Calypso's Journal: Work interrupted

The Malaysian Rally arrived in full force at Pangkor Island Marina - all sixty-odd of them. This meant a busy week of activities and social events for the participants, past and present.

First off was a tour of Pangkor Island but even the lure of free cold beers couldn't entice Paul to take the day off.

We visited an old Dutch fortress, an amazing Chinese temple, had a visit to a traditional boat builder and a somewhat odoriferous wander around a fish salting/drying factory. Then last but certainly not least, a wonderful lunch set out on a beautiful which sandy beach. Fabulous food and fabulous setting.

James Khoo who runs the marina, never fails to amaze us with his generosity and hospitality. When we passed through in 2013, he was equally as welcoming and this is why we chose to haul out here. He seems to treat all the cruisers as though we were his own family.

Th next item on the agenda was a trip to the city of Ipoh. Three luxury buses were organised to take us all to Ipoh some 80 kilometres away. I even managed to persuade Paul to enjoy a day off. Ipoh is one of Malaysia's larger cities and is surrounded by dozens of dramatic limestone hills , a bit like the karsts we saw in both Vietnam and Thailand. The old town section is rich with historical buildings whose architecture dates back to the British occupation. Many have been beautifully restored and are now part of the Heritage Trail.

Ipoh developed as a result of the discovery of tin during the 20s and 30s and rapidly grew. Prior to the 1970s, Malaysia was the largest producer with around a third of world production, but has since steadily fallen. The mining operations in Malaysia and Indonesia have left large tracts of land devastated and the islands of Belitung and Bangka in Indonesia are all but wasteland. Having said that though, I did once see a documentary on Banka where a team of of horticulturists have been trying to convert areas into a botanical garden which is certainly encouraging. However, between the disastrous burning of the tropical forests to make way for the oil palms and the destruction the mining has caused, there is a mighty long way to go to right the wrong.

Tin mining (photo courtesy of internet)

Back to Ipoh; there are many limestone caves in and around the city and our first stop on the tour was to Kek Lok Tong (極樂洞;Cavern of Utmost Happiness) a spacious and beautiful cave temple which opens up on the other side to a magnificent zen garden that had previously been an old tin mine (a drop in the ocean but it's encouraging to see some effort to beautify).

Next we were taken around the old town to visit some of the colonial buildings on the Heritage Trail with quite a few history lessons thrown in for good measure.

Malaysia has a rich and diverse history when one considers its occupation over the years by the Dutch, the Portuguese, the British and then the Japanese. No wonder the food is so exceptionally good here.

Speaking of food, Ipoh has a vibrant food scene with a vast proliferation of hawker centres and restaurants. We were free to wander at leisure for lunch and managed to find a terrific restaurant serving delicious curries which cost less than $2.50 per head. The cuisine here is definitely something to write home about: between the ethnic groups of Malay, Chinese, Indian and European, they have developed some of the tastiest dishes imaginable.

The city is also well known in Malaysia for its "white coffee" where the coffee beans are roasted with palm-oil margarine and the resulting coffee is served with condensed milk. Not being a coffee drinker myself and certainly not a connoisseur in any form, I fail to understand why anyone would want to drink insipid sickly sweet white coffee but.....to each his own. Paul's a coffee drinker but he likes it black with no sugar and finding regular ground coffee is not an easy talk here; there are shelves upon shelves of "white coffee" but little sign of regular old ground stuff. Indonesia has excellent coffee but it doesn't seem to be imported into its neighbour.

Back to the marina, the following night was a fabulous dinner on the lawn at the top of the marina ramps. James, as usual, did himself proud. Unfortunately, I had a bit of a cripple for a husband who had, as usual, spent the day working on the boat. He had just had scaffolding placed around the port side of the hull so that he could get to the topsides and he was busy up there when he managed to fall off to land right on his back from a distance of about 2.5 metres. I heard the crash and a scream then silence! I managed, in my panic, to get down the ladder to find him lying on the ground badly winded and hurting with an ever increasing crowd of people surrounding him.

As luck would have it, there's always a doctor on a boat and, in this instance, an orthopedic surgeon who checked him over before allowing him to move. Reluctantly, he agreed to let Chris and Lynn from Out of the Blue II take him to a clinic to get an X-ray where no broken ribs or bones were found and no internal bleeding, just incredibly sore and getting stiffer by the moment. This is now the fourth time he's injured his ribs since we left SA, twice were actual breaks and always on his right side!