The Dark Side of Georgetown

The Blue Mansion, in all its glory
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Liz woke up at the very early hour of 5AM to the sound of praying in the neighbouring mosque.  Since Malaysia is a muslim country, morning prayer time is country-wide tradition and as such, is done extremely loudly, with bells and loudspeakers.  I didn't hear any of it.  ;)

A group of us headed out fairly early to begin our lone day in Georgetown with gusto!  First stop was the famous Mansion of Cheong Fat Zee -- "The Rockfeller of the East" -- a Chinese entrepreneur who had built an extraordinary fortune in South-East Asia through the 1880s and celebrated his success by building this extravagent house in Georgetown.  For 12 Ringitt (that's right, a new currency!  To get to Canadian, divide by 3, so about $4 CDN), we got an hour-long tour of the house and were able to see inside, which is not usually permitted.  The house, also called "The Blue Mansion" for reasons known after seeing the pictures, is built around the concepts of Feng Shui and so we learned about how Feng Shui is captured in the house.  We also learned the history of Mr. Fat Zee, and in the process learned a great deal about the development of Malaysia and Indonesia during imperialist times.  I found it pretty interesting, but I think our fellow travelers were pretty bored.

"Are you alright? It looks like you are going to dislocate your jaw!"

View of Georgetown's hills from the Chinese temple
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Our tour lady was also somewhat of a drill seargent, and while her tour was well-rehearsed and her English flawless, she had several strange sayings.  For example, she said at the beginning of our tour, "Questions are okay, but this tour is designed so that you don't need to ask any, so if you will please hold your questions until the end so that you don't take the wind out of my sails."  Then, anytime anyone asked a question, she yelled at them for not paying attention, "I told you earlier!" she would say.  It was kind of scary.  Then, Liz made the mistake of yawning... oh no.  The woman said, "Are you alright?  It looks like you are going to dislocate your jaw!"  The whole tour group turned and looked at Liz and we all burst out laughing... haha.  All in all, it was pretty entertaining and I got some cool photos from the house.

Inside the Chinese temple
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We grabbed a bit of lunch and then headed back to the hotel because Jane, our tour leader, had arranged for a mini-bus to drive us around and show us the sights of Georgetown.  For 26 Ringitt each, we had the van to ourselves and I was immediately reminded of Liz and my trip to Ayuthhaya and our little pink songthew.  As it turned out, this was not going to be even half as much fun.

I made nice-nice with our driver, Eric, as he drove us through Georgetown to our first stop: The Snake Temple.  A quick gander around the Snake Temple and we quickly realized that were not in Thailand anymore, Toto.  The Malaysian temples (or, rather Chinese temples, because it's mainly the Chinese population who are the practicing Buddhist, the rest of the population is Muslim and they have huge mosques everywhere, as well), are quite a bit different from those in Thailand, notably they are more grandiose... even gaudy... while the Thai temples were more humble.  The first temple had several buddhas to honour, while the Thai temples typically had only one main buddha that served as the temple's attraction.  Interestingly, the many buddhas in these temples all had different meanings, so you could pray to them for different things.  In the first temple, for example, we found a female buddha image, which believers (mainly women) pray to for the health and longevity of their families and children.

More Chinese temple
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Okay, the Snake Temple is named, obviously, because it houses lots of snakes.  No idea why, but several snakes were hanging out by the main buddha image in the temple, and they also had a "Snake Zoo" on site, mainly for the tourists, I think.  Most of us didn't go to the Snake Zoo (including me), but those who did saw the world's largest python snake -- 48 feet long.  Apparently, it is so big that it can -- and has -- eat/en humans.  Right....  I wasn't all that impressed with the whole thing, so no pictures.

The Khoo Clan house
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Next stop was another temple -- the largest in South-East Asia, apparently.  It was pretty gigantic, but Eric only gave us 20 minutes to explore the place, so Liz and I hurried around and grabbed a few good photos.  It was especially nice because the temple is situated on one of Georgetown's hills, so there is a nice view of city from above.  It would have been a pain to climb to it, too, so I was glad we had a driver.

This is where the tour really went downhill.  Eric drove for nearly an hour, winding through Georgetown's streets, until he finally stopped outside a very sketchy house-type thing.  He says, "Stilt house, stilt house," so we all climb out, because Jane told us that we were going to see a stilt house.  We all pay 5 Ringitt to see the notorious "stilt house".  Then, we are led down another weird alleyway and arrive at this god-awfully ugly house, which is called the Khoo Clan House.  The story of this house is basically a few members of the Khoo family arrived in Georgetown from China and decided to build a collection of houses for their descendants -- the Khoo Clan.  They spent 30 years building the whole thing... and then it all burned to the ground.  So they spent another 30 years rebuilding it.  Now, all that remains is the main house (we think that's what it is, anyway)... see pic.  Needless to say, we all felt a little ripped off.  The crowning moment was when I asked Eric (relatively sweetly I might add), "Eric, why do they call it the stilt house.  I don't see any stilts."  He replied, "They are underneath... in the basement ... you just can't see them."  Right...

Okay, next stop was apparently the Fort.  We don't know anything about it, because after the fiasco of the "stilt house", there was no way we were about to pay the 7 Ringitt entrance fee.  So we stood outside and took a group photo by the welcome sign.  Check.

Last stop on our adventure was ... a chocolate shop.  No story here, it's just a chocolate shop.  Now, when you go to Bangkok, people warn you about the Jem Scam, where tuk-tuk drivers will offer you free rides and then take you to jem stores where they get commission.  I am now warning anyone who is going to Georgetown about the Chocolate Store Scam.  We walked around (thankfully there were samples), but everything was a Malaysian-sized fortune, so we all walked out empty-handed, much to Eric's dismay.  Oh well to him!

Returning back to the hotel, we felt extremely gipped, especially because we missed many of the landmarks we were supposed to see, including the REAL stilt house, a fisherman's village and others.  We were extremely disappointed because this was also our only day in Georgetown, and it was now too late for sightseeing and all of the markets had closed.  AND, we each had to pay 26 Ringitts for that disaster of a tour!!!  That's almost $10 CDN.  :(  Liz and I made haste to the nearest Internet cafe until dinner.

Dinner was at a local Indian restaurant and it was packed because it was a Sunday.  We had a table reserved and the manager soon became our personal waiter, dotting on us and showing us around the restaurant and explaining all the dishes personally -- because there is no menu anyway.  There are some perks I guess to being part of a tour group!  The amount of food we had ordered was inconceivable and when it came, it was clear that there was way too much.  Then they started bringing out random rice dishes... oh, I was so full.  When the bill came, it was quite a bit more than expected, leading us to term the day "Cleaned out day", because we had spent a Canadian-sized fortune, far exceeding a Malaysian-sized fortune.  Oh well, at least dinner was good.  But overall, Georgetown sucked.