The Pond: AKA - If You Build It, It Will Fall Down

After leaving work, but before coming to Penang, I had one main project I worked on: The Pond.  This is what consumed most of my time while I was in the Rural Northern State.  The final work will need to wait for the ground to soften up and the temperature to rise.  I think a good amount of progress was made though.

The idea for the project arose from an abundance of excess water.  On the property there is water pumped out from the sub pump, but there is also run off water from a geothermal heating unit.  Those waters flow off through a hose in the ground to a hill in the back of the property and soak into the ground there.  Something like that.  All I'm sure of is there is a pipe or two and there was water poring out of them.  So the proposition was to do something with that water instead of just letting it flow out to nowhere.

There wasn't any design plan in place when I started so I came up with my own ideas.  I wanted it to look natural as much as possible and blend into the landscape.  Also, I was intent on not wasting too many resources or for the system to require anything mechanical or unnatural.

When I came into the picture there was a lot of brush and a big swampy mud pit at the bottom of this hill.  There was a strip of pond liner that started at the end of the hose that ran down the hill to the swamp at the bottom.  There were rocks on the pond liner.  It created a sort of waterfall effect.  You can almost see the hose here where the hill starts to curve over in that cleared area.

Straight down.

Dagoba at the bottom.

Looking up.

So the first thing I needed to do was clear a lot of the brush away.  That would give me room to work and leave a nice view of the pond once it was done.  I set to work with hand tools.  There may have been some device that would do the work quicker and more noisily, but I had time and needed the workout.  The clearing was done using shears and occasionally a saw.

After some clearing of the right side.

And of the left side.

After I had cleared away a lot of the brush it was time to get started with the digging.  I was told that I had 10 feet by 50 feet of pond liner to work with.  So using those dimensions I created a plan in my head.  To get down in there I needed to divert the water though.  Otherwise it would have been like trying to dig my way out of the middle of some quicksand.  Some people thought it would be fun to dig the hole with one of those big excavators.  Instead, I used a shovel.

Hose been messing around down here?

I kept on digging and removing brush as I went through the process.  Eventually the form of the pond started to take shape.  I removed the rocks from the liner so that I could re-position the waterfall.  It looks a little like a heart.  Because I love you.

Removing rocks from the liner.

Holy crap.

Then with some help I got the main pond liner in place.  Doing so ended up creating a leak in the leaky hose I was using, so I let the pond fill up then.  In retrospect, I probably should have worked on it a bit more before letting the water in.

Full filling.

Overflow will connect with the creek.

The overflow will look like a small stream.

There were a lot of rocks used in this project.  The huge ones were pulled from the property.  The medium sized ones were from a local farmer's field.  The smallest ones were purchased from a rock store.

Starting to look more natural.

You can see here a lot more of the last brush has been cleared.  It has turned Fall and the leaves are on the ground and in the pond.

Leaf me alone.

This is Mo.

The medium sized rocks were stacked along the inner wall of the pond so that the little stones on top could rest on them and not fall into the pond.  By this time it was getting cold outside at nights and my hands would freeze when placing the rocks in the water.

Cold water.

And then the snow came.  The project would have to be halted for the season.

Snow break.

I'm pretty proud of this work.  I'm not sure what it looks like to you, but thanks to the help of computer projections I have an idea what it will looks like come spring time.

Photo from wlcutler @ flickr

Big Game Hunting: Apartments In Penang

Freedom castle

Aside from being a tourist, if you want know what I've been spending my time and energy on these past few weeks, it's apartment hunting.  I was right to be a bit concerned about the ease of finding an apartment.  It's not easy.  At least not terribly easy.  Of course, you would be hard pressed to find a worse possible time to do your search than I did.  During Chinese New Year the entire island nearly shuts down for a week or so.  At the same time, hotels and hostels fill up and rates increase.  On the other hand, it's pretty fun to watch the celebrations...

