Advertisement
Published: September 13th 2007
Edit Blog Post
I must tell you about my day yesterday...
Leaving the hostel late morning and heading to my favourite street vendors for my daily breakfast/lunch of roti (a delicious flat bread style concoction served either plain with a dish of curry - either spicy or dahl, or with various other additives, such as the delicious roti pisang (banana) ).....I was interupted by a Malaysian man wishing to chat. Apparently on holiday we wanted to know whether I would like to have a drink with him ('no thanks, I'm going to the shops'!) and the whether I would like to join him on his motorbike for a trip to the beach ('errr no thanks...bye!)
I was somewhat used to now...in KL I gained attention but not much, but in Georgetown it's a different story. Local men regularly call out whether walking or on motorbike...however, this day was something else!
Whilst walking to the foodcourt I wished I had it as easy as a western male traveller....Malaysians are genuinely friendly, welcoming people, so to be a male would elimate any unwanted attention and be able to react to local people and their offers (well men) with far less suspicion...oh well!
When I reached the foodcourt I sat down at a table...there were two local men on the same table. Chatting a bit I began to realise that a western woman perhaps could not talk to a local man as she would a western man. I became conscious that my top was a bit too low, however pulling it up just brought more attention to it. Needless to say I began to feel uncomfortable as he started to get the wrong idea. At one point he whispered something to me, fearing the worst I was glad that I did not understand what he said and told him such. However, 5 minutes later he asked - 'you follow me?' (URGH!) My emphatic reaction of 'NO!' - head shaking, arms crossing was met by 'you're not interested?' (NO!!!! NO! again) and then (amusingly, I suppose) 'Why not?' !! Rather than meeting this with 'Fuck off mate, I'm not interested because you a gross sleazy man twice my age just because I am a western woman on my own does not make me a hoare!!' I looked the other way and huffily ignored him until he got the message and left - which seemed
to work just as well!
After this I was, seemingly, happily left with a western man on my left to chat to! However, he turned out to be a grumpy old sod who was in Penang to get a visa to return to Thailand to his 'she's alright I suppose' wife (I presume mail order bride) where he had lived for 8 years (it was a bloody mistake) and listened to him moan for a while...
Honestly the people you meet travelling sometimes...!!
---
I did not have much luck with catching local buses from Georgetown - everytime I waited for a particular bus (of varying routes) for around 40 mins and it never came so I always ended up jumping on slightly inappropriate routes instead...however, my first attempt at this was brilliant. Alongside the normal buses at the station are what I see as 'taxi buses'...the male driver and touts call of all passing by 'where are you going' and then say - yes jump on!
At first I was rather dubious as we stopped at every bus stop to poach the local buses customers, but it was a fantastic and enlightening experience as the
bus became jam packed with the wonderfully diverse ethnic mix of Malaysia's communities. At one point the chinese school children piled aboard, the girls in white blouses and blue or purple pinafore dresses...then came the Islamic school and the girls came on head to toe in white, the all in one veils tight around their throats (how the local Malay women don't boil with heat I can only put down to hardy resistance to their normal climate...whereas I, in far less clothing often have to indulge in a cold shower 3-5 times a day!)...yet as with all school girls (the boys were their two) they just stood and giggled in their groups as the jam packed, curtain lined, stuffed toy decorated bus chugged along in rush hour traffic poaching all they could find...I was grinning as I watched the world go by and enjoyed the spectacle.
As I got off the bus on route to a Buddist temple I noticed two traveller's I had seen at the bus station...I failed to catch up with them, however, they later rescued me from frequent attentions from local men who often stopped on motorbikes to chat me up as I walked, by
stopping in a taxi (which they had got after going the wrong way) and picking me up for the temple. It turned out they were staying at the hostel, as were four other traveller who I met at the temple.
-- My last two evenings in Georgetown were spent with Amir, my friend from Melaka and Tioman, who had also come to Penang. A close to nature and soulful traveller of two years, Amir liked to make his own food - and shared with me the most incredible tuna rice salad, seasoned so exquisitely that every mouthful was a healthy and flavoursome delight...but the best part was that the locals do not make salad like that and were so interested they kept coming to watch as Amir chopped and prepared the food...taking great delight in what, to them, was a bit of a spectacle.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.233s; Tpl: 0.034s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.1257s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb