Finally, Thailand

So here we are in Beautiful Downtown Pattaya. Had a hell of a time getting here, too. Everything went fine as we left  Penang and that’s where things fell apart. What with extra stops and an overlong stay in customs and a rest stop, we missed the noon bus to Bangkok from Hat Yai. Next one wouldn’t be until 7 that night. Liz was furious.  I had wondered when the famous SE Asian inefficiency was going to rear its head, so was a bit more philosophical. No matter, we found a taxi (Small Toyota pickup with seats, canvas roof and grab rails installed in the bed, hell of  a nice driver, 6 bucks there and back, probably 12-15 miles, not to mention his interpreter help at the booking window.)to the actual bus terminal. We’d been dropped at an interim point more convenient for vans, which we’d taken from Penang. Another sore point for Liz, she’d expected a Trailways type conveyance. We  verified that the next bus was indeed 7 PM. Went  back into town, had lunch and waited. Long acquaintances of mine have probably heard me rhapsodize about the quality of roadside food in Thailand. I still will. These folks know what spices are for! Not to mention coconut milk. So we hung around town, playing tourist and just killing time. At about 7, the bus pulled in. That’s more like it! A huge double decker with laydown seats and a big TV screen up front. Even an in-flight(?) movie. Okay, the movie was flatly ridiculous, made even worse for me by the star being the captain of the Firefly, my favorite doomed TV series.  That and nice low lighting along with those comfortable laydown seats made sleep easy.

Chicken Curry, with the little green peppers
(maybe bitter melon?) I remember so well

Toyota pickup taxi. Used for in-town, between towns,
cargo, passengers, whatever.

Bangkok at 5AM. Once again Liz was furious, with good reason. We were dropped off in a public park, roused from sleep with the opening of the bus doors, into a mob of taxi drivers bargaining to take us to our destinations. They had less English than I have Thai. If you knew just where you were going, you were fine but otherwise you were on your own. Liz was having none of it. We walked away with our luggage with no idea of where we were and no idea of how to get anywhere else. Turned out to be one of her finest hours. Everything turned out fine. I’ll mention here that it does absolutely no good to lose your temper. Once you get shrill, everybody around is too embarrassed to even see you. Or something like that.  I still have no idea of just where we were, except it seemed to be in one of Bangkok’s western suburbs. A 6 lane boulevard, lots of nice hotels around, many nicely groomed home offices of obscure and not so obscure firms, a few 7-11’s. These, by the way, are ubiquitous in Asia, even more common than in the states. While on the subject I’ll also mention McDonalds, KFC, Subway and Starbucks. This is what the rest of the world sees as exotic American cooking. Sigh. After waiting around for the world to wake up, we made the acquaintance of a very nice Thai girl on her way to her office job (of course I forgot her name, could barely pronounce it) in her late teens (maybe late 20’s or even 30’s - no way of knowing, these women never seem to age except all of a sudden.)  with excellent English who guided us onto a FREE bus that took us to within a kilometer of  the hostel where we were supposed to have spent the night. We negotiated a hot shower and luggage storage and set off to see at least a little of Bangkok. Then a 5 buck (150 baht) taxi ride to a bus station and a 3 hour ride to Pattaya. It took over an hour and a half to leave Bangkok and its suburbs. The place has grown and grown and grown. Factories, warehouses, port facilities, housing for all those workers, population is near 10 million. When I was there in ‘69 it was in the half million range. Didn’t recognize a thing. Not that it’s a huge slum or anything, just huge.

I have no idea where this is.

Note Ronald McDonald's "wai".
Traditional respectful greeting.

