Continued from yesterday¦ In the foyer there is a brief biography about the prime minister and his wife. We knew the prime minister was a doctor who was instrumental in revolutionizing Malaysia from a country based on commodities to one based on industry. We knew nothing about his wife. She was one of the first female medical students in Singapore, one of the first female doctors in Malaysia, and the first female head of two state government departments relating to women’s and children’s health care. After her husband became Prime Minster, she became actively involved eight organizations geared at health care (physical and mental), family planning, rehabilitation of handicapped kids, and the like. In addition, she campaigned tirelessly for drug abuse control and adult literacy. And in between, she managed to bear and raise 7 children. Wow.

The museum was almost shocking. It is absolutely enormous and completely full of an eclectic assortment of items. They came from everywhere around the world, from governments and private individuals. They also came from within Malaysia, again from government agencies and from private individuals. The majority of the gifts were bowls and vases literally too many to possibly count. There were lots and lots of hanging art pieces, including paintings, photographs, needlepoint, embroidery, scrolls and so forth. There were also more sculptures than could possibly be counted, ranging in size from tiny curio cabinet items to huge pieces that would take up most of an average size living room. You name the item, and they received it as a gift at some point. Clothes, jewelry, dolls, silverware, tea sets, bicycles, motor bikes, chariots, cars, trucks, weapons, coins, and on and on and on. Most of the pieces were absolutely beautiful and quite impressive. A large percentage of the individual gifts were made from fine crystal and/or precious metals and stones, and those pieces probably cost more than we make in a few years of work combined. Seeing how much wealth was concentrated in this museum gave us a new perspective on how financially beneficial being a politician can be, and also made us wonder what kind of gifs our own politicians get.

The museum took much longer to go through than we expected. As we were leaving, 6 large tour busses pulled up and dropped off a bunch of people. Talk about good timing in missing the crowd. We took the northern route back towards the east side of the island. Surprisingly enough, just a few minutes outside of town it became rural. There were much less buildings and lots of jungle along the side of the road. A few of the buildings were nice, but the vast majority were run down, a few were extremely dilapidated, and many were nothing more than small shacks quickly thrown together. There were fields and fields of rubber trees. There were ox, cows and chicken walking along the road. It actually looks a lot like several of the islands we have been to in the South Pacific.

About halfway between the museum and the marina we made a stop at the Durian waterfall. The parking lot area had a couple of small wooden shacks with tin roofs that housed a few small mom and pop stores. The walkway to the river was very short. You crossed a metal bridge with loose shingles to the other side of the river, where you are standing at the bottom of a river valley with huge, sheer cliffs surrounding you on all sides. There is tons of foliage all the way up the cliff. It is a really beautiful place.

We followed a staircase up the cliff. It is a very steep climb, and the steps are erratically spaced, so you have to be careful with your footing. Fortunately, it isn’t too long of a climb. There are some pretty views of smaller drops on the way up. The staircase ended and we carefully made our way down the slippery rock to the pool of water. The waterfall is nice, and definitely worth the climb up, but we have seen more spectacular. After a few minutes enjoying the peaceful surroundings of the waterfall in the jungle, we headed back down.

Shortly after getting back on the main road, we saw a group of monkeys running along the shoulder of the road. We pulled over on the opposite side of the road from them to take a picture. The monkeys saw us stop and came running over to us. More than two dozen monkeys surrounded the car. A couple of them jumped into a nearby tree and peered in the windows at us. We had been warned that they can be quite aggressive about trying to get food, so we decided not to get out, fearing a monkey attack. Driving off was a bit of a challenge since they had surrounded the front of the car, as well. After a couple minutes, the monkeys in front of us got tired of waiting for us and they began mating, giving us enough room to inch our way out of the parking spot and back onto the road.

Back at the marina, we walked over to the French bakery for dinner. We noticed several cows grazing in the empty field along the waterfront, including a baby calf. The food was wonderful. We called it an early night.