One Sick Puppy

Georgetown

Hey guys, there’s so much to see in this amazing city, you just gotta have a look for a bit …

Lebuh Armenian (Armenian St) is a quirky area full of street art, quaint little cafés and sweets shops, beautifully decorated shopfronts, kitsch shops for kids, and a really nice vibe. It’s pretty full of tourists at times too, tourists like me.

Free Entry. Looks a little sharp in there.

Tourists dressed in traditional Perenakan clothes. The Perenakan culture originated from the first waves of settlement by southern Chinese families, between the 14th and 17th centuries. They settled in some parts of the Malay Peninsula, Singapore, Southern Thailand and Indonesia, and intermarried with the locals, creating a distinctive hybrid culture. In Penang they’re also known as Baba Nyonyas. More about that later.

In the 19th century Penang was booming, as a strategic British trading and shipping centre. Many of the Chinese immigrants who arrived found work in the port area. Some of these families set up floating villages on the water, known these days as clan jetties. Each jetty was owned by an extended family, with houses built on the wooden piers, and shops and temples as well.

Beach Road and the waterfront area is jam packed with British colonial buildings, some of them absolutely beautiful.

The magnificent City Hall building

St George’s Anglican Church, the oldest church in Southeast Asia, opened in 1819

Fort Cornwallis was built under the command of the British, to defend Penang Island from the kingdom of Kedah on the Malay mainland, and from pirates. It was never used in open combat, but as an administrative centre.

This is a Dutch cannon, called Sri Rambai, and it’s sacred to locals. If women place flowers on the barrel of the cannon, apparently they’ll improve their fertility. Interesting.

Cruise ships arrive in Penang regularly, instantaneously swelling the tourist population by 4,000 a pop. They stay a night or two, and a new ship arrives at least twice a week. The ships are huge, significantly taller than the old ferry terminal spire.

The George Hotel, five star, boutique and very bourgie

The beautiful Majestic Theatre

Happy Chinese New Year (yep, it’s still happening, the fireworks are still blasting)

Fake cherry blossoms are everywhere.

Happy Year of the, um …?? Squirrel?

I originally planned to stay for a week in Georgetown, but after a few days here I loved it so much that I decided to  stay longer. I shifted hotels to this place, the Hotel Noble, a great old school Chinese hotel recommended to me by Renee, who’s here with her partner Michael and some friends, for long term Ayurvedic treatments. Renee’s been here lots, and knows the place like the back of her hand. We’ve hung out a little together here, it’s been fun.

Renee smiling freely, Michael’s smile playing a little hard to get

As soon as I decided to stay here longer I got sick. Typical. I got a sore throat, fever, headache, sinus thing, you know, the usual symptoms. Annoying. I’ve been out for the count for a few days, and it seems to have taken a while to recover from this one. It’s been a bit nasty.

There’s an amazing night market down a little laneway around the corner. I can’t tell you how good it is as you’ll get too jealous.

This friendly woman is cooking up char koay kak for me, a delicious dish of chopped fried rice cakes (not those sort of rice cakes), bean sprouts, spring onions and egg.

They did a costume change for the second photoshoot.

I often got spring rolls and tofu from this stall. So delicious. The black things are eggs soaked in soy sauce. I didn’t try them.

My hotel’s right in Little India. I’ve been eating Indian at least once a day, and then getting samosa or wadai snacks from the street, and, of course, sweets. Every day. Roti canai or roti telur (egg) for brekky. Well, brunch. All sorts of delectables for dinner. So good. I noticed the anti-straws poster just after they served me my drink with a straw.

Lucky it was signposted, I wouldn’t have known what that thing was.

Lots of kolams painted on the streets.

One day I took the ferry to the mainland to enjoy the harbour view. It pissed with rain and I hardly saw a thing.

But it eventually cleared up.

The old Penang ferries are out of action at the moment. Instead, they’re using the old Langkawi ferries.

