The Great Blog Catch Up

Today I will be writing very little. My excuse? We are spending the day catching up on blogs. I have been behind for so long it us beginning to do what we hoped it wouldn't, and get in the way of actually having the experiences wecare supposed to be writing about. But I really do want to record it. Today is nearly our last day in Georgetown and we have done all the rhubgs we really wanted to.

So today we will try to catch up. In between eating, (noodle soup and cake) and then celebrate our progress by going out to eat at our favourite place tonight.

If you want to track my progress it is now 8.50 am and I have just published an entry for 15 February. Some are written but not published yet because there is a gap inbetween them that needs filling, but I have, after this, nine blogs left to write to bring me up to date. Watch this space. But don't hold your breath. It takes a while.

So I'm sorry. But I can't be standing around wasting time talking to you. I have work to do....

Wish You Were Here

We go to the Penang Botanic Gardens for an epic walk around the gardens and then up the mountain to catch the cable car back down again. (Madness? Certainly.)

We stroll around the gardens. Oddly enough, there are a lot of monkeys here. 

"Seriously," we overhear one tourist say to another, "if you want rabies, be my guest."

"I don't want it to bite me," protests the other, "I just want it to sit on my shoulder."

"Fat chance" mutters M in my ear.

"Yes but think about it," replies the first speaker, "do you think we really need any MORE pictures of monkeys?"

We snigger a little. We walk on. Time passes.

"Oh look!" I say excitedly, "that one has a baby! Awww. Can you get a shot of that one grooming its partner?"

Funny you really do NEVER have enough pictures of monkeys.

Which isn't my point. My Mum us my point. If course you can never get enough pictures of her either, but it's more that, once again I found myself pointing wistfully at my surroundings and saying how much she would love it. And if it isn't me that points it out, it's M.

When we see runners (rare in South East Asia except in Vietnam, so notable) I think of my friend Jane. What gossip we could get through on a run through this place, what she would say about the irritatingly sweet free Malaysians striding up the mountain and overtaking us.

My niece on M's side would live snorkelling, as would my (rather ubiquitous in this sort of reverie) mum. M's parents would Luke the cable car, the view, or a certain restaurant. I think of my Dad, who would eat Mee Rebus (noodle dish) with me, both of us purely because it has the same name as a character in the Iain Rankin books we love so much. 

My sister and her husband would love the photography exhibitions in Cambodia and Georgetown, and Tropfest. My two smallest nieces would be wide eyed at the street theatre and (of course) the monkeys. M's sister would have lived Thailand. My girlfriends from uni would have been first on the dancefloor in the club in Langkawi. I think of my old boss (and great friend) whenever I see an elephant (because she once volunteered at an elephant sanctuary - that's not a comment on her appearance!). And when I see a mural of a girl sitting on a bar stool chatting, I think of settling in for a 'sisterly chat' with my sister. (Somewhat obviously)

"Do you miss home?" people ask me.

No. Not really. I look forward to certain things - the first time I see people I love again, getting a cat, not sweating. But I don't wish myself back.

I miss people. But I don't want to go home to see them. I want them to come here. I want to show them this stuff and enjoy it with them.

Literally. Everyone. I wish you were here.

Warning! Keep this Earth Out of Reach of Idiots

(Please note: this is a rant. Look away now if you've got a bit bored of those.)

So we have this world, yes? Whether given or loaned, accident or design, for now at least, we have it.

So why do we have so little clue what to do with it?

We travel to visit the Tropical Spice Garden in which we take a cooking class to try to bring home some of the magic of Nyonya cooking. Beforehand, an enthusiastic guide takes us on a tour of the various herbs and spices growing in the extensive tropical garden, which feels less like a garden and more like a fantastic and slightly more cultivated jungle. Complete, of course, with the ubiquitous monkeys and even, excitingly, a horned lizard, looking spikey and grumpy on the bark of a tree. 

"So many of our ailments can be cured with plants" says our guide, sadly, "but they grow only in rainforest and now we are cutting the rainforests down."

There is a pause. She visibly takes a breath before continuing.

"Moving on, this is a little known spice which can be chewed in small quantities. Some say it can cure cancer."

Now admittedly, some of the write ups of these plants manage to rival even the Daily Mail in their professions of cancer curing properties, but it is undeniably true that many plants do have enormous healing potential and are key ingredients in modern medicine. And there are probably more to discover. It's possible that the cure for cancer, or part of it, might be out there growing in a rainforest somewhere. And equally possible that we might destroy it in the pursuit of something else.

In the evening, the key film being showcased at our second Tropfest screening, is a Cambodian film directed by Chhay Bora, about the Khmer Rouge regime.

In it, the harrowing family history of Chhay Bora's wife is retold, a mother watching one family member after another, die at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. One of the most common causes of death in that regime, both in the film and historically, is starvation or exhaustion through the mishandling of natural resources, the working of people in rough landscapes without sufficient food or water. 'Natural' deaths in so far as it is not an active move against them by human hands. Deeply unnatural in so far as the labour and conditions are forced, bringing about the deaths and twisting nature into a weapon.

We have this world. But we either destroy it or we use it to destroy each other. Civilisations who take nature more seriously are considered primitive and, historically, overpowered by force and by guns. As a result, however much more humane we may consider ourselves now, we are losing their wisdom. The ancient tribes of Mexico and America knew more than we have begun to discover about the natural balance of things. 'Primitive' or 'quaint' civilisations have knowledge we never bothered to acquire - or have forgotten. You only need to look at the Sea Gypsies of the Andaman Coast, and their evacuation of their beach side dwellings as much as two weeks before the coming of a tsunami for which no one else was ready, to see that.

War, pollution, destruction, recklessness. It seems to me that, despite our many years on the earth, we have simply not learned. Like children, we continue to play with a toy, the value of which we do not understand.

In the case of the Khmer Rouge this analogy is unapologetic. The actions and mentality of the regime seem to me like children, illogical and defensive, making it up as they go along, without empathy, a grasp of consequence or expertise in the field they dabble in. They played at bring farmers because it seemed more 'good' but the men in charge were academics. They knew nothing of farming. They burned crops whilst trying to become prosperous through growing them. They set unrealistic rice targets and expected untrained workers to achieve the impossible without sufficient food.

And how many have replayed this same story, over and over, back and forwards in time? How many dictators, how many climate change warnings, how many new pollutants, how many more unnatural deaths?

We are children, playing with a world we are too young for and might break. I would say someone should take it away for safe keeping until we are old enough. Until we have learned.

But will we ever learn?

I wonder if there is life beyond our planet. I wonder if we will eventually be able to travel between planets ourselves, and establish human life on others. On the one hand perhaps we should avoid this achievement to prevent the destruction of other systems. On the other, maybe we should be nomads, moving from planet to planet and leaving as soon as we get bored, before we start to really destroy it, leaving something to be salvaged by an older, wiser life form, who can move in once we have vacated, treat it properly and let it thrive. 

Home Sweet Home

Today we go out of town to visit the famous 'Snake Temple' and then come back to go, in the evening to a film showcase as part of the Tropfest film festival we have been lucky enough to be here for. To be honest Georgetown seems always to have something going on in the arts scene, though the seats are surprisingly sparsely populated when we get there. The films are a set of four shorts from the Berlinale short film festival, followed by the main feature, 'Transit', directed by Hannah Espia, who is kind enough to stick around for a Q and A session afterwards. And all in English. We are so lucky to speak what is an increasingly international language as our mother tongue.

I will begin with the Snake Temple. Though I rather expected to find this, the reality now is rather disappointing compared to the history of the temple. The temple is dedicated to Chor Soon Kong, a Buddhist monk who sought spiritual enlightenment in the jungle and offered sanctuary and shelter to a variety of jungle snakes. As legend would have it, once the temple was constructed, the snakes came along by themselves and made it their home, feeling, perhaps, the presence of Chor Soon Kong's spirit, knowing with him they were safe and welcome, two things which I doubt many snakes associate with humans.

