Chinese and Tibetan new year

A new country, new impressions, new people, new surroundings,… Something new is always exciting, and scary as well, to me. Specially after my great time in Bangkok, the idea of a disappointment was in my mind. So far nothing was less true. I entered Malaysia on the day of Chinese new year. Chinese new year being on the same day as Tibetan new year in 2008. The ferry rip I was supposed to take from Butterworth to Georgetown, on the Island of Pelua Penang, was a piece of madness, together with risk, exhaustion, and even danger. Because of the Chinese new year the people in Malaysia had a five day holiday. As if they all agreed on visiting Georgetown at that exact day, the queue for the ferry was enormous. That is if you would like to call it a queue. Hundreds of people, coming from all entrance sides, trying to make their way to the entrance gate as fast as possible. The entrance gate only opening every now and then, when new people were aloud to approach the ferry landing. Where the custom used to be to get women and children first of the boats, when a ship was sinking, here elder women and children got picked out of the queues to approach the ferry first, away from the madness. Meanwhile, in between the times the gates opened, everyone was still pushing, puling, and trying to wrk their way to get at least a meter closer. When the gates opened, it was madness as people from the back pushed, people from the sides also pushed, and still there was this one little entry gate. After all I made it, thanks to my elbows. Arriving in Georgetown was not only great because all of this was behind me, but immediately I got a feeling of likeness for this town. A feeling of likeness for Malaysian people I already had by then, despite the ferry experience. On the train over there, people had already shown me their kindness, helpfulness and hospitality. Coming from regions where there is always a reason why people are friendly, here it doesn’t seem to be like that. Really special! Because of the Chinese new year, and the holiday the Malaysians have, Georgetown is a quite town these days. Something that can be different when normal life will start again, I think. I enjoyed being in quite Georgetown perfect. This was also the first time, I got to experience Chinese new year closer. In China it’s probably much more impressive, and even in a lot f other countries it might be, but Malaysian celebration was my kind of celebration. Open, kind, respectful, and with a lot of action going on without forcing people to notice it. By accident I ended up in the celebration placefor Chinese new year in Georgetown. Dancing, singing, even a fashion show, it was all there. Also there I was approached by local people, just coming for a chat, just giving me a comfortable feeling. The overall feeling I have got about Malaysia so far is a feeling of comfort: A clean country, an easy public transportation network, helpful people. Why not enjoy it? Being in Asia doesn’t mean that you have to suffer, that you have to live in terrible conditions, that you have to become sick of the food. Being in Asia is more about a bigger inner feeling, to me. About experiences that don’t matter the conditions you’re in, because cultural the differences are there, and everywhere around you to notice. Even in the biggest tourist place, life is never the same as home. A thing that counts for everywhere that is not your local, natural habitat, I guess. The Chinese seem to have pyromaniac blood, as they love to burn things. On every street corner you see incense in al sizes and colors, with all kind of decorations. And all this gives a great atmosphere as they love to decorate with colors. They all have a meaning, but on the risk of being totally wrong, I choose not to go further into it. I just enjoyed the colors that were everywhere around. The surroundings of Georgetown also offer beautiful places. Penang Hill must be wonderful on the top, but these days, around Chinese new year, you have to rise early to catch a ticket for the train upthere, as people from all over the country seem to be interested to came here, now they have some time off. I didn’t make it, but I think it’s not more than fair that we leave these days for the local Malaysians. Seeing them having fun, enjoying the days, really makes me a smiling man.

Green and peaceful Bangkok

It's propably the enormous quantity of smog that I have been breathing the last weeks, but I must say I like Bangkok (this time). The last two times I was here, which were also my first two times, I hated it from the first until the last second and even before and after. The first time I was here was the day, evening, before the King's birthday, and comming from Siem Reap, Cambodia, I missed my last connection to Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai where I was going to meet Sara. A meeting I was really looking forward to, and that propably polluted my judgement on Bangkok that time. The second time I even refused to even come into town, and therefor just spend a few hours at the busstation, waiting for a connection to Surin.

This time however, I'm here for two weeks already, and I must say, I kind of love it. The trick is to go out of the real touristic Thanon Kao San-area and see what Bangkok really has to offer. My way of doing this is just hupping on one of the many busses around here, going for a perticular destination, or just see where you end up. The last part always being a walk back to the guesthouse, which is in the TKS-area. On one of those trips, I ended up in Lumphini park, in a part of downtown Bangkok. I was astonished to see that in the middle of such a huge city, there could be really a peaceful, quite atmosphere, even in the middle of the day. Walking around there, my imagination must have been talking a walk with me I thought, because not only was there almost no traffic noise there (at most moments there was even no traffic noise at all), at once we saw crawling through the gras some kind of lizard. Nothing special, you would say, specially if you've been travelling before. I even had lizards in my bedroom, as we all have had around these places. Not these lizards, I may hope. The size of these animals was varying in a range from 20 cm to at least 50 cm. Being reptiles, and knowing my fear for reptiles, I wasn't to eager to take a closer look at first, and I didn't have my camera with me (which has a very good zoom).

Since we had visited the park on a week day, there was not much else going on around there, just an occasional jogger, or some local or expat reading a book.

Being interested in my fears, and being interested what this park would be like during the weekend (families coming together there to spend there days together playing, resting, eating, relaxing,...), I decided to go back during the next weekend. I took my camera, because making pictures of these reptiles were my main conserne to go back. Walking the first 30 minutes around in the park, I didn't spot one reptile, but I saw a lot of families, as I expected. The atmosphere was truelly nice and friendly. People smiling, children playing, people just reading a book under a palm tree, everything was so peaceful overthere. Still, I thought the people being there were propably the reason why the animals were not really showing their face, or even their tail. That was until I walked into an area of the park, I don't know what was special about it, where also people were doing the same things as in the other places, only here the area was filled with the lizards. Filled is exaggerated, but you could really see a lot of them, swimming around, hiding, but also just walking between the people on the grass. To my surprise there were even more lizards as when we were there the other day and the size of these ones was amazing. Some of them were 1 meter long, not even counting the tail. Approaching the animals they really seemed to be lazy bastards, as they just stayed there lying on the ground, maybe even enjoying the attention. Attention they didn't seem to get from many of the locals, who propably see them every week. They might even be part of the family already. I left the park with a lot of pictures, and happy as a child, because it stays amazing to me that such a little natural things can be just in the center of a huge city like Bangkok. It's a wonderful place to just lay back and relax for a while. That is, ofcourse, if you don't mind sharing the lawn with lizards. The locals don't seem to mind.