Another cendol, from a world famous cendol maker. Well, ok, not world famous, just Penang famous. But the cendol itself was world class, according to my internationally recognised sweet tooth.

Ëcovape? WTF does that even mean?

Batu Ferringhi and Penang National Park

One day I rode right up to the northwest corner of the island. It’s beautiful.

As soon as you leave the old town, the skyscraper apartments begin. They’re everywhere. Georgetown has a population of over half a million, in a small area, and the whole island has nearly three quarters of a million residents. They’ve all gotta live somewhere, so it may as well be on top of each other I guess.

Eventually you leave the seemingly endless urban jungle and hit the real jungle. Little headlands poke out into the sea, with little bays and cute beaches between them. Monkeys are everywhere.

Eventually I reached Batu Ferringhi Beach, which is beautiful, except that so much of it is dwarfed by ritzy high rise hotels, with limited beach accessibility (unless you walk along the beach, which I did, but no locals do because they don’t really seem to really know how to actually walk, maybe it’s a genetic thing).

Another day I took a local bus to Teluk Bahang (Hot Bay), and yeah, it was hot.

Teluk Bahang borders Penang National Park, and I went on a beautiful hike towards Pantai Duyung (Monkey Beach).

There were lots of monkeys everywhere.

This aggressive guy growled and sprinted for me, thinking I had food. I didn’t. Eventually I had to kick sand at him to scare him off, I got a bit worried when he kept baring his deadly sharp fangs at me.

Monkey Beach

More roundabout art. Pitcher plants, which are carnivorous plants endemic to the area.

Thaipusam

This incredible Tamil Hindu festival commemorates the tale of the goddess Parvati offering a divine spear (vel) to her son Murugan, so he could fight the celestial bad guy Surapadman and his nasty brothers.

Murugan won (of course). It could be because he has six heads, so you can’t really attack him from behind.

Murugan ends up splitting Surapadman in two with his vel, and the two pieces turn into a mango tree. He then splits the mango tree in two, and the two pieces become a peacock and a rooster. He ends up riding the rooster. What a guy.

And such an imaginative story. Way more interesting than the Christian tales.

So Thaipusam is really massive anywhere where there’s lots of Tamils (such as in South India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Singapore). An estimated 1.2m worshippers celebrated the festival in Georgetown this year. That’s huge, as you can imagine.

In Georgetown the festival centrepiece is a parade that begins at Sri Mahamariamman temple in Little India, and ends about 18 hours later, at the Arulmigu Sri Balathandayuthapani temple, at the foothills of the forest. I dare you to say those two names really fast.

Preparation for the festival takes place for weeks beforehand, including the painting of kolams on the pavements and roads along the parade route.

The starting point

Two amazing chariots, one gold and one silver, are pulled by decorated oxen through the streets, and whenever it stops worshippers make offerings to Lord Murugan and the sacred val, the priests receive the offerings and bless the worshippers.

Thousands and thousands of husked coconuts are thrown against the ground, their juice spraying all over everyone, and then the half coconuts are filled with palm oil, and lit, and become part of the offerings.

The next shift

When the chariots and the worshippers finally make it to the temple, the statue and val are carried up the hundreds of steps to the top, accompanied by the throngs.

The night before the parade begins, and early on the parade morning, there are many rituals. Particularly keen devotees take vows and pierce their faces and bodies with metal spikes.

I missed this bit, as I was too unwell to last for long on the day of the parade in Georgetown, but my Mexican friend Ricardo went to the Thaipusam festival in the Batu Caves just out of Kuala Lumpur on the same day, and here are some of his amazing pics.

The Batu Caves temple is an incredible place, right on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur.

Some of those pics are pretty gruesome huh. I’ve seen this sort of intense self mutilation (devotion?) before. Once I went to the Phuket Vegetarian Festival (Thailand), and, like Thaipusam, devotees go into a deep trance, before eventually turning themselves into walking shishkebabs and scabbards. The following are a few net pics from that festival (scroll past if you're the queasy type).

