I remember a time when we came to Malaysia for a holiday.
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I’m sure that some of our friends have restored houses before.
Why did nobody warn us that it’s easier to plan an assault on the summit of Everest?
Our task has been made all the more difficult by being in Malaysia.
It’s taken us 3 weeks to achieve what we would do in 3 days in Melbourne.
Nothing is simple, nothing is logical and nobody does what you would expect.
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Our days are at least 12 hours long. They begin and end with a one hour ride on the
dodgems with half a million inmates of the Penang lunatic asylum.
Our lives have become fully consumed by this 1876 money pit that threatens our sanity
daily.
Are we having fun? You bet.
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We left Melbourne a month ago.
Our Air Asia flight had a new ‘special’ on the menu. A fancy fruit platter called the ‘F’ Cup.
Should have seen it as a sign of things to come.
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We spent a few days in Melaka before going to Penang and met some really nice guys there, Johnni, Leonard and Raymond, who helped make our time there very special.
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One of the bonuses of living with Lotus Bud ( my girlie ) is being privy to a range of great
one liners and astute observations.
Standing on the banks of the Melaka River.
” Why is it that everyone on a boat has to wave at everyone not on the boat. “
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Looking at a very ornate, gold-leaf Chinese screen in a Melaka shophouse.
” I couldn’t live with all that guild. “
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Travelling home in our car which was running low on petrol.
” I won’t turn on the air-con so we won’t drain any more petrol than necessary. “
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Yes, we have a car. It’s actually ‘my’ car, Veronica hasn’t yet come to terms with it.
Our friend Appu organised its acquisition. It was a Mazda 626 but when we went to pick
it up it was heavily disguised as a Toyota Corolla. This is quite common in Malaysia.
Assume nothing and expect anything.
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Have been recently inspired by the entrepreneurial skills of an Indian gentleman who
sits at a bus stop on Penang Rd. and sells little piles of grated carrot laid out on the footpath.
Why didn’t I think of that?
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Lotus Bud went for a health check yesterday. The Doctor felt her pulse, looked at her tongue and took her blood pressure. After much consideration, her diagnosis was:
” You cannot take Durian. “
Now if you went for your annual medical check-up expecting some feedback on your
cholesterol, blood sugar levels, heart, liver etc and instead you were only told that you
probably shouldn’t eat Scotch Finger biscuits ….
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Our friend April has a blind dog. I mean the dog is blind. We now call her a seeing eye person.
She doesn’t get it.
She is gorgeous. Her life is devoted to saving stray dogs.
Veronica volunteered some time to give a talk at Speaker’s Corner in support of April’s
campaign to save stray animals.
For the last two nights we have been woken up by dogs barking and cats fighting.
At 6 am this morning, Lotus Bud sits up in bed and yells out.
” F***in’ dogs and cats, I hate them, ” and then she goes straight back to sleep.
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Despite the house restoration, we have been able to catch up with most of our closest
friends over lunch or dinner during the past 3 weeks.
A lovely Malay friend, Nazlina, is a very liberal and progressive thinking Moslem. Her daughter has a scholarship to the Convent Light School ( a Catholic girl’s school ).
Over lunch I happened to mention how much I’ve always wanted to see inside this grand
old dame with its colourful history, almost as long as Penang itself. We have been walking
the streets of George Town for 14 years now and throughout that time it is one of the few
places that has escaped us. You can’t just walk in, it is strictly policed for the protection of
its students.
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Nazlina suggested that she could get us into the school. Ten minutes later we slipped through the maze of guards at the gate and entered one of Penang’s most beautiful colonial icons.
The buildings are majestic and the grounds stately. Ghosts of countless generations traced our intrusion down the long wooden corridors and out onto the padang.
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Lost in a frenzy of clicking cameras, we could hear Naz’s voice echoing down one of the wooden verandahs.
” Quick, quick, we can sneak into the Church, there’s no one in there. I don’t want anyone to see me because they’ll think I want to convert.”
The Church was beautiful and , like so much of our time in Penang, the visit to the Convent
Light School was unexpected and fascinating.
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