so we've had our fun in Pangkor Taken American around he's got a good feel for it
Right now he's naked and showering on the back of the boat. Wanna quick look?
Anyway we're going back to Lumut but we're
going to go somewhere a little bit different. Liz: and without giving too much
away jamie and american are about to take us
on a very interesting cultural trip a little further down the coast. This is
something that Jamie and I are going to discuss in a little more detail later on
because it did throw up a few questions that I wanted to look into in more
detail. Do you keep watching because we have a special announcement to make a
little later on which we hope you're going to enjoy but for now Jamie and
American and Esper are all heading towards the Naval Base outside Lumut where
they're going to anchor let's have a look. Jamie: remember in one of the previous recent
episodes we took you around the old marina which is now defunct and empty
and no longer being used there was a big battleship there and here's the next
waypoint Just give me a sec, hold on...
I'll make sure I keep pointing this way so you don't see Americans naked body. So
we're going up to this area and anchor there which puts us pretty much outside
limit Town Center so it's nice convenient for nipping into town. We've
run out of eggs and tomatoes and so we need to do a little bit of shopping in
the meantime it's pretty flat calm day. Over in the corner of Pangkor, or rather
Lumut mainland, is a very very big industrial shipping container area
around the corner from there is a huge power plant so you see a lot of these
big ships you see one over my shoulder right now they're all anchored here
dropping stuff off and picking stuff up so it's quite busy and the channel in
between Pangkor Island and the mainland can also be quite busy as well but yeah
it's a calm day and American is now clean so everything's good
We are about 30k from Lumut now very nice drive through the Malaysian
countryside through middle-class suburbs and we're now the coast and we're at the
Tua Pek Kon temple which is a typical Buddhist temple. Well I say typical actually it's
a little bit bigger than than your average temple so it's a bit of a
tourist attraction here. Not much to say other than the fact it's temple but it's
got some big statues as you can see behind me. Some buildings and joss sticks
tourists with selfie sticks and yeah that's about it really but it's worth coming here just
for the drive but we'll go and have a quick look round and have a look at some
of these very big statues. How tall are you? 190 centimeters
okay can you come and stand by the world's biggest incense stick because it
will be a temple without incense but look at the size of these things
hi mom I notice your your face matches the declaration on the stick yeah it's
kind of how I feel on the inside right now after last night's drinking
GEMA monkey monkey in monkey very big fat Buddha one of the things I struggle
with in these temples is understanding the meaning of these huge characters and
they're almost cartoon like they remind me of course like children's TV programs
like monkeys and walking out here is a bit like being in some kind of
fairground amusement park it's like being on a film set I don't really
understand the relatively oh that's just my own ignorance of course but this
place is very very strange except very bizarre place huge dragon here and in
the entrance which is his mouth is a really strong smell of incense very nice
smell actually but that's going to have a look and see what's inside
okay that was pretty messed up I think there was some really dark shit going on
on the walls in that dragon but other than that sort of like a giant weird
amusement park of Buddhist strangeness
what happens to be probably the most bizarre temple I've ever been to
definitely worth check it out it's there's all sorts of strange things in
there especially that the big snake with the kind of the wall of death all those
pictures of death very very odd row bizarre temples go I think this is one
of my favorites just for it bizarreness that really was
a bizarre temple wasn't it and he was like something out of Disneyworld or a
funfair as you said and that snake thing just just weird yeah it's very very odd
and in that clip you you know I was messing around by saying that one of the
characters at like monkey which and you were probably a bit too long for monkey
but it was a fantastic kid TV series you know I was just having a bit of fun but
it actually turns out I've just been doing a bit of research it turns out
that it is the same monkey so that monkey statue is called Sun
Wukong although in Malaysia he's known as Sun gokon and he comes from a very
old story Chinese story that dates back to this sixteenth century I think called
The Journey to the West and he was one of the original characters who brought
about Buddhism so he and a few other characters traveled from China to India
and is a very important part of Buddhist history and he had superpowers he was
able to travel about how many Asura many noted it somewhere he could travel
