Ms.Loh’s Guesthouse, my home away from home

Teluk Bahang bay and village. Ms.Loh’s is in the green behind the big school buildings.

Ms.Loh’s place is not for everyone but for the last couple of years it became my base in Southeast Asia. When I first arrived in Malaysia with Ayşegül, we learned that we had to wait for two months for her passport extension and started looking for a home. It was clear from the beginning that, one, we couldn’t spend so much time in a guesthouse room, and two, we couldn’t stay in a big town like Georgetown no matter how much we may like it for a short time. So we ended up looking for a house for rent on the far side of Penang Island, in a fisherman village named Teluk Bahang. And we were fortunate enough to have read the few lines on a friend’s guidebook, saying that in Teluk Bahang, there is this place with such an endearing garden that some people end up staying a long long time. It turned out to be true.

Our street with Ms. Loh’s place on the right.

The bungalow building in the garden.

The garden is on one of the backstreets of Teluk Bahang, away from the packed fisherman village, surrounded by a durian plantation. Because of these giant trees (it takes a big tree to carry such big fruits) there are no neighbors around. And in this garden, on one side of the road are some 4 buildings spread out among all kinds of fruit and flower trees, coconuts, durian, starfruit, rambutan, mango, hibiscus and others. All buildings are made of wood and even from a short distance they are lost among the vegetation. The main house is just a ground floor one with a long veranda in the front. It has 10 rooms for guests, one main room which also houses the protector deity of the house and a big kitchen. Then there is a side bungalow with 3 rooms, and two separate buildings which have some rooms on the upper floor while one of them has a nice big shaded area looking the garden under it. The place is big and there is much open space.

The protector of the house

Home Day (winter solstice) morning Ms.Loh appeared early in the morning to
light up this huge incense and give lots of pink offerings to the protector of the house.

As soon as I saw the kitchen I knew I’d choose to stay there and I’d love it. The kitchen has a great diversity of equipment that concentrated there over many years. Some bowls and utensils almost look antique but it also has two working refrigerators and a working stove which makes all the difference. Anyone who has lived in a community knows how important the kitchen is for the social interaction there. And it’s the same here. You meet everyone around the kitchen. And the tap water is drinkable, what a great rare luxury. And you can do your yoga or whatever practice in the shade, or play your guitar on one of the garden swings all around the place (Ms.Loh loves garden swifts so we have many).

Enjoying one of the many swings.

Ms.Loh is a Chinese lady in her 70’s. She’s been running this guesthouse for over 35 years. To have space and freedom for the guests she has moved from inside the village into this garden 25 years ago. At that time there were many travelers on this side of the world. Those were the good days of 20th century, before islamophobia stopped travelers from visiting so-called Muslim countries (as if countries have religions). So the tourism development stopped and small places shut down. But Ms.Loh survived thanks to all the people who saw this place as their home and kept coming. The place has this potential to make one dream of old time travelers places because it’s one of the few remaining relics of that age. You can actually find travel guides and magazines from 70s and 80s and it’s not hard to loose time.

The front veranda where most of life takes place.

Apart from the trees and flowers, the garden is a home to a lot of animals. First, we have the dogs, the numbers of which is usually between 5 and 10 but can get over that if two bitches give birth at the same time. Then we have the rats and mice, which are the nighttime visitors. They seem to enjoy having big football games up on the roof every night but luckily not for a very long time. The first month here it was one of my favorite evening pastimes to sit and watch them carefully but with short rapid moves approach the dogs’ food bowls, grab a chunk of leftover rice and make their run behind a rock or up a tree. They are responsible for the cleanup. Then we have some lizards, the millions of geckos which make these birdlike sounds and eat mosquitoes (which is why we like them I think) and the occasional monitor lizard. Monitors are huge lizards. First time I saw one I was really scared because I thought it was a crocodile. The big ones you can see around here are perhaps 1,5 – 2 meters but they can get bigger than that. Raja, one of Ms.Loh’s handymen, tries to convince us that it’s the monitors that take the puppies when they get lost and not the Muslims (Muslims here don’t like dogs and sometimes kill them). There is a family of these monitors living under the bridge just on the border of the garden but they are very shy and they’re also very scared of the dogs. Raja also says they caught some really big snakes in the garden just on the other side of the road but I only met one green tree snake in the bathroom once (which turned out to be a quite poisonous one). Philip swears he saw a black cobra in the toilet once. Macaque monkeys make their ways all the way from the nearby national park to the durian orchard on the other side of the road but luckily they don’t cross the road and enter our territory. Then there are birds. Mynas are also big fans of dog food and they also come to clean the dinner table. Then there are small colorful flowerpeckers which hover in the air and suck nectar from flowers with their long curved beaks. A little after noontime comes the golden orioles and sometimes you can see a fish eagle nesting on one of the highest trees. Wire-tailed drongos make their number 8 dances almost look like they want to catch that black butterfly following their tails. And there are butterflies, many big colorful butterflies.