I also saw them climb huge ladders, with steps made of sharp blades, with the deadly sharpness being demonstrated clearly before they climbed. None of the devotees cut their feet, I still don’t understand how. Mind over matter I guess.

I also saw devotees walk over a huge mountain of hot coals, so incredibly hot that I could hardly get near it. On and on they nonchalantly strolled barefoot across the coals, I’ll never forget seeing one devotee pickup a glowing hot coal with his bare fingers, to light up his cigarette. Once his cigarette was lit he held the hot coal in his fingers for awhile, then eventually threw it back in the fire.

Great that the trance didn’t affect his smoking habit, that’s all I can say.

Kek Lok Si

This beautiful temple, situated in the hills overlooking Georgetown, is a magnificent collection of Chinese, Thai and Burmese religious structures, an incredible blend of quite different and unique Buddhist styles.

The temple was built between 1890 and about 1930, but there’s always new things being built, it looks decidedly more spectacular than it did the last time I was there, about 30 years ago.

But the most amazing thing of all is that right now, over the Chinese New Year period, it’s been decorated by over a million coloured lights, to create what can only be described as the most outDisneylandish display of kitsch my eyes have ever seen.

Every single tiny nook and cranny, every tree, every roof, ceiling and wall has been decorated with coloured lights. It’s like Australian Christmas in the burbs, multiplied by about a billion. It’s nuts. I got dizzy just being there.

The main stupa, which you can see from far away, has a Chinese base, a Thai middle, and a Burmese top, with each section looking distinctly different.

The Thai king Rama VI laid the foundation stone for the pagoda, and Bhumibol, another Thai king who reigned before the current one, donated a massive Buddha to the temple as well.

In 2002 a massive 100-ft statue of the goddess Guan Yin was completed, housed in a 200-ft high pavillion. She may have been even bigger, but Guan Yin’s height was restricted during the building, so her shadow wouldn’t fall on the nearby Penang State Mosque.

The statue is absolutely huge, beautiful, and is surrounded by an army of little Guan Yins. They’re everywhere.

The thing to do, apparently, is to circumambulate the statue, placing coins in metal pots as you go. It was really noisy.

There was an amazing view from the top too, I gotta say.

Actually, as a personal observation about this country, the religious tolerance and crossover in Malaysia is quite amazing. I was genuinely happy to see many Chinese taking part in rituals during the Hindu Thaipusam festival, and I’ve seen many Hindu and Christian deities in Chinese temples around the country. Festival holidays are nationwide, everyone seems to know what each represents, even if they’re from a different faith.

There doesn’t seem to be so much crossover in Islam though. Muslim doctrine stipulates that there’s only one true God, Allah, and so all the other dudes are nothing more than imposters.

Arulmigu Sri Balathandayuthapani Temple

The main Hindu temple in Georgetown is also up in the hills, and it was where the Thaipusam procession on the previous weekend ended. Because I was sick, I couldn’t go there during the festival, so I went a few days later instead. It’s so beautiful.

And it was quiet. Hardly a soul around. Everyone was partied out.

And, I’m really sorry to say, the whole district smelt as if 1.2 million people had been there the previous weekend, and every single one of them had gone to the toilet. It absolutely reeked of human excrement. Sad but true.

At the bottom

The beginning of the hundreds of steps to the top. This would’ve been absolutely teeming with people a few days earlier.

The tall stupa at the top

Inside the main temple

A stunning view from the top

Perenakan Opulence

As I mentioned earlier, many Chinese people migrated to Malaya, Singapore, southern Thailand and Indonesia between the 14th and 17th centuries. For some elite classes of Chinese, their culture blended with the local culture over time, and evolved into a new distinct Perenakan, or Baba Nyonya, culture.

