Signs, Posters etc

Things that caught my eye during our stay.  Some humorous some not others informative.  Hope you like them


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Malacca

Took the bus from KL Sentral to Malacca;  journey took 2hours 15mins and cost 14RM (less than £3).  Malacca was colonised by the Portuguese in 1511 and became an important trading port.  The Dutch took over until 1795 when it was swapped with Jakarta to the British.  The port had already gone into decline by this point due to high trading levies (sounds familiar?) and silting of the harbour.    This continued as the British favoured developing Penang and Singapore.  The town gave its name to the body of water between Malaysia and Sumatra

It became a UNESCO heritage site in 2008 but unfortunately we coudn’t see where money has been spent other than developing the Malacca river, which is pretty with many murals on the buildings depicting former life of the place.  We stopped in a beautiful Chinese building overlooking the river (see inside photos).

Jonker Street is the lifeblood of the town - name from its Dutch roots.  Originally a street of antique shops it is now primarily a mish mash of everything from souvenir shops to restaurants, to temples to .......

It is worth going to see for the day, there is not much more to hold your attention despite the heritage sites, many of which are now either museums or a pile of stones.

Went for a walk along the river the next morning, the place was dead apart from the 5’ monitor lizard we disturbed and the rat that swam from one side of the river to the other (it might have been escaping from the lizard!)


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Putrajaya

Putrajaya has only been in existence for 20 years, built on nearly 50 km2 by the Govermnent of Malaysia to govern the country.  It has all the Govermnent Departments and offices, houses for the workers, Mosque, leisure facilities, man made lake (650 hectares and designed as a cooling system and for recreation) and wetland area for recreation.  The Prime Minister’s office (green domed building) and the Mosque were the first to be finished in 1999 and then the rest was started.  They are still building today as the country has grown so much economically and is still growing.  There are some amazing structures and everywhere is clean and well groomed.  The roundabout close to the Prime Minister’s office is reputedly the largest in the world at 2.7 miles (you wouldn’t want to miss your turning!!)

All the workers have a house provided and enter a scheme during their working lives which provides for a house elsewhere when they retire - unless there is a member of their family working for the government, then they can stay where they are.  No-one is left homeless after their service for the State.

The Mosque is beautiful and a unification of influences from all over the world, even the stained glass is from the UK. Where the marble has been cut out and inlaid, the original graining has grown back in the new inlay.  Please take time to read the last sermon from the Prophet Muhammad, it might give you a different insight into the Muslim faith and its similarities with the Christian faith.


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Wake up everyone !!

Took a cab this evening.  It was driven by a Production Director at a manufacturing enterprise whose wife was an Auditor.  He said their commitments, primarily their children’s education meant they were short of money.  He drove for ‘Grab’ as a way to get extra money after the stress of his daily life.

He complained there were now so many further education facilities, many of them outreaches from British Universities, the city was full of graduates who couldn’t get a job.  Immigrants were entering the country and taking jobs for lower pay.  The Chinese are pouring money into Malaysia and Singapore, developing industry and residences but primarily for the benefit of the Chinese.  Many of the apartments being built are not available to people living in those countries,  rather they are only for the wealthy Chinese, sometimes as a buy one in China and get one free in Malaysia / Singapore

The problems the UK thinks are UK specific and due to the EU are not, the problems are world wide.

Cambodia - Temple Tour

The main reason Siem Reap is as popular as it is, is the presence of lots and lots of Temples.  The most famous being Angkor Wat, the oldest and largest religious complex in the world covering 162.6 hectares, regarded as one of the 7 wonders of the world.  It is certainly impressive, the staircases up the temple as incredibly steep with only tiny tread.  They must have had very small feet or gone up sideways :-)

Angkor Wat started off as a Hindu temple then later kings changed it to Buddhist (which is when the statues arrived).  It later went back to Hindu and some statues removed.  The windows were stone and filled with stone decorated circular pillars.  Most of the statues of Buddha have lost their heads.  They survived for 1000 years until the 1990s when they were removed by the Khmer Rouge during and following the war between Cambodia and Vietnam.  The primary reason for the decapitation was not religious but fiscal - the heads were worth a lot of money !!!

