to eat from my hand. I might be too leery of being pecked so not really keen on it anyway.

What do you do after a full 10 hours of boat work?

Frisbee anyone?

One of the boats here is owned by a family with two children: a 6 yr old girl and an 8 yr old boy. They are on school vacation and come here in the evenings with their parents. I gave them each a frisbee and after about 5 minutes they were pros. Of course that meant I had to play too. Yesterday Randal took these photos of Patrick who by all rights shouldn’t even have been able to stand upright after boat work all day.

In this photo both are looking up at me on our boat…

I’m throwing it back which is much easier than chasing after one.

Patrick, on the other hand, had lots to contend with.

Patrick looks as if he can hardly bend down, but he had spent about all day sanding his boat.

I think next we will try hopscotch! Because the cruisers are older adults, these children, just like the children in China, call us “auntie” and “uncle” which I find charming.

Randal had first blocked with tape and then painted the water line with white paint. The water line lets you know if the boat is listing to one side and if it is sitting too low in the water. You can see our shiny green paint is still shiny green and reflecting the boat next to us.

Mostly Randal stays at the yard to work or keep an eye on the work being done. Patrick always stays at the yard since he and E are doing all of their work themselves and want to be done by Christmas. Luckily Elizabeth has time to go into George Town, partly to guide me and partly to get boat supplies or check about boat supplies. Several times each week she and I walk the 45 minutes into the Batu Maung morning market. Today, after shopping and our cup the local thick dark coffee, we saw the 307 bus passing by the market. We flagged him downand asked to be dropped at the intersection at the foot of our hill. When we asked the driver how much for the fare, he smiled and just waved us to sit down. Since we were going such a short way, he didn’t charge us. He was very kind and it made a huge difference since we were both loaded up with shopping and saved us 30 minutes of walking.

Randal made his own trip to town by bike to pick up our large exhaust pipe that had been repaired at one of the local stainless steel shops. Randal, the large pipe and his bike were driven back to the yard in the company van.

Tonight we are going to dinner on LaBarque. E is a wonderful cook and is trying a new curry, pineapple chicken recipe. It involves lots of good things likefreshly (as you watch) ground coconut, mint leaves, cilantro: I could tell you exactly since I have the same small chicken cookbook. I, however, only cook with garlic and onions because that’s what we always have and I know how to use them.

DoraMac

Batu Maung, Malaysia, Penang Island

Thanksgiving

November 27, 2009 Ruth

11/27/2009

Boatyard Batu Maung, Penang, Malaysia

Hi Everyone,

I’m sure you’ll all be eating some variation of turkey and stuffing. Last night we ate with E and P on Labarque. E made a wonderful dish of chicken, red lentils, cilantro, mint leaves, yogurt and other wonderful spices. We ate it all. I made a partly frozen dessert of canned chocolate sweetened condensed milk, a box of cream, some cold milk, a glob of Kaya and some ice cubes whirred all together in our blender and froze for 6 hours. It really needs at least 10 hours, I think, so I’ll try it again. We sort of drank it! Then we watched the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency which they had on CD. Good movie. Good meal. Today E’s taking me on a tour of George Town while Randal goes to hardware and electrical shops and P works on Labarque.

This fellow is safe from any dinner plate.

As a matter of fact E and I feed him. E calls it a cockerel, I call him a rooster. He is quite pretty and spends part of his day near Labarque on these boat stands. He sleeps on a roof near the yard showers and toilets. The other morning I tried to feed him crumbled crackers while the cat looked on. He was definitely more afraid of me, though sometimes he isn’t and just waits for me to finish getting his crackers ready. The rooster is larger than the cat but the dogs also leave him alone. He is very pretty and not mean like some roosters I have known. The one in the chicken house at the group home in New Hampshire where I worked in the early 70s was very mean. I went in with a big stick when I collected the eggs.

DoraMac

Batu Maung, Malaysia, Penang Island

A Second visit to George Town

November 24, 2009 Ruth

Hi Everyone,

Randal and I are both pooped. Randal from all the boat work he is doing and me from the yesterday’s all day trip to George Town and chores today. Tomorrow we’ll go back to the local public market, a 45 minute walk from the yard. Hopefully I’ll walk off some of the George Town snacks!

