After our journey through parts of Thailand, we decided to pay our friends at the Couzi-Couji another visit in Georgetown, Malaysia. Most of our days were spent exploring Pulau Pinang National Park and some of the abandoned colonial buildings around Georgetown, Claire earned herself that traveler's mark of passage: a second degree burn from a scooter's exhaust pipe, we watched an incredible (and incredibly loud) fireworks display marking the last day of Chinese New Years celebrations, and of course we partied with our friends at the Couzi-Couji and ate obscene amounts of Indian food. The photos that follow are from the national park and old creepy stuff we explored.
The national park was teeming with monitor lizards. We caught this one just coming ashore after a swim.
A funky little crab we spotted after seeing the monitor lizard.
Just out for a dip.
The residents of monkey beach, crab-eating macaques (Macaca fascicularis) one of whom snatched a pouch of tobacco thinking it was a snack, and was sorely disappointed.
Monkey beach was about as close to the perfect, secluded, soft sanded beach that many travellers search out that I have seen on this trip. Surrounded by jungle, with only a small fishing community behind the fringe of palms, it was made extra rewarding due to the fact we had to hike through hot humid jungle for two hours to reach it.
A little shack behind monkey beach, near where we stopped for lunch.
A dusky leaf monkey (Trachypithecus obscurus) in Pulau Pinang National Park.
An old Chinese schoolhouse that burned down in Georgetown.
We had passed this old graveyard by night, on our way to a bar, and wanted to get a sense of how old it was, so peeked at this headstone to see the date. Not only did we learn the date, but that the man remembered by this headstone was murdered by a gang of Chinese robbers. Not the cheeriest fact to be remembered by.
These mudflats behind turtle beach in Pulau Pinang National Park become whats called a meromitic lake between May and October of each year. The monsoon waves flood the flats, and their energy kicks up enough sand to block the inlet and trap the water inside the flats. Then, rainfall and rivers fill the lake with fresh water, which stays separate from the warmer salt water. This causes the lake to have to distinct layers of water, one fresh and cold, the other warm and salty. Then when the storms return in October, the sand dam gets washed away and the lake becomes a mudflat again.
Barnacles on barnacles on barnacles...
Despite the national park's secluded location, the effects of humanity are all too clear along this coastline. Refuse washes up, having been disposed in the sea and carried along ocean currents, being brought ashore by the tide to spend a time on this beach before being carried away once more. To me, this issue is one of humanity's greatest challenges, and one of its most unifying causes. All across the world there are people, what ever differences they may perceive in one another, who are fighting the same fight, facing the same challenge. And this challenge will not be overcome unless we as a species come together to make meaningful change and right the wrongs that we collectively have commit against this planet. Until such a time, beaches will continue to be littered by our debris, and the oceans will suffer for it. Plastic will degrade, lead to death and sterilization among creatures marine and terrestrial alike, oceans will acidify, beautiful places will be ravaged, and unless we do something about it, our planet may no longer sustain us. It is a cause both terrible and beautiful, incredibly important in its necessity for us not only to rise up to it, but to rise up together.
Human footprints in the sand, both literal and figurative.
Here among the litter tide line, I found a styrofoam depiction of a clownfish. I found it sad and ironic that lying amongst the very stuff that destroys ocean environments was a child's art project depicting their favourite sea creature, cast carelessly into the sea in an act of reckless disposal.
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