Temples of Ipoh

Tourists come to Ipoh, if they do at all, for the food for which the town has a (rather inflated) reputation.  That does not mean there are not other things to do and see in town if you know where to look.  Ipoh is a predominantly Chinese town and as such we have a lot of temples.  Some of them are quite modest, a small building near the main road but some are built into the cliffs in the limestone hills that proliferate in this region and they are truly spectacular.  A few weeks ago, during my father’s visit, we drove down to the temples behind the Pomelo Stall on the Gopeng road. 

Ling Sen Tong - a riot of colour

We had seen these temples from the car during our house hunting expedition back in March and had been meaning to go and explore them for some time.  The street behind the stall boasts three popular temples.  We visited two, the Ling Sen Tong temple and the Sam Poh Tong temple.

Guardian at the gate

And creatures from mythology

Ling Sen Tong is a Buddhist temple whose name, I am told means something along the lines of Heavenly Spirit Rock and it is a riot of colour  Walking up to the entrance you are greeted by a pair of rainbow hued dragons, and then, once through the gates, to a courtyard packed full of mythical creatures such as the Monkey King and, behind grilles, the animals of the zodiac.  The temple inside the cave is well used and the temple appears to attract the devout every bit as much as the tourists.

The sculptures are set in a garden

But the main temple is set into the rock

Walking along the road we passed Nam Then Tong, a taoist temple which is, apparently, one of the oldest in the city.  We did not go in, however, as although I am sure it was open it did not look too busy and we did not want to disturb the caretaker. 

The complex is extensive - yet more gardens

Nam Then Tong - quieter than the others

The final temple we came to was the Sam Poh Tong temple which, other than the Perak Cave Temple further to the north of the city, is probably the best known of all Ipoh’s temples.  It was built just over 100 years ago and, like Ling Sen Tong is a Buddhist temple.  We were told that the name meant cave of the three gems.

Entrance to Sam Poh Tong

The gardens are very tranquil and a pleasant place for a stroll

The pond is home to beautiful fish

At the entrance to the temple you are greeted by a lady selling kangkong vegetables for the resident tortoises.  A big bunch sells for RM2.  You can buy a bunch of the same size for half the price in the main temple but the lady is pleasant and knowledgeable about the temple and its attractions and worth taking the time to talk to.  We took some time to walk around the gardens which are very much worth a look (they won the Malaysian Garden of the Year 1993 Award!).  It does appear to be stuck in time, wondering through and watching the fish swim in the ponds we could have been in just about any time, 2015, 1993 or many, many years before.  The gardens were tranquil and a haven from the hustle and bustle of the city centre. 

There is shelter from the rain or hot sun

The cave entrance - the cave itself is quite small

The cave itself is quite small, high but narrow in most places but it does appear to attract worshippers on a regular basis as the walls are black with soot.  

Visitors walk through the gardens to get to the temple

Where they are welcomed by the resident dog.

We walked through the cave to a garden beyond which is completely surrounded by the hills such that the only entrance is through the temple itself.  The garden had the potential to be a bit of a hidden Eden (or whatever the Buddhist equivalent is) but it was, sadly, full of mosquitoes which goes some way to explain why the temple sells mosquito repellent along with votive offerings and kangkong for the tortoises.  There were places to sit and admire the large pagoda built against the stunning backdrop of the hills but it was not possible to go in and look around.  I am not sure whether this building is actually used any more.

The temple is very active

Walk through and you come to a secret garden

The main attraction for the children was the tortoise pond.  Armed with their vegetables they leaned over and tried to attract some of the animals towards them.  The tortoises seemed quite keen on the food and the ones nearest us crawled over.  The animals are truly engaging but I must admit that I felt rather sorry for them as the pond is packed and they could do with some cleaner water. 

Tortoises vie for kangkong

The pond is packed - we stopped counting at 100

The visit was a complete spur of the moment trip but I am very glad we went despite the haze, which has blighted the last month or so and I am looking forward to exploring some of the other temples hidden around Ipoh.

This pagoda is completely hidden,
only accessible via the temple.

Heading back through the cave

The complex boasts a vegetarian restaurant
if meat free is to your taste...

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Man Eating Crocodiles - Thanks but no Thanks

Malaysia is a modern country with modern and up to date infrastructure.  Step just a little way from the beaten path, however, and you are back in ancient and thick jungle.  The peninsula where we live now is pretty densely settled and isolated communities are the exception rather than the rule.  