“Thosai and Cheese Naan”

Yesterday we made another journey into George Town. (I spell it with two words because that’s what’s on the local map and local street signs.) Five of us went: P and E, Randal, me and the Frenchman Nicholas. We left the yard about 7:15 am just as it was getting light. You have to hike up a hefty hill and then walk down the other side to leave the yard and get to the main road. It’s not at all bad in the cool of the morning when your pack is empty. In the late afternoon with a full pack and an additional full canvas carrying bag (advertising the wonderfulness of libraries,) and, trying to hold an umbrella, it’s almost all bad! I say almost because there was no thunder and lightning, just a steady light rain. My goal was to not only get up the hill as dry as possible, but also to avoid squishing the wonderful bread I’d bought in town. (And I used to dread unloading my car under the carport after a trip to Kroger.)

We left early morning for two reasons: more buses run in the morning and we could have time for a second breakfast in town before the shops opened. We caught, (ran for,) the bus, which was coming along just as we got to the street; and then we sat for about 90 minutes as the bus route went round Robin’s barn to get to town. The bus is clean, comfortable and air conditioned (I got cold) so it isn’t bad, just long. At least we had seats and finally did get to George Town.

Finally off the bus, our first stop was a bright green and yellow place serving Indian food. Indian food has great breakfast foods! We had thosai, a wonderful slightly fermented rice pancake. E and I had plain and the guys had egg.

It was crispy and wonderful and came with dipping sauces varying in degrees of heat from mild to too spicy for me for breakfast. One sauce had a yogurt base and I stuck to that. There were 4 dipping options, so even plain is never plain!

We almost never eat indoors anymore. Tea and coffee comes in glass mugs.

When I started to write this I wasn’t sure what the pancake was called but remembered P and E calling it something like “toesee.” I looked up rice pancake and figured it out. I could have asked E but that would have involved climbing down out of the boat and then climbing back up the boat. They are just across our bow but weren’t visible for me to call over to them. “There are various ways of transliterating dosa: dhosha, dosay, dosai, dhosai, tosai, thosai, or dvashi. In different countries it is spelled in different manners; for example, in Malaysia and Singapore it is spelled thosai, because of the different way in which Tamil is transliterated in South-East Asia.” Wikipedia.

I guess they are all close enough so if you just say some version, even “toesee” you’ll be understood. I have a hard time learning Bahasa Malaysia, but thosai I’ll remember.

After breakfast the guys went one way and I went with E who knows George Town well and is a great guide. I had a few things to find as did she, and she also had a dentist appointment a bus ride distance from historic George Town. Randal went off with P and Nicholas to chandlers and hardware stores. P needed 26 kilo of sand (57.2 lbs) so he and Randal would taxi home. I don’t remember every stop E and I made, there were many! but it was about 2 pm when we had another snack, this time cheese naan with ice water with lime. We ate at the restaurant where I’d taken the photos of the bread oven. E and I each ordered a cheese naan and it was an entire piece of naan with buttery cheese lightly melted on top. The pieces looked, and were huge, and there was none left when we finished. Interestingly you get different foods at different times of the day. Thosai in the morning and naan in the afternoon. Each needs the oven and I guess in not the same way. I like all of the different options so it doesn’t matter to me. Randal likes the naan best so he is always sorry there’s none for breakfast. When Randal was in the hospital in China for his food poisoning I went looking for rice for his breakfast but the food stalls were only selling noodles. He was tired of noodles, but that’s what he got because that’s all there was until later in the day. Maybe same reason? At least that morning in Jingan.

E told me what this was; I don’t remember. But its fragrance says India and it masks the smells from the drains. You see it on the sidewalk in front of shops.

I was ready to walk off my pancake and there were chores to do, so off we went………

Marina office, bus terminal, dentist, bus, small shop that sells pants E likes, hand towel shop, paint shop, electrical shop, European style Rainbow Bakery for great whole grain bread. (They also sell bagels and what Americans call English muffins though the British don’t.) art gallery, art supply shop, rag shop, pharmacy, carpet shop for small, cheap mats because of boat yard grit, and for fun, a really great thrift shop that has prices that even beat my 6.90 ringgit shirt. The thrift shop is a charity so I’m going, finally, through all of my stuff and, if I don’t love it, it’s going into the big bag for the thrift shop. And if it’s too small. I tried on my bought in China jeans shorts and it was sad. I could almost get them on unbutton in China and now they’re too snug! All of the wonderful and interesting food is taking a toll! Lots of passages and rally dinners don’t help either. Soon we’ll weigh 35 tons.

The Rag shop: I bought three of the small, colorful bundles. They cost very little but filled my backpack.