Something similar could be said about Pattaya. Our RCI  accommodations had been there for a few years but the taxi (Toyota truck again) driver didn’t recognize the address. After several discussions with other drivers, he had a vague idea. When we got close, the RCI logo sealed the deal. RCI has done it again. Really nice place, more luxury than we can use (2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2 TV‘s, 3 balconies, great air conditioning), good shops, including a tailor and pool on the ground floor (open air, Thai style) an excellent Vietnamese restaurant on the roof affording a full view of Pattaya. Once we walked around the area, I understood a bit better. We are in the center of quite a large expansion with half a dozen condominiums and hotels going up simultaneously around us. The street naming and addressing system could probably use some sprucing up too. At least we’re not far from the old downtown. Sin Strip itself, half a mile long with a beautiful beach a block over. This is one of the places the boys in ‘Nam would head for on R&R and it’s only gotten woollier in the decades since. Remember, this strip is easily avoided by anyone who doesn’t have a taste for girlie bars, short-time girls, short-time boys, ladyboys and who-knows-what-else. So of course it’s crowded. One thing I didn’t expect was open-air girlie bars with lots of pool tables. At 60 cents for a game of eight-ball with plenty of cleavage teamed against you, it’s a wonderful incentive to prolong the game. Lots of country-and-western, 60’s rock and even go-go bars too, almost all open to the street.  Hell of a show. 

For milder tastes, there are lots of shops with great bargains in clothes, woodcarvings, most consumer goods. Two exceptions are electronics and eyeglasses. A laptop computer, electronic camera, phone will cost within ten percent of what it will with some judicious shopping in the states and glasses will cost more, as all the frames you see are high-style designer stuff. I’m sure locals know where to find the less expensive stuff but they’re not telling. Since we’re down to one e-book, I went on the hunt in Singapore to see if I could find something cheap. They’ve never even heard of the things anywhere I’ve asked. The huge bargains are in food, transportation and lodging. Such good food it is, too. Oh, I already mentioned that, didn’t I? I almost forgot the Pattaya Beach. Just a little the way from Sin Strip. Shops, hotels, vendors of tropical fruits and honest to gosh malls on one side of the street, on the other is a beautiful white sand beach, miles long, filled with cabanas and slow-cooked Europeans and vendors of coconuts complete with soda straw and other beverages, alcoholic and not. In the distance are dozens of jet skis, big speedboats, sailboats, parasails, islands bracketed by the city skyline on one side and Pattaya Hill (our hotel is up there somewhere) on the other.

Of course there are also very reasonable tours of the countryside and outlying islands. We took one just yesterday. It’s billed as the 3-island tour. Not an awful price, 90 bucks for the two of us. It included fishing (I caught one small fish, immediately deemed unacceptable by the guides, popeyed sort of thing, maybe 8 inches long, possibly illegal by the quick way they returned it to the wild.), snorkeling, lunch and a few hours lolling on a beautiful beach with a beach chair all our own. Somewhat regimented since this island is a really popular spot and every square foot gets used. For a good quarter mile long and a couple of hundred feet deep. Warm ocean water. Liz loved the snorkeling but I didn’t indulge as the salt water hurt my road-rash. More on that later. The parasailing was a complete gas and no sort of a physical challenge. You leave the tour boat onto a big flat topped barge then they harness you up in an ingenious rig, bring the sail to a halt with the previous passenger attached. Unsnap two clips at his shoulders, snap onto your clips and next thing you know, you’re twenty feet in the air, then 50 or so, towed behind a hell of a big speedboat. A couple of laps around the barge and into a very soft landing, unclip the harness and walk away, pumping adrenaline. If a Cedar Point rollercoaster is a 10, I’d give it an 8. Well worth the 15 bucks.

The road rash. Monday, we rented a scooter (Hey, 6 bucks for the day!) and braved Pattaya traffic. Not that big a deal, biggest danger being fellow tourists. Except for the gravel road we wandered onto. Moved quick to avoid a dog, found a rut. All in slow-motion, maybe 15 mph, except for the wheel grabbing the rut and snapping us off. Thankfully, Liz landed on top of me and the scooter. I , on the other hand was between the scooter and the road. Scraped off a little skin on my ankle, knee, elbows and hands. Looks awful, doesn’t hurt hardly at all. Alcohol, iodine and gauze held in place with the ever-handy duct tape should do the job. Lost a mirror on the scooter, damned embarrassing.