It's bittersweet. Because yes, the snakes are still there. But they are curled on specially made stick frames in front of the altar, have had their venom removed for safety reasons (pertaining of course to humans rather than the snakes, who now, presumably hunt and protect themselves rather less effectively.) Theoretically the snakes still voluntarily turn up or stay there, and simply know to perch on the frames, not minding the constant flow of predators who approach and stare at them. I don't want to get libellous but I find it hard to believe in the continuing free will of those snakes to be there. Certainly the two pythons, one trapped in a tiny airless perspex cage, rather heartbreakingly hitting its head on the walls and ceiling, as if confused by its confinement, and one out on display for the purposes of being dumped round tourist's necks, are not there of their own accord. It's not so much sanctuary and captivity.

"See the snakes," says one of the nearby shop holders, "they live here. This their home."

The concept of 'home' has changed rather drastically for these snakes.

We don't stay long.

This theme of how we classify 'home' is further developed this evening. 'Transit' explores the impact on migrant workers in Isreal and their children of the government practice in 2009 of deportation of the children aged under 5, of migrant workers, (in this case from the Philippines), presumably to stop the population reproducing and discouraging the reproduction of migrants in general. 

It's a moving and incredibly well told story which is gaining international attention, so I am not going to include any spoilers so you can watch it yourselves, but what one of the issues it considers is how difficult it is for young people who are technically supposed to call one place 'home', (in this case,  the Philippines) but live and know an entirely different place as 'home' (in this case, Isreal, in case you weren't following).

The place that is familiar is a place in which many opportunities are closed to you, you are in hiding and you are not, (and this is continually reinforced), welcome. But the other, where everyone agrees you 'belong' is a world you have literally no knowledge of.  Maybe you don't even speak the same language. Even for the parents, migrant workers in Tel Aviv who love and miss the Philippines as 'home' are risking everything in order to avoid being there.

It's strange. 'Home' seems to be an attribute we ascribe to a place. But it's not always somewhere we want to be. It is a testament, perhaps, to human loyalty and adaptability, that it us possible to give that coveted title to a 'home' which may be very far from sweet.

The Morality of Money

We spend today visiting two mansions, once owned by Mr Yeap and Mr Cheong Fatt Tze respectively. Both are elaborate, beautiful and lavish. The latter, known as 'The Blue Mansion' is particularly brought alive by a truly fantastic guide (you are not allowed in there without a tour). However, added to the Peranakin Mansion yesterday, it's very much a peep into how the other half (by which I mean the uber monied half) live. 

The difference between both Yeap and Cheong Fatt Tze against the Peranakin is that both are 'self made men'. They are, as both mansions are keen to point out, rags to riches stories. They arrived destitute and penniless and got where they did through sheer hard work and ingenuity. Once they reached the stage of truly and quite literally 'rolling in it' they also both gave a lot of aid to others, in the words of separate guides and information boards in both mansions, they 'never forgot their roots'. Yeap, having got where he was with extreme (and I mean extreme) discipline and graft, donated always to education projects, giving an opportunity to those who were willing to work hard to take it. Cheong Fatt Tze donated generously to help poverty stricken individuals - oh and built the 'wings' to his mansion purely to house the myriad of people claiming to be his relatives and seeking handouts. It is likely, as he will have known, that the majority if these claims are false. Admittedly the latter aspect may have been done to save face but still. Where the Peranakin mansion felt sickeningly, somehow sinfully rich, these two, though no less splendid, feel better somehow. So what is the morality of money? When is it OK to be rich?

There is a feeling, especially among those of us that are substantially not, that being rich is somehow wrong in itself. In fact, where you have groups of people with a strong belief set, religious or otherwise, money itself, and the earning of it, starts to become a little shameful. Certainly within Christian circles it can go that way. We are not supposed to want money and therefore get to a stage sometimes, where the fact that you work to earn it doesn't get talked about and success in the workplace isn't something you admit to wanting or to having. It's crazy and non sensical, but I was talking to a very interesting Lady just before I left, who had done a study on how people felt that the church supported their work life and there was a general consensus that unless your job was in nursing or charitable industries, it wasn't talked about much. And a lot of people admitted to feeling guilty if they happened to be in a high earning role, even if they donated it generously and lived simply.

Even if....so there is some kind of code of conduct to excuse you if you are rude enough to have got rich. 

It definitely seems more acceptable if you worked for it. Everyone is very been to emphasise that Yeap and Cheong Fatt Tze were self made men and that they worked long hours to achieve what they did. I remember my Mum talking to me about our travelling plans when I was saying how odd I felt because i was now one if those people I had been so horribly jealous of.

"But no," said Mum, "you worked hard for this and you saved up for years. You deserve it."

It's OK if it isn't a hand out. Or an inheritance. If it isn't taken for granted and given for nothing. Because that makes it more of a meritocracy. And it means that technically, anyone could do it. Yes?

Well perhaps that's how we think but it doesn't work like that all the time. There is an accident of birth in terms of intelligence levels and (though admittedly not in Yeap or Cheong Fatt Tze's case) often in today's society in terms of education - your parents attitude to it, your peers' response to academic or business achievement. The gift of the gab, or lack thereof. Your accent.

Perhaps it's OK to earn it if you give it away. Again both of these men did. And I came to the conclusion in Cambodia that given my skills which were more geared to earning money by working hard in the west than volunteering practically put there, I could do more good by getting on with 'winning at the system' then do a Robin Hood with my earnings.

If you do that though, there seems to be a feeling that you have to be poor yourself afterwards. It's OK for Joe Bloggs to have a middling sized house and a new car but if Cliff Richards, Bob Geldoff or anyone else who claims to donate to the poor, has anything other than a shack on a rubbish dump, well he's a fraud. 

Some of it is about how you put yourself out to others. If you hold yourself out as a saint you will be judged as one. But I have heard people moan about CEOs of charities who collect a £60 grand salary, (actually very low compared to the same post in a private company, though admittedly much more than most ordinary people earn). If you work to help the poor you are not only not allowed to be rich after your donations- you are not even allowed to be relatively well off.

Some people argue that you need money and the influence that goes with it to accomplish the good works that these people do. Would Yeap or Cheong Fatt Tze be able to set up foundations and donate so much if they had never been so materialistic as to earn all that money in the first place? Like the rather horrible 'make sure you are safe first before helping others' idea we get taught every time we hear the safety announcement on a flight, it is sensible to ensure you are in a position to help without adding yourself to the number if those requiring it.

Clearly there is a balance. Who of us really needs a mansion? Unless, like Cheong Fatt Tze, you house large numbers of people in the wings of it.

Money is the root of all evil.

Or is it?

Perhaps, like a gun, it is all in the way we use it.

Faith and Fables

I will be honest. I have been rather putting off writing this blog entry.

What we did, among other things, was go and chat to a lovely, open Islamic man about the Islamic faith, its relationship with Christianity and its relationship, or lack thereof, with extremist groups calling themselves Islamic.

The reason I  am putting it off is because to try to write about it is full of pitfalls. My own faith, as a Christian, remained unchanged by the end of the conversation and the man was not doing the hard sell, he was taking the time to talk with us and to answer our questions. But I don't want to get into why, having left with such high regard and admiration for Islam and for those who follow it, I did not therefore become convinced that it was the only true faith and convert immediately, because to try to explain that would entail somehow, by default, seeming to criticise or debunk some aspect of Islam. And that's not what I am out to do here. And besides it's highly likely that my decision to be Christian as opposed to Islamic or Buddhist, was strongly influenced by the culture I grew up in.

On the other hand, if I simply try to report all the wealth of information about the Islamic faith that we were given through the course of what was a very enjoyable and interesting two hour conversation, there is a high chance I will misremember, clumsily report or twist things another way without actually meaning to. 

I am a wuss.

So I have decided, instead, to simply report on the things that really struck me. They may still be a little iffy or slightly wrongly remembered but I am pretty sure I have the gist because they stuck with me.