A little light reading to give you nightmares

Sarawak where we lived before we moved here is huge (the state, one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo, is as large as Peninsular Malaysia) and consists of small pockets of settlement in amongst some of the wildest and most remote land in the world.  Sadly much of that remote land, particularly along the coast and close to major settlements like Miri, is no longer pristine jungle but has been cut down for oil palm production. This means that a lot of the wildlife, particularly the rarer creatures such as Sun Bears, are endangered as they have seen their habitat ranges restricted time and again.  There are still mysterious animals out there, however, as a newspaper report from January this year attests.  Workers on a plantation came across a strange, almost bald, and very large mammal with extremely sharp claws.  While some thought it could be a sick Sun Bear the workers who saw it thought it was something completely new, it certainly would not surprise me if they are right.  (The animal ran away before it could be examined properly).

What is this?  It could very well be a new species...

One of the most common animals, seen all around the state, is the Salt Water Crocodile.  These fearsome animals can grow to be extremely large.  The males are known regularly to exceed 5 meters and lengths of up to 7 have been recorded (there are some claims of crocodiles being found measuring as large as 10m in the 1930s but these are unverified). These huge animals seem torpid and languorous but they can swim at speeds approaching 30km an hour when they need to.   The signs you see near creeks (danger, Crocodiles) are not to be taken lightly.  

The sign is not a joke.....

Reports of fishermen and villagers disappearing are still, sadly, all too common and maneaters prowl the waterways, the beasts are masters of camouflage and victims often do not know that the crocodile is there until it is too late.  It is estimated that there are between 1 and 6 crocodiles for every km of river in the state.  That is a lot of crocodiles!  A death by eating is not a common occurrence but it is regular and we saw a number of reports in the papers during the 9 months we lived there, someone told me that fatal attacks (and most encounters are fatal) run at between 2-3 a year.  

This is not an isolated or rare incident.

All in all that must rank as one of the most horrendous ways to go!  We have been lucky enough to see these animals in the zoo.  Salt Water Crocodiles are one animal I never want to meet in the wild, even at a distance.

These zoo crocs are as close as I ever want to get to them.

Posted on the Animal Tales linky hosted by Eco-Gites of Lenault

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Pomelos - Ipoh's Famous Fruit

We live in Ipoh, one of the largest towns in Malaysia.  It may have made its wealth on the back of tin mining but these days Ipoh is synonymous, to those in the know, with the Pomelo fruit as the very best are said to be grown here.  Our little suburb of Ipoh, Tambun is the place where the best of the best of these Ipoh fruits are grown.  In fact, so superior are the Tambun fruits considered, that even at the supermarket they are displayed separately from the ordinary fruits and command a 25% surcharge.  They are so popular that when we are visiting friends in other parts of the country I bring local pomelos as a gift.  

Pomelo are synonymous with Ipoh and our suburb of Tambun in particular.
Pomelo farms cover the landscape

We see pomelos year round here but they are all over the place in Malaysia right now in the lead up to the Chinese Mid Autumn Festival and again in the run up to the Chinese New Year as these festivals coincide with the main growing season and they are a symbol of wealth and prosperity.  You can even buy lucky pomelo polishing spray in the local shops.

There are two main types of Pomelo, the white, Tambun version
is highly prized.

The fruits can grow really, really big!

Before moving to Tambun I did not know that most of the citrus fruits we enjoy today are hybrid varieties.  Pomelos are one of only four non hybrid citrus fruits (the others being citron, mandarin and papeda).  Oranges are apparently a cross between pomelos and mandarins and grapefruits are a further cross between pomelos and oranges.  Pomelos are also the largest citrus fruit, being significantly larger than a grapefruit.  Here in Tambun the trees bear fruit about four times a year so there is an effective year round supply although the out of season fruits do tend to be a little inferior to the ones on sale at the current time.

Pomelos are expensive so it is worth trying before you buy.

The fruits are sold by weight.

I can’t stand grapefruit so I was not expecting to like the taste of pomelo,  the sweet, white Tambun pomelos were not exactly to my taste; although touted as sweet I found them slightly sour.  Our older daughter agrees with my but my son and husband found them sweet and pleasant tasting.  I find the slightly less juicy (and apparently sour but sweet to my mind) red pomelos delightful.  The relationship between grapefruit and pomelo is strong enough that those who can’t eat grapefruit due to negative drug interactions (blood thinners mostly) should also avoid pomelo.

You can get your pomelo fix from any number of roadside stalls
selling fresh from the farm.

Some farmers are happy to let you tour the orchard.
The fruit takes a lot of care and attention.

There are plenty of roadside stalls that hawk pomelo from the family farms.  There are also some pomelo farms in Tambun that will allow you to walk around and buy the freshly harvested fruit.  It is fascinating to see the trees in the orchards and chat about the farming and harvesting process with the people in the shop.

These fruits are still babies

It is hard to believe the tree can support the weight
but they are surprisingly light.

