Why I love Penang

I am back home, safe and sound after long hours of a bus trip to Kuala Lumpur, an overnight flight to Narita, an 11 hour flight to Chicago and finally on to Philadelphia, where my best girl Oona was waiting for me. Sister Lisa and her friend Jonathan came down from NY, Jack came from work, and Leo and my two exquisite grand children met us all for a festive reunion dinner. I feel awful about abandoning this site and felt I ought to leave you with images to explain why I have oddly fallen in love with a place rather than a person, as most people do. I will load some quirky photos that will give a sense of what it is that I love so about this island paradise.

There are peculiar angles, color juxtapositions and just funky combinations that make my head spin. If I could convey the tastes, the scents and the sounds, I would do it so that you would understand, but I must rely solely on the images. Bear with me.

There are cats in markets, signs and lines that evoke dreamscapes - well, maybe architecture dreams. There are lights from the shores of Penang and Butterworth as the ferry shuttles from side to side and images of worship and belief hidden in corners and down alleys. There are coffee shops and medicine shops, food hawkers and fruit sellers, little ladies in little lanes , mosques and temples and rickshaws as well. There are secret vistas and visions, and you cannot miss a moment or you will miss an angle, a color or a heart's tug.
I've not even begun to show or describe the other senses! But

now that I'm home, I can dream about going back to tend and renovate the house I am buying in Island Glades on the island of Penang.

Come visit any time and do check out my friend Pearly's website called My Island Penang, Pearl of the Orient.

Last Temples - going native

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Today I wisely waited until later in the afternoon to do the temple thing and spent 3 hours this morning at the Angkor Museum, which is really quite terrific; if it is any indication of the way things are going here in Siem Reap, this little place is in for big times. "My driver" arrived at 10, after I booked my 10 hour bus ticket for tomorrow morning to Kratie via Kompong Cham. He seems to wait and chatter with all the other snoozing, dozing, dawdling tuk-tuk drivers while I go to museum or, as I did today, grab a quick lunch in the center of town where I ate on the Khmer side where all the Cambodians eat; the other side is the fawncy restaurants for the foreigners. Often it has the very same food, but for more money. I was perfectly satisfied with my papaya salad; whatever you eat here has so much garlic, onions and chili in it that nothing could go wrong. Also sugar. Everything has sugar - loads of it!

So, just for the record, before we went the 30 some kms to Bonteay Srey, Nat took me to meet his month old baby, his wife and his mother, all of whom were sweet and lovely, and of course I felt more kindly toward Nat who was charging me a lot more than I knew others were paying for the very same excursion. Then we had to fill up on gas - the justification for his higher price today - and we were off on the bump, bump, bump for miles and miles to reach the most exquisite temple ever. The carvings are SO, so intricate, so exhaustive and so detailed
that I got lost in them, trying to identify who was who and which God was which God or goddess, as the case may be. The temple was not terribly crowded, but the people who were there were mostly Asians; I met a Korean group which spotted me immediately as from the U.S., but I tried to ease the pain by assuring them that I liked kim-chee and Bee Bim Bop; the lively man leading the bunch, grinned and in his broken English said, "I like hamburgers," and we all chuckled. I think Korea may be on my list, assuming I could ever afford it.
I hope you are noting the bottles to the right and wondering what Johnnie Walker red and black have to do with my story, but those of you with clever wit will recognize immediately that these bottles are holding gasoline. Duh! And a fill-up is a full bottle, as I discovered when Nat filled up his tank for 800 riel, less that 25 cents.
After the heavily carved "temple" fairyland,we went to East Mebon and Pre Rup. Because the sky and light were so flat the morning I went to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat, I had hoped to hit a golden, pinky, orange sunset over Pre Rup tonight, but alas, it was not to be, so I have more photos of flatly lit carved lintels, pediments and door edges than I care to confess. After finally getting back to my treehouse room, I was ready for my last dinner at my favorite Khmer restaurant and bolted out for my "fresh spring rolls", draft Angkor and Cambodian curry. Then I had a papaya shake (spelled "snake" on the menu) at a different stall on the side of the road. Walking back to the hotel, things just felt a little more festive, and I realized it was Saturday night; I guess Saturday night is Saturday night all over the world, and this is what the mood was in the native part of town. The motorbikes are all lined up outside this little restaurant where I'm told Cambodians like to go for "beer and meat" on their way home from work. Guess that puts a little less pressure on the little lady at home... Needless to say, across the bridge in the city, things were hopping in a different way, wide -eyed tourists trying to look casual as they scope out the dining options for tonight. Last night I heard a loud "Hey!" and when I turned around, I saw three Chinese men who had been traveling with a group of us on the Delta. They had settled themselves into a Chinese restaurant. I suppose even though I like kim-chee and the Korean man likes hamburgers, some of us like what is most familiar.
That's all for tonight. I'll try to keep posting as I journey up the river, not always by boat because the water is very low, at least on the Tonle Sap. Tomorrow, Kratie.

On a more sublime note

After sushi and green tea, I trekked over to the National Palace, East Garden and strolled through all the nooks and crannies until I thought my legs would wither. Found a Starbucks and spent over 3 dollars for a black coffee - a gal's gotta get her fix - and then hit the Tokyo Museum of Modern Art and then the Crafts Museum. At this point, I was SO wobbly on my feet that I walked to the Tokyo train station, used my JR Rail Pass and hopped a train to Shin-Fuji, hoping to catch a glimpse of the great mountain, which, as you can imagine, was covered in clouds. Not to worry. I bought a rubbery sweet of some pear-like flavor and substance, hopped the train back in time for rush hour experience, getting back to Asakusa by about 6:30 and found a soba noodle restaurant where I had edemame, beer and a soba salad. I've been fiddling with this damn blog since then! Tomorrow a run and then I begin heading off to Ho Chi Minh City where I will meet my friend Joseph from Kuching. We we spend 5 days exploring the Delta before I begin my journey up the Mekong River. Stay tuned!

Sushi Anyone?

I did get up and get to the Tsukiji Fish Market this morning, taking two subways, arriving by 5:45 when the action was frenzied, the trucks were fast and the bidding was furious! I am going to post a video so you can experience some of the hubbub, but I doubt you will feel the same thrill I felt as I wandered agog for over an hour, creeping into corners, hugging walls, crouching behind boxes to photograph. Mostly they men were kind, but this is their livelihood, and interfering, as a , young frenchman was doing (sorry, french folk). It looked as though I'd gotten there for the frozen fish, but you can be the judge; much of the action involved setting up stalls for selling vats of fish as above. From there I moseyed to the sushi restaurants around the wharves and sat down at the counter of one and at sushi for breakfast; the other men at the counter were not only eating sushi at 7 AM, but they were drinking beer as well. I suppose it's only right. Somehow green tea seemed rather limp - neither coffee nor beer - a hell of a way to start the day.