01 Feb 2003 Cherating, Malaysia

[Eric's journal] We had a wonderfully relaxing day.  It is so nice to be somewhere where we can spread out and have nothing to do.  No sites to go see.  We took all our laundry to be cleaned.  It turned out it was a French lady who is living at one of the resorts.  She pointed out when the laundry is dry is determined by how much rain we get.  I wonder how she ended up here?

Today the blind German man we ran across in Taman Negara showed up.  He is on his own.  I think he is the ultimate ideal of the traveller, putting all his trust in strangers in a strange land.  It is truly inspiring.

We had breakfast on the beach.  There were a lot of surfers in the water.  During monsoon season is when the surf is up, although it is not big.  We then decided to do a batik lesson here at the hotel.  Besides a hotel, it is also a batik store and it appears they do most of the work here.  It was a good day for it as it rained most of the day.

Noah was our instructor.  We decided to do a small sarong each.  After the had stretched out the cloth, we were concerned as we were both art school flunkies.  I barely made "C's" when I was a kid in art.  I can't even draw stick figures.  As we took pencil in hand to sketch our patterns, we were relieved as they had cardboard stencils for us to use.  I went with the ocean motif; dolphins, fish and turtles, and Emma went for butterflies and flowers.  I kept mine close to bare outlines as Emma opted for more detail in her butterflies.  Then it was time to lay the wax on the pattern.  This is very hard to do without blotches or very thick lines, and to get it to go all the way through.  My lines came out very thick.  Emma resorted to having Noah lay down most of hers.  Actually trying it makes you realize how hard it is.

They keep turning out amazing batiks.  The owner is a master of laying down the wax for very intricate designs and he doesn't use stencils.  It is a group effort as different guys take turns painting the designs.

Next it was time to paint the design.  The paint fills in the area between the wax.  It is another talent to blend colors, change the darkness and fade them.  I mostly opted for solid colors of equal depth, but did go for bright ones.  Mine ended up much better than I would have expected; it looks like it would go great on a three-year-old's wall.  Emma took much longer with coloring the detail.  Hers is also much nicer than we would have expected and would look nice on a grown-up's wall.  It was lots of fun and interesting watching the pros turn them out and color them in.

We met a Canadian who came back to do one more before heading home.  He had done one here a year ago when he first started travelling.  He is heading back to the Vancouver area in a few days and was passing through again.  This is the second year he has taken off.  He and his friend spent eight months in New Zealand working and skiing a lot.  It seems after working a while he may be plotting his next trip, though he said it would be shorter next time.  He gave us some good hints for heading north. The best was that it is drier already, the bad is that Thailand will be much more crowded with backpackers compared to the few we have encountered in Malaysia.  Noah also told us that since the Bali blast last Oct, 2002, the numbers they have seen here are way down.

We do not have a toilet in the chalet (we intentionally picked one that was closer to the toilet than the first one they offered us).  The toilet is about 50m away, mostly over grass, and since it has been raining quite a bit it is very muddy.  Emma's solution last night was just to hold it until morning.  ( It did rain last night for several spells which could have made it worse it you had gone outside.)  My solution in the middle of the night was to crawl out from the mosquito netting, get up on my tip-toes, and pee out the back window into the woods behind!

(Another thought on the blind German guy.  The heart of travelling is the people you meet and from what I have seen and can imagine, he is meeting lots of people.  the Swiss couple on the other side of his cottage walked him into town and also helped him learn his way around the hotel grounds.  Since he needs some extra help, he meets lots of locals too.)

[Emma's journal] We decided to do a batik on Saturday.  Lots of fun, I cheated a little as the guy teaching us, Noah, helped me with the wax.  He was an interesting guy to speak to and had been born in Cherating and has no desire to go anywhere else.  He said he just loves the lifestyle- who wouldn't, the place is so relaxed.  Making our own batiks certainly made us realize what hard work they are.  We were tempted to buy one, as the ones they had for sale were gorgeous, but we really don't have space for any more pictures.

Noah told us that a typical sarong would take around two days solid work.  It was interesting to see how everyone pitched in- someone would draw and do the wax and then they would all help with the painting.