If you don’t fancy an orchard tour or a random roadside stall you can visit the dedicated pomelo stop.  There is a large concentration of temples on the road from Ipoh to Batu Gajah including the famous Nam Thean Tong and the Sam Poh Tong Temple Just in front of them there is a parade of pomelo stalls.  One or other is open throughout the year but at the moment most of them are doing a brisk trade.  It is a useful place to park when visiting the temples and, after coming back to the car the stall holders were more than happy to chat about their fruits and hand out samples to try.

There is a whole parade of shops dedicated
to the sale of pomelo

Advertised, most appropriately, by a giant fruit.

The fruit is ripe when the skin starts to turn yellow.  Feel the rind, the thinner the rind the juicier the fruit, the base should also sound hollow.  Cut the fruit in half and scoop out the pieces, kiwi style.  I may also have a go at making candied pomelo peel (said to be very tasty) and substituting pomelo for lemon in a hollandaise (tambunaise)sauce.

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Snake Encounters

I remember, growing up in Nigeria, that snakes were a fact of life, everyone had met one at least once and of course the stories of the encounters grew in the telling.  Our house in Warri was in land reclaimed from the swamp, we had a bungalow set in a large garden surrounded by drainage ditches. One morning when I was away in boarding school my mother looked out to see my 6 year old sister frozen in fear as she was locked in the gaze of a spitting cobra.  Our mother and the cook dispatched the beast.  That was not the only snake, we would frequently get visitors to the garage and patio and we could hear them slithering about in the roof, the snakes were mostly cobras and black mambas.  My mother was a dab hand at dispatching them with a hoe to the head, often helped by our cat Kipper, who, on seeing an intruder, would set up a loud wailing to alert us then play with it until it was coiled in knots before stepping aside to allow my mother delivered the coup de grace.

One very full snake, sated and still in a tree in Mulu

There was considerable local mythology attached to snakes, whenever we killed one we had to cut off the head and tail which could not be buried in the same grave as or in line with the body - if we did we were told that the spirit of Mammy Wata (a river goddess/mermaid) would reanimate the snake which would come to seek revenge for its death.

Snake encounters were frequent.  One family nearby had a mamba in the roof that found its way into the living room and the house had to be evacuated until the snake was killed and yet more friends had baby cobras in their lavatory, the whole experience set their young daughter's potty training back quite considerably! Another family lost their parrot to a hungry snake that managed to get into the cage.  The really big snakes such as pythons were a much rarer sight although I do remember one being hit by a car near the company clinic.  I don't recall meeting snakes in Lagos, the ones that survived in the city were probably rather shy of humans nor did we meet any snakes during our time in Turkey (spiders were another matter) or Venezuela and Kazakhstan was too cold for them.  In fact other than Nigeria I have seen more snakes in the UK than anywhere else.

Here in Malaysia I expected to see a lot of snakes but other than in the zoo and one in a tree on a trip to Mulu national park I have not seen any. I know they were there in Miri, indeed this huge Python was found just round the corner from our house, but we had no encounters at all which suited me down to the ground.

One long city snake!

Imagine my surprise then to turn around from my computer this morning to see, through the window, a snake coiled up next to the laundry drying on my patio.  He was beautiful and, I think, a juvenile as he was no more than a metre long, very thin with a tiny head.  His eyes were very big in his head which was an apple green although the back of his neck was red.  His body had green and black stripes. He held my gaze for quite some time but as I was holding the baby I could not get a picture.  By the time I had put the baby down he slithered back on to the grass but stayed there long enough for me to get a, very poor quality, 'phone shot.  I tried to grab my camera but he had moved away.   I then sent the dogs into the garden to frighten him away from the house.  The cat is, sadly, too young to set against a snake.  I don't possess a hoe or any other implement suitable for getting rid of snakes.

Thank goodness the one in our garden is small
you can just see him in the centre of the very poor
photograph.

We called the exterminators who said that given the description they did not think he was poisonous.  They can not lay sulphur (the preferred deterrent) around the house because we have a lot of rain at present and it will just be washed away.  I have decided to leave dog mess in the garden for the moment and scatter  kitty litter around the patios (snakes hate cat litter) and mothballs by the doors.  Anyone going out to do laundry (our washing machine is outside) will have to stamp their feet.

It is a fact of life that snakes are around us all the time but we don't know it.  I suspect he lives next door as the house is uninhabited and he can enjoy an undisturbed life.  I don't want to do him any harm but equally I don't want him to think that he can enjoy my garden as part of his territory or getting into the house.  Snakes are beautiful, fascinating creatures but not ones I want to get to know intimately.  

Posted on the Animal Tales linky hosted by Eco-Gites of Lenault

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A farce of stereotypes...