And the reason they stuck with me is because I was surprised. Now I like to think I am reasonably realistic. I am not liable to lump the Islamic faith in with the actions of terrorist extremists. I did not expect him to tell me that the prophet Mohammed taught his followers to set off bombs. But there were some things he said, some of Mohammed's teachings which didn't chime so closely with my own impressions. My impressions were based on almost no information at all. My knowledge of Islam was shamefully based on media coverage, and an attempt to doggedly pick through that, refusing to be duped into believing that Islamic teaching is synonymous with terrorist activity. But I was still in that particularly lethal place of having a tiny bit of knowledge and zero context.

So I guess all I want to do here, is tell you these things which, for me undid years worth of half baked assumptions - and which in the end revealed as much about me and about the Western lazy associations with Islam, than it did about Islam itself.

Firstly, the basics of the Islamic faith are that there were a series of prophets sent by God (known as Allah), of which Jesus was an important one, albeit not the Son of God, except in a metaphysical or symbolic sense. This, and the resurrection of Jesus (believed in by Christianity but not in Islam) are where the teaching departs most drastically from Christianity. Mohammed, therefore, was the last prophet, sent after Jesus by God to help clarify the teachings given so far. Mohammed 'wrote' the Qur'an through divine inspiration and it, along with his teachings and records of his sermons, formed the legacy he would leave for God's followers.

Mohammed was preaching to a world in which men were habitually taking many wives, and neglecting them. He did not, contrary to my understanding, encourage men to take more than one wife. The teaching was that it was best to stop taking multiple wives and take one only. However, if a man really felt the need for more than one wife he should first ask himself whether he can do right, deal justly and look after adequately another wife without failing to do this for the first. And if men did insist on continuing to acquire wives, they must, in all cases, stop at four, thus introducing limitations on polygamy which was already happening. (There appears to be some controversy over whether Mohammed's own life mirrored these teachings, but for me in this instance, this isn't my point. I'm interested in the principles rather than the man.)

Women are considered equal to men. Mohammed taught that the wisest and greatest Muslim men were those who were kindest and gentlest to their wives, and that women were the 'twin halves' to men.

Allah is a God of forgiveness. Anyone who requests forgiveness will receive it immediately from Allah. Similarly a good deed can undo a bad, especially with a truly repentant soul.

Muslims and Christians are not enemies. On the contrary Mohammed drew up a covenant with the Christians, vowing to fight alongside them and telling his followers that they must not harm, impede or abuse a Christian for carrying out his or her faith.

Islam is a religion of peace. The verse used to support wars in the name of Islam relates to an extreme situation in which it is necessary to fight non believers. But even then, if your enemy requests peace you are honour bound to extend the hand of peace and convey him safely back to his home.

Now this does not cover everything we discussed and there may be errors, for which I apologise. Also I am conscious that we spoke with one person and I have based this on that conversation and an information booklet I took away with me. There will be other interpretations. There will be other versus in the Qur'an or quotes from Mohammed which seem to state otherwise. This is the way of many religions. We are a species stumbling around in the dark. When someone shines a light for us for a period of time it is possible that we don't always remember what that briefly illuminated world looked like with exact precision afterwards.

But these were the things which stood out at me because we hear so much in terms of behaviour and extreme systems which would suggest Islam to be founded on very different principles. But when will we learn, especially those of us who have their own faith, the difference between the original principle, and the actions of the human beings who profess to follow it.

Islam is peaceful. Christianity is non judgemental. Buddhism is vegetarian. 

What some of its followers do or don't do is really quite another matter.

Wearing It On Your Sleeve

This morning, for the first time since we first got on our very first flight out, I get to go to a church on Sunday. It's quite an event, and not one that has been geographically or culturally achievable before now. But there are several Christian churches in Georgetown, nestling, characteristically among Hindu, Taoist and Buddhist temples and the mosques. It so happens that James goes to one, which he characterises as 'small and friendly and not charismatic', which is just my cup of tea. (I don't intend to do down charismatic churches. We have denominations largely because people are different and find different atmospheres and techniques more or less conducive to spiritual reflection. I happen to prefer the less charismatic kind. Others will, and are quite entitled to, differ.)

"First, I would like to take a moment to be grateful for the chance to meet together like this," says the minister, "it is a joy to do so."

Admittedly he us using the word 'joy' partly to introduce the next hymn, which features 'joy' quite a lot, but as he says it, I have a rush of joy. It does feel good to do this. Faith is not a church or a set if rules. It's between you and your God. But humans are social beings, and there's a reason why like minded people get together. Why they have done so over the centuries. It's because it helps to be among others. A faith not shared, swapped, strengthened between people, can be a lonely one. Unless you're...well, God. And even he got lonely. He got so desperate he created human beings.

I enjoy the service. It's a moment of normality, of familiarity and it is, not to sound too puke inducing, a little bit like coming home.

The plan, today, when I arrive back to join M, having breakfasted twice already (once on toast before leaving and once at church) is to go for breakfast (I keep quiet about the other two) and then walk down the street known in Georgetown as 'Harmony Street' because it contains a Hindu, Taoist, Muslim and Christian place of worship. And, as you may have guessed, everyone's not busy storming each other and burning the icons.

We do this. The two temples are beautiful, but, characteristically we are unable to talk to anyone or learn much about them. It seems a lot harder to get clear teaching on what is or is not in polytheistic religions. It just doesn't seem to really work like that. The mosque on the other hand is more forthcoming in this regard. There is an information kiosk but its not open today. We need to return tomorrow. We duly do this but we take the opportunity to look at the mosque itself while we are there. I am horribly under informed about Islam so hang around awkwardly, trying to fix a shawl over my head and not venture too far into the grounds, but M speaks to the man at the door and he waves us in. We are allowed to enter the mosque to walk around the edge though must not go in unless we are praying and there are a rack of light blue robes with hoods that I can slip on over my clothes, solving the shawl problem.

And it is this I want to concentrate on today - the aspect of clothing.

I have often wondered what it feels like to wear a long gown and a hood or head coveting as a woman is it freeing or restrictive? Breezy or hot?

Actually it's quite nice. For one thing I am not the only one wearing it. Another couple of visitors, including a man, (he was wearing shorts) both wander by wearing them.

For one thing it gets over the practical difficulties. I don't have to seek out the longest sleeved, most high necked ankle length garments in my limited wardrobe and then shuffle about tugging them self consciously down or up.

But beyond then, I don't have to think about how I walk, how I sit, don't have to realign bra straps or check my buttons haven't come undone. I wear my bag across my body while I am travelling, and I don't have to feel self conscious about the way the strap falls between my cleavage. In fact it is only as I put on this robe that I realise how many petty little adjustments I am constantly making to my clothes and how often I am thinking rather nervously about them. I think about bending forward or reaching up, about skirts tucked into things or blowing up, about trousers getting ruched up, about tops riding up, or about underwear making outlines. In this robe - none of that matters. All I have to worry about is being comfortable (admittedly in this heat that can be hard to achieve).

There's more to it than that too. I don't hold in my stomach. I don't glance up and find the perfect midriff of the woman opposite me is able to spark in me a wave of depression. I don't interpret stares as judgement or lasciviousness. In fact, there is a delicious element of feeling invisible. I don't care too much any more about the clothes I wear and whether they are smart enough or fit the current fashion - but I can't help thinking that as a teenager, in those days when I really used to, a loose robe would have covered a multitude of inadequacies and perceived inadequacies.

I am not talking about the religious element to this, about whether women should be forced to wear them or not - in fact here no one us forced and the dresses and head dresses commonly worn are bright and individual. What I am discovering is a moment of freedom from the more unseen shackles of body image, market forces and sexual attraction.

After the mosque we go to the Peranakin mansion, a mansion once owned by a very rich Baba Nyonya family, now housing a collection of articles, clothing and jewelry once owned by rich Baba Nyonyas across Malaysia.

