Our Patch

Walking the streets of Kuala Terengganu in not a pleasant experience. For one thing, it's quite hot (this is the tropics, pretty much on the equator) and for another thing, it's a bit of an obstacle course.

That is the pavement/footpath, and a relatively good section of it. This man is not (necessarily) crossing the road, he is walking in the safest place. There are open drains/sewers all over the place (sometimes, but not always, covered with a grill) and all kinds steps and stairs.

The other day (on a weekend) we wandered out the back of our place, along the winding tracks of the little village there. Looking back, there is our building again ...

... and the horrible yellow stain (which is not really there) is our little piece, the three windows of our apartment. You'll notice there are a lot of floors above us.

Inside the building, when we come out of our (front and only) door, we can see right through the front of the building, and there are little sitting areas as well as the light/air well where people hang their washing (over the abyss).

At the front of our building is a street with lovely shady trees ...

That's one of the little rickshaw men from China Town riding through (there are only a handful of them - tourist option.)

Looking around the side of our building, you can see that the higher floors have a different format to ours ... and possibly some interesting views, we realised, so we hopped back inside and up the lift to the tenth.

Now we can see right down our street, over the top of the little shops, and out to the river mouth (that's the 'Kuala' in 'Kuala Terengganu'.)

What we had thought was a boat harbour when we were in the hotel, is obviously the river mouth, and it's about time we went down to have a closer look.

So we wandered out along the groin on the south side of the river. Hidden among those rocks on the left are quite a lot of fishermen. Some of them have constructed little temporary shelters with sticks jammed between the rocks, and they usuallyhave their motorbikes parked nearby.

We can see this thing sticking out over the top of the groin even from our window, and had always presumed it was a beacon, or maybe some sort of winch. Then we thought it might be a sunken ship, or maybe the thing they used to build the groin with.

And looking back at the city from the end of the groin - that's our square white building in the middle.

The Realities of Life

We don't get a lot of time to wander on the groin or beach, or even through the village backstreets, because we are working! Yes, really! Five days a week we get up at 5.30am, and leave home in the pitch dark (before 7am) when the streets are full of poor little school kids off to school for a 7.30am start. The little girls all wear white head scarves and look like little penguins. We don't finish until 5-ish, and then drive the 20km back to our apartment.

The other day they had a staff meeting - well you expect that - of all the faculty, not just English Department.



So ... of course it was all in Bahasa Malaysia. We had to be there because we were going to be formally introduced (to everyone, again)... not that we understood anything they said about us, other than our names (they called me Dr Ruth :D)

The men all sat on the left - that's Lloyd, our third fellow, by the way. They all prayed, and signed a pledge, and sang their national anthem (quite nicely).

The rest of the two hours - we have no idea. Yes, I had my iPad, so I was playing a game.

And that's Nazeri sitting behind us, finding it all very amusing.

A Holiday Already

I have had a very long day today, and I'm ready to fall into bed ... with the windows open, the fan on '1', and the mozzie thing plugged into the wall. The man in the mosque seems to have finally finished for tonight so I should be able to sleep.

Tomorrow is the prophet's birthday. I don't know what that 'means', except we get a day off, I get to sleep in past 5.3oam, and I'm guessing the shops will be mostly closed and the man in the mosque will once again get on his microphone and burble on for hours as he does sometimes. (I can't actually understand what he's saying and so I don't need to listen.)

Integrating into the Culture

Finding a home

We have been shown a few places to rent ... but the gap between our expectations and theirs was too great!

Not that we expect to find somewhere totally "Western", but just closer than what we had been shown. Especially a kitchen that I can work out what to do with ...

From our hotel window we noticed a big white building near the city centre, and thought that might be a good location if we had a choice.

We were finally put in touch with a Chinese agent, who said she had a furnished apartment available - and it turned out to be within the big white building!

From our (3) windows on the fourth floor we can look out over the sea, and there is our old hotel.

Inside the Apartment

It's bright and spacious!

Looking back the other way from the sitting area:

Lots of wide open space ... lots of tiles to clean (but at least no carpets, some places we looked at had grotty old carpets.)

Big bedroom, with an ensuite. There are 3 bedrooms, and two bathrooms. The bathroom, though, is the local style. The toilet and shower share almost the same space, everything gets wet (like we had in China) - but at least this bathroom is bigger than some of the ones we looked at.

So, all in all we quite like it.

People Good and Bad

One thing about the apartment block - it's owned and inhabited by Chinese, who are generally not Muslim ... and whose ways we are familiar with.

We went shopping - although the apartment is "furnished", we needed a lot of stuff from sheets and towels, to kitchen appliances and utensils, and then food as well. We returned to the apartment with a carload of stuff, and the unenviable task of getting it all into (and out of) the lift up to our fourth floor apartment.

The lift is nerve-wracking at the best of times with a fast-closing door that slides shut onto any unwary visitor.

As we stood by the lift with our goods heaped on the floor, other people turned up also wanting to use the lift. When the lift arrived I jumped in and jammed my finger on the "door open" button, and to our surprise all these people started loading stuff in for us. And at our floor again they helped us unpack.

Nice people!

Then this morning (Friday, religious day, most things are closed) we found a fresh foods market (in the Chinese quarter) and were wandering through.

Suddenly we heard a man shouting - and it wasn't "fifty percent off" or one of those market shouts. We couldn't understand, but he was obviously angry.

All the women in the area where we were started ducking down behind counters, so I joined them.

Shouting man marched by with a pistol in his hand, ready near his right ear.

Bad man!

He passed by, and the women giggled and reappeared. My knees were a little shaky though!

Everyday Chores

Chinese buildings usually have washing hanging all over the outside. Our building has an internal air/light well, and everyone has a place to hang their washing.

Our apartment comes equipped with a twin-tub - haven't used one of those little beauties for a few years! The modern front loaders do a load in an hour and a half or more, but with a twin tub you stay in control and can do it as quickly as you like.

So I did a load of washing - it had become fairly urgent after a week and a half in hotels.

I found the stick with our number on it, and dangled our stuff out over the abyss!

Weekends

The weekends are a bit back-to front (although Terengganu is not the same as the rest of Malaysia, being more Muslim). Friday is the first day of the weekend, with everything closed. Saturday is the other weekend day - and we are hoping that (tomorrow) everything will be open, because we have a lot to do.

On Sunday we have to work, first day of the working week.