TheBanyanTree: Oh Good grief!

Fri Jul 22 18:18:47 PDT 2011

It was one of those days today - one of those "These things always
happen to me!" days! Actually I am sure they only ever happen to me, cuz
I seem to attract em like a magnet... must be karma or summat!

I should have known it was gonna be one of those days when I fronted up
to join the day long tour of Melaka only to find I was it  - ie I was
the sole member of the tour - and my driver fronted up in an old teksi.

I should have known it was a portent of things to come when he took me
to the Portuguese settlement area (historical world heritage site place)
and it was all closed cuz the Portuguese were still all in bed;)

Never mind, off we went to the next stop - I didn't know what it was,
cuz he was Filipino and his English was a bit garbled. Never mind that
either, cuz it made the day a sort of magical mystery tour. Oh yeah -
his name was One - actually it was prolly Juan seeing he was a Filipino,
but I am gonna call him One We get to the next stop which was the old
Portuguese fort and St Paul's Hill. The Portuguese built a fort at the
bottom of this hill and on the top of the hill they built a church in
about the 1600's The Dutch added on a bit when they took over after the
Portuguese buggered off. . When the Brits took over in the 1800s they
converted the church into a gun powder store. The Brits get their
priorities right and know how to make places functional, you see, and
also the Brits are probably the reason why Orstralians never did take
religion very seriously;)

One decided to come with me to the fort and up the hill. He said he
needed the exercise as sitting in a teksi all day makes his ankles
ache. He said he also jogged every morning around the park, to keep fit.
His decision to accompany me, as you will find out, was  AVERY BAD MOVE
folks!

We start to climb the steps up the hill and he keeps stopping me and
saying that I can take it slowly and rest whenever I want. I reassure
him I do not need to stop - in fact I was leaping up the steps. It had
rained in the morning and the day was pleasant and balmy (not steamy hot
like yesterday), Also, having endured climbing bloody mountains in China
and HK (where it is always UP), a few piddling little Malaysian hillocks
barely raised a quickening of breath. Wondering about his over concern
re climbing the hill, I gave up repeating reassurances and just kept
going. It wasn't till we got to the top and I looked back at him, I knew
why. He was sweating profusely and red in the face! LOL!

After doing the touristy thingy at the top of the hill we started to
descend. Instead of being red in the face and sweating, One had now
turned a decided shade of grey. Oh cripes, was he gonna have a heart
attack? Nope! It was something much worse! Telling me to keep going down
the hill and back to the car, he said he had to do something. I left him
and wandered down to the road which passed a big polis (police) station.
There was a lot of activity at the cop station and outside the cop
station the road was blocked with mobs of cops. Fascinated, I had to
find out what was going on.

I was suddenly surrounded by cops all wanting to meet me and shake my
hand. Heck! Has the fame and royal status of the Woofess penetrated the
dense Malaysian jungles? Alas, nothing like that! I told you before that
Malaysian folks are very friendly. They just love meeting you and
talking to you:) No, they had not all come out in force just to meet me.
It was a big ceremony for the 2 IC of the cops here, who was retiring.
You have to retire in Malaysia as soon as you turn 58. They wanted to
know what the retiring age was in Australia and I said there no longer
was one, cuz the govt wants everyone to keep working - cuz they have run
out of money to pay you a pension.

The cops were really happy for me to take their pics and I got the email
from one of them so that I could send them the pics I took - which I
have. After saying goodbye to all me new friends I went back to the
teksi but me driver wasn't there. I had to wait for him for a while. He
finally appeared only to tell me that he had lost the car key! He had
lost it on the trip up the hill and couldn't find it. All my camera
   gear and half me worldly goods were locked in that bloody teksi!!!!!

And there was no way to get another key for the bloody teksi until
someone could turn up with one tonight!!!!!

One had a great plan though - he called his friend Two, who was also a
tour driver to come and pick me up and complete the tour. As the rest of
the tour was supposed to be for stops where I would need the lenses
locked in the bloody teksi, I was not overly impressed. However, it was
not poor One's fault that he had lost the key, so I did not take out my
feelings on him. Two rocks up and we set off again. Two didn't speak any
English at all so I had absolutely NO idea where we were going. The
first stop turned out to be a Chinese temple (not another bloody Chinese
temple..arrggh! I have seen SOOO many of them). This one was built by
Cheng Ho (Zheng He), who was an explorer who predated Columbus.

Next was Cheng Ho's museum, which was really good, but Two lost me
there. He finally found me again and asked if I wanted to go to
somewhere, which I could not decipher - until giving up trying to tell
me in English , he said the Malay word, "menara", which I knew - tower.
That is one of those ride thingies where you go up in the air and
revolve around and get a good view of everything. This ride was where I
met my second batch of new friends - a Muslim family group with a lovely
baby girl. I got to take a pic of them and then I had to hold the baby
while they took a pic with their camera for their photo collection.....

OK.....there is more, but I need to go forage for some sustenance...

W:)

-- 
Best regards,
   Woofie                          mailto:woofie at woofess.com

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"The one constant in life is absurdity" - Woofie - 30/4/02
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