The opulence is beautiful, but a little sickening - but what strikes me more is the extreme pressure, especially on women, in matters of dress. If a woman did not wear enough heavy gold jewellery and show her wealth, she would not be considered worthy by her in laws or future in laws. The 'little nyonyas' wore so much beading they were weighed down by it. Even a widow must wear certain colours, black in the first year of mourning, blue in the second, green in the third. And jewellery to match of course. You literally wore your status, both monetary and emotional, on your sleeve. Anonymity and privacy are hard to come by when dress is so codified.

And nowadays we wear on our sleeve our own status - our place in the race to be thin, beautiful, fashionable, smart. We still wear labels to show our clothing is expensive. We use jewellery the same way. We use make up and underwear as disguise. In South East Asia all girls of a certain age seem to have the same, bobbed hairstyle. I would have thought it was mandatory if I didn't know better. And in a way it is. And what if you don't fit the norm? What if your body doesn't suit the clothes in the shops. What if, on the contrary, you are lucky enough to be simply naturally beautiful, according to the structures of your culture. Isn't that horribly unfair?

Maybe, to cover your clothes and your body with a uniform robe, could help create unity, could be the great leveller?

But then, is a school uniform not intended to do this? And yet, in the UK at least, there is still pressure. To wear it a certain way, to have the right coat, even the right socks - every tiny bit of potential customisation is seized upon and made into its own immovable shackles. And it doesn't begin to address the ideal of a perfect and uniform body shape.

Even where, as in Islam, your religion wisely suggests a dress which will provide freedom from the body image debate, because the whole idea is that you are not on show - you are perfectly permitted to dress normally with other women - notoriously the harshest critics. And you can, at least in the version adhered to here, chose any number of imaginative, bright, colourful fabric to wear it in.

If course we are missing the point. The point is that the real release from these hang ups, across many faiths, with or without a specific dress code, is supposed to be born in your mind. We should believe these things to be unimportant, should be beautifying only our souls.  Why is it so hard to be released, even when you believe fervently, when asked, that it is really not important?

I don't have an answer. Clearly it should be possible. Maybe some people even manage it. But as for the rest of us...

Maybe it feels so important because there are so many of us - and not enough words. How will the woman I have just met know my soul is beautiful? How will she know who I am if I don't use my clothes to express it? Will she not want to find out how attractive my soul is, if I don't look interesting enough to speak to in the first place?

The rules themselves - the specifics of how we should look are set out, by the various despotic and tyrannical dictators which are society, advertisements, media and trend.

But perhaps the reason they have so much power, the reason we care about how we look at all is simply because not everyone we meet will speak to us.

And yet, somehow, we are lonely - and we want to be known.

Sweat and Tears

I think James is worried about us. After the first day or so, when we arrived, me weak with a rather heinous mixture of sea sickness and hangover, and both of us suffering from a seemingly unshakeable cold, we have got a bit more into our stride. Well, a stride of sorts. We keep disappearing in the morning before he can see or speak to us and then reappearing at about five looking half dead. 

Today was no exception. By the time we finally plodded through the door, we are drenched in sweat, a vivid shade of pink, and tired enough for our feet to be dragging and our mouths and minds unable to work together to form coherent conversation. 

"You should rest now, yes?" says James, concernedly, "and cool off. It is unusually hot today."

He said exactly the same thing yesterday, when we fell through the door at about the same time, in a similar condition.

Today's mission was to get an air conditioned local bus to the extensive National Park area and do a 9 kilometre round trek to the lighthouse at the tip of the island and back again. Then home for curry puffs (M has been on about these ever since we first ate them with Gemmy - and we have seen a place not so far from our lodgings which we think might do them). After the curry puffs, 'Armenian Street Got Talent', a set of street stalls and talent performances on, believe it or not, Armenian Street, which we happened to see a poster for on (wait for it) Armenian Street, yesterday.

Sounds easy enough, surely? And so it seems as we stride off into the National Park, feeling intrepid in our walking boots, down a fairly flat concrete path.

"TripAdvisor said the routes were well signposted," says M, impressed, but they've even surfaced it."

A little further on, when we have left a particularly sweaty couple and a family with a small child in the dust of our wake, the concrete path becomes wooden steps.

Should be fine. We stride up those - and down again - and then up again. I am getting a little tired of heaving my walking boots about. When you've been wearing sandals for four months, closed in shoes, let alone bulky closed in shoes, feel odd and restrictive. Heaven knows how I will cope with high heels when I get back. Perhaps I just won't. Maybe work would get used to me skipping into the office in flip flops, baggy trousers with holes that I long since ceased to care about, and messily piled up hair without make up. Or, on some occasions, even a hair brush. Sure they will. But for now it's many many years away and all I have to do is concentrate on using this fraying rope to haul myself up and over the enormous boulders now strewn in our path.

Even so, the rope rather aids my enjoyment.

"This," I say to M happily, "is just like Go Ape, only more natural."

"And without the safety harnesses" adds M, watching me slide unceremoniously down some dry earth, skipping hastily around the various mischevious looking tree roots which hoped to trip me up on the way.

Even so, it doesn't seem that far or that difficult. 

"It doesn't seem very far does it" I say to M, rather enjoying the idea that I am simply too fit to notice difficult terrain.

"We're only about half a kilometre in" observes M.

This is true. And the sun is still climbing in the sky. 

I see a Monitor Lizard the size of a baby crocodile. He is sneaking shyly away into the undergrowth.

"We couldn't see him" I say to M, listening to the distant sounds of a tantrum, " if we had an excited child with us."

Having said that, I can't help thinking that this track is practically designed for children. There are roots and boulders, things to scramble up and duck under, and all with the smugness that comes of being a child and having much much more energy than your adult counterparts.

We arrive at a beach and walk across it. It's flat, which is nice but the sun is now very definitely high in the sky. It's noon - and it is BOILING. 

It is with rather less of a cocky spring in my step that I cross the beach and haul myself up again where the trail resumes on the other side. We are now never walking on the flat, it is either up a hill or down one, with plenty of wickedly entwined tree roots and low hanging branches along the way. Water, though clearly a necessity, is causing my bag to be what seems to be impossibly heavy. I start to drink the water M is carrying as much for the sake of lightening our load as for the actual hydration properties of it.

"Do you think you make yourself need three litres of water because of the effort of carrying it?" I ask M. 

The answer is a convoluted, though surprisingly interesting investigation into the various trade offs race drivers make between fuel and pit stops, which serves to distract me from the fact that I am now really very very far from being even a passing resemblance to either a race car, or a Human. By the time we reach the last leg of our journey, a punishing up hill climb to the lighthouse at the tip of the island which is our destination , I am purple, drenched and weighed down by legs which feel like boulders hanging from the end of my body. M is characteristically rather more cool looking than either me or anybody else just emerging from that climb. But even he wipes his forehead and sighs a little. That's about as extreme as it gets with M. I have to constantly remind myself that normal people do sweat and struggle. I am not unusually weak. I am the normal amount of human frailty. M is basically superman. Is it really ungrateful to wish your husband a bit, well, less perfect?

I am rather comforted by a notice at the lighthouse informing me that this is 'the most difficult lighthouse to visit' because of the arduous climb. It doesn't qualify what is the most difficult out of. The island? Malaysia? South East Asia? The world? I decide privately that it must be the world, just to sock it to those rude monkeys which had the nerve to fill the tree tops with a chorus of derisive whooping noises when I had the nerve to ask M if we could pause a little in our climb. And the stray dog who so kindly escorted us up but gave up on us when we rested and instead joined another couple who happened to be passing. So much for dogs being more loyal than cats. We find him again a little further up when the other couple stop to have a break. Fickle.

The climb downhill is rather less arduous and therefore less sweaty, though it is the full heat of the day now. Every time we tell ourselves we will NOT time the most difficult part of the day to coincide with the mid day heat. And every time we look at our watch and find it is midday, guess what, we're half way through climbing a mountain.

I eat, much to M's absolute disgust, a packet of crisps I buy from the only stall on the beach we walk across on the way back.

"There's zero nutritional value in those" says M

"I am replacing salt" I say with dignity.