The grounds are filled with so many smaller temples and libraries holding the teachings of the faith(s). Kings started new temples, then when they died, building stopped and the next ruler started a new one.

The holes in the stones are where sticks were inserted to facilitate moving them, some of them being several metres long.  The stones were laid and the temples built before the stones were carved and decorated !!!

Angor Thom, I preferred as the carvings were depictions of life as opposed to religious belief at Angkor Wat.  Everywhere on all temples were carvings of the Aspara, Hindu seductive, dancing girls - over 1800 at Angkor Wat alone.  Angkor Thom’s All had (original) four Buddha heads in various states of happiness ie some were smiling.

The last Temple we visited was Ta Prohm a Buddhist temple built in the late 12th, early 13th Century.  Like all the temples in the area, they stopped being used a long time ago and became overgrown and lost to sight.  Angkor Wat survived relatively intact due to it’s incredibly strong foundations.  This temple is famous for the Banyan and Kapok trees which have taken root and grown in the very structure of the building.  It was famously used in the film ‘Lara Croft - Tomb Raider’ as were the other Temples visited.  The most photographed bit being the Lara Croft scene where the tree roots cover the entrance door.

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Cambodia - Floating Village

First stop was to a Lotus (the flower) farm. Here ladies sat all day cutting lotus stems into about 10cm lengths and pulling out fibre from the centre of the stems.  These fibres were then amalgamated, spun and turned into a very fine fabric for making clothing.  End result was something akin to silk and so high end.  The wooden structures on the shores of the lotus lake were weekend holiday cottages.

Onto Tonil Sap lake and aboard a boat from the jetty along a tributary to the main lake.  At this time of year approaching the driest month of April, the lake is around 2500 km2. During the wet season is grows to around 16000 km2.  Even now you couldn’t see the far side.  The tall post with the arrows on top in the photo shows the height at full capacity.  At this time of year rice and other crops are grown on land that will later be totally submerged, so all the houses at the edge are on stilts in readiness.

Around 170 villages sit around the lake with anything from 2000 to 6000 inhabitants.  So a huge proportion of the population depend on the lake for their livelihood.  There are schools, churches, Police stations, mosques, everything all floating.  From time to time the village will up anchor and move to another part of the lake.  The large mass of tied sticks are tethering points.   You see lines and lines of what appears to be a few floating sticks; these are shrimp traps which are harvested bu women with big nets.  They scoop out the twigs, shake off the shrimps and put the twigs back for next time.  The crocodiles are all alive and are farmed by the villagers to produce fresh meat, jerky and produce leatherware for sale.


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Cambodia Day 1

First thoughts touching down a bit like Wales :-) - how green was my valley.  Flat and lots of paddy fields.  The airport at Siem Reap is new and low rise looking like traditional long wooden houses.  You need a Visa to enter Cambodia, we had applied on-line whilst in Penang and had two copied printed.  One inside the passport for arrival and one for departure.  What we didn’t know was there was a setup inside the airport or processing applications for those without.  At this time of year the queue didn’t appear too long, but still glad we had ours.

Everywhere we have been people have driven on the left due to the British influence, Cambodia however drove on the left due to being a one-time French Colony. The main road into Siem Reap was dual dual carriageway.  There was a separate lane in both directions for bikes and Tuc Tucs  - that save a lot of traffic problems.

The river running through the town/city appeared to be non flowing.  I asked and was told it was because it had been dammed to develop into a beauty spot for the tourists.  Didn’t do a lot for health, though with stagnant water in a hot climate.  Amazed to see tree branches used as Acro props - not too amazed at the electrics (seen something similar in France albeit not so tangled, perhaps its a throwback ;-))

First night we went to the Phare Circus.  Originating in France but using Cambodians, this is a sort of Cirque du Soleil performance of acrobatics and humour.  Only lasting a hour but was one of the highlights of the trip


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