“Antiques” if you needed those too. E just looked, I just bought rags.

At this very large renovated shophouse you could buy anything needed for any Hindu or Chinese custom or celebration! They also sold aromatic candles that E uses against mosquitoes.

Three shop houses had been combined to make this very large store that went up three floors.

Lions and tigers and dragons, oh my!

On the top floor were the statues with missing hands, or had dings or nobody wanted them for another reason. A tangle of lamps too. Not sure where things went after the 3rd floor.

It was a wonderful building with wood floors and stairs. Thankfully many of the old shop houses are being renovated rather than demolished. I really made that up about the 3rd floor stuff.

Walkways in front of the shop houses are like covered arcades. Cool in the sun and dry in the rain.

A little before 4 pm we walked back to the bus terminal to catch the 307 “rapid” bus back to the boat yard. First we had to sit and wait for the bus, and then it wasn’t really all that “rapid.” It took us about an hour to get back to Batu Maung where the boat yard is located. That was a half hour faster than the 302 local but 40 minutes longer than a taxi. Just as we got close to Batu Maung it started to rain. But, as I said earlier, it could have been worse. Rain is starting to come less often and not so fierce. It is the time for the dry season which is why kids have these few months off from school.

Today was a boat work and chores day. Randal is getting lots done but is also getting pooped. It’s tiring just climbing up and down the stairs to get on and off the boat. Tomorrow E and Randal and I will walk to the local public market for veggies. ( P will keep sanding Labarque’s hull which is why he needed all that sand.) We’ll also stop at the small stainless steel factory: Labarque needs some work done and Randal has some questions. I want more veggies so I’ll stop eating bread and cookies!

DoraMac

ps Is it baseball season yet?

Batu Maung, Malaysia, Penang Island

Limbongan Batu Maung SDN BHD: The boat yard

November 22, 2009 Ruth

Hi Everyone,

I don’t know if I used to be braver or just oblivious to possible catastrophe. Car ownership, home ownership, now boat ownership, and as I’ve gotten older, the possibility of broken bones if I fell really hard off a large horse have eliminated much of the bliss of ignorance; and bravery hasn’t replaced it. In the past week or so I’ve found myself saying, “I’m not brave enough for this.” When we had that fish net anchor mess last week and again yesterday when we were trying to get DoraMac into the tiny concrete slip at the boat yard, I just had to wonder about those cruisers who see all of this as “just a part of cruising.”

First, let me say, it all turned out fine with not a scratch on man or boat. (As the fish net mess did too.) But while it was happening I couldn’t imagine anything other than “possible disaster.” (I may have mentioned in earlier emails that my mother used to call me “Calamity Jane” because I was a predictor of doom.) We’d had the boat pulled successfully once in China, but things do happen. And with our experiences lately, I really do believe “things do happen”. They, luckily, just don’t happen so often or so awfully that you want to pack it up and go home. Randal continually seems to be able to deal with whatever happens and the more I see that, the less really worried I get. But controlling a 34 ton boat against the forces of wind and current is truly difficult.

Docking a boat at a marina or boat yard involves throwing long, heavy lines (ropes) to someone, or better, several someones, standing on the dock to catch them. You put rubber fenders out on the side that will come close to the dock to protect the boat. I’m not great at throwing our lines, though I am getting better. At a marina when the weather is very calm and there is no wind, it’s not so bad. But during our docking procedure at the boat yard I knew that there would be no room for error so suggested that the boat yard have someone on our boat to throw the lines. I’m glad I did for 2 reasons. One, it was problematic and our helper had to climb on the boat railing to be able to throw the lines to the guys on the dock, and two, even he missed once and they missed once. If I had done it, Randal would have been embarrassed by his inept crew member. To top it off, the slip cleat had broken and several men who weighed maybe a combined 500 lbs were trying to play tug of war with a 34 ton boat that had to back away to move into position. Did not work as they kept having to drop the line. Finally a temporary cleat was rigged and that managed to hold the line. I have no photos because I was poised, fender in hand to place said fender between DoraMac and the concrete slip if we came close enough to make contact and damage the hull. I also, was in on the line throwing act and luckily got it right the first time. By then we were close enough to the slip and the men there caught my throw which was dead on! Fear is a strong motivator!!