M shrugs and turns away while I eat, muttering something about MSG. I don't know what it is, but I just can't learn M's purist attitude to food. I don't mind if it's not great quality when I am hungry and need fuel. And sometimes - don't repeat this - but I quite like a bit of MSG and lack of nutritional content. This is where the government gets it wrong when it tries to put us off fattening food by making the manufacturers own up to the contents. Sure, turkey twizzlers are full of nasties, but if a turkey twizzler smelled nice and you were hungry, wouldn't you conveniently forget?

No. It's just me then. But you can't blame me this time. I just climbed to the most difficult lighthouse on the planet.

I have side tracked slightly. Essentially what happens us that, as per usual, we limp back through the doorway at getting on for five ravenously hungry (no nutritional content, remember), stinking, and half dead.

"You will rest and cool off, yes?" says James, concernedly. 

We have a shower and spread eagle ourselves on the bed under the air conditioning. When suitably refrigerated to venture back out for the long awaited curry puffs, only to find they don't actually do them. To assuage M's sorrow (if there is anything he does show emotion about it's food) we try some Dragon Biscuits which are in fact more like small round dough cakes with a sweet filling. This isn't quite enough so we go to the Indian part of town and gorge ourselves on curry.

Then we walk to Armenian Street. Things are in full swing. There are small stalls selling various handicrafts and, just as we arrive, a group of drummers who have been hanging around their drums suddenly leap into action and provide us with our own personal (it feels like) Chinese drumming display. They are generally boys in their teens, thirteen to nineteen, and all of them are brilliant. They leap onto their drums, holding their sticks out to allow others to do a smaller group riff or a solo, they drum whilst walking around the drum, they crouch down and spring up and they manage the whole thing with unsmilingly theatrical flourish and incredible masculinity. What a cool pastime. Not for the first time, I think what a narrow range of 'cool' activities are available in the UK for, especially young teenagers. No wonder they have to make their own fun, drinking White Lightening in children's playgrounds and park corners.

Actually the usual thing has happened, and tears have spring into my eyes watching them. Thus often happens. I am not sure if it's something's soppy to do with children performing or just a response to something beautiful, but I am about a hundred times more likely to cry at something great than at something bad. You should have seen me when M proposed. It was NOT dignified. 

We stroll down the street once the performance ends to our hearty and, in my case, hand stingingly fervent, applause. We pause because a man is playing a stirring tune on a small, china, something with incredible skill. He sways a closes his eyes to the music. It's an impressive display. I video it, still with a bit of tearful happiness. This trip is just so beautiful. We've seen and done such amazing things. Sometimes it's just too difficult to cope with. You can't help but become pleasantly overwhelmed. Though 'pleasantly' is a little understated. 'Overwhelmingly' does it more justice. Overwhelmingly overwhelmed.

M is characteristically calm. But it isn't until later that it really hits me.

The man stops playing his 'china thing' which turns out to be a 'Lovoca' and invites me to have a go. He has a little stall of them, of various shapes, sizes and decorations.

"Choose one" he says.

I can see how this is going to go, so I select one I can afford. It is shaped like a duck.

There is a brief and amusing interlude in which I am taught how to play 'twinkle twinkle little star' and then give a short and much less accomplished performance, to tumultuous applause. I think it is tumultuous out of sympathy for my predicament as 'really rubbish lovoca player' rather than impressedness. I give a small bow. 

"I think," I say to M, "that we have found our 'gift for someone with a story'."

"And a video" says M, holding up his phone on which is a sweaty still image of me laughing and preparing to play the easiest tune in the world. Badly.

"Excellent" I say, and am genuinely pleased.

"Did you know?" Says the man at the lovoca stall. "That you can enter the old clan house tonight? It's only once a month. And there is a special performance."

"Amazing!" I say, genuinely staggered by how much good luck we have had on this trip, how many times we have simply happened to be in the right place at the right time.

I put my lovoca gift carefully in my bag and we prepare, excitedly, to enter the clan house.

The lovoca man has to remind and us to pay.

When we walk through the small alley and into the courtyard if the clan house, open only once per month, I stand there and just look.

Behind me the temple rises, magnificent and ornate in the sunset. It's the kind of beautiful, especially in this light, that can genuinely make you stop breathing for a second. And you are not normally allowed in after six pm. So viewing it at sunset is a unique privilege. At the sides, stalls sell a variety of sweet smelling and beautifully crafted baba nonya desserts. On the ornate stage in front of me a dance troupe perform, with seemingly genuine enjoyment and energy, a traditional Chinese dance. 

It is all so beautiful. And so much. I start to cry. I start to cry the way a child does when over tired and over excited. I  am simply too happy. Too happy, too lucky, and the world is too amazing. I don't know what we did to deserve this opportunity.

M put his arm around me. We sit on the hot ground, night falling around us, dancers, Chinese opera singers and acrobatics in front of us.

For free. Both in monetary terms and in terms of our worthiness to see and to experience all that we have.

Life is not a bitch. She's a saint.

Don't listen to anyone who tells you otherwise. You have no idea what you might get to do in your lifetime. 

'Doing' Malaysia

It has always annoyed me when people say they have been travelling and have 'done' a country.

"Oh I did India and China", they say airily, followed, usually, by something bland like, "it was awesome."

Great. So all of India was 'awesome'? And how many years did it take you to 'do' it? You seem quite young to have lived there for the number of years I would imagine it takes to 'do' a land mass as large as India, with so many different cultures and environments. Actually I do find myself unable to resist asking something more subtle like,

"Oh right. How long were you there?"

"Well I was in Dehli two nights and then we were in Kerala for about three and then Mumbai for a week," (with a bashful blush), "we were only meant to be in Mumbai for two nights but it was just TOO awesome. We ended up staying for AGES."

You see my point? And what, exactly does 'doing' a country involve? Growing up there? Growing up, somehow, in all of the different regions? Spending a lifetime studying, absorbing and experiencing a culture? No?

Oh. So just marching around all the top ten 'must sees' in the 'India' section of the 'Shoestring' guidebook then? And whingeing about the price being different to the locals.

I am indulging my rather more curmudgeonly side, as you may have noticed. But the idea that a country can be 'done' at all is patronising and reductive. The implication is that you have seen everything that place has to offer and that it is possible to do so in a few days. 

In reality of course people are not intending to do that, and it's really nothing more than a figure of speech. Probably what really annoys me is that the same people who say they have 'done' a country are likely to be the ones who are disgusted in turn with us for not moving more frequently, or for not having ticked off every 'sight' or at least not in quicker succession, leaving time to 'see more'. So it's odious defensiveness disguised as self righteous disapproval of 'da yoof'.

Yes. I am a moaning old nag. 

But you want to know something worse? Today I started doing it myself.

I 'did' the Georgetown Street Art. In a couple of hours. At breakneck pace, map in hand, no sooner seeing one mural than checking the map to orient us to find the next one. In the style I abhor and have just had a nice rant about.

I put myself in charge of navigating us and generally being leader today. I normally follow M, who sorts out the 'finding things' part, having agreed on whatever the main activity is with him the night before. M has to check his GPS a fair amount, but still manages to saunter around, eyes open, taking Georgetown in on the way to each destination. I get the luxury of just floating along beside him, eulogising about how great everything is.

Now that I am in charge, and, on top of that, have chosen to take us on a walking tour of Georgetown's amazing street art, I become suddenly obsessed with the Map, where we are on it and whether we have seen all the murals available to be seen within a two mile radius of us at any given point.

It is me that wanted particularly to see the street art, and yet I find myself viewing each one as though it is a task on a to do list, noting it down and looking for the next one. This is a bit sad, given how beautiful both the art and the concept of the art is. More art has sprung up since the original commission of a young artist  to create art on the streets of Georgetown, but because I am ticking off the murals on an official map, I have some vague idea that I don't have time to look at anything not on the list. I march us through the fascinating streets of Georgetown at top speed and then - when by ten in the morning we have seen everything I feel myself visibly relax. I spend more time in the coffee shop we repair to, looking at its wall art than I have on all the murals together.

