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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 3rd 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.
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.
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