We also took in the Alcazar show. The cabaret is an all-male revue, not that you could tell. Wherethehell do they hide it? Seriously, this is a Las Vegas style and Las Vegas professional show. Great music, costumes and production values. Still, I doubt some proud mother is gushing “My son’s in Show Business!”.  On the other hand, considering relaxed Thai attitudes, I could be wrong.

14,15

One last thing. In a full week I have seen hundreds of cats. One, count’em one has been even vaguely Siamese.

Liz in Pattaya, Thailand

Yesterday we took an all day tour to 3 Islands for 1500 baht each or with drinks and a parasail ride the trip was $110.  Fine white sand beaches, water that mirrors the sky and great wind for sailing make Pattaya an international destination. I miss the Atlantic Ocean’s waves. I snorkeled but saw nothing of note; no reef, a few tiny fish without color and some rocks.  I learned to avoid the stink from jet skiis and motorboats.

Traveling with Mike is fun and it is extra fun since Mike speaks a little Thai and asks questions and tries to learn words. His attempts to speak charms. Cab drivers ask him to sit up front with them in taxi trucks. 

A taxi truck (carries 10-13 passengers) picked us up from our timeshare. On board were 3 Norwegian sisters in their 60’s. They said that Norway’s population is 5 million people and it is a very expensive place to live and visit. North Sea oil wealth keeps them too rich to join the Euro zone but meanwhile the sisters do not feel rich. Then the taxi picked up some Arab men. Some were late or hard for our driver to find.

We were the only Americans on our tour boat of 30. I counted when we stopped for fishing, shocked that so many people would cast reels off the boat. But it was a good task to bond us.

A pair of New York men were on another boat. I approached them because one of them was African American so I guessed correctly that they were Americans.  Signage on the city blocks here change by nationality. Russian, Arabic, Korean, British, Thai and as Mike noted American chains line the tourist streets off the beach. Imagine Lebanese restaurateurs leaving their bombed out Beirut Riviera and starting over in peaceful Thailand. The Norwegian sisters shared our surprise that so many Russians visit here. Like us they had no idea that Pattaya was a Russian holiday destination. The manager of our timeshare building, Pattaya Hill is a Russian, Tatiana Yashchuk.

An ecstatically grateful Libyan sat next to us on our ride back from the beach trip. Using lots of video sound effects he told us what a poverty stricken police state Libya was under Mummer Khadafy.  He said (with lots of Pow Pows) that he fought with rebels for the overthrow. He said his English language comes from videos. He thanked France’s President Sarkosy and Obama. I put in a plug for Hillary. We wished him well and told him to transform Libya into a tourist destination like Pattaya.

I like Thai food! Like Mike always said the food in Thailand is really good. Thais are the gourmets of the Orient. Such a relief after disappointment of Malaysian food. Our Asian breakfast staple ever since Singapore is white bread (like Sunbeam or Holsum) made from rice flour.  We toast it and add butter and jam. Tea and coffee are in coffee pots just like pots in any US diner. Fruit if served is watermelon. Fruit juice is orange juice but I think it tastes artificial, certainly off. A variety of hot Asian dishes appear in a big buffet.  One chafing dish holds fried rice while another holds fried eggs. 

Kelvin our Chinese day tour guide in the Malaysian Cameron Highlands told us that the Chinese eat dogs. He did not know first hand of people eating cats. The Chinese criteria for eating an animal is, “Does the animal’s backbone face the sky?” Kelvin said that monkeys were OK to eat under this rule since they walk on their front arms. Small skinny cats are accepted to walk around our timeshare resort. Cats were accepted in Bali too probably because they keep away mice and other vermin. Thailand is mostly Buddhist and has a live and let live attitude. 