Some of the immigrants were already wealthy business people and aristocrats, they brought their business acumen and contacts to Georgetown, and took full advantage of the huge trading opportunities that were available. Their fortunes grew exponentially.

The wealthy elite built incredible mansions, and decorated them with the most exquisite Chinese and European furniture and art, they dressed in fashionable and ostentatious clothes, and covered themselves with oodles of Ming and Qing bling. They enjoyed totally opulent lifestyles, and really were quite the show offs.

Well, at least some of them were.

Many of these amazing Perenakan mansions still exist around the country, and one particularly lavish one is open to the public in Georgetown. I was gobsmacked when I went inside.

This chair looks as if it’s specially designed for heart-to-hearts

The honeymoon bed. Incredibly, it was used only once, on the wedding night.

They didn’t travel light, these guys. And probably never ever lifted one of these trunks themselves either.

This television was manufactured in 1959, the same year as tv broadcasts first commenced in my hometown, Adelaide.

This, my friends, is not a clock, but what they called a “disc music box.”

It used 66cm diameter rotating discs to play seriously complicated pieces of music using the same principles as the little music boxes some of us had as kids, where a set of pins placed on a revolving disc or cylinder pluck the tuned teeth of a steel comb. This one was built in 1905.

Female headdress for weddings or other important events

The most exquisite indoor courtyard, complete with fountain. I wanted to have a bath in there but there were tourists around who might get 1.offended 2.tempted 3.ideas about putting me out of my misery

Brekky clobber

I so wanted to play this. I miss playing piano soooooo much.

Incredibly, this is carved out of only one piece of jade

They had their own private temple in the backyard. Nothing too flash. Nah.

Bound To Be Painful

The cool cultural practices that accompanied the Chinese immigrants in their new countries of Malaya, Indonesia, ThaIland and Singapore weren’t the only practices they brought with them.

They also brought the bad ones, and one particularly nasty practice was the incredibly crazy ritual of footbinding.

This gruesome practice started in China way back in the 10th century, and became common in the elite classes during the Song dynasty, a dynasty which was also particularly characterised by loads of singing.

The barbaric practice of footbinding first originated when Emperor Tang ordered one of his concubines to bind her feet in silk, in the shape of the crescent moon, and then perform a dance on her toes, on a lotus flower floor sculpture he’d had built out of precious stones.

Unfortunately the concubine did too good a job, her dance was so elegant and beautiful that others sought to imitate her, and the practice began to spread amongst the elite.

Having tiny feet became a sign of elitism, beauty and even eroticism, which, when you see what bound feet look like, I can only describe as one of the more macabre of all sexual fantasies.

Wow. You turned on?

The ritual involved actually breaking the feet and toes of girls between the ages of four and about nine, then pushing their broken toes underneath the soles of their feet, and tightly binding them, to make their feet smaller.

It doesn’t take much imagination to realise how excruciatingly painful the process would have been, and that the health implications were horrendous and lifelong.

Toe nails became in-grown and infected. The lack of circulation caused incredible infections and gangrene, complications which eventually killed an estimated 10% of all bound girls and women.

Of course the practice also hugely affected mobility and balance, and most bound girls and women were unable to carry out any tasks that involved being on their feet for any prolonged period.

In the elite classes the feet were unbound and washed every day, the toenails clipped, and dead flesh and skin removed. As bones healed, they were re-broken. The feet were then dried and re-bound, even tighter, to make them smaller still.

Despite all the horrifying implications of the practice, as time passed footbinding became even more, rather than less, common in China, and eventually spread to all classes of society.

What on earth were they thinking?

It beggars belief, but by the 19th century it was estimated that 40-50% of all Chinese women had bound feet, and for upper class Han Chinese women the proportion was close to 100%.

Baba Nyonyas with bound feet. No, they’re not going ice skating. See how they smile.

Their tiny tiny shoes. How sexy.

It’s absolutely incredible to me that a practice that was so devastatingly painful, harmful and extremely dangerous for girls became, over time, more and more common in Chinese society.

