Heat

It is ALWAYS hot here. In the morning it is perhaps a bit cooler before the sun is in full force, but we have found that it is really too hot to do very much walking about. In Malacca and here in Penang we have  ridden bikes, but whereas in Malacca we had a pleasant , if hot, ride along the charming river walk, here in Penang the traffic is much busier and frantic with cars, buses and motorbikes vying for the same space on the road. There are occasionally marked bike lanes, but they sort of peter out after a block or so. We really haven't seen many others besides ourselves who are foolish enough to venture out on bikes, but our hotel provided them for free so we had to try them. It is a comical sight to see 6'2 Jim on one of these bikes which are built for small Asians. Even with the seat fully extended, they are way too small. My bike had a seat that was not attached to much...not the best maintained bikes.

After half an hour in the sun we were hot and exhausted and just happened to be near the Eastern and Oriental a beautiful colonial hotel right along the seafront. We wheeled our bikes to the entrance and the guard waved us away frantically. I told him we just wanted to get a drink , so he reluctantly relented to let us through. They did not care to have the likes of us on the property.

We sat on the lovely terrace looking out to sea. No one came to bother, or wait on us. I finally asked about a menu. "No drinks except tea and coffee", in spite of seeing other diners with glasses of juice.

So finally we ordered tea. Sufficiently cooled down, we set off again, but riding on the sidewalk, I was trying to avoid a parked motorcycle and fell hard on my bike. I picked myself up, telling jim I was ok. Pretty much true, other than a banged up knee. 

We got off the main road and biked along quieter streets for a bit. Finally I suggested that we stop in a cafe for bottled water. While we were sitting inside it became clear that the older woman sitting outside with her husband was not ok. By the time we got outside,she was totally unresponsive. It was scary. We and another Malaysian couple set about trying to bring her around with smelling salts and cool cloths. It began to have an effect, and she spoke to us finally but Jim wasn't sure that she was responding fast enough and she couldn't drink enough to rehydrate, so we decided that she should be taken to a nearby clinic for an IV and to lay down. The Malaysian got someone with a car to bring her and her husband Reg to the clinic and they followed. We wish that we had given our card to Reg and Eileen from Bristol so that we could check on her progress, but we believe that she was soon better. 

This really brought home the serious effects of heat exhaustion, and reminded us to drink all the time. Jim thinks that means a big bottle of Tiger beer in a bucket of ice, but I say lots of mineral water! 

As they told us on a tour, Malaysia has 4 seasons: the rainy season, then hot, hotter and hottest! it's not raining, but we're not sure which of the three hots this is.