There is an endless cosmic dance in the garden.

The flowerpecker having his breakfast.

Then there are the inhabitants of Ms.Loh’s place. Since this is not the kind of place that pops up as a guesthouse in the minds of people who carry guidebooks, the fast travelers usually leave a bit disappointed. Most places these days offer rooms with attached toilets or even air conditioners, and of course, newer beds. But some see the garden, get hooked up on cooking and end up staying longer than they intended. The main crew of the place however are people who make it their base when they travel and mostly for many many years. There are people who keep coming back here for tens of years and of course they are old. Because of this mostly it is a good place to hear some old travelers’ tales and get some good advice. But of course some old people complain a lot and are not flexible anymore, and some people cannot handle old travelers. So there is this social dance that takes place in this garden and without taking parts or feeling included in any group, I like doing this dance. I like communities anyway. Some would say this is not a community because we pay for things, have our rooms and things and we don’t have any prior agreement with each other. But I like to see it as a small experimental society. A unique one.

V for Verygraceful

I love Penang

Penang is an island just a little off the Western coast of North Malaysia. It was virtually uninhabited until the British East India Company thought it could make a good port to compete with the Dutch port of Melaka (today also in Malaysia) during late 18th century. They needed to clear the jungle and create a town and to do it fast, the story goes, they loaded the cannons with silver coins and shot towards the jungle. The workers now had a good incentive to cut all the vegetation to get the silver and create land for development.

Koh Kongsi, an early Chinese trade union. Until early 20th century, Penang was under
unofficial control of this sort of Chinese trade unions and secret societies (mafia).

Muslim village in Batu Ferringhi, as oppose to the Chinese and Indian villages just next to it,
this one, like other Muslim villages, doesn’t have any dogs because they are considered non-halal.

Very fortunately they didn’t cut it all but created more land by filling the sea. And soon Penang became a bustling port full of merchants from everywhere but mainly Chinese. As far as I know, today Penang is still the only majority Chinese state in Malaysian Union. The other founding state which was also majority Chinese was Singapore and was forced to leave not wanting to give away the economic power of its Chinese population only two years later. Today Penang still has all sorts of people but none seem to be majority and there seems to be a general feeling of “sharing” this land.

Georgetown as seen from the terrace of Kek Lok Si Temple.

Main pagoda of Kek Lok Si Temple

Georgetown, the capital, has the old and the new city right next to each other. It has great colonial architecture and an alive little India, while next to them is one of Asia’s longest towers, Komtar, and once longest bridge on earth, the 13.5 km long Penang bridge connects the island to the mainland. There are great many temples for all religions, Chinese and Indian temples, mosques, many churches, Thai and Burmese Buddhist temples, and others. The Thai temple has a huge reclining Buddha which used to be the biggest in Southeast Asia. Today Penang is known as Malaysia’s Silicon Valley and the microchips for my next passport are being made here. But a traveler never notices this.

Penang Bridge, which connects Penang with the mainland.

Gurney Drive, where the old city turns into the Cyber City Penang.

