Yes that's right Malaysia has been granted an extra day off. And it is a day for celebrating. Celebrating the successes of the Malaysian team of competitors and their medal tally at the SEA Games which came to a conclusion on Wednesday evening. Eleven South East Asian nations did sporting battle on the athletics track, rattan ball court, billiards table, swimming pool and many other places too. And as a result of those encounters gained lots of medals, so many that the dear leader decided we all deserved a day off. I reckon it was the combined shouts from Edwin, Rupert, Trixie and I of "Come on, Luth!" to the Malaysian runner in the 3000m steeple chase that really tipped Prime Minister Najib over into the "Give 'em a day off camp" and that his decision had nothing to do with the upcoming elections.
My school, being very law abiding, has sent out emails to all staff and parents sharing the news of the official lie-in on Monday and has said that it will be business as usual on Tuesday, after our extra day off. Splendid. While I am disappointed, genuinely, not to be teaching my year twelve class I am over the moon at not having to deliver the Student Well Being lesson, formally known as Positive Education, formally known as Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE). Such lessons have always been the least anticipated of the teaching calendar for me. Currently they happen eight times per year (hopefully only seven times this year - Yes!!) which is certainly better than once per week in my first school, donkey's years ago. In those dark days heads of year and those who were not blessed with a tutor group hid away, prayed they were not put on cover and kept as low a profile as possible, while form tutors and kids battled to be interested in lesson such as "Personal Finance 3" (one I remember vividly as I and my group of PHSE detesting kids had steamed all the meagre resources in the book in the first half of Personal Finance 1. Goodness knows how we got through the time that day.)
But I digress. No Student Well Being lesson for me to teach on Monday. Marvellous. Thank you to all the Malaysian athletes.
I write these words from the rather nice Flora Bay 1 (nothing like Personal Finance 1, as far as I can remember) on the largest Perhentian Island, off the east coast of Malaysia. There are a lot worse places to be when you find out that you have just gained an extra day's holiday although there were some thought provoking incidents in getting here.....
We had originally booked to fly from Kuala Lumpur's Subang Airport to Kota Bharu at 1855 on Wednesday, giving us plenty of time to leave our schools and travel, enjoying the Merdeka Day holidays. The airline decided that it would make things a bit more fun for us by changing the departure time to 1700, which meant a mad dash rather than a leisurely pootle. We did it.
Next thought provoking moment was on arrival at the airport in Kota Bharu when we saw a poster exposing the garb that Muslim women should be wearing in the area. The annotated poster showed a vertically sliced 50/50 arrangement with the left hand side showing the frowned upon garb and the right hand side showing what was encouraged. Apparently Muslim women in the area should make sure that their head scarf cover not just their head but also their shoulders and should end at around navel level, arms should be fully covered and legs should be fully covered with a floor length full skirt. Finally feet should be be-socked inside sensible shoes. I know that I am very much an outsider in terms of all religions but for a religion to specify what its followers should wear and in what style does seem to be a bit daft. It also seems to be unfair that only one sex should have their clothing styled and enforced for them by higher powers. If it is so important we that women wear cloth cut in a certain way then surely male followers should cut their cloth in the same way?
I had booked to stay in the glorious sounding Rayan Sofea hotel for one night before our morning ferry to Perhentian and so a very helpful taxi driver dropped us off there and even offered to take us back to the port the following morning for much less than I had expected to pay. Rayan Sofea had five floors, but owning to it being pretty much deserted only one was in use. It was convenient to get to being located, as it was, right next to a very busy main road. The main road was much favoured by the local hoon population who celebrated the upcoming Merdeka Days by riding their motorbikes as loudly as they could along the road. Combining that with the fragrant odour of smelly drains, an electronic birdsong noise each time the main door to the reception was opened and then an over-enthusiastic imaam summoning people to the first prayer of the day art 5.30 am it is safe to say that neither Lexi nor I slept like babes.
We had all had a mighty dinner though. We found an place advertising seafood and four women weighed down with boots of materials persuaded us that we should sample "Shelled Out" for RM50. We fully shelled out the cash, not being entirely sure what we had paid for and sat down. One of women laid at white coloured dustbin bag on our table and served us all a large portion of rice (on the bin bag) and then moments later another woman arrived with a large saucepan of shell fish in a thick dark brown sauce on the middle of the bin bag. Dinner was served and off we went, enthusiastically extracting fruits du mere from shells and getting covered in brown sauce in the process. The begged for spoons did help loads. At the end of the meal the place did look a bomb had hit it and the kids were duly covered. It is impressive where brown sauce can end up.
Final news to report was getting cross this morning before getting on a ferry to Perhentian. We had to pay an environmental charge to be allowed into the national park area, which I have no problem with. The thing that made me cross was that Malaysians had to pay RM5 and foreigners RM30. Dual pricing stinks. Lawrence's have worked In Malaysia for five years now and have paid loads of tax and continue to pay loads of tax, again which are happy to do. What annoys me is that it is nonsense. It is not beyond the wit of any planner with sense to work how much is needed to run the national park area each year, divide it by the annual number of visitors and then work out a cost per visitor from there.
Such a task will become easier soon when the Government brings in a tourist bed tax. Foreign tourists will have to pay up to RM10 per room per night in tax (in addition to GST). Malaysian tourists will be exempt from the charge. Get ready for another rant. Or maybe their could be PSHE lesson in there somewhere? Move over Personal Finance 3. Hello Fair Finance 1.