Save the Kitty - pleeease!

It must be summer holidays in Europe, and somebody has been telling those Europeans about our little island (Kapas)! So instead of the place being practically deserted like it was last year during Ramadhan, it's crawling with pasty and sunburnt bodies (not something we are used to here).

Poor Zai has had his idyllic lifestyle rudely interrupted - he complains to us that when he gets up in the morning and comes outside (around 8 am or later) his restaurant is full of Europeans demanding breakfast. He no longer has time to flop around in the ocean making sea-shell jewellery or sit around watching his freshly-caught squid drying in the sun.

But for us, it meant moving to another resort (just down the beach a bit). This place looks like Lisa (our hippie almost-daughter-in-law) has already been here, it's definitely where she belongs.

It's difficult to photograph with all the bits and pieces hanging everywhere, and the shady open restaurant with wooden floors and clean wooden tables. They have some sort of a special deal where people can stay there as "staff", and so there always a number of keen helpers around to serve in the restaurant.

We didn't actually stay there, we booked one of the new cabins in another resort through Hans, the chap running the European place, but that sort of gave us the run of both resorts.

 In between this new resort where we were staying, and the European "Kapas Beach Chalet" resort is another locally-run resort called "Mak Cik Gemuk" - and of course it is all closed up and locked for Ramadhan.

When we first moved into our chalet we could hear a cat yowling - nothing new there, this place has lots of cats, none of them specifically 'owned' by anyone but generally friendly and often adopted (or else they adopt people).

This expectant puss, for example, was trying to keep cool in the restaurant and looked quite well-fed and happy.

But the crying cat near our cabin continued all day and into the evening. When we finally paid attention, we realised there was a mother cat - we could see her prowling around heavily in milk - and a young kitten somewhere calling pitifully.

We soon discovered a locked bathroom in the closed resort where the kitten was trapped, but when we asked around we were told simple "no key". So all night the little kritter cried (without becoming weaker as we had thought it would) and the mother prowled around.

In the morning in the restaurant they asked if we had slept well, and we mentioned the kitten. One of the European girls was immediately concerned - she was quite familiar with the mother cat and knew where its nest was with the second kitten.

They tried putting the desperate mother cat into the bathroom where its baby was, thinking they could then chuck food in there for her until the owner returned, but she was unwilling to jump down into the room. Despite being unwilling to break the lock or damage someone else's property, they decided to remove a sheet of roofing.

When the chap got the roofing off and looked inside he was very surprised to see that the tiny kitten was actually in the toilet bowl in the bathroom - no wonder it hadn't become weak from dehydration, and maybe that was also why mother cat wouldn't go down to it.

Well, he lifted the kitten out, and gave it back to its waiting mother. She sniffed at it suspiciously, and it immediately started to run off wildly on other adventures until she bopped it on the nose and put it back in its place.

It was a relief for all of us.

No Room in the Inn

Someone has been telling people about Kapas Island, and it has been getting harder and harder to get a room at our favourite resort "Pak Ya".

We love the little cabins that each open directly onto the beach, and we love the cooking in the sandy-floored restaurant, AND we love the prices!

Well, this week we would not be refused. We thought that with the fasting month starting there would be less people going out there, but the place was full of people from Europe! All turning their lily-white bodies brown and enjoying their summer holidays.

So we had to turn to one of the other resorts. The biggest resorts are closed anyway because of the Muslim fast. But Kapas Coral Beach resort only opened its 12 or so newly-built chalets earlier this year, and they are keen to pay off their debts.

Of course they are waaayyyy more expensive than the Pak Ya chalets ... but they are air conditioned, and the beds are verrry nice!

So instead of paying RM 60 - 90, you pay RM 90 - 200. Or to put it in AUD, instead of $20+ it's $30+.

So, how good was it?

Well our little cabin (at RM 180, or $60 - you pay for position here) was closest to the beach.

Much more spacious than the other cabins - with a spare single bed. But the service was not so good -  only one towel provided, and "we'll send one over" proved to be meaningless! Kettle provided, but no coffees etc.

But the bed ... super comfy. And, of course, air-con.

There was a switch on the wall apparently for a hot-water system, and it even glowed red when we switched it on. But ... ha ha.

The big shower rose looked hopeful - cold water of course - but the water rushed out from above and all around, until Peter screwed the thing on properly. The lower tap did nothing (except fall off when we touched it!)
The other further away tap caused (cold) water to gush our of the hole up there past where the shower rose comes out. Presumably one day they might attach a hot water system there ... or not!

But Coral Beach Resort is right in front of the best patch of water with lovely reef.

All our friends were there to see us!

Conferencing - what do Fellows actually do?

After our few days of relaxation around Kuching, it was time to get down to business. The reason for us going there was to present at the 21st annual MELTA Conference - that's the "Malaysian English Language Teaching Association". Part of our job as Fellows is to present at conferences, alongside our Malaysian colleagues.

Yeah - the theme of the conference!

Conference people - teachers, lecturers, interested parties ...

Conference forums and plenary meetings ...

And the exciting parts:

Peter and Zaliha's presentation.

And in the (big!) "Rainforest Ballroom", a workshop presentation by Ruth and Azlinda.

It had its fun moments! And if you really want to know what it was all about, you can see all the info on our websites.

Peter's website is Communicative ESL. (click on the link)

Ruth's website relating to this topic is Stories for Malaysian Kids. (click on the link).

And the website that talks about all of our work here is

Kuala Terengganu Fellows 2012. (click on the link). (We have some other websites, but if you go to this one there are links to the others.)

Messing about on the river

Flying in over Kuching, we noticed the place is very green and jungly, with rivers winding all about. We thought a bit of a river cruise would be nice.

