Penang Botanical Garden - and monkeys!

The Penang Botanical Garden.



One of the big draws at the botanical garden is - the monkeys!



Didn't have to go far to find the monkeys - there were some snack / food stands outside the gate, and the monkeys busy trying to steal food right there (and succeeding - I saw one make off with an egg).



Lots of young monkeys - doing what kids do: "play fighting".









The one interesting tree we saw was this - called a canonball tree.





Next we stopped at one of the snack stands to enjoy a nice fresh coconut. It didn't look or taste anything like the coconut I am used to. But it was cold and refreshing on a hot day. Here is what it looked like after the lady running the stand chopped it open with her machete.



You drink the liquid out with a straw, and use the spoon to scrape off the white, soft "meat" from the inside.

I will post a short video here soon - unfortnately I was slow getting the camera out and missed most of the chopping.


After that we stopped at the Batik craft store next door. They use wax to draw patterns on fabric, then paint between the lines, and then remove the wax, and repeat, a LOT. The colors and patterns were amazing. They let us tour "the factory" where I took some video of the guy working on a table cloth.



They stretch the fabric out on racks. They had about 6 different ones in progress here.







Here is one nearly completed:



Once they are all painted, they splatter water on them to create this effect. Then they do something to lock in the color.



Here is the artist at work. He has some kind of pen he kept stopping to refil with melted wax.



After that, we stopped at a tropical fruit juice stand.



I was going to get a pineapple juice, but Beng Wah said it would be better to mix it with something else too. So I let him pick. Here is what it looked like:



If I heard him right, he had them mix in "beet root juice". In the picture above, that would be the reddish ball with the "hair" coming out of it to the top left of the banner, in front of the bananas.

By the way, turns out, nutmeg is not just a spice you put on pumpkin pie, but is actually a fruit. I had nutmeg juice, and it is quite good. I brought home a package of some dried nutmeg too. Here is what it looks like: