For lack of a better plan, today we decided to head towards Ayer Tawar - New Village for one simple reason...We can't pronounce it. Every time I try to say Ayer Tawar out loud I feel like Rosanne Rosanna Dana from Saturday Night Live a bazillion years ago trying to say "water" which comes out like "wawa" which sounds like "awatawa" (short "a" sound) which sounds like most of the Chinese words around here. Then, I think about buying Utz potato chips from the WaWa Convenience Mart in Pennsylvania or New Jersey and I have a little chuckle and remember the countless times we laughed at the simple sentence, "Let's buy some Utz at the WaWa" and now I'm living in a country where everything sounds like a family joke.
At precisely 7:26 we headed out the door and started peddling. We were both enjoying the wide shoulder, the shade from the palm trees, and the relatively cooler temperatures..90 degrees instead of the usual 91. (Did I mention there is not much fluctuation in temperature from day to day or night to day?)
Here are the things I saw and what I thought about when I saw them:
1. A gaggle of motor scooters with two friendly teenage musicians per cycle and an occasional guitar hanging from the back passenger's shoulder. They were fascinated by our biking and our ability to ride almost as fast as their little scooters would take them. And, they never failed to wave and/or pump their arms as if they were trying to get an 18 wheel trucker to blow his horn each time they rode by. I returned they enthusiasm with a wave and a little ding of my bike bell. (They passed us twice because the group of scooter riders had to stop and remove one passenger from the scooter with the flat tire ..apparently you can drive on a flat tire a little farther with less weight on the scooter...)
2. A sign for a village called Kg. Colombia. "Kg." is the abbreviation for "kampung" and" kampung" means "village" so I got to thinking about why this part of the world would have a village named "Columbia" like the mighty river of our home state and the discoverer of America, and the best I could reckon is that a long time ago this village may have been settled by the Portuguese and they named it for their famous explorer.
*A quick search on the internet yielded confirmation of my idea..Sure enough the Portuguese let by Naval Alfonso d'Albequerque (another reference to my native home) found this area while searching for salt necessary for preserving foods since they didn't have ice or refrigerators.
3. A Chinese cemetery. I'm fascinated by these cemeteries because they combine Buddhist traditions with chair graves but Christian crosses can also be found on the tops of many. When I'm not worried about getting run into by a group of teenage, musician, scooter riders, I'll stop and take a picture.
4. Arrival in Ayer Tawar and wondering why it's called the "New Village" because I didn't see anything "new."
*Here's what I learned on Wikipedia after I got home: The town is divided into two sections known as Old Town and New Town by the Ayer Tawar River. Ironically, certain buildings in the Old Town are even newer than those in the New Town due to redevelopment, from repeated fires which gutted the original thatched wooden shophouses. Today, development is going on in the New Town along the row of shophouses next to Jalan Sekolah, the road leading to the Min Te Chinese Primary School, which is the oldest school of the town.
4. Hot roti bread, pickled cabbage, curry, lentils, and noodles for breakfast. I'm still fascinated by how different breakfasts can be from country to country. The Indian breakfast is one I can't eat when I first wake up, but after a nice, carbo-burning bike ride, it tastes pretty good.
5. Acres of Sime Darby Palm Oil Plantations. I was thinking about McDonald's french fries and the number of franchises around the world and the number of vats that need to be filled with oil, and the recycling of oil and using the oil as fuel and wondering how the palm oil is processed and if could I find some place to take a tour and would we get lost if we started riding through the rows of trees.
6. A small,local fishing village...Mentally confirming why I prefer fresh, deep sea fish rather than local pull-in-a-cat-fish-that's-been-swimming-in-whatever-hasn't-been-property-treated-from-the local factories-and-homes fish.
7. Pink Flowered Fake Trees -
At precisely 7:26 we headed out the door and started peddling. We were both enjoying the wide shoulder, the shade from the palm trees, and the relatively cooler temperatures..90 degrees instead of the usual 91. (Did I mention there is not much fluctuation in temperature from day to day or night to day?)
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| Sime Darby Palm Oil Plantation |
1. A gaggle of motor scooters with two friendly teenage musicians per cycle and an occasional guitar hanging from the back passenger's shoulder. They were fascinated by our biking and our ability to ride almost as fast as their little scooters would take them. And, they never failed to wave and/or pump their arms as if they were trying to get an 18 wheel trucker to blow his horn each time they rode by. I returned they enthusiasm with a wave and a little ding of my bike bell. (They passed us twice because the group of scooter riders had to stop and remove one passenger from the scooter with the flat tire ..apparently you can drive on a flat tire a little farther with less weight on the scooter...)
2. A sign for a village called Kg. Colombia. "Kg." is the abbreviation for "kampung" and" kampung" means "village" so I got to thinking about why this part of the world would have a village named "Columbia" like the mighty river of our home state and the discoverer of America, and the best I could reckon is that a long time ago this village may have been settled by the Portuguese and they named it for their famous explorer.
*A quick search on the internet yielded confirmation of my idea..Sure enough the Portuguese let by Naval Alfonso d'Albequerque (another reference to my native home) found this area while searching for salt necessary for preserving foods since they didn't have ice or refrigerators.
3. A Chinese cemetery. I'm fascinated by these cemeteries because they combine Buddhist traditions with chair graves but Christian crosses can also be found on the tops of many. When I'm not worried about getting run into by a group of teenage, musician, scooter riders, I'll stop and take a picture.
4. Arrival in Ayer Tawar and wondering why it's called the "New Village" because I didn't see anything "new."
*Here's what I learned on Wikipedia after I got home: The town is divided into two sections known as Old Town and New Town by the Ayer Tawar River. Ironically, certain buildings in the Old Town are even newer than those in the New Town due to redevelopment, from repeated fires which gutted the original thatched wooden shophouses. Today, development is going on in the New Town along the row of shophouses next to Jalan Sekolah, the road leading to the Min Te Chinese Primary School, which is the oldest school of the town.
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| Roti Bread, cabbage, lentils and cucumber |
5. Acres of Sime Darby Palm Oil Plantations. I was thinking about McDonald's french fries and the number of franchises around the world and the number of vats that need to be filled with oil, and the recycling of oil and using the oil as fuel and wondering how the palm oil is processed and if could I find some place to take a tour and would we get lost if we started riding through the rows of trees.
6. A small,local fishing village...Mentally confirming why I prefer fresh, deep sea fish rather than local pull-in-a-cat-fish-that's-been-swimming-in-whatever-hasn't-been-property-treated-from-the local factories-and-homes fish.
7. Pink Flowered Fake Trees -
Ayer Tawar made for a good destination and an interesting ride.
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