I need to find a place to stay for around six to eight months in Penang.  I'll have at least one trip outside the country (to Thailand I think) for visa purposes during that time period.  I need to figure out how long I want to stay in Thailand(?) so I can factor that into my Malaysia plans.  Housing should be one of my biggest expenses and it will need to fit within a budget of USD 400 per month.  I don't want to double pay for housing if not necessary.

Short Term Housing
Serviced apartments and the like are aimed way up the financial ladder and are not something I could consider.  A general starting price would be around USD 1,000 per month and on up from there.  So those are right out the window.  Hostels could be an option, though they would take up more of the budget than is optimal.  Still, I would keep hostels on the table.  Hostels could cost up to USD 300 per month for a bed in a dorm.  You could find cheaper hostels with a corresponding decline in quality.  The cheapest might cost USD 150 per month which is easier on the budget.  The best thing about staying in hostels may be that there is no deposit or commitment.  If you don't like it you can move on.

Medium Term Housing
Turning to apartments, I found they are not as affordable as I had hoped.  The main obstacle is that nearly all apartments in Penang are constructed as three bed, two bath units.  That's way more space than I need.  So unless a couple of you want to join me here, I'll need to look for some other option.  There do seem to be some decent apartments advertised starting in the USD 350 range, which I might be able to make work with some creative accounting, but then I run into other problems.

Problems such as a one year lease.  I might come back to Penang at some point in the future for a year or longer, but this year I won't be staying that long.  Some owners are okay with short term leases, but I would say they are the exception.  So that narrows my options.

Another issue is race based discrimination.  A lot of the apartments I see listed specifically state which race they are looking for.  For example, "Prefer Chinese only."  So I've missed some other options because of that.

If I could get around those obstacles, it would seem possible to rent an apartment and then in turn rent out a room or two.  That would give me more control over my environment, but I would be dependent on finding people to stay there to make ends meet.

Economies Of Scale
Instead of renting a whole apartment I could just rent a room.  In this case there may be more flexibility with the lease length, but there may still be race based issues.  Rooms are classified as "master" or "big," "medium," and "small."  The medium and small rooms are sometimes referred to as 2 rooms.  So if you see an ad for "2 rooms" it means they have a medium and a small room available separately.  The master room should have its own bathroom.  The medium and small rooms will share a bathroom.

If you plan to rent a room you should make sure to ask if cooking is allowed.  In Malaysia they differentiate between heavy and light cooking.  Heavy cooking just seems like cooking to me.  Light cooking would be something like instant noodles or rice to go with whatever you bought on the way home.  Check if it is fully furnished, partially furnished, or unfurnished.  Partially furnished may not mean that anything more than the kitchen cupboards and lights are installed.  You might need to add all kitchen, living room, bathroom, and bedroom furniture/appliances.  Check if there is a water heater in the bathroom and AC if it matters to you.  Since you are hardcore you will definitely not need the AC in Penang (the weather is awesome).

If you use an agent to find an apartment you should expect to pay between a half and one month's rent to them as their commission.  Supposedly this fee may be negotiable, but you'll be paying something if you use an agent.  Aside from the agent fee, whether you choose an apartment or room you'll probably be asked to pay one month's rent as deposit, one month's rent in advance, and up to half a month's rent as a utilities deposit.  These might be negotiable also.

Where To Look
As I was planning my move to Penang I read online that someone said there were "For Rent" signs all around and you could just walk around and call some of the numbers.  Well for the most part that's not true in any of the places I went to.  Online websites have been the best resource for me by far.  It's pretty common that real estate agents will post ads for whole apartments and individuals will post ads for individual rooms.  I don't know why more owners don't post their own apartment ads, but that's what I've found.

Agents may be a necessary evil, but look around.  Not all will have your best interests in mind.

A good website for looking for whole apartments is fullhouse.com.my.  Two good sites to search for whole apartments and individual rooms are ibilik.my/rooms/penang and mudah.my.

View from my temporary room