The Pearl of the Orient

Penang Island, my birth place, certainly has a unique charm. I never really lived in Penang, as I was brought up in Kuala Lumpur, and I was to young to remember the holidays I had here wiht my family before. However, I am starting o rediscover its charm after spending time in Penang with my wife, who also hails from Penang.

I have a confession to make, however. To me, the charm of Penang can only be expeienced during the Chinese New Year holidays, when a majority of the vehicles in Penang are off the road. It was such a pleasure driving around in this relaxed environment. Although many of the Chinese run shops are shut at this time, if you are on holiday, this really does not matter much. The places that sell the most tasty food Penang are mostly still open. One such place is this restaurant called Karaikudi, on Market Street. The interior is pleasntly decorated and the food is excellent. They serve the best mutton biryani I've ever tasted. Their daal makhani was also superb.

Being able to get parking easily is a big plus point, especially if you would like to see some of the sights in town. One such place is Kapitan Keling Mosque, which was refurbished by a Al-Bukhari foundation a few years back. The architecture is exquisite, and it is amazingly cool inside. The water used for ablution still comes from the age old well in the grounds of the mosque. The base of the minaret, separated from main building, serves as an information centre on Islam for visitors.

Another beautiful sight not to be missed is the Kek Lok Si Temple, on a hill in Ayer Hitam. During the Chinese New Year season, the entire temple (I mean every single structure) is lit up with lights and lanterns from sunset to about midnight. Sadly the walkway leading up to the temple is in total darkness midway. I was told that people have been robbed there before, so its wise to walk up only when there are many others walking together. The site of the temple on the hill top is well worth the walk.

I see many old buildings in Penang having been refrubished and integrated into new constructions. This is an excellent effort to retain Penang's unique charm and I hope this continues well into the future. Perhaps the government could consider provide tax breaks for money spent on refurbushment and maintenance on buildings of historical value, especially in places like Penang Island.

Happy Chinese New Year

Greetings to all who celebrate CNY. It was a good long weekend for me, my wife and her family in Penang. I was lucky to have gotten bus tickets for the trip to and from Penang . After witnessing the massive traffic jams on higways (if you could call them that given that the traffic was literally crawling), I was happy that I chose not to drive. I can't imagine what emotional state I would have been in after a 10 hour drive from Penang, followed by a 1 hour drive to Port Dickson at 3 am in the morning.

Anyway, in the time between naps on the bus, I began to think about "Ops Sikap" that the traffic police launch every holiday season. By definition, it is meant to reprimand errant drivers for displaying lack of courtesy on the roads. However, it seems that Malaysian police mostly focus on speeding as errant driving. If I had a sen for every time I saw vehicles weave in and out of lanes without giving signals, driving without both headlights or rear lights working, or using the emergency lane to overtake from the left, I would be a millionaire, but somehow, the police are blind to these displays of errant driving. Makes you wonder if the police are just too lazy to chase after these drivers when they can easily send out a few thousand summonses via mail just by sitting down and pointing a speed trap camera from a comfortable perch along a highway. Perhaps they don't see the significance of these "little" things in making the roads safe for everyone.

How is it there can be so many errant drivers with poor driving ethics on the road in the first place. I think it all roots down to the way in which vehicles and driving licenses are issued. Sorry to say, the plain truth is that there is still plenty of corruption in the system. More often than not, if you go to a driving school, you will be openly offered the "easy way" or the "hard way" to get your license. Likewise, vehicle inspections at JPJ offer no guarantee that they vehicle is in genuinely good condition and fit for the road. Evidence, you ask? Just open your ears and eyes, and it will become evident.

Facts don't figure

Part of my job involves benchmarking of manhour numbers to determine what is called a People Index, which is used to compare the workforce population and demographics to other simlar facilities. Great concept, jsut like any other benchmarking effort, but I wonder really how accurate the benchmarking is. It seems that so many assumptions are made, that the essence of local factors that can and do have an influence on various parameters are lost in a sea of data. This is especially so when the comparing across different regions, where the dynamics of the economy are just not the same. I wonder how "normal" normalised data is, especially if the parties doing the normalising have no clue about the backrgound of a particular site? Hmmm..... I wonder.

Traffic Control

I heard in the news recently that the traffic situation in KL is getting worse. But this is not the first time it is being mentioned. It seems that the follow through mechanism in the civil service just does not work or more likely, does not exist. Some of the solutions, such as the dual purpose tunnel, are very impressive, but it serves to treat the consequences of the root cause rather than contending with the root cause itself.

And what is the root cause? Well, there are simply too many vehicles on the road. You can't blame people for having vehicles and for using them. It is their right, after all, in a free country. However, if they had reliable, comfortable and reasonably priced alternatives, I'm sure the wise people of KL would choose to public transport instead of being stuck in traffic for hours and facing the horrors of poor driving practices on KL roads (what causes this is a subject that deserves a dedicated discussion).

Rather than just charging flatly for all vehicles, there could always be a discount for non single occupant vehicles. This would encourage people to pool cars. In fact the concept of pool cars has not at all been exploited to its true potential. Every office management could play a part in this by setting up car pool committees to arrange for the pick up and send off of staff coming from the same general location. In fact each building could have a car pool committee for maximum impact. The government could incentivise this effort by rewarding the most effective groups with fuel subsidies etc.

This is one of many ideas that can be rolled out in cities like KL where having more roads and parking is simply not an option.