21,000 kilometers in one somersault and in the kids TV program as well he had
special magic powers so he is a very important character in Buddhism but yeah
the snake well that was that was something else and I asked you to look
into that didn't I was to find out so in Chinese mythology die you is the Chinese
version of hell and it's an amalgamation of taoism
buddhism confucianism and chinese folk beliefs loosely based on the Buddhist
concept of maraca it consists of an underground maze with various levels and
chambers where souls are taken after death to atone for the sins they
committed when they were alive many Chinese beliefs center around
reincarnation so sometimes die you is referred to as
purgatory rather than hell and it's a place where spirits are renewed in
preparation for their rebirth the exact number of levels in value and their
association that is difference between Buddhists and Taoists interpretations
some speak of the 10 courts of hell each of which is ruled by the ten Yama kings
or judges other Chinese legends talk about the 18 levels of Hell it sounds to
me a little like Dante's Inferno I don't know what do you think it sounds Rhys
very familiar each court deals with a different aspect of atonement and
different punishments are meted out most legends claim that sinners are subjected
to gruesome tortures until their deaths after which they I restore to their
original state for the torture to start all over again
it's about karma is about learning about karma basically do good unto others and
you will have a good death and a good reincarnation but yes it's similar
Christian hell isn't it yeah it's the same magic isn't it and behave well and
you'll be rewarded and it's not a bad thing it's the universal thing I think
that when most of us are taught be good to others and they'll be good to you
well I suppose in our Christian religion we did have rather mccarver most
sadistic imagery and iconography and in the cathedrals there is in Paris in the
Rodin Museum he did a huge gate which he's a carved gate it's called the gates
of Hell and it's a similar thing it's got all the different levels and all the
different punishments on it which is pretty horrific that's why I wanted to
show this in this week's episode was to just give people little taste of the
differences in in cultures but also the similarities as
well and to show that you know quite often the message is the same
it's just you know just told slightly differently so at the end of last week's
we asked people to leave questions for us didn't we which was great and we got
loads of questions as we always do of course and then we started to talk about
it and develop the idea a bit further didn't we outside of our weekly vlog
which goes out on Thursday we are going to be putting out two more clips during
the week on the Friday and Saturday where we take one of your questions and
we answer the questions could be about anything to do with what we're doing on
the boat so it could be technical it could be about our travel experience is
what it's like to live on a boat what it's like to travel through different
cultures taste different food and meet different peoples so just you know make
it interesting for people what do you think yeah I agree and also one of the
problems we're getting is that we're getting a lot of questions being asked
through social media and messaging and so forth and we simply don't have time
now to answer every question that's coming through so at least this way we
when we get questions as a perhaps universal that we get on us a lot we'll
have the video and it'll be up there permanently that we can refer people to
so obviously you've been very busy over the last month but this week it's a
special week isn't it it is I'm coming back I'm on the plane on Friday I leave
the UK on Friday and I get back on to Esper on the Saturday night so this time
next week what would be sailing so here we are back at the anchorage outside the
marina and just thought i would show you the rather nice sunset we have this
evening which is why I'm completely underexposed but I've done that on
purpose because I have another shave I'm looking pretty rough and tired and
that's because America and I've had really good adventurous last 10 days
which I know Liz would appreciate we got some sailing in we've got some partying
in we met new people nearly had a great time as well so it's all good and right
now you can see the Anchorage is pretty flat
and he said that last couple of nights the schools have come through last night
had three schools to either side of me and then one head-on and we were
bouncing around quite a bit so it's a little bit hectic but just wanted to
wrap up this part of our adventure with a beautiful little sunset and just a
note to say that despite the fact that I've had a good time in American have to
say I'm really missing Lee's I don't particularly enjoy being an anchor on my
own make the most of it and it can be quite pleasant of course but really
obviously this is his life it's all about Liz nilly me on Esper