Simply Bea

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur on 28th September pretty late in the night. As the plane started on its descent and we broke through the cloud cover, we looked out and saw this layer of "smoke" which was shrouding the city like a blanket. The lights of the city looked dim through this veil and we said - that's got to be haze.........

It was pretty chaotic when we got out to the waiting area - lots of people jostling each other and trolleys everywhere. Cars parked outside the arrival halls next to the signs which said "No Parking"........... and there were cars triple parked!

A traffic warden appeared and we thought "...... surely some tickets will be issued now......" but he only made a half hearted attempt and issued a couple, then sort of walked around aimlessly with a dazed look on his face...... until another warden came around and started doing some serious traffic control.

"Welcome to Malaysia" I said to Paul........ chaos reigns!

Once we got to my mum's place and settled in, we started to get into "survive the heat" mode. The haze was pretty thick (we thought) but my family seemed to think there wasn't any....... that's how used they were getting to it.

Coming from such a clean place as Kangaroo Island, it didn't take long for the haze to get to us. Paul started feeling pretty bad, choked up and wasn't well at all for the first few days. I felt all clogged up and my nose and sinuses were just stuffed up all day. We were starting to look forward to Penang, an island off the north western coast of Malaysia but we had a few days more to go in KL.

There were mooncakes for sale in a number of places we went to but I thought it must have just finished before we got there because no one in the family made any mention of it and I thought it would have been pretty important especially seeing as it would have been the first one for my niece (she would have been way too young last year) with the lanterns etc. So when we saw the date on a signboard in a shopping mall we suddenly realised it was just a couple of days away and we started to look for lanterns for Bridget.

Mum and Bridget with the lanterns outside the house.

When we went to the Pasar Malam (night market) on the night of the Lantern Festival (8th October) we couldn't find any nice traditional paper lanterns. The vendors were selling some queer looking plastic lanterns which looked like plastic cartoon characters lit up with a torch...... yuuuuukkkk....... and I had my dates confused thinking we had another day up our sleeve...... and when we got home, the realisation hit when we saw the kids next door walking out to the playground carrying lanterns (plastic and "real ones" ) so we made a mad dash back to the Pasar Malam to try and find something for Bridget. We managed to find a couple of okayish ones but then we couldn't find any candles - not even in the house! So another mad rush to a shopping center which stays open til 11pm and we managed to find some candles.

Even that was a saga in itself....... it is a HUGE supermarket and we had just under 5 minutes before closing when my brother pulled up in the carpark, so while he looked for a park, Paul and I raced in to the store and tried asking the shop staff where we could find the candles (for birthday cakes.....) and of course...... we got pointed in the wrong direction to start with after some blank looks........ but it ended well - we found the candles in the end.

So - it is after 11pm when we are back home (my brother could be a F1 driver) and all the lights in the house are out....... but the baby hears us and so we bring her downstairs just so we can light up the lanterns for her!

The next night is the proper lantern festival - so we got geared up after dinner and at first she was a bit hesitant, but after a while she's getting excited and wants to play with them.

Bridget chasing her lanterns around in the hall.

The weekend was an interesting one as well......... we spent Saturday with my girlfriends and daughter. It started normally enough with just a lunch appointment and ended up "testing out" the new oven in my girlfriend's apartment. At least this time the eggs were whole....... the weekend before that, when she asked her housemaids to send her some eggs from the apartment to the house - the maid packed the eggs together with the stainless steel serving spoons in a plastic bag and sent them off with the driver...... so by the time the eggs arrived, it was pretty hard to seperate the shell from the eggs!

So - on with the oven testing....... Paul to the rescue! The instructions for use were still in the packaging and he had to read them out and help set the thermostat. Then, as the scones were being cooked - the maids kept opening the over door so of course the temperature wasn't consistent. The timer had been set as a counter so that it was actually keeping time instead of counting down, The scones were still good - but Pat would have liked them to have been better.

Another day of eating good food - non stop and we felt like we had the proverbial "jelly belly" syndrome!

Buildings in the mist........

So with an early start, waking up at 6am so we could get to the airport in plenty of time.... the flight ended up being delayed by nearly half an hour because of the haze.

The buildings barely a kilometer from the airport were shrouded in thick haze and the air smelt of smoke. It was like being on the perimeter of a bush fire........

Disastrous start........

We finally make it to the Golden Sands resort and are really looking forward to checking in and then lazing by the pool in the afternoon after lunch....... but.......

It's just about 10 minutes to 1pm when we arrive at the check-in counter....We present our accommodation voucher at the check-in counter and while I am looking at my watch and realising how many hours we had been up I notice that the process is taking a bit longer than it should and the staff member is looking a bit confused....... so I ask if there is a problem....

To cut a long story short....... while the first person was trying his best to understand and resolve the situation, he referred (unfortunately) to another staff member who is THE NIGHTMARE to customer service.... and they could not find us in their reservation system (but that should have been sorted out with a smile - Shangri-La style) and thie other nightmare basically couldn't have made a better effort to ruin the start of our stay there. He just didn't want to have us around, said it was OUR problem and we had to sort it out with our travel agent in Australia, it wasn't HIS/THEIR problem, we would be given a room at their standby rate until WE could sort it out with our travel agent and prove to HIM that we actually had a reservation!!!!