Randal had to back the boat into this concrete slip which is about 22 to 24 ft wide. DoraMac is almost 15 feet wide. That’s about 3 ½ feet to spare per side. You have to do it right. At a marina dock, the fenders can protect the boat from damage. But the sides of this concrete slip are much higher where fenders won’t really work, so men were holding large sheets of Styrofoam between the boat and the slip walls. I walked along with a fender to use if we needed extra protection.

The concrete slip. Backing a boat is very different than backing a car. The wind and current keep the boat moving no matter where you are trying to make it go. That’s why you need the lines and cleats to hold it from moving with the wind. The really icky times are when you share a slip at a marina and the wind can blow you into the boat that’s already there. Then it’s my job to hold a fender between the two boats if necessary. Luckily so far it hasn’t been necessary.

We’re securely in the slip. The travel lift is the contraption on wheels.

Once you are securely in the slip they roll out the travel lift which is a huge contraption that has two slings which go under the hull forward and aft.

Here we are out of the water. Can you see the two straps under the keel?

We had to loosen mast stays and lower aerials, but it all worked and there were no dings anywhere. The boat yard guys knew their job and friends Patrick and Elizabeth helped and gave us advice on the mast stays.

Elizabeth and Patrick sometimes shortened in my emails to E and P or P and E.

This is the boat yard man who came on DoraMac to throw the lines. I’m taller and weigh more: but he is stronger and knows more! And I wouldn’t have climbed onto the railing to throw the line; at least not onto the top rail. Maybe the middle rail. Falling into the water could get you squished between the boat and the concrete dock.

When he first came aboard he asked for a photo of the boat. We didn’t have one handy at that really busy time. I thought he just wanted one to keep as a reminder of the boats he helps “land.” When we were all finished I told him I’d get him a photo for him. Later P and E said that he wanted a photo to see the bottom of the boat to help with the landing and lifting!

Randal and Elizabeth looking at the crusty propeller and the dirty rudder and hull.

The ding in the orange might be part of the leftovers from the fishing net mess. Randal isn’t sure. The whole net mess was wrapped around the propeller and shaft. It’s not a deep dive to get to the propeller, but maneuvering around with a tank that can get caught places ….

Crusty zincs needed to be cleaned and replaced

Our bow thruster propeller needed attention too and the round metal piece in the center will be replaced.

Power washing the green slime off the bottom.

Randal took a turn; a reminder of his old Roanoke Wreck Repair days.

Randal was washing off, our peeling off white water line marker. He’s going to paint one on.

The expert travel lift driver.

The travel lift hoisted us out of the water and drove us over to our parking space bow to bow with P and E’s boat, Lebarque

Bow to bow with Lebarque. It was close enough to be a bit scary to watch.

Though the boats are very steady on their rests, we all have the sensation that we are rolling a bit.

Remember the crusty propeller and the slime green bottom? That’s Randal’s smiling face you see in the clean, shiny propeller arm! Soon the whole thing will look like that. Randal says know one would know what the reflection is, but I think so.

The boat yard is doing some of the work and Randal is doing some of the work. Some confusion with the estimate prompted that. Luckily Randal can do lots of the work himself. P and E are doing much of their own boat work and so are the Olssons on Blue Marlin.

This is how we get off the boat.

We climb down to the swim platform and then down the swim ladder and then step onto the big barrel holding on to the swim ladder and then, still holding on reach with my toe as far as I can until I touch the big block of wood. In my next life, as well as knowing my right from my left, I’m going to be taller.

Nights in the boat yard are very quiet except for the occassional dog quarrel. The dogs are very friendly but they stake out their claims to visiting cruisers and woe be to the dog who tries to get some attention from a cruiser who has already been claimed. Small brown dog has claimed our row of boats which includes Lebarque and now DoraMac. She fiercely guards her territory from the other female dogs but reluctantly allows her male friend to hang around and even get an occassional pat on the head. This morning they both had our left over, very picked over, Sungei Rengit pork ribs bones. She got more because he was afraid of what I might be throwing. Tomorrow they’ll get some really old biscuits that Randal had made. I will look for dog treats when we go to George Town tomorrow. E and P have chores and so do we so we’ll all take the bus in early and depending on who’s done when, we’ll share a taxi coming home. Patrick needs 100 lbs of sand for his sand blaster; not something you take on the bus.

So that’s that.

Ruth Johnson

Doramac

Malaysia, Near George Town, Penang Island

George Town, Penang street scenes

November 20, 2009 Ruth

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!

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

Malaysia, Near George Town, Penang Island

Penang!

November 19, 2009 Ruth

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.

DoraMac