What a waste. I have seen them, but only in the sense that I have 'done' them.

We move, as per the rather inhumane plan I have come up with, to the 3D Art Museum. I have been expecting some sort of artistic collection, a little like some of the murals, which use a 'real' object to base the art around - a real bicycle, for example, half embedded in the wall, on which two painted children perch. 

In fact the 3d art museum is one of the most surreal experiences I have ever had. The art is mostly settings for 'trick' photography. It's still impressive and cleverly done, but a little more pop culture than gallery. It is fun though - M and I catch on and begin to pose in a series of melodramatic scenes which, on camera, will look highly realistic. Well maybe. M hauls me from the mouth if a snake, we both flee dinosaurs. We, very weirdly, pull the hair of the ghost from The Ring as she crawls from the TV. It is as I defy expectations and curl up peacefully asleep in the hand of King Kong, that a cheerful and business like member if staff joins us and we proceed to, well 'do' the 3D art gallery. She strides around saying "this one, you stand there and look like falling" and "OK now this, look like running away". She does it very well and the photos are fantastic but the experience is surreal. I find myself unable to keep a straight face and M and I don't quite meet each other's eye. I don't know why really, the idea is to have fun. And we do.

We do it all in about twenty minutes and I have to admit to a vague sense of relief when it's over.

I hand the controls back to M who whisks us to a camera museum and then to a short film showing as there happens to be a South East Asian film festival going on. The shorts are fantastic but the theme rather continues as we have to throw some food down in a rush to get there for the start.

And Penang is the food capital of South East Asia. You do not eat without proper ceremony.

All in all it's been tiring though enjoyable, but I have a sudden insight into the world of those people who 'do' a country. When time is short it is easy to view your trip as a sort of to do list which you must, at all costs, get done. Its only afterwards that you realise you were meant to enjoy it...

Skills you don't realise you need when travelling

It is quite lazy, I realise, to do another list, but today was one of those days when, amid such a rich and vibrant place as Georgetown, I found myself uninspired by anything we did during the day. Not that we did not see great things, on the contrary, we spent the day visiting the Kek Lok Si temple on the mountainside outside of town. It's a huge and hugely impressive structure, or indeed collection of structures, housing an enormous and beautiful statue of the Goddess of Mercy, as well as a pagoda inspired by Thai, Chinese and Burmese architecture. We also ate some lovely Buddhist vegetarian food at the temple restaurant. It's just (and perhaps this was because it is out of town in a rather unremarkable suburb) that it didn't inspire me with a big stream of thoughts and reflections.

And this is a bit of fun, because as I was remarking to my sister the other day, the things that turn out to be odd, difficult or stressful when travelling are not the things you think they are going to be!

Not that any of these things are especially stress inducing, but they are comment worthy.

Top ten skills you don't realise you are going to need when travelling.

1) The ability to recognise a toilet when you see it. It might look like like someone's lounge, a shower or a cupboard. It might have a door, a curtain - or nothing. It might be a hole in the ground, a western style throne, a squat toilet or seemingly an empty room with a small drain.

2) The ability to discern what is a friendly 'hello' and what is a sales pitch. Get it wrong and you are either in an embarrassing situation in which you either part with more money than you have for a thing you don't need, or cause offence - or (and I think worse), you ignore someone being friendly and treat them like a con merchant, making yourself judge, jury and executioner without any information on which to base your labelling of this person as being anything other than genuinely warm hearted.

3) The ability to read a conceptual map. An enormous proportion of the maps you have been given will seem to bear little relation to the actual terrain. You need a little bit of map reading and a lot of imagination. Patience helps too. As does not necessarily being in a rush to get somewhere.

4) The word for 'delicious'. More previous than please, thank you or even sorry - people burst into the most genuine smiles if you can say truthfully and warmly that the thing they just served you - was great. Assuming you are an adventurous and open minded eater, it always will have been.

5) The ability to recognise a bus stop. Similarly to toilets, it could be a sign, a shelter, a makeshift restaurant or just an unmarked section of the road. Ask for directions and you will invariably be told 'just over there'.

6) The ability to take your shoes off. Quickly. I would add to thus an understanding of when to take them off at all. Feet, it seems, cause more offence universally than anything else. You can snort, spit and pee in the street but whatever you do don't go in there with you shoes on. Or off. Or point your feet at a temple. Or a local. Once you've mastered the rules which differ even within the same country, and managed a sort if pigeon toed stance where necessary, you can't, like me, where sandals which can take you for miles and stand any number of batterings, but take fifteen minutes to remove. Your tour guide, host, or husband will long since have gone on without you.

7) The ability to sleep on a different pillow. They are the key to a good sleep but you can't be picky. Like toilets and bus stops, they can be massive and fluffy, tiny and brick like, angled back, rolled into a cylinder or completely absent. Your neck just needs to learn to get by on its own. Without orthopedically endorsed support.

8) The ability to do without cosmetics. By which I don't mean make up and eye lash curlers. I mean shampoo, face wash, conditioner, shower gel. So far in South East Asia these, along with sun tan lotion and anti mosquito spray, are really expensive in comparison to other things. You can eat three meals for two and spend less than you do on the cheapest bottle if shampoo. Gradually you learn that if you don't wear make up you can use less face wash, that hand soap can double in public showers as shower gel, that your hair will be sweaty anyway, so maybe you can get away with less washing and thus less shampoo.... Am I sounding disgusting enough for you yet? It's OK, we are not that bad. There was a brief and dark period in which M decided deodorant was too expensive and protested by refusing to purchase any - but that was mercifully short lived. And to be honest I took his point. It's the same logic as hair washing. If you're going to be drenched in sweat after an hour anyway....

9) The ability to pretend it's not happening. When you ate, by necessity, on a rackety old truck being driven at break neck speed around hairpin bends by someone who is chatting animatedly into his phone - well the fact is you can't do anything about it immediately. You can be darned sure you choose your transport carefully. But for now? Close your eyes. And whistle.

10) And finally. The ability to leave. Travelling 'slowly' as we are means everywhere had a chance to feel like home. When we leave we leave friends and familiar places. We leave memories and a way of life. That we have the chance to make these connections is beautiful. You just need to remember that. Rather than mourning the departure. And every connection is as strong as we want to keep it. Memories, friendship, photographs and Facebook can fill in the rest.

20th and 21st January: An Introduction To Georgetown

Yes. I know. I said that I wouldn't do this - that lumping multiple days into one entry is the cardinal sin of blogging. And I know that this excuse will seem all the thinner given that I am behind on my blogging and trying to catch up. But rules are made to be broken, yes? And, like all good laggards, I have a cast iron excuse.

The fact is, that on the first day we walked around Georgetown, getting a feel for it and for the different communities and cultures living so peaceably within it, and on the second day we went to the Georgetown State Museum and found out a lot of the history and background to Penang island which explained and gave depth to what we had previously observed. So it just makes sense to make this entry an introduction to Georgetown, a frame through which to read subsequent entries.

See. When I slack off, at least I can excuse it properly. It's practically a skill in itself.

An Introduction To Georgetown

Originally, Penang Island, then known as Betel Island after the betel nuts grown and chewed here, was a quiet fishing community, sparsely populated and little known. Then an Englishman named Francis Light turned up and 'discovered' it, characteristically attempting to lay claim to it for the Great British Empire. As it was in fact part of Kedah, the Sultan of Kedah rather objected to this, but, as it happened he was rather worried about the threat of invasion in his home country by the Siamese, so he asked to strike a deal with the British. If the good Mr Light could send armies to help protect Kedah, the British could effectively 'rent' Penang island for a fee. Excitedly, the British moved in, rather before the deal had actually completed. It is widely believed that Francis Light did genuinely intend to bring forces but was rather a small fish in the grand scheme of things and didn't quite have the authority. And the powers that were back in Britain were not especially interested in giving support to Kedah. We have taken countries before, they thought, presumably, without such ceremony. Why bother to play fair now?