How do I feel? That is always the hardest question for me to answer. I have to talk a long time to figure it out. This difficulty is why I practiced  my answer with a psychologist for so many years. Last night we watched The Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher’s story played by Meryl Strep. It was dark, truth seeking and not flattering. Margaret Thatcher was confounded by the question of feelings. When asked, “How do you feel?” she ranted against her doctor for asking. Her sarcasm was cryptic. She demanded thoughts that turned into action, results, character development and then leadership. The Iron Lady is  nothing like the portrayal of personality integration and enlightenment found in The King’s Speech. I will not suggest this movie for parents (Oldies as the Australians say) unless the parent is an avid movie goer and not easily depressed.. Thatcher as an iron lady cannot allow herself to say that she feels lonely. Alzheimers sets in and she has a running imaginary conversation with her husband that she will not admit to. She does not have friends only secretaries. She is not loving towards her daughter and even insults her and tries to chase her away. While her daughter assists her she tells her daughter that the daughter is unattractive. Thatcher berates her for assisting her, her mother. Meanwhile let me say thank you to our highly independent parents. We are grateful and lucky to have such independent parents who do not make any demands upon us. Also we heartily thank our siblings for attending to our parents while we are so far away. All we do is mail postcards.

 

Back to how am I feeling. Traveling for seven months means that we cannot visit family and friends.  Our most intimacy is shared exchanges via the internet. Thankfully I have a couple of faithful e-mail friends. The random company of strangers and reading  add companionship. After a bout of diarrhea and the loss of our pictures, the loss of electrolytes magnified the loss of the photos. I won’t easily tell about our trip without those photos. Maybe I ought to pay for a luggage scale and weigh myself but I look the same, clothes fit the same.  A nose cold triggered by a scratchy throat due to air conditioning is wearing on both of us. Air con related colds are par for the course in the tropics.

Then the slow motion fall off of motor scooter. What most worried me was Mike’s initial denial. He thought about everything other than injuries. He thought about the accident report and mechanical issues. I bought a bag of ice and tried to ice our wounds. Mike says, “You’re such a girl”, that this is nothing compared to his past dirt biking injuries. I got a few scrapes on my hand and a shoulder bruise/road rash. I was so shocked and I am really thankful to blog to express this more. Mike’s unspoken message is “Don’t feel this; it is insignificant.” But meanwhile he is hiring cabs and not motorbikes. I trust him and would ride with him any time he asks. I wanted him to have fun on motorbikes and feel bad our fun was spoiled so quickly. He has elbow and hand scrapes and a swollen foot where the bike hit him.

I just had diarrhea again. My fault. I drank ice water in the building’s “Le Coffee Shop”. It looked so refreshing that I fell for it. Over and over again when we toured China our guide told us not to drink tap water, that the Chinese themselves do not drink tap water. I do not know who that Thai waitress thinks we are and who can drink this water (maybe the Thais or the Russians) but it is definitely not me! Mike had beer and I may have to start drinking beer myself. I skipped going out to a show last night.  Mike went alone since he’d paid for us to see it. He said it was slightly sleazy with some amazing acts but not too raunchy.

When Mike writes that I was furious about travel delays I am surprised and resist temptation to edit his text. I did not yell. I hardly even spoke to anyone except Mike though I said loudly to Mike so that the dispatcher would hear that that was not the deal; that is not what we agreed to. My GM experience in procuring parts for an assembly plant for 17 years lead me to ask for another bus company. I wanted to know options for going to Bangkok. I was angry with myself for not booking the train in Malaysia before it was sold out. I don’t even know why I hesitated to book that train(except for scattered internet and not feeling so well).  We were promised that the bus would arrive at 7PM for a total transit time of 16 hours versus 27 hours on a train. We agreed to and paid for a 16 hour trip. Before I’d wait 5 hours  and then sleep on a bus all night I looked for another bus company. The ride was smooth and we slept quite well considering.

When we got off the bus in Bangkok we did not hire the first fast talking taxi driver to pressure us. We just woke up, got off the bus and had not even found a toilet when the cab drivers came at us. What is the approach that experienced European travelers take? (Our trip is hardly unique.) Travel guidebooks say the traveler’s biggest waste of money is taxis. Especially for us since we typically stay in centrally located hostels that are close to terminals. We found a decent toilet and a 7-11 provided breakfast. We sat along a beautiful boulevard and  got used to looking at photos of the King of Thailand before taking a free city bus with a wooden floor to our Hostel International  where we showered and freshened up.

