TheBanyanTree: Oh Good Grief ! Part 2

[Woofie]

Apologies for the interruption, folks, but I just got distracted by a

trio of entertainers and a few Tigers in the Lounge bar of the hotel.
Both the trio and the tigers were excellent:) There ain't much alcohol
in tigers due to the fact that Malaysia is a Muslim country, which means
you can consume a lot of them without any ill effects except for bladder
stretch.(make sure your bladder is elastic and pliable before consuming
tigers:))

No where was I? Oh yeah..had just shaken hands with and said goodbye to
my new Muslim family friends. Walked back to the vehicle and found One
was there as well. He thought he would join Two and me for the rest of
the day. It didn't take long to figger out why - free lunch! The
passengers' tour costs pay for the driver's lunch. Not that I begrudged
him lunch, cuz the meal was another one slotted into the category  of
"Best meals I have ever eaten:" It was Nyonyu tucker. Having a very
confused and multicultural history, Melaka has all sorts of cuisine.
Nyonyu is the popular one. There is also Baba tucker as well...I haven't
figured out who Baba was yet, only that he seems to have been some rich
fat dude with exotic furniture.

Anyways, back to Nyonyu tucker. It can be described as Chinese goes
native...Sort of what happens when Chinese tucker hits deep impenetrable
steamy tropical jungles. Lots of coconut milk, curry, chilli and other
spices - the meat melts in your mouth and the fried tofu is creamy and
delish and I have never had fish as good ..and the veggies...cabbage,
carrot and fungi of different sorts..all very delicately cooked.
Interestingly they do not use chopsticks - food is eaten with a fork and
spoon...and that is a challenge in itself with rice. Asian rice is
fluffy and light and defies traditional eating implements. It flies off
spoons every which way and snickers at forks. The only way you can tame
it is with chopsticks. Despite the lack of suitable weapons (Malaysia is
very strict on weapons - no guns - and I guess they class chopsticks as
weapons too...not that it stops the Malaysian populace - they just make
hand made rifles and shotguns from wood and scrap metal - very ingenious
they are - wonder why they can't make home made chopsticks? But I
digress - have a habit of that - prolly senile decay setting in) -
anyway, despite being chopstick- challenged, I managed to corral most of
the rice:)

After the meal it was a trip to the zoo. The Melaka zoo is well worth a
visit (even despite the right lens to take pics of far away  or small
subjects - mutter mutter,  cuz it was locked in that bloody teksi!)). It
is what I call a modern zoo - less caging and bars and more freedom for
the animals. Also in Malaysia they deliberately make educational puzzles
for the animals - instead of just feeding them, the critters have to
solve puzzles to get their food - and there are lots of different
educational toys for them, relevant to their species. There were lots of
different and interesting critters I had never seen before  including
these massive muscled cattle which make Amercan bison look like puny
midgets. I also got to see my first gnu - there was a nonsense poem
about a gnu from my childhood - can't remember it, but it was cool to
finally see a gnu.

Of course on par with the rest of the day, it was the wrong time to
visit the zoo - unlike stupid humans, most the animals were asleep. Did
manage to have an intelligent conversation with a hornbill though and a
black panther snarled impressively at the idjit humans. However the zoo
is quite big and by the time I had done the circuit, I was knackered.
Alas, there was no rest for the wicked or lens-deprived. The next stop
on the magical mystery tour was the Crocodile place. This, folks, was a
complete fizzer! Do not waste your time here. There were only two sad
crocs in the place that I could find and one of them was stuffed! I know
it was stuffed because there was a sign attached to it, saying, "Please
do not sit on the stuffed crocodile!"

Next on the list was the Botanical Garden - Oh gawd - I will never
survive - me legs was worned down to the stumps ! However I espied a
sign saying buggy rides! You could hire electric buggies and ride round
the Garden Bottaneek! One and Two were horrified at my sudden plan to
relieve me bloodied stumps - terrified I would crash and burn
spectacularly - WHAT'S WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?! I ignored their frantic
pleas and signed me life away ( you had to sign your life away and hand
over yer driver's licence before being allowed to risk life and limb). I
hired a single buggy - no way was I gonna let One and Two tag along on a
multi seater one!

And the single seater buggy? Hah! They are wot we call Wrinkly-mobiles
here! It is what the elderly infirm and incontinent drive around
terrorising pedestrians and cars with! Heck, me sister has one (not that
she needs one) and she won't let me drive hers - doesn't trust me or
summat  - WHAT'S WRONG WITH HER!?

Well..it was bleedin fun - they don't go more than 5 miles an hour
except for when you go down hills - you can really hoon down steep
hills..and I did! Finished me ride only to find One and Two had
disappeared. Oh good  grief! I sat down resigned to a long wait.
Finally, there was the sound of a buggy in the distance.... Yup..it was
a double buggy, manned by One and Two! Not wanting to let me out of
their sight, they had grabbed another buggy and followed me. But, they
were much more cautious drivers than me and couldn't keep up..HAH!

Last stop was the butterfly park - a pointless visit, as you can't take
butterfly pics with a wide angle landscape lens. And true to the rest of
the tour, it was the wrong time of day to see butterflies - late
afternoon they are all dead!

And to finish off a perfect day, I had to try and make a surreptitious
exit from the lounge bar and across the lobby wearing only one shoe.
That's cuz one of me sandals blew out - I think it finally succumbed to
being sucked into quick mud the other day....

I think I am gonna go to bed now afore the sky falls in...

W:)
PS...I did finally get all me belongings back, even though they were left in a locked teksi in a public place. That's cuz Malaysia is a very
safe country with little crime, compared to dangerous cities like Perth;)
PPS Attached is pic of One and Two (Two is driving).


-- 
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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