And so, play fair they did not. The Sultan of Kedah discovered that the British were doing rather a good job of setting up shop, literally, in Penang, but that neither the rent nor the armies promised had materialised. He objected. Strongly.

At which point of course the British finally mobilised their armies. Against him. He received the full force of the British military power he had hoped for - and the outcome was that the British owned Penang for a rent of only a third of the original price asked for. Whether any of it actually materialised I don't know.

We don't cover ourselves in glory throughout history. Notably we also don't teach those bits of our history in school. We like to leave our children blissfully unaware of our cheating thieving legacy.

And for once, we don't occupy and enslave the previous inhabitants. Francis Light, to this day, is talked of with a surprising respect, even affection. And he seems to have been shrewd but fair as a business man and, by default, a ruler.

Seeing the huge trade opportunities on the island he set up ingenious trading structures and started to make a name for this small Betel island that no one had been paying much attention to. Despite his best attempts to undo this by renaming it 'Prince of Wales' island and laying out a grid structure with the government building situated on 'downing street'. Really, why did those early colonists have such little in the way of imagination? 

With the new trade lines came new people. And it is this which really made Penang. The trade gave it money. But the people gave it identity and culture. In the plural.

Chinese settlers arrived and built elaborate 'clan houses' at the jetty to shelter further clan members. They brought skills in trading, cooking, fine arts and painting skills, bead embroidery, Buddhism and a number of languages. And Chinese style food.

Indian settlers also arrived - though some rather less organically because the British brought over 'Indian Labourers'. Not slaves you understand. Though the wage structure was cleverly and sickeningly exploitative. They brought curry and roti, entrepreneur skills, Hinduism, bright silks and materials, and saris.

The Malay population grew and interbred with the Chinese, giving rise to Baba Nyonya culture - meaning a very specific blend of Malay and Chinese which is now a race and a culture in and of itself. This is the Nyonya cuisine which has now made Penang so famous and earned it a title of Food Capital of South East Asia. Baba Nyonya also brought us beaded slippers, intricate tiffin boxes (note the Indian influence) carved in red and black, and elaborate ceremonial customs, including 30 day weddings and three year long mourning periods with multi day funerals and special anniversaries of death.

Of course it was even more rich and complex than that. There were several sub cultures within each group, several denominations of any given religion - and all brought with them much much more to contribute to the melting pot of skills, customs, dress, food, architecture and history which shaped Penang and made it what it is now.

What makes Penang so interesting is that rather than being a simple case of different cultures living tolerantly alongside each other, this was a thriving community with all the ingredients sometimes combining to create fascinating new flavours like the Baba Nyonya, and sometimes simply continuing to grow and develop together. When we walk around Georgetown we walk through Indian street and through China street, far from being a small novelty street within a largely separate town, these are bustling living busy places - not for tourists - they are residential and real and they spill into each other effortlessly.

Our host, James (pseudonym), who runs the most homely hostel I have ever been to, tells us that schooling used to be in Malay, then was changed to English because this was the language of trade. But many people speak Hokkien, Cantonese or Mandarin Chinese, or Tamil at home and not Malay at all. So Malay was not being spoken anywhere. They moved the language of schooling back to Malay. 

But, far from diluting or losing the Malay sense of identity, this addition and intermingling of other cultures and languages, even creating new ones, made up a new culture which is richer, stronger and more prosperous than before. The heady mix of skills made the country successful. The heady mix and sheer depth and vitality of cultures made it attractive to others and, more recently, to tourists.

You see, Nigel Farage? Put that in your pipe and smoke it. What is English culture without external influence? Bread pudding and dripping without spices. Clay pots  (china came from China, remember?). No chocolate, no coffee, no tea. That's all foreign muck. 

Georgetown is vibrant and arty today. Those cultures still flourish as do the new ones created and the new ones being created. It embraces things like public murals painted on old, crumbling walls, film festivals and art galleries - and it embraces its heritage. Its old buildings, so old, so distinct and somehow all the more beautiful for their being untouched. Where restored they are stunning. Where left alone they are atmosphere. Nowhere are they torn down, sanitised or made into office blocks. No. True to form the office and apartment blocks are simply scattered around in the spaces between them. Nothing, here, is taken away. But it's absolutely OK to add to it. Whether that is a painting, a new business, a building or a festival.

Tell you what, UKIP, if it's overpopulation you are worried about, let's do an exchange system. If people want to bring their culture here, some interested soul from Britain gets to swap countries with them. A cultural exchange. No taking away. Only adding. And a rigorous checking system for the outgoing Britons. To check they're not going there to drink cheap booze, flash their union jack underpants, barter people down to unreasonably low prices and sponge off the system. On top of the language test of course.


Postscript: I'll let you into a secret. This is something nobody else knows about Georgetown. In the State Museum grounds there is an old Rolls Royce which once conveyed countless dignitaries from A to B and which was the site of a, sadly successful, assassination attempt. Nowadays it stands behind a barrier for visitors to gawp at from a distance. What nobody knows is that inside that Rolls Royce is a little nest of kittens. We watched a cat run, little grey kitten in her mouth from a plant pot (her original nest) up and through the slightly open window of the Rolls Royce and disapear down into the front foot well. After a while we watched her reappear, and return, this time with a little tortoiseshell bundle. Finally she went back for the last one - a little black ball of fur. Don't tell anyone. 

"Seasickness"

Well, it's obvious isn't it? I wake up, exhilarated from a truly brilliant night but feeling as though the world is ending, my head is caving in and my stomach has been transformed into a washing machine somebody has put bricks into by mistake.

I hobble out of bed and go to the kitchen to get water. I encounter Halia, the big soft comforting ginger cat on the way. He rubs himself sympathetically against my leg so I bring him back to bed with me.

After approximately a nano second it is time to get up. We are supposed to be having breakfast out at a Buddhist vegetarian buffet place in which you make a donation in aid of animal welfare, posting a parcel and then catching a ferry. The thought of the 3 hour trip across the sea to Penang makes my internal organs lurch and twist in apprehension. I feel like I can barely move.

"I don't think I can go on a ferry." I whisper to M.

He grins and gives me a hug.

"I didn't think you drank all that much." he says, making me love him all the more, "it's probably because we've hardly slept."

"Not 18 any more" is Gemmy's verdict.

There is a brief respite in which Gemmy waters the herb garden and I rejoin the lucky Halia who has not moved from the bed. He moves closer to me purring and we fall asleep together, causing M to take a picture of our (apparently) identical sleeping postures and facial expressions.

To cut a long story short I limp to breakfast with the others, feel horrible, eat one spoon of herbal soup, give up and am placed in the cat to languish quietly while M attempts to post our parcel. There is an enormous queue so he gives up and Gemmy takes us to the air conditioned Starbucks at the jetty to recover before the ship leaves. At this point, Gemmy has to go and work so I try to verbalise a goodbye which justifies how great he has been and how much fun we've had - and fail. He chuckles and gives me a hug.

Finally M and I make our way onto the ferry. And it's.. Um...well an unusually rough day. I sit in my seat, teeth gritted, trying to concentrate on Frozen, which is playing but so quietly I can't really hear what's going on. I cant follow it (I think someone can freeze everything they touch or something - and there's a reindeer involved somehow. And a snowman.) but attempting to is a good enough distraction from the waves outside, which don't scare me, but the rather extreme rolling motion they are causing is not helping my stomach to settle. Eventually there is what looks like the usual Disney ending - and shortly after that we thankfully dock.

I roll off the ship, into a taxi, through the doors of our hostel and collapse on our bed for a bit. When I have recovered enough to eat we go out and eat banana leaf rice, which is soothing - and then I fall asleep.

We can explore Penang tomorrow. And as for last night? Well I don't regret a minute of it, though would have drunk less at each stage if I'd known about the next one.

I sleep. Possibly I snore. 

As Gemmy says, "not 18 any more."

