Monday, March 20, 2023 - Georgetown, Malaysia

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Monday, March 20 – Georgetown, Malaysia 

Our tour today is in Georgetown which is the capital of this state. We have chosen Temples and Traditional Handicrafts. Although we are at a dock, it is a long walk to where the busses are parked. Almost ½ a mile. 

This is the inside of a typical Malaysian tourist bus.

Pretty wild, and the draperies in the window have a tendency to cut down your view.

Our first stop takes in two temples. Both are Buddhist, the first one we visited is Thai. Inside is the world’s 3^rd longest reclining buddha at 33 meters. Buddha is displayed reclining as this is the position he was in when he died. 

 

 

Across the street is another Buddhist temple that is Burmese. We have learned that in the Buddhist religion, each country that practices it has tweaked their practices to fit their culture. When they migrate, they carry these practices with them. 

 

 

The third temple we visited is the Snake Temple. The monk that oversaw the building of the Temple in 1806 was known as a healer and also befriended snakes. So they have live snakes inside and even have a breeding program for them. 

 

 

In between #2 and #3 we visited a Batik factory. This alone made the whole excursion worthwhile. There are several different methods of batik. The two used the most in this factory are block printing and hand-drawn and painted pieces. In block printing, a block with a design on it is dipped in wax and then pressed on the cloth. Repeat, dye, new block design applied, and dyed, new block design applied, and dyed, dried, the dyed cloth is then soaked in a fixative, dried and the wax boiled out of it. Lightest color first, followed by progressively darker colors. 3-4 colors maximum. 

Repetitive block printing. This will be fabric for uniforms for a business.

Hand drawing the design

5 minutes later.
 

Next step adding the color, blending colors. She moved very quickly.

 

The hand painted versions were amazing. An artist applies wax to the fabric free hand, making the design as they go. Then the piece is painted with dyes. When it is dry, it goes through the fixative process and then boiled to remove the wax. I could not believe how fast they worked. They will also do paintings that were unbelievably complex. Their shop did a very good business that day from our group. 

 

This is day 6 out of 7 port days in a row. We are ready for the upcoming sea days.

Tuesday, March 21, 2023 - Phuket, Thailand

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Tuesday, March 21 – Phuket, Thailand 

We are back in Thailand today on the island of Phuket off the western coast of Thailand. We will be tendered by the locals today as required by their local regulations. Although our Port Talk indicated it might be a 30-minute tender, it turned out to be about 10 and in/on an airconditioned boat. However the walk from where we off loaded onto the pier to where the busses were parked was almost ½ mile. 

We are on Bus 3 this morning and doing the included tour. Our first stop is at a cashew nut factory. It was very interesting to see a cashew tree with the nuts and fruit on the tree. The cashew nut forms first, then a fruit looking a bit like a pear forms with the nut at the base of the fruit. Although there are mechanized ways of removing the nut from the shell, this factory does it by hand, one-at-a-time, to ensure they get whole cashews. No wonder they are so expensive. The other factor is that the inside of the shell is poisonous. 

You can see the nut at the base of the fruit.

 

Of course there was a shop and they have multiple flavors of cashews as well as the normal. 

On we went to Wat Chalong Temple. Supposedly one of the largest and prettiest and it is certainly visited by a lot of people. It dates back to the beginning of the 19^th century. The pagoda that is at this site contains a splinter of what is believed to be a bone from Buddha. 

 

 

On our way to the next stop, we caught glimpses of a BIG sitting Buddha on top of a hill. A little research told us it is 45 meters high and 25 meters wide. It is concrete that has been faced with Burmese White Marble. We could see it from the ship as we were getting ready to anchor. 

 

 

The final stop for the day was at Promthep Cape. It is famous for sunset photos as it is at the southern tip of the island. We weren’t there for sunset so we didn’t see anything photo worthy. Other than the elephant shrine. All sizes. Thousands have been placed here. I could not find anything about the why? But it was rather fascinating.

