Malaysia Part 8 - Royal Selangor Pewter Factory

Sunday 15th July

Royal Selangor Pewter Factory

One of the resources Malaysia has is tin. Pewter used to be made from tin and lead but they stopped using lead a while ago because it is poisonous. These days, pewter is made from Tin, Antimony and Copper.

The tour of the pewter factory is free. They will even pick you up from your hotel and drop you back. The car that picked us up from the hotel was actually empty and it was just us. The driver said his name is Dayalan. He was such an excellent driver and the drive to the pewter factory was actually like a personal guided tour of Malaysia as he provided commentary of the sights along the route. He said he would also be the one sending us back to the hotel afterwards and gave us a time to meet him.

There was a guided tour of the factory. It started with some of the history of pewter. The sultan of Selangor (a province in Malaysia) endorsed the pewter and that is why it is called "Royal Selangor Pewter".
Pewter was an early form of money and used to be cast into a money tree. Coins broken off to pay for goods and services.

Inside the foyer is a huge model of the Petronas towers made out of pewter mugs. It spans 2 storeys.  
The guide was talking about the "twin towers made of pewter mugs"... my comment was "dont you mean the tin towers?" referring to the fact that pewter is mostly tin. But nobody laughed at my joke =(

Molten pewter

The tour took us through some of the stations and showed us how they make a beer mug. It was actually a big eye-opener for what we take for granted when we look at the pewter in the shops. Each piece is hand made and there are quite a few steps involved. Firstly, molten pewter is put into a cast to cast the shape of the barrel of the mug.

Polishing the shell

Then we saw the polishing of the exterior surface. The polishing smooths out the surface and also creates that shiny look of the pewter. We felt the before and after shells and after polishing, the shell weighs about half of the initial cast. The scraps are removed and melted down again.

Adding the design

 Next we saw the addition of the design on the mug. The mottled appearance of that particular mug was all done by hand. It is amazing to see and think that if any mistake is made, the shell is discarded and melted down again. The people at the beginning would be pretty annoyed if somebody further down the production line stuffed up and their work had to be discarded.

Adding the base

Next we saw the addition of the base of the mug. The circular base was placed on a cylindrical spinning surface (it's hard to explain but it's a bit like a lazy susan that spins). The person makes sure that the base is perfectly balanced. A bit of a mixture is added to the edge of the shell surface that will be joined to the base. Our guide said it was a mixture of acid and something else. Then the person used a blowtorch to heat the base and join it to the mug shell. The handle is added last.

Intricate designs

Watching all the different steps and the precision needed to handcraft each piece of pewter gave me a great appreciation of the beauty and difficulty creating it. We only saw a mug being made but many of the Selangor pewter pieces have intricate designs.

There are a couple of walls at the factory decorated with hands. Each one of these belongs to a person who works at the factory. After 5 years of continuous service, the company rewards loyalty by having your hand cast and displayed on the walls.

Our guide was able to show us his hand. He has been working for Royal Selangor Pewter for 28 years now.

Our driver Dayalan's hand cast.

Selangor Pewter is used in many trophys for sporting events such at the Malaysian F1 and ATP Shanghai tennis

Malaysia Part 7 - Visual Arts Museum & Palace of Culture

Saturday 14th July

Decided to go visit the Visual Arts Museum (Balai Seni Visual Negara) and Palace of Culture (Istana Budaya).

I wasnt allowed to take photos inside the exhibitions in the museum. One exhibition I really really enjoyed was called "Sulatatus Salatin" by a man named Ismail Embong.

Mum tried to explain a bit of Malaysian history to me. I read a bit more later. In short, around the 14-15th century, Muslim occupation brought Islam to Malaysia which led to the establishment of sultanates. The sultans were rulers of their provinces and reign was passed on to sons just like a monarchy.

The exhibition was a series of paintings about the sultanates. There was accompanying text but it was all in Malay and it would take Dad a whole week to probably translate it all. But the paintings were intricate and really interesting. It showed Malaysia's history through Portuguese and British occupation. I'm sure there is much to learn about Malaysia's history that I should read about at a later date.

I also really enjoyed an exhibition about film photography and photographic processing. In the world of digital cameras and digital processing we take a lot for granted. It's so easy these days to even print a photo on a personal inkjet printer.
These days there are no messy chemicals or the need for dark rooms. We can manipulate images with computer programs but I enjoyed seeing some funky pictures made by superimposing films and then processing them.

 

Istana Budaya

The Palace of Culture (Istana Budaya) is like Sydney's Opera House. Here is where musicals, operas and ballet productions are staged. The building looks impressive from afar but closeup the green tiles are a bit discoloured and the building looks a little run down.

Malaysia Part 6 - Batu Caves & Pasar Seni

Friday 13th July

Batu Caves

Not far out of Kuala Lumpur is some limestone caves. The Batu caves are named after the Batu river that flows nearby.
Quite a few tourists visit the caves but it is also very popular with the locals. There is an Indian population in Malaysia who are Hindus.