This must rate as one of the more memorable examples of the unrivalled intelligence and deep sense of equality and compassion of the patriarchy.

I think we’ve had enough of these types of things. It’s been centuries too long.

Women, it’s your turn now. You’ve gotta help us all.

Please take over!!

Penang Hill and the Botanical Gardens

One hot sunny day, Parisian Luc, dulce loco Mexicano Ricardo and I went to the stunning Penang Botanical Gardens, in the foothills northwest of the city.

I met these 2 riffraffians independently in Ipoh, and we’ve been hanging together for a week or so, it’s been awesome. Both are travellers, not tourists, both have been on the road for a long time, and like to do things the local yokel way, like me, if possible.

The Penang Botanical Gardens were first established in 1884 on an old quarry site, making them one of the first gardens ever created in a British colonial settlement.

These days the expansive grounds display all sorts of amazing plants, glorious rainforest trees and flowers, all connected by beautifully manicured paths.

This tree grows its flowers close to the trunk

Luc is a member of an insect group on Fakebook, (I don’t mean that the Fb members are actually insects, although some could be I guess, the more intelligent ones), and they all post pics of insects to each other.

So throughout the day we stopped a lot, to look at different varieties of bugs, butterflies and ants.

This guy was impressive, but I tried not to show my amazement too much to Ricardo and Luc. Instead I nonchalantly mentioned that we have ants double this size in the tropics in Australia, and that this guy is only really a pipsqueak by world standards. They sorta changed the subject, and, horrifyingly, didn’t seem that impressed. As we carried on walking I had to rack my brain for more successful ways to impress them and be loved.

This shady, beautiful spot was magnificent. Even I admitted it openly. We hung there for awhile, watching the small tortoises wander about in the pond, looking for lotus leaves big enough to hold their weight so they could chill out and sunbake.

I’m a big fan of these guys

This guy has a native bee on its tongue

After exploring the gardens we took a tiny path up to the left, which eventually led to the top of Penang Hill. It was a long and steep climb to the 820m summit, and the gradient wasn’t gentle, it was rough and ready. But so were we. German Alina joined us about two thirds of the way up. She’s just been living in Jakarta for three months, so we had lots to talk about. Plus she speaks English.

The track was steep, and dodgy in places

We swam in this magnificent creek, it was the most refreshing dip ever. Refreshing in the sense of cold (for me that is, who has no fat reserves). The other guys just stayed in there as if it was perfect.

Very narrow bridge

Pitcher pictures

A couple of times we glimpsed the city in the distance

This is one of the most beautiful fungi I’ve ever seen.

My friend and anemone. Actually, no, it’s the most incredible flower.

They really do have long tails, these long-tailed macaques. Sadly, they’ve just had their status changed from vulnerable to endangered, and their population has rapidly declined in the last couple of decades, for a number of reasons.

Habitat destruction is a major factor. Another is that in some countries (such as Indonesia) it’s not illegal to have them as pets, so people exploit them for money, or simply kill them as pests. You see them for sale in the markets. It’s pretty horrible.

A Brief(ish) Herstory of Malaysia

I can’t bring myself to be in a place without at least a cursory glance at its past. And when I do I’m almost always shocked at what I discover. Every single country seems to have an incredibly gruesome skeleton in its closet, or, more often, a whole army of them.

Malaysia is a relatively new country, only existing with its current borders since 1965.

The early Malays actually originated from Yunnan in China, right next door to current Myanmar and northern Laos. Throughout the first millennium AD, people of Malay origin came to be the dominant group on the Malay peninsula and in Borneo, eventually superseding the original indigenous folk, the orang asli.

Small states were established, and they were greatly influenced by Indian culture, which had been around from way back in the 3rd century BC. This was also true for most of Southeast Asia at the time.

