Another festival-Diwali

Being the multicultural country that it is, Malaysia is not short of culture celebrations. This week is the festival of Diwali/Deepavali. The Indian equivalent of New Year. It has been fun to watch the build up and take part in events whenever possible.

The first signs of the festival were the beautiful Kolam ( coloured rice pictures ) that began to spring up in the shopping malls. As you can see, peacocks dominate. 

Some of the intricate rice patterns.

One of the local malls had a series of Indian dance shows. We were lucky enough to catch the peacock dance, beautifully done and what a stunning costume. 

There are two areas in KL known as Little India. We had visited one, Brickfields, a number of times. On the Sunday 19th Oct. We went to the other in Jalan Masjid India. It was packed with everyone doing their final Diwali shopping! 

Apparently one of the must-buys at this time of the year is gold. There were lots of gold shops all filled with customers. We were not allowed to take pictures in this store so went out side and took one looking in. You get some of the sense of how busy they were. The chap sitting extreme left is a guard with a rifle across his knee. I  persuaded Andrew that maybe I needed something small and expensive. We went into one shop but I think the assistant realised we were not going to pay the big bucks and paid us very little attention. 

Another important item is sweets, cakes and lots of them, the brighter the better it seems. Andrew had fun choosing a selection. You realise how tall we are when you see how short the locals are!!!!

The main day for celebrations is tomorrow, Wednesday 22 Oct. It starts of with ritual cleansing and going to the temple to pray. Later in the day the feasting begins. People often invite guests. We have had two invites; one from a taxi driver... and another from one of the teachers at the school I spend at little bit of time at. We may go to Bawani's  home if time allows but I am flying out tomorrow evening to Adelaide to give a hand, looking after the wee grand daughters for three weeks.

Two weeks of fun with Chris and Ton

Luckily for us Chris and Ton ( Andrew's cousin and husband) decided to spend their holidays this year in KL, with us. They are Asian veterans but hadn't been to KL before and were determined to see and do as much as possible. I played tour guide and was proud of myself for not getting them lost once. We explored the usual places, Imbi market, Central Market, Batu caves,  Asia cafe, Jalan Alor, Heli lounge and the Lazat cooking school, all of which I have mentioned on the blog before.

Our new exciting venture was a few days spent on the Perhentian Islands. Initially Chris and Ton had wanted to go diving in the world class dive spot of Sipidan but there has been a lot of political unrest there so we decided on Perhentians instead. It was late in the season. The monsoon season closes the island resorts and the monsoon usually arrives some time in October. We were lucky the dive shop was to close the day we left, 6th Oct.

After much deliberating we choose  to stay at 'The Perhentian Island Resort'. It was a little run down  ( our bathroom leaked like a sieve when it rained!) as I think most place are in the Perhentians but that didn't stop us enjoying a wonderful few days. The weather was fine for the most part, and the sea crystal clear. I stuck to snorkelling, Andrew went on his first dive just to see what it was like while Chris and Ton did the real thing. Chris had an underwater camera so was able to record the beauty of the underwater world.

Looking out over the jetty to Perhentian Island resort!

We saw Nemo and his siblings every where. Once I was only knee deep in the water and I came across an anemone with Nemos!

The happy trio of divers, Ton, Chris and Andrew. 

The numbers and varieties of fish and coral we saw were amazing. One of Andrew's highlights was a 1 1/2 m reef shark. He was on his own so no photo to back it up!

Plenty of time for sitting relaxing.

Colourful fishing boats in the port of  Kuala Besut 

We had a wonderfully crazy taxi driver who drove us back to Kota Baru to catch the plane. He was such a happy chap who kept us entertained for the hour long journey. Into the bargain stopped at a Buddhist settlement so we could look around. 

Last Night in KL for Chris and Ton, dinner at Jalan Alor. 

Family Time Part two.

On our last weekend we drove to Cherating on the East coast. The drive took about 5 hours and was a fairly tense one. Charli and Geogia are of course used to travelling in car seats.  We were unable to use them as we wouldn't have all fitted in the car.  Normally a drive of that length wouldn't be too much of a bother as the girls would sleep in their seats.  But they were not at all impressed with having to sit on laps and let us know it!

On arrival at Cherating all was forgotten when Charli spotted the swing. There was even more excitement when the turtle watch group from the hotel released 10 tiny turtles into the sea.

We broke the journey home with a stop at the elephant sanctuary. Where you could feed and help bath the elephants. Much fun had by all including the elephants.

The main reason behind the Abley family visit was to help Kirst's celebrate a big "0" birthday. 

Yum it was very good cake!

I couldn't resist putting this pic, in Georgia just loved the shower!

Everywhere the girls went they were a real hit with the locals. They got lots and lots of cuddles.