Pingu in Malaysia

Before travelling to Malaysia we spent a nice Easter in our celebration nest. It was getting warmer so she could take off her winter shawl and hat, but she wouldn’t let me wear my poncho neither. The eggs you can see are not real, Pingvina might be ready for children but I prefer chocolate around me. Hm, we should start to merchandise Pingu chocolate eggs and I could test smell all of them, I take a note for the future.

We had a peaceful family life for a while, got to know each other better, I told Pingvina all about Mexico and heard about every single talkshow episode on TV. My bum stopped hurting from sharing the throne and I also learned to divide my food with this most adorable girl in the world. Because she was too young and inexperienced we soon left her with the grandparents once more and headed off to Malaysia!
It was a tough place for a penguin, I didn’t like this trip very much. Malaysia has good smells, I admit that, for example lovely food markets with fresh fish and car loads of raw meat (shame my mami rushed by so fast), or all the offerings in the temples (a great tradition of feeding the gods), a real Pingu feast. Children were better behaved than everywhere else, just smiling and no sticky fingers and sharp teeth, public transport was well organised, too. BUT WHERE‘S THE ALCOHOL???? A very strange concept, the whole country not drinking beer. And then even more strange, in spite of this we did find these incredibly fantastic gorgeous great superb coffee shops which were not selling coffee at all but BEER!!!! And great smells from fresh kitchen stalls all around. Then it turned out that these were Chinese coffee shops. I was torn between fear of new slavery and divine smells to refresh my brain. The smells won within seconds. No one threw me into the pots, no Sweet Sour Pingu on the menu, I haven’t been stored for 1000 years and not been dried for medicine. It was great. But we only found a few of these places and now we come to problem number 2 in Malaysia: my parents headed for all these remote islands, surrounded by evil water, definitely beer free, they dared to leave me alone in the beach huts all day without Pingvina to hold my wings, with waves crashing while they went UNDERWATER which is downright crazy, and they always decided to stay a day longer again and again$@@#!!!#@*!!!The only fun I had on the islands was taming the stupid crabs, they thought they could get me but I was much too heavy to be carried away. I let them pick some dirt off and then kicked them back into their holes. Hm, maybe Malaysia wasn’t that bad overall, but I had a real bad hangover for weeks from the lack of spiritual nutrition.

Pingu in Mexico

Travelling is nothing for fragile little girls, too dangerous and dirty! It requires courage and a tough skin to do that, so we left Pingvina with her grandparents on the couch, packed her up for a hard winter (that was 2001) and headed off towards Mexico!

Sorry for the useless photos, my parents (just ignore them) cared more for themselves but for me. I tried to win their hearts with making good weather, which I did very successfully, I was also kind of used to the desert environment. Quite interesting to talk to the local weather gods, couldn’t understand much, but very impressive to see how they were worshipped. I wouldn’t mind to have my own big stone pyramid to sit on, some priests visiting regularly, but even though smelling blood sacrifices might be nutritious it’s also barbaric, we live in modern times I think and whoever asks for more than beer is downright arrogant.

It was lonely sleeping on my big fleece mattress every day, sometimes I was under bug attack and had to fight on my own. Well that’s part of travelling, it wasn’t easy after a hard day to think of Pingvina at home, smelling coffee the whole day, enjoying regular meals and all that TV.

Mexico was not as interesting as India, not enough smells and always dusty. People loved me of course and the food was fine (had to sneeze a lot because of the chili), San Miguel and Sol became good friends of mine, but nothing but donkeys to ride on, too close to a lot of water (and my parents even went under water while a forsaken penguin waited in a dusty bag!) and for the first time ever I was separated from my girlfriend.

The only highlight for me was to meet millions of butterflies in the monarch sanctuary near Zitacuaro. They were very friendly, also great travellers, they fly thousands of kilometres every year from as far as Canada to come home to their little forest for a winter party, I wish we modern migrant penguins would have a place like this. Maybe Heineken could sponsor it.

By the way, my Papi has written a Spanish course for beginners and I'm so proud of him, I showed him how to write a blog for it: 'Spanish language course for beginners and travellers'!