Batik

There are some distinct advantages to going places in low season. This guy is called Ayar (I think) - whatever it was means Chicken in Malay. He's one of their premier batik artists and he gave us a 75 minute private demonstration of the process while he created us a personal piece of batik to take away.

He also gave us a small wedding present and I bought a shirt off him too...a little big but it seems here that I am a "fat man"! We were in the shops the other day and it turns out that clothes marketed to men with a waist my size are marked very bluntly as "for fat men". I will try and get a pic to prove this if I find more when I have my camera. The scales at our latest place in Kuala Lumpur say that I am a slimline 15 stone but all that means is that the scales are definitely dodgy - Michelle is a big fan of them!

After we'd had this personal batik lesson we went swimming only for Michelle to get bitten by a jellyfish. She's ok though...I'll let her update you when she leaves a post. It was clearly a bit scary for her when it happened but having found out that there aren't poisonous jellyfish there, she was able to relax and allow the local cures to soothe the swelling and marks. Within 24 hours she was 100% recovered for our trip to Kuala Lumpur.