When you leave town along the coast first you see big posh shopping malls and tall condos with swimming pools. Later on you come to a long beach called Batu Ferringhi, the Foreigners’ Rock. I don’t know where the rock was and where all the nudists who discovered this beach have gone but today this most promoted touristic beach of the island is full of resort hotels and Saudi tourists. Unfortunately, especially for those who decide to spend their holidays here after seeing the brochures of the place, the seas around Penang are not good for swimming. Because of the Melacca Straits, which runs between Mainland Malaysia and Sumatra, and is one of the busiest sea highways thanks to all the Chinese exports, the sea here is usually murky and quite full of jellyfish.

Local people of Penang having a sunset dip on
Teluk Bahang beach, with their clothes on as usual.

Air Hitam dam lake

But the center of the island still has some amazingly old (like millions of years) untouched jungle and in or around this jungle it’s possible to take a dip in a waterfall or a pond on a river. Many people who stay here enjoy the long treks to these hills or the peninsula at the Northwestern corner which is the Penang National Park. This park is home to the cheekiest little macaque monkeys I’ve ever seen anywhere. They treat your belongings like theirs, completely ignore you and even fight with you to take them. This applies especially to plastic bags and drinks. I’ve got lots of food stolen by monkeys in India but I had never in the past experienced a monkey coming to claim the drink in my hand and even playing tug-o-war with me for it.

Cheeky monkeys of Penang National Park.

One of the roads on the edge between a fast developing city and an ancient jungle.

Before I arrived here I didn’t know what a “food enthusiast” meant and now I think I turned into one in Penang. The ethnic mixture in Penang gives one great many choices of food and especially the street food is very special. There are so many books on hawker food of Penang, one can help acknowledge that the foods from these kitchens on wheel are sometimes better than the food from well established restaurants. If you were obsessed with food in the past and came over it after much effort, don’t come to Penang. It’s to a food lover, what Jamaica is to a pothead.

Evening food court on Gurney Drive where you get the best variety of food.

The main temple of Penang is Goddess of Mercy Temple
which is recognizable by the smoke rising from it.
Although it has big fans to clear the air inside, still the walls have all turned
black and in front you can always see these 2 meter incense burning.

There are also other things about Penang which you’ll have to discover yourself. These were just a few things why I love this place and see it as my base. Ah, and there is Ms. Loh’s place…

Smiling for peace, Golden Smiling Buddha in Kek Lok Si Temple

Nonsense Visas for Nonsense Borders

Sometimes I can’t believe I’m still living in this age where there are borders, visas, governments, armies, police and all that goes with this mass illusion we wrongly call civilization. I have been feeling we’ll be done with these quite soon and I still believe that. But it seems it’s not time just yet.

Last year I went to China. It was really smooth. I went to the embassy in Bangkok, filled in a form, paid some money and returned 4 days later to receive my passport back with a sticker inside. No questions asked. It was funny to go by boat from Thailand to China on the Mae Kong river, which is the border between Myanmar and Laos. It’s like walking on the thin line people draw on the map and say “this is one country and this is another” as if when you are on that line you could tell one side from the other.

Then this year in April, just the day I was going to buy tickets for Macau on the way to China, there was the main news that China changed the visa regulations because of the Olympics. I had thought Olympics would make it even easier for foreigners to go to China but it was just the opposite. They asked to see hotel reservations and return tickets, neither of which any serious traveler in such a vast country has. It meant that for the Olympics they only wanted tourists and not travelers. But more than that, they had some other new rules such as “passport holders of Asian countries can take China visas in their home country only”. And this didn’t apply to Malaysia which I saw as my current home unless I had a working visa there. I had to go back to Turkey in order to go from Malaysia to China! After the Olympics, I heard, they changed the visa laws back to the traveler-friendly earlier one and everybody took a deep breath. It was almost unseen in this region and perhaps just an arrangement for only once.

Lately I’ve been planning to go to Taiwan. As soon as I arrived in Malaysia I started to call the consulate but first the numbers were wrong and then I could only talk to robotic ladies which would connect me to non-answering departments. I sent an e-mail which also received no answers. Finally I went to the office for China Airlines and got a more private number of the consulate. I rang and managed to actually talk to a real living being. She asked me my nationality, made me wait a few minutes, asked if I’m working here, made me wait a few more minutes and in the end returned and said, “we can give you a visa only if you have a working visa in Malaysia, otherwise you have to get it from Turkey.” If I had a working visa here, I’d be working and wouldn’t be going to Taiwan for a month, would I? It’s kind of similar to that you have to prove you don’t need money in order to get credit from the bank. It is nonsense.


And I sit and think. Taiwan’s official name is Republic of China, as oppose to People’s Republic of China where visa is an easier story, and I had of course imagined it to be a more free country than China but it turne out to be a Beurocrat’s Republic of China. And in the end it’s supposed to be the same country anyway. All these Malay people who inhabit Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and other countries in the region have their root sin Taiwan. But Taiwan still has some openness to learn from these countries.

Malaysia gives 3 months permit at the border to any foreigners for free. Indonesia charges some and gives a visa on entry for one month or in the embassy for two months. Philippines gives three weeks free at the border which can be extended up to two years without leaving the country. Do these countries feel more secure that they can invite people like that? Do Taiwan have more terror than them so it has to keep things in control? Does it make sense?

Perhaps I should look into my passport, the only one I can get because I was born within certain borders. It’s the passport of Turkey, a medium sized country in the Middle East. Aha, Middle East. Perhaps that’s why. Everybody knows about muslims terrorists and although they didn’t strike Taiwan yet, who knows they can sometime soon. Does it make sense at all?

So I changed my plans and decided to go to Thailand, which gives one month free visa at the border, and see some friends and do ameditation retreat toclear this energy. And I think “Thailand must be pretty deserted now because of this airport occupation of the most anti-democratic democracy movement. They’ll be happy to see another foreigner and I’ll be happy to see less.” But then, in the evening I learned that they changed the visa policy! Now they give only 15 days on the land borders. If you fly in you get 30 days but if you come overland it is only 15 days or you have to get a visa in the embassy. This is so absurd. Why now of all times when the country is suffering an unseen 50% tourist loss? It doesn’t make any sense.

So I decided not to stay so long in Thailand, let them loose me, and go to Myanmar for a month for which I need to get another visa. I heard a friend was refused a visa there last month and he assumes it is because his passport was from USA and USA supports the opposition in Myanmar. I wonder if they know about muslims. I hope they don’t.Muslims don’t care about human rights anyway so I guess they’d be getting along pretty well.

Long time I have stopped considering traveling in Europe because the treatment they give in the consulates in Turkey is simply inhuman. I refuse to be treated like that. So I’ve been happy in Asia where the countries are not saturated with illegal immigrants from Turkey or scared of muslims. But this last visa troubles I had with two Chinas is making me consider eliminating Chinas from my map also. They’ll be loosing, not me :)

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Revision, December 29, 2008, Bangkok

Just to prove the absurdity of all theses "absolute" laws and regulations, today I received my 60 days visa for Taiwan. As soon as I arrived in Bangkok I called the consulate, got to a real person pretty fast, and the nice lady replied me with the words "you just come here, fill in the form, pay the fee and pick it up later." But, but, the embassy in KL even sent me an official enough e-mail containing a long list of requirements such as invitation, reservation, return plane ticket, proof of funds and the worst of all resident visa in Malaysia. I asked to the lady on the phone and she giggled "no, no, you don't need to buy your ticket or anything, we only need your bank statement."

So I went there the next day, had a brief and nice interview, mostly about the reasons behind my continuous traveling and the lack of Turkish visitors in Taiwan. Then today I received it. I'm really happy about it.

So what was wrong in Malaysia? Perhaps they had the Muslim Alarm on, or only business travelers fly from Malaysia to Taiwan, as oppose to genuine tourists who fly from Thailand. In any case this goes to prove one thing: even when the officer behind the desk is telling you it is just the law and there is nothing he can do about it, he may be wrong or just trying to avoid you. Laws are not absolute; they bend. And as conscious people we'll help them bend wherever they can.

What’s so special about Malaysia?