Tearing Up the Dancefloor

Gemmy has made several attempts so far to tempt us to Sunba, the club that only starts to get going at midnight. On each occasion we have had fun, largely due to Gemmy's company and the, admittedly warm and friendly, atmosphere. But each time we have sat quietly at the bar, listened, even foot tapped to the (quite good actually) music, had a drink, and then gone home. It has felt nice. But late. And the young whippersnappers on the dance floor are much better dressed, much more awake and much cooler than us. Though I like to think they can't hold a candle to our dancing ability. I mean, really. Shuffling from one foot to the other and sticking your hips out? Not enough. Come on. Dance like you mean it.

Even so. We have been content to watch sagely from behind a pint, getting rather more obviously excited at the sight of another gekko than the prospect of seeing in the early hours and expressing our love of the Langkawi jungle through the medium of interpretive dance.

Today though, is our last evening. And, though at no point do we quite expect it, it's, well, a little different.

We make a plan to go out for dinner with Gemmy. He takes us to a place on the beach and we watch the sunset as we eat. It's our last evening, I think, so I order a second glass of wine. 

"What was your favourite place to go on an evening on Langkawi?" asks Gemmy as we sit back, contented.

Probably home, with its backdrop of the jungle, and cats and beer on tap, but I sense that's not quite what Gemmy means so I think about the various 'nights out' with Gemmy on the tourist side of the island. 

"Probably that place with the 13 ringitt cocktails" I decide.

Said place is a small bar outside a 7 eleven. It's unassuming but generous, in price, in measures and in happy ambience.

"We'll go there then" says Gemmy, clapping his hands together.

Off we go. The company is fantastic and, it being the last night and therefore somehow different, I don't notice the time or whether I am tired this time. We have a couple of cocktails. 

It's been a lovely last night. We head for Gemmy's car.

"Shall we just pop into Sunba?" says Gemmy.

We pop. Little do we know that by the time we pop out again it's going to be three in the morning and we are going to be, well, exuberant.

I am not quite sure how it happens. One minute we are sitting at the bar, in our customary positions surveying the dance floor and I am commenting to M that the music is good. Then there is a period in which no one is dancing but everyone wants to and my feet are not so much tapping as basically performing an increasingly more enthusiastic seated dance. I think how much I miss my girlfriends, so that we could hit the dance floor in a pack, then reason that this is just the sort of fearfulness we should be freeing ourselves from and really what is the worst thing that could happen? Some strangers I am never going to see again might not like my dancing? Or think I am fat? What is the actual consequence? What grand drama will ensue if it happens?

(Actually a note of caution - never assume you are never going to see people again. I once went to a bar with a friend and got quite silly. There was some sort of postcard we were supposed to fill out for a competition and we gave our email addresses as 'sausages@ potatoes.jam'. We bumped into the man we grinningly handed the postcard into at the supermarket the next morning.)

Either way the decision is made for me by a Russian man who is even more impatient to dance than I am and who launches himself onto the dance floor, grabs me by the hand and we are off. It's all very innocent - he just wants company so he's not doing a floor show in front of expressionless and silent teenagers - and he senses a kindred spirit. Even so, if find myself dancing with a random guy, I do like to mention my husband. No sooner do I, than the Russian man's face lights up and he uses his considerable size and general magnitude to propel himself across the stage and haul M to his feet.  And suddenly neither I nor M nor the Russian stranger care who's watching. Its good music, and it's really good fun. 

After that, as M describes it afterwards, one minute no one is dancing, there's a brief period where it's just us and then EVERYONE is dancing. And M and I go crazy.

We don't leave that dancefloor till Gemmy must have dragged us out again. Neither of us is wearing shoes Gemmy has made several attempts so far to tempt us to Sunba, the club that only starts to get going at midnight. On each occasion we have had fun, largely due to Gemmy's company and the, admittedly warm and friendly, atmosphere. But each time we have sat quietly at the bar, listened, even foot tapped to the (quite good actually) music, had a drink, and then gone home. It has felt nice. But late. And the young whippersnappers on the dance floor are much better dressed, much more awake and much cooler than us. Though I like to think they can't hold a candle to our dancing ability. I mean, really. Shuffling from one foot to the other and sticking your hips out? Not enough. Come on. Dance like you mean it.

Even so. We have been content to watch sagely from behind a pint, getting rather more obviously excited at the sight of another gekko than the prospect of seeing in the early hours and expressing our love of the Langkawi jungle through the medium of interpretive dance.

Today though, is our last evening. And, though at no point do we quite expect it, it's, well, a little different.

We make a plan to go out for dinner with Gemmy. He takes us to a place on the beach and we watch the sunset as we eat. It's our last evening, I think so I order a second glass of wine.

"What was your favourite place to go on an evening on Langkawi?" asks Gemmy as we sit back, contented.

Probably home, with its backdrop of the jungle, and cats and beer on tap, but I sense that's not quite what Gemmy means so I think about the various 'nights out' with Gemmy on the tourist side of the island.

"Probably that place with the 13 ringitt cocktails" I decide.

Said place is a small bar outside a 7 eleven. It's unassuming but generous, in price, in measures and in happy ambience.

"We'll go there then" says Gemmy, clapping his hands together.

Off we go. The company is fantastic and, it being the last night and therefore somehow different, I don't notice the time or whether I am tired this time. We have a couple of cocktails.

It's been a lovely last night. We head for Gemmy's car.

"Shall we just pop into Sunba?" says Gemmy.

We pop. Little do we know that by the time we pop out again it's going to be three in the morning and we are going to be, well, exuberant.

I am not quite sure how it happens. One minute we are sitting at the bar, in our customary positions surveying the dance floor and I am commenting to M that the music is good. Then there is a period in which no one is dancing but everyone wants to and my feet are not so much tapping as basically performing an increasingly more enthusiastic seated dance. I think how much I muss my girlfriends, so that we could hit the dance floor in a pack, then reason that this is just the sort of fearfulness we should be freeing ourselves from and really what is the worst thing that could happen? Some strangers I am never going to see again might not like my dancing? Or think I am fat? What is the actual consequence? What grand drama will ensue if it happens?

(Actually a note of caution - never assume you are never going to see people again. I once went to a bar with a friend and got quite silly. There was some sort of postcard we were supposed to fill out for a competition and we gave our email addresses as 'sausages@ potatoes.jam'. We bumped into the man we grinningly handed the postcard into at the supermarket the next morning.)

Either way the decision is made for me by a Russian man who is even more impatient to dance than I am and who launches himself onto the dance floor, grabs me by the hand and we are off. It's all very innocent - he just wants company so he's not doing a floor show in front of expressionless and silent teenagers - and he senses a kindred spirit. Even so, if find myself dancing with a random guy I do like to mention my husband. No sooner do I, than the Russian man's face lights up and he uses his considerable size and general magnitude to propel himself across the stage and haul M to his feet.  And suddenly neither I nor M nir the Russian stranger care who's watching. Its good music, and it's really good fun.

After that, as M describes it afterwards, one minute no one is dancing, there's a brief period where it's just us and then EVERYONE is dancing. And M and I go crazy.

We don't leave that dancefloor till Gemmy must have dragged us out again. Neither of us is wearing shoes, having abandoned them long before. Flips flips and sandals - in fact footwear in general - only hinders the Importance Of The Dance. We twirl and dip and bob and jump in our increasingly blackened bare feet (it will take us 3 days of showering to finally get our soles back to a human shade of pink).

It is incredible fun. We are, at least for now, the most brilliant dancers anyone has ever seen. We ARE the music. And, far from being slightly in awe of those cool fresh faced teenagers with their 18 years of youthfulness and vigour, we are freeing them from all that pouting and posing. We are showing them what real fun looks like, when it's at home. We are In Da House.

We are probably quite drunk.

But I don't like to think that's all it is. My memories of that night are not hazy, they are clear and vivid. And we had so much fun. I will tell you one thing, there's nothing more brilliant than dancing with your husband and being without a doubt that he is the best dancer in the house and that you want nothing more than to go home with him tonight.