Boats

Out at Port Weld, we walked along a street and The Man told us the waterfront was right behind the warehouses (or whatever they were). We couldn't find a way through, though. There seemed to be no road, or even path. After a while The Man indicated one of the warehouses (or whatever they were), and said,

"Let's go through here."

So we did, secure in the knowledge that if anything bad happened it would his fault.

It was not the kind of thing I would have done on my own. I would have decided that I couldn't just wander through someone's shed without permission. You don't need any NO TRESPASSING signs when I'm around. I just assume I'm not allowed to do things, and don't. Pathetic, isn't it? I think I got traumatized as a child when I saw a TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED sign and looked it up when I got home. The trauma came from remembering the words wrongly, and looking up PERSECUTED.

When we walked through, nobody tried to stop us. Some guys looked at us curiously, but in a friendly kind of way, and didn't seem to mind at all that we had just walked into their shed. Nobody subjected us to prolonged hostility and ill-treatment, or even to brief hostility and ill-treatment.


We went through to the waterfront, and looked at the boats.


Take note of the clouds in this next picture. Those clouds became relevant not very long after these pictures were taken.


We walked out on the little pier, and could see the mangroves over the other side. And more boats. It is a busy little port, but at the same time sort of peaceful. A large bird circled overhead, and I took several very blurry photographs of it. I took better ones of boats.




After we'd watched the boats for a while, we went back through the shed and followed the road a little further. We found something very orange.


Have you ever wondered how dried shrimps got to be dried? Now you know. Or at least you know how these particular shrimps got to be dried.


After this we walked a bit further, and then stopped for a tea. It was about now that the clouds became suddenly very, very relevant.


In the vicinity of Taiping, our experience was that you don't get drizzle, or even showers. You get thundering downpours. Taiping has a reputation of being the Rain Town of peninsula Malaysia, and apparently takes its reputation very, very seriously.

Eventually it eased off a bit, and someone in the cafe (the owner?), who had a car suddenly became a taxi driver and offered to take us to the mangrove forest, which was where we were planning to go next.

(To be continued)