Malaysia is in South East Asia. It’s population is a mixture of Muslim Malays, Canton and Hokkien Chinese and Tamil Indians, plus the almost extinct Orang Asli, the original people or aborigines. It’s nature is similar to the countries around but not that special and badly damaged. It has some nice coral islands along the East coast but on the West coast the sea is not clean due to all the pollution in the Malacca Straits. It has some of the few remaining “oldest” jungles on earth which survived many ice ages. Its history perhaps is a little more special due to its geographic importance during the days of spice trade. Although the first colonies were Portuguese and Dutch, it entered the last century under British rule and is still a part of the British Common Wealth. There are some nice historical sites to be seen in Malaka and Penang. It’s also a fairly developed country. Its petrol and palm oil production has created much wealth in the past decades (and destroyed most of its forests), which is distributed better than in other countries of the region. Malaysia has the world’s highest twin towers, one of world’s longest bridges, most successful budget airlines and even a space program. It is a so-called democracy with very little freedom of speech and a less than democratic election law. It has the world’s only rotational kingdom system, which permits the kings of 13 states be the king of the whole country for 5 years each but their responsibilities are symbolic… But for me, none of these are what makes Malaysia special.

Kuala Lumpur landscape with Menara KL and Petronas tower on the back.

Petronas are the world’s tallest twin towers.

Having different cultures living together creates the richest aspect of Malaysia. In many places there is no apparent majority of the population. Each society has its organizations, schools, press and even special laws. For example there are things Muslims cannot do, such as play lottery or join a meditation retreat. The Chinese own most of the big business and have their own schools in Mandarin, while the Indians represent the lower part of the economic scale and lately have been expressing a rare discontent because of this. Apart from these it is not uncommon to see Christian churches, Tibetan Buddhist temples and others.

Traditional Chinese tea in China Town, Kuala Lumpur

Perhaps it’s this cultural mix that makes a foreigner feel at home. A westerner who’s visiting Malaysia is many times treated the same way as a Malaysian person as long as s/he doesn’t act like a tourist and not in a touristic area. If you have traveled in Asia you can understand how precious this can be. In Thailand, which is the most popular tourist destination in the region, wherever you go, however you behave, even whichever language you speak, Thai people will see you as a “tourist”. In return, most westerners see Thailand as an oversized hotel (though it’s not easy to say which comes first). But here in Malaysia you are almost a local after a couple of months but as soon as you arrive you’re already a person, not a tourist. This changes the feeling you have just walking around or talking to people. It is very pleasant.

Tea plantations of Cameron Hills.

And you thought all that tea came from Darjeeling?

It’s not that Malaysian people just mind their business and leave you alone. If you need help or just want to chat, you can just go and start it and most people would love to talk to you. Malays like it if you can speak a few words of Bahasa Malaysia, the Chinese or the Indian don’t mind but pretty much everyone speaks English. So if you are a social person you easily make friends here and they will be friends.

Attempting to make friends with the kids of the tea plantations

One contributing factor to the pleasant feeling one has visiting this country is that Malaysia is relatively more prosperous than its neighbors. It’s not that Malaysia has more resources than the rest (like Brunei Darussalam) or historically more privileged (like Indonesia). I think most of it comes from being smart in managing what they have and also the lack of corruption. I believe as long as there are politicians there is corruption but around this side of the world there are guys such as Soeharto of Indonesia and Marcos of the Philippines who stole the wealth of millions of their citizens and even after decades their countries are still trying to take the money they stole back (in fact, there is still a continuing court case against the Marcos family to get the billions of dollars of the country back). As oppose to these pro-American dictators, Malaysia had Dr. Mahatir Mohammed which was like an Asian version of Hugo Chavez at his time. He didn’t take orders from USA or the World Bank, created one of the biggest growth rates in the area and successfully carried Malaysia to safely across the big Asian financial crisis which collapsed the economies of all countries North and South (which also slowed down Malaysia). Today the country neither has Mahatir nor a closed economy and is tensely waiting for the tsunami of the global economic meltdown. But although there is possibly corruption, it is not big or widespread enough to keep the country poor. And the distribution of wealth is pretty well.

