Z is for Zakaria: Chukai, Malaysia
Peregrina's Journey
Peter and Margie Benziger
Sat 23 Jun 2012 02:14
04:14.0N 103:27.0E
Z is for Zakaria
Cruising in
this part of the world, or any place where there is a significant language
barrier, is never EASY. Don’t get me
wrong! It’s always an adventure and
almost always, lots of fun but sometimes it’s just plain HARD to accomplish
little things that you take for granted back home. For example, last week, Peter and I needed to
get a document notarized and sent back to the States ASAP!
We made our
way up the Chukai River to Chukai Town in the province of Terengganu – a
reasonably large community with excellent services including hardware stores, banks,
supermarkets, fresh produce markets, fuel and water – all the necessities for
the cruising life. We thought, for sure,
we’d have no problem finding a notary!
Well, YOU
try explaining what a “notary” is to someone who doesn’t speak English!!! We got lots of blank stares as Peter tried
valiantly to describe how he wanted to SIGN a piece of paper (insert lots of
flourishing hand gestures here) while someone would WITNESS him do this and AUTHORIZE
the signature after comparing it with
Peter’s passport photo. In truth, Peter
did an excellent rendition of Robert DeNiro’s “I’m watching you” hand signals
from Meet the Parents but to no avail.
The “man on the street” in Chukai had NO IDEA what we were talking about
although everyone thoroughly enjoyed his DeNiro impersonation!
What to do,
what to do? Wait…banks always have
notaries! Let’s try a bank! Plus, this provided the added bonus of air
conditioning so we could cool off as we repeated our improvisational theater
performance.
Foiled
again!!! Apparently, Malaysian banks
don’t provide notary services but we did find out that what we were looking for
was a “Commissioner of Oath” so at least, we were making progress. We asked the kind, English-speaking customer
service rep where the closest Commissioner of Oath could be found and he
disappeared into the back office presumably to get us directions. Turns out, he was getting his car keys and he
escorted us out the door and into his car and drove us a mile or so down the
road to one of the local Commissioners. Time
and again, we’ve experienced this with Malaysians. They are so anxious to help and extend
hospitality to guests in their country.
It’s amazing!
So, we
thought we were “home free” but this particular Commissioner was a stickler for
details and Peter had only brought the LAST page of the document he wanted to
sign and have witnessed. I think the “Commish”
thought that we might be asking him to sign something that would leave him
liable for our actions or, in debt for millions, or maybe our first and second
born daughters (!) so he wanted to see the entire document even though his English
was pretty much non-existent and we knew he couldn’t have read it anyway! Of course, all the paperwork was back on the
boat so we were out of luck.
Our banker
friend was running out of his lunch hour break time, so we took the car back
where we started and he pointed down the road “…only a couple kilometers” (!) where
we might find another Commissioner of Oath.
We hightailed it back to the boat (in the dinghy, out of the dinghy, get
the papers, in the dinghy, out of the dinghy) and an hour later, we were back
on the trail.
We found our
man, Zakaria, on the second floor of
a riverside shopping plaza and, after taking off our shoes, stepped inside his cramped
little office. He was there with his
daughter, SuZy and son, Zul (We noted a recurring Z-theme developing here) and to our
great surprise all of them spoke excellent English. We explained what we needed and without
batting an eyelash Zakaria whipped out his “stamp” and authorized Peter’s
signature. But, now that business was
concluded (4 Ringitts = $1.33) they wanted to know all about us and what it was
like living on a sailboat. We said, “Why
don’t you close the office and come see?”
Well, that’s just what they did! Here’s a photo of “Zak” and his son,
Zul and daughter, Suzy, aboard Peregrina.
(Zak doesn’t look particularly thrilled in this photo but we find that
older Malaysians rarely smile when facing the camera for some reason.)
They were so
delighted that we had invited them to see Peregrina that they asked us to join
them for dinner that night at a floating restaurant outside of town where we
enjoyed quail, which is considered a delicacy here plus squid, fish, rice and delicious
mango and passion fruit shakes with her three kids and Zul. Zak stayed home to care for his wife who is
recovering from a stroke.
The next
day, Zul showed up at the dinghy dock at 9am to pick us up for a full day of
touring the countryside. We invited our
friends, Chris and Nancy from Amulet
to join us and the five of set off on an adventure. It was actually an adventure for Zul as well
since we requested to visit two sites that he had never seen…Gua Charas (Charas
Caves), a deep limestone karst towering high above the surrounding palm
plantations which opens into a huge underground cave housing a reclining Buddha
and the
Muzium Sungai Lembing - at one time the home of the largest and deepest subterranean
tin mine in the world and second only to Bolivia in terms of production! The mining operation began here in 1858 with
the British leasing the contract for 100 years at 1 CENT per year! (The Malaysians figured out that was a REALLY
bad deal in 1915 and the government took over the lease) In those first 100 years, 13 million tons of
ore was extracted yielding 150,000 metric tons of pure tin valued at US$2
Billion Dollars! The mine experienced
massive losses in the early 70’s (for some reason that is never clearly
explained) and all operations ceased by the early 80’s. The Muzium is an excellent educational forum
for the mining industry and all the displays are clearly described in both
Malay and English.
Moving on, we
loved the very funky Crystal Museum owned by former miner, Lee Yon and his wife
Lim Sam Mooi who welcomed us into their home to see Lee’s personal collection
of over 3,000 crystalline stones. It
seems that Lee worked 29 years as a miner and, over the course of time he
managed to spirit away samples of iron, copper and tin as well as thousands of
geodes and crystalline stones. He showed us his favorite crystal.
We’re not
sure exactly how he got some of the larger pieces out of the mine and whether
his bosses knew what was going on but now he’s got a nice little tourist
business supplementing his retirement!
He even built two sample mining caves into the hillside in back of his
house by hand so that the next generation could see what mining was like in the
“good old days.” Peter took a turn
excavating a bit deeper into the tunnel which is embedded with small
denomination coins left behind by the tourists.
Continuing
our roadtrip, we stopped at a restaurant where Zul introduced to the national
treat otak-otak, a fish paste wrapped in banana leaves then stapled (!)
together and roasted on the barbeque.
The next night we were invited to Zack's home where we ate a
VERY traditional meal and met another brother
as well as Zak’s wife, who struggles with the effects of her stroke but sat
with us for a few minutes even removing her head scarf which surprised and
delighted us as we felt it was an indication that we were considered real
friends of the family. This is Zak's home and the delicious food we ate.
After our
meal, we returned to the boat and marveled at what a stroke of luck it was to
meet the Zakaria family and how blessed we are to have this opportunity to
share our journey with new friends in every country.