Nuts to Us

The most interesting part of our tour in Phuket, Thailand, was a visit to a cashew factory.  Every cashew tree produces a few hundred fruits, but each fruit has only one nut.

A ripe fruit with the nut in the shell at the bottom

After the fruit is picked and the nut broken off the bottom, it is cracked, one at a time, using a foot controlled press.  The operator places the nut, lowers the press to crack the nut and uses a tool like a small ice pick to open and remove the nut. 

Cleaning the nut

When she has a bowl full, another person scrapes off the remainder of the husk and separates the whole nuts from halves and pieces.  No wonder cashews are so expensive.  Nuts are roasted and may be flavored or left plain.  We tasted all the flavors including sour cream & onion, seaweed (nori,) BBQ, wasabi, tom yum (what ever that is,) sesame, honey sesame, chocolate and spicy.  They also sold all sorts of dried fruit, dried fish snacks and dried shrimp, all available for tasting.



We went through a local market with our guide explaining some of the many things we did not recognize and telling us how they are used.



Very interesting, but I would hate to have to fight the crowds every day to get food for each meal.  Betel nuts are used in cooking.

















I have no idea why some of the eggs are red.

We did see this cute "street art."

A temple and a shrine were on the agenda, of course.  You have seen enough of my pictures of these, so I will just include a couple of "artistic" shots.

Easter

He is risen. Alleluia!

A Last Brief Look at Malaysia

Trishaws waiting for passengers

George Town (or Georgetown) is on the west coast of Malaysia.  It is the second largest city in the country, and as far as I can see, it had little to warrant a stop here.  We had a 3 hour bus ride around the city with the usual churches, temples, and oldest this and that pointed out by our guide.  The only problem was that almost everything was on the left side of the bus, and we were on the right side.  It would have been fun to trace our route on a map since we passed several of the same places 3 or 4 times.

A church used by the Japanese as police headquarters

An interesting building

The city is known for its street art.  This is the only one we saw.

Monument showing model of betel nut

There are many betel nut palm trees in town.  The betel nut looks and grows like a very small coconut.  The leaves can be chewed, but they cause mouth cancer.

Wet Kuala Lumpur

Today, our only chance to visit the capital of Malaysia, was rainy.  The hour ride to the museum took two and a half hours because of traffic jams.  Whenever we stopped to take pictures, it was raining, so picture quality is bad.

Petronas Towers

Post Office

The twin Petronas Towers are linked by a bridge on the 43 and 44th floors.  Actually, there is no physical connection between the bridge and the towers so that the 2 towers are allowed to flex independently.  The city is a study in architecture with modern skyscrapers of all shapes towering over the mosque, the train station and the post office building.

Railway station

Since these pictures are rather gloomy, I am including a few we took 15 years ago on a sunny October day.  The Petronas Towers are built of stainless and glass which is why it is still so shiny and new.

National Mosque

Independence Square

Petronas Towers

National Monument

Peranakan Culture

One of the early styles of building was the shop house.  The first floor held a store front with storage behind and living quarters above.  These buildings, attached in a row, were narrow, but deep because the real estate tax was based on street frontage.  The front was rather plain and utilitarian.

The Paranakans are people who can trace their ancestry to the Chinese who settled in Singapore centuries ago and married local women.  Our guide's attitude toward them could be briefly summarized..  "They are rich snobs who always have to show off how rich they are."  She never said it in exactly those words, but got the feeling across to us.  One specific section of town has the concentration of these families.  Mercedes and BMW's, and even a Lotus are parked by the houses.

In the Paranakan part of town these buildings no longer had shops.  Instead, the ground floor had a living room followed by a dining room and kitchen.  The bedrooms are upstairs.





The front is embellished with colorful tile, ornate columns and decoration.  Since they were built before air conditioning, and since this is a very hot climate, open scroll work near the ceiling allowed air to enter.  If you left your door or windows open to allow more air, anyone walking by could look right in.  The solution?  Swinging doors with openings that allowed air without giving those who passed by a good look into your house.






One of the building requirements was to have a covered walkway 5 feet wide in front of the house so people would have shade on hot sunny days and protection from the rain.  We saw the same arrangement in Cuba.  A modest 3 bedroom house costs well over $2,000,000.  It is the custom for the Paranakans to entertain lavishly, dress expensively and wear lots of expensive jewelry.

In order to maintain this lifestyle, men work long hours in very well paying jobs.  They turn everything else over to the women, so you do not see bright colors, but rather more pastels.






All religions are allowed in Singapore.  We saw Christian churches, Chinese temples (combining Buddhism, Taoism and followers of Confusious)and Hindu temples.

Christian

Laughing Buddha

Hindu

Hindu gods

Hindu goddesses

People come to these places of worship to pray, worship and ask advice.  In the Hindu temple we saw one of the means of asking advice.  If the question could be answered with a yes or no, the red crescent moons were thrown down.  Depending on the way they landed, the answer was either follow your own heart, come back later or stop bothering me.  

