Asian hospitality part two

I found the people in Malaysia and Singapore to be pretty pleasant to deal with for the most part. You still get the occasional person who acts like somebody pooped in their oatmeal that morning, but I think that's universal. I wanted to point out some folks who stood out, as well as some general observations.

While in Melaka we stopped for lunch at a famous place for chicken rice balls which were pretty good. The lady who was serving us seemed to recognize Ho Li, and went out of her way to keep us supplied with cool drinks, extra rice balls (Keith must have put down twenty by himself), smiling the whole time, and asking us about our trip. Nice lady, wish I'd have taken her picture.

Also in Melaka, we stopped for Rita & her sister to go look for some delicacy or another (we did this several times). They left me in the car with the engine running so I could soak up the AC (or aircon as it's called over there). Sitting under a tree right in front of me was an older guy in a uniform I didn't recognize. I indicated through the window that I'd like to take his picture and he nodded and smiled in consent. I took his picture, then rolled down my window to introduce myself. His name was Rom Kumar, and he was a Nepalese soldier who'd been in Malaysia for over twenty years, and had less than five to go before he could retire and go home. He said he couldn't wait to feel the cold air of Nepal against his skin again, I commiserated with him. Melaka was very hot, and I'd already had one episode of my knees going wobbly from dehydration.

As we were walking back down the hill that the fort of A Famosa in Melaka was on, a Japanese tourist asked me if I'd take his picture with the fort in the background. Of course I agreed, and he thanked me very formally in Japanese, I was glad to be able to say do itashi mashite in his language to tell him he was welcome.

The girls in the front office of the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club tried very hard to help us locate a friend's boat out in the anchorage, even though they weren't staying at the club.

We turned down a random road in Langkawi after we'd given up looking for our friends mentioned above and ended up on a track that led to a fishing village. We drove as far as we could go taking in the sampans that were high and dry on the mud flats. One of the few boats that was floating (closest to the sea) had a fisherman and his son working on the boat. We were catching a flight in a couple of hours, and had some drinks left over that we didn't want to carry with us on the flight. Rita offered them to the fisherman, who accepted everything except the beers as Muslims don't drink alcohol. They chatted for a while and he told her that if we could come back the next day, he'd take us out for a tour of the island in his boat. I wish we'd have found him the first day instead of two-three hours before our flight back out of the island!

We drove to the top of Gunung Raya on Langkawi because I wanted to see what the whole island looked like, plus I figured that it would be somewhat cooler up there. There were some spectacular views on the way up, and at times I thought our poor little Proton Wira rental car wasn't going to make it, but we finally did. At the top of the mountain is a large communications array that's under lock and key. There is also something that looked to us like a resort. We drove up that road to find more locked gates and some guards who were fairly interested in us. There was a large set of stairs that wound up around the building to the right, and I figured we could just go walk up those to take some pictures, but no, that wasn't allowed for some reason. To the left was a tall tower (highest point of the mountain), and some ornate gates. We asked if we could drive up there as well, but no, that wasn't allowed either. Well, could we walk up there? No, not allowed. Huh... So we decided to content ourselves with taking some pictures looking down onto the north side of the island which was all you could really see from our vantage point. The guards seemed contented with this, and promptly ignored us. After wandering around for a while, a European couple (they looked Italian to me for some reason) wandered out from the ornate gated compound and walked down past us chattering away happily. Now what was so special about them that they were allowed up there? No sooner had that thought gone through my head than the guards were motioning for us to come over to see them. Apparently they let people up into the compound (I'd started thinking of it as the Eagle's Nest), but only one at a time, and now they'd take us up into the security area so we could look around. It turned out that the Eagle's Nest belonged to Mahatir, the former PM of Malaysia, and it was guarded year 'round by these guys. To get into this gated compound you went through extensive security which consisted of carefully walking around the gate so you didn't fall into the gorge below. I'm not kidding, look to the left of the picture above and you'll see what I mean. Huge five meter high wrought iron gates, and all you do is walk around them to the left. Anyway, the guard turned out to be something of a closet tour guide, obviously very proud of the compound and took his time explaining things to us and showing us around, including taking us out onto the breezeway that connects the compound to the big tower I mentioned earlier. We weren't allowed into the tower itself for some reason, but the views from the breezeway were pretty spectacular. We made sure to take some pictures with the guard who's name escapes me right now, the Malays in particular seem to love having their pictures taken with you.