And as we headed back to pick up the tender our Viking Neptune waiting for our return.

Sunday, March 19, 2023 - Langkawi, Malaysia

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Sunday, March 19 – Langkawi, Malaysia 

Our excursion today was to take a boat ride through the mangroves. We thought this would be a different approach to sightseeing. 

We couldn’t have been more correct. And to top it off, we had a beautiful sunrise.

Once again, we are at a tender port. We were advised it would be a bit of a walk from the pier to the busses. Yeah! At least ½ a mile. We boarded our bus for a transfer to the pier for the boats in the Kilim Geoforest Park. 30-40 minutes. The Park is a UNESCO site and part of a system of Geoparks that UNESCO has sponsored and is 100+ square kilometers. First, we are to visit the bat caves, then the crocodile cave. Then a fish farm and finally the mangroves. 

Not real excited about bats, but it is mid-morning and they should all be resting. A short ride up the river from the Park base, and we unloaded to walk through the cave. The cave itself is an old streambed that is now above the water level. Low clearance, but the path is well marked, although we were advised to not touch the handrails. You probably wouldn’t like the smell left on your hand if you do. There are stalactites as well as stalagmites. As soon as you are inside, you can see the opening for the exit.

Two long tailed Macaque monkeys, just waiting to steal something from someone.

 

 

We had also been forewarned by the guides that the "mafia" hangs out at the bat caves. The mafia are actually long tailed macaque monkeys that like to rip off sunglasses, hats, cell phones, etc. We took this warning to heart and had everything secured and no sunglasses on. As we exited the cave, I noticed a monkey hanging around. A young lady was trying to get some photos. I moved on not making eye contact. All of a sudden, I felt my purse being tugged on. I wear it across my body, so I grabbed it and swung it around to find a monkey latched on to it. Russ grabbed at it and it dropped and scampered a few feet away. That was certainly startling. Unfortunately, I have no pictures. The little bugger did not steal anything either.

Mom macaque and her baby

Bats. 

Towards the bottom of the photo, my camera picked up one in flight.

 

Back on the boat and we headed downriver. The scenery is great! Dramatic hills draped in jungle; the edges of the river lined with mangroves. We learned that there are over 80 varieties of mangrove and the island of Langkawi has about 60 of those varieties. The crocodile cave is just a low cave that passes through to another arm of the river. Water was a little too high while we were there to go all the way through.

Very interesting rock formations

Having fun as we speed along the river

The fish farm buildings 

We'll be back in a bit to view the fish at this restaurant

Crocodile Cave

 

 

The driver of our boat was having a very good time with the boat. When appropriate, he was driving at high speed, slicing through the water, twisting back and forth across the river. A fine time. We hadn’t done anything like that in many many years since our days of some white water rafting in Oregon. We stopped at the fish farm which is in reality a number of restaurants set up on floating docks. They grow their own fish, and then serve it to boaters and kayakers that stop by.

 

 

Fish tank. These were 18" to 2' long.

 

We also stopped for a while to watch for sea eagles. The name of this island is Langkawi. Lang = eagle. Kawi = red brown. These sea eagles are not as large as an American Eagle but they are a very large bird and beautiful. With wings spread you can see the red brown coloration. Their breast and head are white. You couldn’t count all of them that were flying above us. Several landed in trees very near our boat. What a sight!

Two of these beauties.

 

 

 

We spent a bit of time gliding through the mangroves. These trees are amazing. This island suffers no damage from tsunamis due to the natural defenses. There are reefs of coral and then the shores are lined with mangroves. The mangroves absorb all that energy. 

We went all the way out into the Strait of Malacca and looked back at the shoreline before heading back upriver to the Park headquarters and our bus back to the pier. We stopped and had a beer with friends on the pier before heading back to the tender.

 

A narrow opening from the sea to one of the many arms of this river.

 

 

What a fascinating and excellent day. One of the best we’ve had.