In the 4th and 5th centuries AD, Malaysia was controlled by the South Indian Pallava dynasty, who were the ones who built the incredible Shore Temple in Mahabalipuram, in Tamil Nadu.

The Chinese influence was also strong in Malaysia, given the constant people movements between the two countries, as well as Malaysia’s strategic trading location. Hinduism and Buddhism therefore became the dominant religions in the region, which greatly affected Malay culture and language.

Between the 7th and the 13th century, much of the Malay peninsula came to be under the control of the Buddhist Srivijaya empire, which had its capital in Palembang in Sumatra.

By the late 13th century the Siamese (Thai) kingdom of Sukhothai had taken over, and in the 14th century they were superseded by the Hindu-Buddhist Majapahit empire, which was based in Java.

Everyone just kept taking over the place.

Islam came to the Malay peninsula in the 13th century, via Arab and Indian traders, and a major settlement was set up in Malacca, in the south. Over time various sultanates were created throughout the peninsula and in Borneo, many of which were very powerful.

More Colonists Arrive

Those profit-hungry Europeans then turned up, first the Portuguese took Malacca in 1511, but they were eventually defeated by the Dutch in 1641, (with the help of the Johor Sultanate). The Dutch were more interested in Indonesia though, so they didn’t really put resources into expanding their control in Malaysia.

In 1824 the Dutch ceded Malacca to the Brits, in the Anglo-Dutch Treaty, but the Poms didn’t try to take over the whole country like they did in Oz, but rather, had their own smaller settlements, and did deals with all the sultans and their sweet sultanas. Many of the sultanates were at war with each other, and the British offered them protection in return for certain trading and territorial rights.

The Brits also founded Singapore in 1819, and set up administrative control in Penang. The area became known as British Malaya.

Then came the second really Great War, WWII.

The Japanese arrived in in Malaya in Dec 1941 and took over the entire peninsula within 2 months. Before World War II had even commenced they had already invaded and occupied much of eastern China, and so Malaya’s huge Chinese population were immediately regarded as a serious internal threat by the Japanese.

One of the first things the Japanese did was to summarily execute tens of thousands of Chinese people, up to 80,000 of them. They then gave the remaining population an “offer they couldn’t refuse.”

They divided communities into groups of 30 families, which they called “mutual guarantee units.” Each Chinese member of these families was forced to pledge complete allegiance to the Japanese, and if they carried out this pledge they would not be killed. However, if just one member of any of the families did anything whatsoever against the Japanese, every single member of the whole 30 families would be executed.

So inventive! So innovative!

The Japanese military police, the Kempeitai, were brutal. They paid informants handsomely, and any resistance was quickly dealt with. The local population had to bow to the Japanese, if they didn’t they were severely beaten, and sometimes killed.

Thankfully the war ended in late 1945, and the Japanese surrendered to the British.

Independence

The British were pretty much bankrupt after WWII, and they didn’t have the money for the reconstruction of many of their war-ravaged former colonies, so support for independence became official British policy in many places.

But divisions based on race were already high in Malaysia. The British wanted equal citizenship status for all Chinese, Indians and Malays in the states they ruled, but the Malay sultans from the other states didn’t want to weaken any of their power. The British gave in, and the Federation of Malaya was established in 1948, completely ruled autonomously by the sultans.

Many Chinese, however, were not content to live in a country where they had no citizenship rights. Armed resistance by the Malayan Communist Party (MCP), most of whose members were Chinese, broke out.

This resistance war became known as the Malayan Emergency, it lasted from 1948 until 1960, and it basically involved Commonwealth troops fighting an anti-insurgency battle against MCP guerillas. Atrocities were committed on both sides, as usual. The British eventually won.

Singapore attained its own autonomy in 1955, and independence was subsequently granted to the rest of British Malaya in 1957. They both joined with the other sultan-ruled Malay states in 1963, to become Malaysia. But in 1965 the Malay controlled government expelled Singapore from the Union, to reduce Chinese influence, creating the present-day borders of Malaysia.