Giant poster of the Malaysian space program

So this creates the scene of lots of cars and motorbikes and just a very few people dumpster diving. In Malaysia you don’t find the insisting souvenir sellers in Thailand who are desperate to sell you that one dollar thing so they can profit one cents. Neither do you find as many beggars or inhuman living conditions as in most other places around. Things are a bit more expensive than other countries around with the exception of food. Ah, food…

Adam and Eve Beach in Pulau Perhentian Kecil,
where I swam with many little friendly sharks

I’ve seen the ancient jungle in Taman Negara, dived around a couple of coral islands, seen the tea plantations and some historical places in Malaysia but in my eyes, none of these makes Malaysia as special and worthy of a visit than its food. First of all there is the Malay food, which is mainly lots of spicy curries (not nearly as spicy as in India), fish soup, fries, and some light sweets. Then there is the Chinese food which is like… well, Chinese food. It can be anything and all different ways of cooking them. Then there is the Indian food which brings the roti chanai (like bread and curry), tandoori, tosai, chai and some more spicy curries (still not nearly as spicy as in India). And there are mixtures of these like the Nyonya kitchen which is Malay-Chinese mixture. Western food is also pretty common but you’d be missing a lot if you stick to your old food habits.

Lok Lok stall in the night market. You pick an assortment of
things on sticks, boil them there and eat with yummy sauces.

It would take a long blog entry to explain the food of Malaysia. As far as I know, it’s the only country for which the Lonely Planet guide has planned “Food lovers’ country tours” in its local guidebook, which are tours you can make around the country in search of different tastes. As a person who spent most of his life hating to eat and seeing the whole thing as a chore, I had a second awakening about food here. First time I went to India I discovered the art of cooking. Now in Malaysia each time I go to an evening food court I feel like I’m in an amusement park. Food courts are like big parks where many people put up small food stalls at night and there are tables in the middle and sometimes there is even entertainment on stage. You can find stalls where you fill your ingredients into a bowl and ask them to make them into a soup or you can get things on a little stick (almost anything edible from tofu to crabs to quail eggs) and boil them yourself (lok-lok on photo). And as soon as you take a seat, someone comes to ask you what you drink, which can be a variety of fresh fruit juices to teas and coffees to healthy barley water or sometimes shakes. But when there is no food court, like here in Teluk Bahang, I go to the lady on the corner who cooks at home and sells them on a table every evening. I get rice and self serve myself a choice from her almost 20 yummy dishes. And it’s cheap.

Another pleasant thing about Malaysia is its peacefulness. First of all the country has no serious army or military confrontations. It doesn’t have any terror or people who are seeking independence for Malaysia. And in a smaller scale, you don’t come across people fighting or even quarreling. I’ve spent many months here and haven’t seen a single loud quarrel in public space. They don’t even raise their voice and they don’t drive as aggressively as people do in other Asian countries (although, of course, you cannot compare it with European driving). There is some crime, especially kidnapping of little girls (I think it has to do with the conservative Muslim society) or bombing of ATM machines to rob them. But there is not the prevalent feeling that there can be a criminal next to you who can steal your bag or any dark street can be dangerous. You get these feelings rightfully in neighboring countries but not so much here. Malaysia also doesn’t have any natural disasters, no volcanoes, typhoons or earthquakes (it was hit only lightly by the famous tsunami although it’s very near to where it originated). And best of all, Malaysia is the only country I know which gives 3-months free visa at the border to citizens of almost all nations (it doesn’t recognize Israel). There is even a “Malaysia My Second Home” program, which permits foreign pensioners to deposit some money in a Malaysian bank and stay as long as they wish (or live). And there are many foreigners living, working, studying here but you don’t see the expats of the type that is so common in countries such as Thailand, Cambodia or Philippines, because there is no sex tourism here.

Tree top canopy walk in the
ancient jungles of Taman Negara

Friends ask me why I spend so much time here in Malaysia, why I chose it as my base? I love the people, I love the food, I love the feeling, I love the peace, it is right in the middle of the region and conveniently has the cheapest airlines and other connections to everywhere, and I’ve found here a little place with a garden which I like to see as my home for the moment but that is a subject for another post…

A warning sign in Lake Garden’s Park, Kuala Lumpur

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*I feel I may write more later but meanwhile if you have any questions, any points about Malaysia or the region that you’d like to be clarified about, please leave a comment and I’d be more than happy to reply each of them.

*Most of my time in Malaysia I didn’t have a camera, so the photos here may not be a good selection to represent the country.