Foster (the hotel concierge who was so helpful on the first day) did not seem keen. He suggested we should just walk along the path by the river ... but, no, we really wanted to go on a boat. So in the end he told us about the (one and only government-sponsored) River Cruise.

We hopped into an air-conditioned taxi, and headed on down to the river-front part of town.
We stepped out of the taxi and discovered ...

... the humidity!

Sure enough, there was the River Cruise boat tied up - we were still a bit early, but it was starting to rain so we were keen to get on soon.

Well, we nearly made it, and then this chappy jumped out and offered us a (slightly shorter, very much cheaper) cruise up and down the river in his little boat, leaving almost immediately.

We decided that sounded like fun ... unfortunately he didn't have enough passengers yet, so we sat a few minutes.

That's his little boat - well, at least it has a roof, and we would be out of the rain.

In the end, no more passengers showed up, so there was just us and this New Zealander couple - so very pleasant. We realised after we had been puttering along the river for a while that the boat was not powered by an outboard motor - that was a generator  under the driver chappie's feet, powering the little electric motor that was driving the boat.
















So we puttered our way down the river, looking at the various interesting buildings, such as this government building, ...

 

 ... and this palace ...

... and of course a mosque (certainly not nearly as plentiful here as in Kuala Terengganu!).

But this building was the one that really took Peter's fancy.

That's where he'd like to live. :)

There were other little boats on the river. These are quite different from the boats we see around Kuala Terengganu and Pulau Kapas.

And then there are the obligatory fishing boats.

Oh, did you notice the sky??

It started pouring in rain just as we finished our lovely little cruise.

We popped a few ringgit in the driver's tips box, and grabbed a taxi back to our hotel.

 Then we headed out, skipping through puddles and trying to stay under verandahs, to the delightful Thai restaurant that is very close to the hotel. (We have had tea there every day since we arrived!)

I had some stir-fried mushrooms and baby corn with shrimp, and Peter had these things that are a bit like dumplings with sweetish beef inside.

Meet the folks - in Borneo

One of the requirements for being a jolly good Fellow, is presenting a paper at a conference. Seeing that the MELTA (Malaysian English Language Teaching Association) Conference this year is in Kuching, Sarawak, we signed up!

But who goes to Borneo just for a conference?

So we have taken a few days leave to have a look around before the conference starts.

The Orang Utan

'Orang' is the Malay word for person.

If you come to Borneo, of course you have to see these folks!

Through the hotel concierge (called Foster), we hired a personal tour guide (called Amadi, a friend / relative of Foster of course) and an air conditioned car.

Amadi is very familiar with the good folks at the Orangutan sanctuary, knows them all by name. He has been doing this kind of guiding for yonks, very knowledgeable about all things Sarawak, and is a good guide for this situation. (We have learnt that this is a very worthwhile way to do the tourist thing in places like this.)

When we first got there, this one female was hanging around having breakfast at the feeding station. More and more crowds (mostly Chinese) showed up and pranced around in front of their cameras - with the Orangutan in the background.

Then the park ranger chap suggested everyone might like to move on to feeding station number 2, up the path in the jungle, where his coworker was calling the other primates and offering them food. Amadi quietly suggested we stay where we were a bit longer.

Soon we were rewarded as the mother and baby Orangutan came down the road.

The park rangers worked hard to keep the crowds the mandatory 5 metres away from the pair. The mother kept stopping and looking around - it must have been pretty annoying for her. Amadi pointed out that just because she was walking slowly, it didn't mean that was as fast as she could go.

She went off the road and into the nearby trees, and the baby climbed off her back and swung up and down the trees, putting on quite a show. At one stage he tried to swing from a tiny branch and it broke off, giving him an obvious shock. But he always had one of his other limbs attached to something else.

And Mama was always within reach.

So then we went down the track to feeding station 2.

The park ranger was still on the platform (in the distance) calling, but the orangutans never did show up. At 10am the park closed and everyone had to leave.

The Village People

So then we went to see the cultural village - a kind of village set up for tourists to invade. It is all about the "Longhouse", and I must admit that it was not the kind of longhouse I remember reading about years ago.

It is essentially a  village built up on stilts and all joined together by a bamboo street.

There are lots of houses built along both sides of the bouncy bamboo walkway. Amadi (who has a thing for numbers a bit like our Grandson Sebastian) told us there are 'about 73 doors' in the longhouse, and some 2 000 people.

In between the houses, some of which have two floors, there are community areas. Each house has an internal cooking area, and an outside one like this.

A group entertained the tourists with a bit of a tune played on cooking pots.

One house is built up higher than all the others - this is the Head House. A place where traditionally only the men - village leaders - can go.

Inside the Head House we saw this cannon - ceremonially presented to the village as a respectful gift (and never 'fired in anger') years ago.

And, yes - those are skulls.

A basketful of skulls of conquered warriors from yesteryear.

Amadi knew about the special one, the skull of a more powerful warrior that is polished and kept hidden up high above the others. He grabbed a chair so that Peter could climb up and look.

Amadi's ('spiritual') brother runs a kind of restaurant in the village.

 As the crowds of tourists had mostly thinned, we entered this lovely cool bamboo room for a specially prepared lunch.

We were served with leaf-wrapped packages of sticky rice, and then there was a beautiful baked fish, some delicious chicken that had been cooked in a bamboo tube, and various vegetables.

All washed down with some locally-made rice wine.

The chaps sat down for a bit of a chin-wag, as the rain poured down.

I was amused watching the games the village girls were playing.

The village is very close to a lovely stream and hot springs. The plan was to go there next for a bit of a dip.

Pleasant spot, but rather too many other tourists for us to enjoy it!