Well - that's why we have vouchers for prepaid packages....... but I guess he was having an illiterate moment because he didn't even want to look at it. So I asked for the duty manager who sorted it out and would you believe it....... the next day we receive a message saying that we actually had a reservation. Funny about that - I could have made lots of money taking them on a bet that we did have a reservation!

Anyway - we set out to make the best of a bad start and tried to enjoy the rest of our stay there.

Spoilt rotten........

I spoilt myself with a daily massage (painful but felt good for the hour on the table)

Not your average 5 star massage salon but a simple tent on the beach and some bone crunching therapy!

There are lots of tents and people offering traditional massage, refloxology etc. This is the Foo Family tent.

Mr. Foo is the patriach and he was away on a house call when I was having this session. My masseuse is his son - Tommy. The family have been in the business for a loooooong time and Tommy was the one who helped me with my shoulder last year. They had been operating on the beach in front of the Rasa Sayang Hotel until the recent renovations a couple of years back and moved over to Golden Sands during the renovations.

The three Foos are Mr. Foo (the patriach), Tommy Foo (son) and Nelson (son-in-law). None of the female members of the family are in the business because Mr. Foo says ".....they are not strong enough.... " and you can believe it when they look for all those aches and pains you didn't know you had!

Well - I had an hour every day with Tommy and the first day left me pretty sore, it got better after each session and I was certainly feeling a lot better by the time we left 5 days later. Having a massage out in the opn under the tent, listening to the waves rolling in and the cooler evening breeze passing through the tent was quite relaxing.

If you do get up to Golden Sands try out a massage with the Foo Family. If it is your first time - let them know and ask them to be gentle on you if your threshold of pain is low - but if you are after a good massage to sort things out, bear the pain and you will feel much better after that. It costs MYR 60 for an hour and that would be quite a good start for a first massage. The family have a very loyal clientele with repeat customers and some of the regulars will book in for daily session of 2-3 hours.

Stunning sunset........

There were some really hot days while were in Penang. On one of the evening, there was a pretty stunning sunset and we managed to get some photos. The sky turned a brilliant orange and everything was aglow for just those few minutes and it looked like there was a fierce fire burning.

The clouds just glowed and looked like molten lava and liquid gold....... just another beautiful tropical sunset.

Dolphins and sea eagles........

On Tuesday afternoon we decided we would go for a swim but the sun was too strong so we decided to wait a while in the room....... and as Paul was looking out towards the sea from the balcony, he saw a sea eagle soaring and then a pod of dolphins came in to view. It was pretty amazing because we could see them pretty clearly from where we were on the top floor of the holtel. We tried to take some photos with my camera but it was too big a job for my "little lens"........

You can JUST make out the tiny dots in the photo...... they are the fins of some of the dolphins. There were a couple that did a few jumps and it was just excellent. Just as well we decided to have a bit of a rest before going down to the pool. We looked around to see if anyone else saw them but there weren't too many people on their balconies.

So that was our treat for the day.

Bugs again........

Some sort of bug caught up with Paul who spent a whole day feeling very unwell and virtually couldn't get any food down but after a day of rest and not doing much else he was right as rain again.

It was probably a combination of some form of food poisoning and the effects of the haze which caught up with him.......

Monsoon........

We were pretty lucky that the monsoon rains didn't put too much of a damper on our time in Penang.

We were still pretty much able to get out and about in the day and there was an evening when it rained heavily and we were walking in rivers of water racing down the road. People were ducking in to the stalls along the road to find whatever shelter they could and passing cars gave us all "free showers" as they raced past.... not even the rain slowed the drivers down.

We didn't do much shopping at the night markets this time - it was all pretty mellow while we were there. We were going to buy some fabulous oil paintings by a hearing impaired artist but just couldn't find any tubes to package them in, and we didn't want them wrecked in transport......... so we couldn't bring them home! Next year we'll bring our own tubes with us so we can get some of his fabulous work.

Last week with the family

Our last week with mum - we were expecting that it would be the hardest part of our trip. Normally as soon as mum gets in in to her head that we are leaving soon, she starts having all sorts of "problems" with this and that and wants to go to the doctor etc

In the end it wasn't too bad - she was pretty fine up until the day we left which was a public holiday and she wanted to see a dentist.... !!

So we took her to the dental clinic after all when we couldn't convince her that the doctors and dentists were probably taking advantage of the combined Deepavali and Hari Raya holidays to close up for the week..... sure enough, we got there and it was closed until the following week.

So - off to the chemist for painkillers and some other stuff.

A week later when I called from Australia and asked her how her teeth were - she said that there was nothing wrong with them!

and that was it in a nutshell..... we did catch up with some friends but it was pretty much over in a flash........ and we hope to go back again next year around the same time.