Malaysia, the second week (plus a few days)

On Monday, 25th of July, our abang gave us his Perodua Alza to visit my father-in-law’s. And one of the first photos I took there was this one of “Belang” (= striped):

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Suadi, my father-in-law, had hired some people to help him harvesting some of his palm oil, so this time my help wasn’t required, except to take some photos of it:

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Each of these fruits weighs approximately 20kg, so considered the Malaysian sun and temperatures, this is really hard work:

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Here’s another of Suadi’s cats, “Tompok” (= patches):

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Except cats, I mainly took portraits and snapshots of Mitchie’s greater family, often on request – Malaysians are mostly not camera shy, and willingly group and pose together as soon as they see a camera, or a smart phone (which everyone has). Here for instance are Comel (= cute) with her son and her husband:

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Her sister Siti is also married by now, but her husband was involved in an accident and broke his leg, so he couldn’t come. Here’s Siti with Zuleikha instead (both smiling for a smart phone beside me):

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Last not least, my father-in-law again, together with his wife Sakdiah:

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I have a lot more of these family snapshots and group photos, some of which Zuleikha took with my camera. To see some more, please check my “Malaysia 2016” album on Flickr.

During our time there, we’ve got both Suadi’s Honda EX5 and Skadiah’s Yamaha SS110 (formerly Mitchie’s) motorcycles repaired and maintained a bit. Here are Zuleikha and her atuk (= grandfather in Javanese) coming back from a short test ride (and another visit to some relatives):

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These motorcycles with 100 to about 150ccm are very popular in Malaysia, and make about 50% of all registered vehicles in the country. And for the kampungs (= villages) they are really all you’d need, and also really useful in denser areas with heavier traffic – our abang takes his 135cc Yamaha to work and back each day. Dangerous, yes, but also a lot faster than using the car and being stuck in those traffic jams. Means: while driving in Malaysia (and I drove at least 1.500 km again this time), be careful and very alert – these will overtake you on each side, no matter which lane you’re in.

Oh, some last ones for our dad’s neighbour. Here’s his youngest son Aimee:

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And that neighbour is also a smoker, and like me he rolls his own cigarettes. So he tried my tobacco, and I tried his local “Domingo” brand, available at the 7/11 shops which are around everywhere:

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Nice, tho only half as strong as mine. With about RM17 (= Ringgit, the current exchange rate is about 4.5/1), it’s not that much cheaper than what we have here.

After about 9 days, we had to go back North to Shah Alam. I’ll write about that next time.

Thanks for reading, and for viewing.