I

If the question is more complicated, the petitioner shakes the box of sticks until one comes out.  the number corresponds to a slip of paper.  The temple priest then reads a passage from Hindu writing, and the person must apply that to his situation.

We also tried some local food, including a multi-layer sweet that is an allegory of life.  Each layer stands for a part of your life.  The top is childhood, later layers are phases of adulthood and the bottom layer is old age.  You must eat each layer in order, just as you must be a child before becoming an adult.

City of the Lions

The name, Singapore, is based on the Malay word for lion.  It seems that an early explorer saw a beautiful animal on the island and thought it was a lion.  There are no lions in this area.  Tigers, perhaps.  The national mascot is a merlion with the head of a lion and the bottom half of a fish.

Singapore is one of only 3 countries that are also cities, and it is the only one which is an island.

Singapore is the only country which has gained its independence by being kicked out of another country.  In 1963 Malaysia gained its independence from Britain.  At that time, Malaysia included the present Malaysian territory and also Singapore.  After 2 years, Malaysia wanted no part of a city which was more concerned about itself than about the country as a whole, so the other provinces voted to get rid of Singapore.  Thus the island became a country in 1965.

A new condominium shaped like a rock
which once blocked the harbor.

Modern skyscrapers abound.


The country has 4 official languages, the first being Malay, but all schools are taught in English.  Everyone must learn to be fluent in at least 2 languages, English and the language of their ethnic group.  Being fluent means reading, writing and speaking in that language.  About 75% of the inhabitants are ethnic Chinese.

7 connected buildings of public housing

85% of all people live in public housing, but they own the apartment, purchased with help from the government.  Each public housing building must reflect the current ethnic mix of the country.  If 15% of the citizens are Malaysian, then a public housing building must have 15% owners of Malaysian ethnic heritage.  This is done to promote understanding and peace among the various groups.





Automobile ownership is discouraged by having a lottery, the winners of which are allowed to pay at least 150% of the car's price to purchase it.  A car license is good for 10 years, but you must pay a steep price each year.  After 10 years, the annual price rises each year.  For each new car bought, an old one must be removed from service.

This is a clean, green country.  Its Botanical Garden is a World Heritage site.  Building owners are encouraged to plant greenery on balconies and rooftops. 
Trees and flowers line the streets in many areas.  I saw NO litter of any kind.  All trash which can be recycled is recycled.  Other waste is burned which reduces its volume, leaving only ashes.  The country has linked two small islands and lined the link with extra heavy duty plastic, in effect making a huge trash bag.  The ash is dumped into this area.  The surrounding area is closely monitored to see if there is any effect on it from the ash.  This will hold enough to last until about 2035.  By then they hope to have the technology to deal with it.


Littering, especially with gum, is punished by stiff fines (about $500) and dealing drugs is a hanging offence.  Smoking is banned, but on our 4 hour tour, I did see 2 people smoking. (probably tourists.)

Speaking of tourists, a Chinese cruise ship is docked at the same terminal where the Viking Sun is docked.  It holds 6800 passengers, and they were all in the terminal when we returned from our tour.





















The weather was cloudy today, so I did not get many pictures except at the Orchid Gardens.  There I could not stop snapping pictures.  I have never seen so many orchids in such lush bloom anywhere else.  There is even a VIP section where orchids are named after visiting royalty and heads of state.  Here are a few of the orchids I saw.

The Laura Bush Orchid

We Encountered Elephants!

And trained monkeys, too!  Elephants have long been used as work animals in Thailand.  However, the elephants we saw are not native to the island.  Some of the animals are owned by their drivers who bring them from the north of Thailand, a major place for training elephants, to the island for the tourist season.  When the season is over, they go back to northern Thailand to rest... 
The elephants were brought to the island of Koh Samui to help in agriculture, but now are a part of the tourist business, used mainly for elephant rides. We saw the elephants doing tricks and we took a very bumpy ride as the elephants swayed from side to side.

 

The monkeys, however, are vital to the local coconut farming.  These coconut palms grow quite tall and each tree has many coconuts.  It would take quite a while for a man to climb up each tree and cut down the coconuts.  Another problem is that tree climbing snakes love to hide among the coconuts and slither out, scaring the climber.  If one hand is holding on and the other is reaching for a coconut, and a snake jumps out at you, you would probably let go of the tree and make a quick trip to the ground, for a rough landing on the ground and any of the coconuts you had already gotten down.  The monkey, on the other hand, has 4 points of attachment, providing a much more secure environment.
They are trained to scamper up the tree, spin the coconut to loosen it and then push it loose so it drops to the ground.

We also saw some native birds and a very large spider.

In order to make the trip worthwhile, they also included a cooking demonstration and a recipe for Som Tam, Green Papaya Salad.  I doubt that I will ever have the necessary ingredients, but they did suggest alternative ingredients for the green papaya.  Then it would not be Green Papaya Salad, would it?

Finally, we again saw how latex is drained from rubber trees.  This time our guide showed us how the liquid latex is solidified and made into "mats" so it can be sold.  However, the price of rubber is low and will probably go lower since China is getting into rubber farming bigtime.