Return to Paradise...or How We Spent the Kids Inheritance: Chapter One

Beautiful Malaysia

And monkeys, too. 

Return to Paradise... or How We Spent the Kids’ Inheritance

This was probably about our last chance to show the girls more of the world.  In the summer of 2013, we'd be shopping for colleges for Millie; summer 2014, we'd be enrolling her.  So, Abby came to Bangladesh from an international french horn conference and dropped in on an NGO while we finished the school year. Then we all began the Wood Family's big adventure.  

Chapter One

First Stop Malaysia:  We flew out of Dhaka on the 1:20 AM June 15 Malaysia Air flight to Kuala Lumpur, then, the next morning, on to Penang Island and the Flamingo on the Beach Hotel.  This is not quite paradise yet, although it’s not bad.  We have adjacent rooms on the 12^th floor of this 17-floor luxury beachfront hotel. 

First Beach

Here is why it is not quite paradise: the strait of Melaka lies between the Malay/Thai peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra, meaning that the sea is almost without tides or waves.  The water is pretty much lifeless, cloudy and greenish.  We saw no seabirds, no dolphins passed by and you couldn’t see anything if you could snorkel.  The “beach” appears artificial with an imported strip of sand, but there are high-rise condo buildings and expensive hotels along the strip as well as beach homes. 

The other thing that affects the place, at least during our stay, were the forest fires in Indonesia. They created a high altitude haze over much of Malaysia.  We were the only Americans here and almost the only Caucasians.  There are another pair of well-tanned couples close to my age—wives in two piece suits and the husbands in speedos and baseball caps—I assumed they were Australians until I heard them speaking French. 

Parasailing

And the Pool

The rest of the crowd consists of Mandarin-speaking Chinese families and couples and lots of what I assume are Arabs.  The reason I assume they are Arabs is that the women all wear the ‘abaya’, and there are usually several of them following ‘the guy’.  (It’s possible they are all wives, or maybe they are wife, mother and daughters. Okay, there are some young, apparently honeymooning, couples—well, he’s young—who can guess her age?)  The black abaya includes a complete head covering, most allowing only the eyes to be exposed.  It’s all pretty culturally appropriate, say, at a shopping mall in Kuwait City.  Around the pool and on the beach, it just looks strange. 

It doesn’t seem to stop them, though. When we first arrived we had lunch poolside while the hotel got our rooms ready.  There were two abaya-clad high school age girls frolicking in the pool with only their faces exposed.  And, then the parasail boat took off with a couple of these ladies from the beach.  After that we noticed that about 5:00 PM every afternoon, there were the jet ski abaya races. 

Riding the
Tram at the Botanical Garden

At the Botanical Garden 

But for all of the curiosities, the beer is cold, the night market and adjacent food court hopping and the traffic refreshingly civilized.  We managed to hit a few malls, and a really nice Botanical Garden, too, before we left.  

On the last day, we checked out of our rooms, and hung out at the pool, which we had to ourselves, until our evening flight.  While the girls and I were in the pool, we noticed what appeared to be a child’s toy on the bottom of the pool.  On closer inspection, it looked a lot like a toy dinosaur, maybe a lizard.  I tried to touch it with my toe, but Millie was sure it might be alive.  So I went to the towel guy and asked him for a net to sweep it up.  As we walked back, the toy came up for air.

So this is how I became Woody, Crocodile Hunter of Malaysia!  The pool guy eventually got it out with his net.  It was about 16” long nose to tail and had a head like a crocodile or alligator.  Next stop--New Zealand!