We all fall prey to the temptation to stereotype people. I know I do, although I try very hard not to, from time to time a thought will creep into my head before I squash it down.  We have all heard them, Americans are brash (actually very few of the Americans I know fall into this stereotype), Irish stupid (again I have not met that many), British are drunkards (there is truth in the fact that the British like to drink but I think few actually ever get drunk), Germans efficient and unfeeling (efficient yes, unfeeling, not that I have noticed), French elegant lotharios (most the French I know well are happily married and very straight laced, some are elegant but many are not), women can’t drive or read maps (really!) and so it goes on. 

behind one of these shops lurks an unfriendly smile...

While there can be a kernel of truth behind stereotypes that have lasted for many years it can be damaging to make assumptions on an individual and their character and competence based on an inaccurate and generalised point of view.  This is particularly so in an expat community where we have to work and get along with people from around the world, having a preconceived notion of what they will be like can potentially sour a professional or personal relationship before it ever gets off the ground.

Stereotypes persist, however, and I came across one the other day in the most bizarre of locations.  I wear a very particular brand of underwear.  I can get it easily in some department stores or online in the UK and some specialist stores in Kazakhstan stocked it.  Sadly neither Miri nor Ipoh have a lingerie shop that sells my preferred brand. Since it has been nearly 2 years since I was able to purchase some of these essentials I was contemplating placing a mail order when my husband saw a brand outlet in a mall in KL.  On our next trip down I made a beeline for the store expecting to be able to stock up to my heart’s content. 

I gave the shop assistant my measurements (both British and European) and, without even looking at me properly she said ‘you can't have that size, too small,' up until this point I thought she just had a very good eye and I had expanded a little, but she ruined the illusion by continuing 'you are European, Europeans are all larger than Malaysian women’.  I must admit to being rather shocked – store assistants are usually trained to flatter the purchasers not to insult them!  In any event while I may not be as slim as I was aged 18 I am the same size as I was at 28 and while I expect to put on a little weight as I move towards my 40s I don’t intend to buy clothes that don’t fit me now just in case!

I would not have minded, genuinely not have minded if the woman had asked to take measurements because she wanted to double check as I don’t want to spend money on something that I can’t use.  I don’t even mind being told that in general Asian women are more petite than Europeans because that is, generally true and I would be a fool to be offended by that. I was, however, rather shocked that a woman (who was, incidentally, larger than me – not that size should matter at all but I found it amusing given the point she was trying to make) refused to sell me something I had asked for based on my ethnicity.  I decided not to buy anything at all in the shop, I did consider writing to the brand’s regional manager but I don’t want to get the woman in trouble and she might have had a bad day or a particularly unpleasant customer just before me or she might even (and this is a stretch as she was very coherent) have had trouble expressing herself in English.  In any event I will give the store the benefit of the doubt and sort out a mail order or get my sister to post some stuff out to me. 

This stereotyping only concerned clothing, nothing of real import, but it still left me quite bemused and a little upset (until my husband and I decided it was just amusing), I can only imagine how terrible it must be for someone to have their professional, personal or moral credentials and abilities questioned on the basis of their origins.  I will be making extra effort to question it whenever I hear others make such statements.

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Hornbill attack!

Last year we moved to Miri in Sarawak (one of the two Malaysian states on Borneo).  The state is known for its Hornbills (they are the state emblem) and tourist memorabilia is awash with the stuff.  We picked up a few decent carvings before we left as memories of our time there.  Hornbills are fairly ubiquitous and with their big beaks it is impossible to mistake them for anything else.  Our home was in a suburban area and we did not get them in our garden but we could see them at the beach just a short 5 minute drive away.

Hornbills, the state symbol of Sarawak are beautiful
birds with a striking bill

The closest encounter I had, however, was during a trip to the Miri Zoo.  My sister and I had taken the children (who were desperate to show her the local crocodiles) and I decided to get a few shots of one of the Hornbills in his cage.  The bird was either a thoroughly unpleasant individual or he was just having a bad day (I wouldn't blame him on either count as I am sure he would rather be living in the wild).  

This one had his beady eye on me....

Whatever the explanation he certainly took a dislike to me.  One second he was sitting quite contentedly on his perch, showing of his spectacular beak and plumage, the next he had launched himself, screaming, directly at my face.  I was thoroughly relieved to be separated from this close relative to the harpy by a sturdy close mesh cage.  He certainly made me jump – quite a sight given that I was 37 weeks pregnant at the time!  The strange thing was that, having made his feelings towards me quite clear, he returned to his habitual perch to preen and show off to all the other visitors. 

And decided to attack....

I was pleased to meet him in the zoo and not in the wild!

I will enjoy my hornbill carvings and the memories they contain of our all too short stint in Sarawak but I will never be tempted to get close to the real thing again.

Posted on the Animal Tales linky hosted by Eco-Gites of Lenault

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