I'm not sure when they extended the rail system to include Batu Caves but it has made it very accessible for Hindu people to go to the temples. The fare from KL Sentral to Batu Caves is 2 ringgit.

The first thing you notice when entering the gates is the big green statue of Hanuman and shrine. I saw quite a few Indian people take their shoes off and bow to the statues in the temple. I dont know much about Hindu gods.

Walking a little further, there is an impressive sight! A huge golden statue of Lord Murugan. The statue is around 50m high and was erected in 2006. Leading into the caves is a lot of stairs! The guides say there are 272 of them. It was a bit of a tough climb for some and I saw lots of tourists stopping at the side to catch their breath. Personally I'm fine going up the stairs but the ol' knees dont like coming down.

At the top of the stairs is a giant archway leading into a big cave called the Temple or Cathedral Cave. This temple is dedicated to Lord Murugan. You can walk back inside the cavern and see hindu shrines lining the walls.


Wandering around the site are a lot of macaque monkeys. I thought they were really cute. They are not like ones I have seen in Indonesia as they do not seem as cheeky. We didnt have to hang on to our hats or any loose belongings.
They sell bags of bananas and peanuts that you can feed the monkeys. Since a lot of tourists buy these, the monkeys are quite friendly and come very close. I did see some European tourists feeding one monkey some McDonalds.... dont know how healthy that is for the monkey.

This reminded me of an Indiana Jones movie

Half way up the big staircase there is the entrance to the Dark Caves. The caves have been taken over by a conservation group and you can do a paid tour.
Inside the caves live many bats, spiders, cockroaches and caterpillars. There are a few species that are not found anywhere else in the world.
In the middle passage there were a lot of stalactites and stalagmites that reminded me of Jenolan caves in Aust.

As the name suggests, there isnt much light in the dark caves and it was just interesting to see how a whole ecosystem exists in such dark, damp and cold (compared to the rest of tropical Malaysia) environment.



Pasar Seni - Central Markets

After visiting the Batu Caves, we took the train back to Pasar Seni. The Central Market (Pasar Seni) is a light blue building that used to be the site of the wet markets. The locals used to buy/sell fruit and vegetables as well as meat and fish here. The floor was usually wet from melting ice and water used to clean the floors hence the name "wet markets."

The old wet market site wasnt torn down when the markets moved but instead it became a market for Malaysian handicraft and various knick knacks. Outside there are lots of stalls with people selling the same kind of knock-off merchandise as in Chinatown but here you dont have to bargain much and the prices are much lower and more reasonable.In fact, some of them set the price of the product so you dont bargain at all.

It is really nice to wander around and look at the Malaysian handicraft inside the Central Market. I found a store with some batik goods. Some of the handcrafted goods inside can be quite expensive.

Pasar Seni is a short walk from Petaling Street and Chinatown.

Malaysia Part 5 - Jalan Alor

Thursday 12th June

Just a short walk from our apartment is a street called Alor (Jalan Alor). It is filled with outdoor restaurants and street stalls. The food is very cheap and there is a lot of choice in Jalan Alor.

It is a little like Chinatown in Sydney where the restaurant staff stand just near their stalls trying to entice those who walk by to eat at their restaurant stall.

Jackfruit is sold out of the back of a van

Durian is sold out of the boot of a car

Last time I was in Malaysia, there were a lot of street stalls selling bootleg dvd's and cd's. I guess people just download pirated movies now. You will only see one or two stalls in a street.

I took this photo because I think Asian translation is funny.
There is a DVD that is a pirated copy of "Finding Nemo" but it is called "See Food" in Malaysia... It just made me laugh!

Malaysia Part 4 - Genting Highlands

Thursday 12th June

Genting Highlands

The bright building is the First World Hotel & Casino

I haven't been to Genting in years. Took a trip there today to have a bit of a look around to see the changes.
The bus to Genting leaves from KL Sentral station every half hour and takes about an hour to get there. (The last time I went to Genting I remember catching a bus from Titiwangsa which was a local bus that putt-putted up the hill and was so shaky that I thought it was going to run back down the hill.)

The highlands are quite high and the road up there is long and windy.  You can also take a cable car up from the base. We got to the bus station late and the bus ended up being full with the next available tickets for 1 1/2 hrs later (a lot of people go to Genting). Ended up taking a taxi with a nut of a taxi driver that didn't stick to lanes and was taking corners like a formula 1 racer.

Many people go to Genting Highlands to escape the heat... and either gamble in the casino or play in the theme parks.
The first thing you notice is the First World Hotel that is brightly coloured. I think they thought it would be bright and exciting but I think it just looks tacky.

There is an ourdoor theme park and an indoor theme park and an outdoor water park which many parents bring their children to.
It's been a long time since I've been here. It does seem a pity that the many beautiful nature walks have been bulldozed and replaced by the theme park rides.
As we didn't intend to stay for too long, we didn't end up doing any theme parks but wandered around.