After decades of government-backed economic plans, Malaysia’s economy has flourished, and despite corruption and regular political infighting, these days it’s the 3rd wealthiest country in Southeast Asia, after Singapore and Brunei.

Ipoh

I stayed in this town in the hills southeast of Penang for a few nights, to check out the scenery, the food, and the temples. It’s beautiful. That’s where I met Luc and Ricardo.

It was really fun to hang out with those guys, we pretty much spent a whole week together in Ipoh and Georgetown, saw amazing places, ate incredible food, had loads of laughs, and even had a private dance party - private because sadly we couldn’t find anyone else to join in.

Ipoh local bus

The town has a little Little India, as opposed to Georgetown’s big Little India.

Masalah is Hindi for problem

Chai spices drying on the street

And mustard seeds

Amazing Chinese-influenced architecture

Ricardinho in the colourzone

Luc mingling with the locals

Scabbing a drink

The amazing Ling Sen Tong temple, on the outskirts of the town

Def needs a nose hair trim

Black and Gold

Hanuman in a Chinese temple?

Let sleeping Buddhas lie

Reminds me of the Virgin Mary who wasn’t a virgin (aka the Immaculate Deception)

Guan Yin looking rather matronly

I want pants like his

We also went to another amazing temple, the Perak Tong Cave Temple.

Avalokitesvara in full armoury

This guy looks genuinely happy

Unlike him

We climbed way way up to the top of a hill above the temple. The steps were steep and wonky. We dripped buckets of sweat. I guess that’s what happens in the wet tropics.

We didn’t trow any stones up tere.

Back to Penang

I spent a few more days in Penang, as it really took me ages to properly recover from whatever bug I had, it really sapped my energy levels for a couple of weeks.

Sitting in a Hong Kong bar

Thin Lizzy came to Georgetown once.

It's a sign, Michael

Chinese bikkies drying in the sun

I’m not sure what this orange food mountain is

Looks like the front cycle is bi

I didn’t come up with this slogan for the Whisk Café, but easily could have

There’s some magnificent tiled floors in Georgetown

Little India Jewellery Store ad. Luc tells me she’s a famous Bollywood actress, (and he knows about such things).

Giving some lip

Onesies look like torture in this climate

Kolkuttan sweets. One out of the three we tried was good. I had Indian sweets pretty much every night while I was in Georgetown (except when I was really sick). Most of them are over-the-top sweet. But the carrot halva is sublime.

You can buy a pack of 20 ciggies for $4.

Mouthing off

No shortage of Cinderellas for the Prince now

I went to a couple of Thai wats and a Burmese one as well. They were all quite magnificent actually.

The first was called Wat Bupharam.

Amazing Gates

Rather realistic looking lingam, but in a Thai temple?

And Ganesha too? You can really see how both Hindu and Buddhist religions are intertwined in these parts.

What do you get when you cross an elephant with a chicken?

I don't know who this is

The Burmese temple, Dhammikarama, and its temple grounds, were absolutely stunning.

This Buddha was absolutely huge and incredibly beautiful

Intricate gold finery

I ran this gauntlet of high-fives

And last but not least was Wat Chaiya Mangalaram, another Thai temple.

Buddha, depicted here on his death bed

Lotus floor

Just a small sample of the thousands of Buddha images in this room

Ancestor ashes are also kept here, under the reclining Buddha statue

Heading North Again

At last, I’m finally feeling energetic again.

I remember in my early travel days, when I’d get really sick it’d sometimes make me question what the hell I was doing all alone, a million miles away from home, without anyone to look after me.

I’m happy to say that these days I feel so different. Luckily I have the complete luxury of being able to rest for as long as I want (visa permitting), so that’s exactly what I did.

It’s so good.

And now I’m champing at the bit again, and I’m gonna head north.

I’m so happy.

I’m off to the Land of Smiles.❤️