The
idea was that we went to Penang and had a few days break whilst visiting the
Thai Consulate to get the paperwork done. We had a tentative agreement to stay
at the "Hospitality Bungalow" belonging to another organisation;
however things didn't pan out quite the way we expected! That story will have
to wait.....Even though Malaysia is so near to Thailand
geographically we found it very different, very
beautiful but with an entirely different feel.
We stayed very close to the sea. The beaches, covered in white sand,
complete with palm trees, warm ocean and hot sunshine were the stuff of which
holiday dreams are made.Our hotel, a good find on one of those last minute websites, turned out to be great. It was older than some but that meant bigger rooms and a bath! (If I say, Joan hasn't had a bath since November; you won't get the wrong idea?)
The picture is a sign in the lifts which reads: No Pets, No Magosteens, No Dureans. (A very smelly fruit!)
We had a fantastic view of the Andaman Sea, part of Indian Ocean (no, not all of it) and the area around the beach. We could sit and watch the games lessons going on at the International School below and remember how recently we would have been tied to a classroom during hot and sunny days. The school obviously had their sports day soon; as each class were doing the javelin then the discus, and then the long jump. The teacher stood under the shade of a vast tree whilst his charges made valiant attempts to master the finer points of those disciplines, giving us some vicarious entertainment into the bargain!
The main Town centre boasts a number of Malls, one we used was
called the Gurney (no one seemed to find that odd), we managed to both get an
excellent haircut at the same time and had an interesting chat to the young men
cutting our hair, which seemed to involve a bonus head massage!
We found the consulate visits very interesting too. One
enterprising young man has a colour printing service which he runs out of the
back of his car! You can get passport photos; documents copied and even a lift
to an ATM for a few Ringgits. In the consulate, the Thai's politeness and sense
of order stands out, queues are enforced more and rules are strictly applied.
The exception seemed to be the groups of men who were "helping" young
men to get visas. Pushing them into queues, thrusting papers, photos and pens
and money into their hands and hurriedly whispering instructions into their
ears they herded their charges through the processes. I suddenly had
to stop myself making a joking remark about trafficking, as I suspect this
would be no joking matter.
All in all we had a great and restful break, I even saw another
Kingfisher; after going 54 years and never seeing one until November I have now
seen about one a month!
We came back to a very busy Juniper Tree. It seems odd to suddenly
see lots of new faces around the place! The work on the new houses is going on
at a good pace.
 |
| Footings, my word! |
The concrete foundations and pillars are all going in and
before too long we should see the floors going in. The amazing ways the workmen
use to move wet concrete around are fascinating to watch. The video
at the bottom shows just how much still relies on muscle power here! Last night we had an amazing thunder storm again. The lightening knocked out our power for about an hour. Just long enough for us to decide to go around the site taking torches to every house and to fire up the generator. By the time this was done with some willing help from some of our guests the rain stopped and the power came back! We looked like we'd just crawled out of the pool, fully dressed.
These pictures are for all the men out there who miss visiting our house to look down holes! We have never been without various diggings to watch and now is no different The tree behind the concrete waggon has beautiful yellow blossoms and they feature on the bookmark we have made to send out to our supporters. The blooms appear on bare branches and then fall off before the leaves appear. The picture at the top of the blog shows a close up of the flowers. This tree was donated to the Retreat Centre by the couple who rather rashly thought Joan and I might come to work here! They have much to answer for!
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