Inside the centre is just as tacky. There are recreations of a Venecian river and decor of various themes - such as the statue of liberty shown in the photo.
There are a few shops around but they are touristy.

The bus station has lots and lots of buses as Genting is very popular

Malaysia Part 3 - Petaling Street

Wednesday 11th July

The Chinatown area in Malaysia is hugely busy at night and is filled with tourists. The streets are crammed with hawker food stalls as well as shops selling knockoff t-shirts, bags, dvds and lots of other things.
The main and longest street with all these stalls is Petaling Street (Jalan Petaling).

Street food is great but you have to be careful as a tourist about hygiene. I think that things are better than before but I am still very careful about what I eat from street stalls.
One type of food I recommend in Malaysia is satay. In the streets around Petaling street, there are street vendors with food on sticks. You basically pick what you want and then either they cook it or you cook it in boiling water wok at your table. Because you are having the food cooked fresh - either grilled or boiled, it is less likely to make you sick.

We call the night markets with all the stalls "pasar malam". Bargaining is a must if you want to buy anything from any of the Petaling Street stalls. They will always start at more than double the price. My tip is to know how much you are willing to pay for something. Bargaining is good for both parties. You don't want to get ripped off but at the same time if there difference converts to something little like 20c then it's just a bit ridiculous to keep bargaining for the sake of it. The people are so poor there that 20c isn't going to kill you.

Malaysia Part 2 - KLCC

Wed 11th July

Decided to explore the city for a bit. Today was a shopping centre day because it was rainy and all you could do was stay indoors in a shopping mall.

There is a hop-on-hop-off bus that goes around KL city. It's 38ringgit a day (around AUD$12-13) which is a bit expensive for Malaysia but not so when you factor in the exchange rate. The bus is actually a bit slow and it takes around 2 1/2hrs to complete one loop. The advantage is that it brings you to all the tourist places of interest whereas public transport is a bit confusing and taxis might be expensive if you get caught in KL traffic (which is horrendous!!). The bus frequency is meant to be every half hour but is a little depedent on the traffic. The bus ticket is also valid for 24hrs so the time gets punched on your ticket so that if you but it in the late afternoon you can still use it the next morning.

There are quite a few places of interest. There is the Royal Palace but you can't go in. If you are lucky, you can witness the changing of the guard. Malaysia also has quite a few parks and nature reserves that would be really pretty but it was a pity that the weather was bad as I would have liked to wander around the orchid park.

Here are a couple of the stops on the hop-on-hop-off tour. I took these photos later when it wasn't bucketing down.

Little India

The old train station. This used to be the main station before they built KL Sentral

Petronas towers or Menara Petronas

Ended up at the Suria KLCC which is the shopping mall under the Petronas or twin towers. I think the mall is mainly for tourists. There are lots of American, English, European and Australian brands sold here. Again, I am guessing that the things at this mall are too expensive for the locals.

The towers are impressively tall and were the tallest in the world until 2004. There is a sky bridge joining the two towers. Tourists are allowed to go up to the sky bridge but they start issuing tickets at 9am. Apparently there is usually a long queue and even if you get tickets, you might not get up there until quite a bit later. They also only let you have 10 minutes on the bridge. My opinion is the towers are best admired from afar.

Malaysia Part 1 - Kuala Lumpur

Tuesday 10th July

Well the flight from Sydney was meant to leave at around 11am but there were major delays meaning we didn't take off until close till 12.30pm. The flight was fairly smooth and we arrived in Kuala Lumpur at around 6.30pm local time (8.30pm in Sydney). It ended up being quite late by the time we collected luggage and took the shuttle to the city.

The airport shuttle stops at KL Sentral which is their central station. From there we took a taxi to the apartments we are staying in. The taxi driver kept talking to dad in Malay as his English wasn't great but dad was having trouble understanding. Malay is a bit different to Indonesian. The Malaysians seem to have changed some of the words to simplify them to be a bit more like English. For example - the word 'bus' is more like 'bas' in Malay and 'bis' in Indonesian. They also slur their a's a bit more so 'apa kabar' sounds more like 'aper kaber' and 'terima kasi' is more like 'terima kasea'. The intonations are different and it is like listening to somebody speaking English with an Irish or Jordie accent.

The apartment we are staying in is meant to be 2 bedroom but there is an extra sunroom with a sofabed so I think you could have 5 people stay here. It's nice having an apartment as there is the convenience of space, a kitchen and laundry. We are also very easily situated in Bukit Bintang which is apparently the 'fun' part of town with lots of nightlife and shopping malls.

Had dinner and a bit of a look around the Pavillion shopping centre. It's a very upmarket centre. If you are after a brand name (Ralph Lauren, Armani, YSL, Tiffany's) then this is the place to go. I think a lot of locals don't go there as it is expensive.
The shops here close at 10pm but there are people wandering the streets much later. It is because only the main malls close and then they move to the many bars or even street market areas around the area.