Nonetheless our minds played tricks with us due to the odd night. I thought I lost the I-phone but later found it in bottom of back pack. Mike smoked and chatted with a hostel guest outside.  When we proceeded to run some errands he missed his hat and camera. We looked in the shower room several times before I found they’d fallen in a narrow space next to the toilet.

Entering new places is harder on Mike than on me because he works so hard to get oriented right away. He gets agitated trying to figure out where he is. When we had the motorbike spill Mike was distracted by trying to figure out where we were (in addition to a crater in the road and a dog in the crater). We also try to head inside by 3 PM to catch our breathe. Quitting time for GM suits us as travelers too. 

 

In Pattaya and in our comfortable timeshare I pampered myself with a facial and the next day a swim in a perfect pool. Today I ordered a strawberry yogurt parfait for the first time in eons just to up my calorie intake. We tried to replace our Sudafed with another decongestant but no non-drowsy decongestant is sold in Thailand due to methamphetamine addiction. So we might just slow down and take more naps before we take our next bus trip to Cambodia on Sat. Feb. 11. 

Author Rabih Alameddine’s novel, The Storyteller  is an ideal traveling companion. It juxtaposes 1001 Arabian Nights and contemporary life. It is perfect reading in exotic lands especially where women wear veils.

We sent our laundry out this week for the first time since French Polynesia. It cost $18. Several articles of clothing were returned definitely cleaner than ever. They also washed out blood stains from our scrapes. I usually wash out our clothes in the bathsink every third day. Socks take the longest time to dry, a day and/or night and then off we go. REI pants, shirts and underwear dry within hours.  

With less than 90 days of travel remaining I think about how to lighten our load in Vietnam and what if anything to donate or mail home. I do not expect to need my prescription swimming goggles again. I can only guess that it will be colder in Hanoi and Laos in late February or early March so I expect to carry our few items of warm clothing up there in case we get cold. My $35 bag from Australia is not a back pack meaning it does not have straps. That might be an issue in places like Cambodia where sidewalks are irregular at best but since Mike does not hesitate to take a taxi I’ll drop this concern.

Mike gave me a budget of $100 per day at the outset of our trip. We calculate the actual at $150 per day. Mike is satisfied and unconcerned about this cost.   

I have not been impressed with the shopping and won’t get into shopping mode here. The Russians however cannot buy enough clothing and leather goods. We need to replace the power cord for our walkie talkies (which we have yet to use and may never actually need) but we cannot find a Radio Shack type store. I want new eyeglasses with transition lenses but they’d cost $1000. I thought about a quick flight to Hong Kong, world’s eyeglass masters but I don’t know what a Chinese Visa requires and I’ll probably get better faster and certainly more familiar in Michigan.

We read Thom Hartmann’s newsletter and appreciate his reminder of how better than 50% of young adults in the US are unemployed or underemployed. I wonder what I would do if I were entering the work force today. If it weren’t for the luck of my GM career I’d be running a small business somewhere.

In an attempt to inspire let me describe 2 business owners who think outside the box. Diego and Pete are 2 really interesting men who own their own resorts.

We met Diego Angel at breakfast in Kuala Lumpur. He friended us on Facebook shortly after our breakfast with him. Diego is maybe 30 and from a Columbian family with a plantation. He used his trust funds to attend a university in Brisbane, Australia where he met loads of surfers. He fell in love and married an Indonesian. He  bought beachfront land on an island that he shares with Neolithic tribes. Their guests are mostly Australian surfers. He also offers great fishing and they serve great meals. It is not unusual for guests to meet the shaman of the Neolithic tribes in the forest. He is very impressed by how the Neolithic manage their population without exhausting their resources. Diego feels  on an equal footing with his other family members because he does not live in Columbia with his hand out for a cut in their plantation proceeds. He gives credit to his wife’s political connections in Indonesia for the permits that allow them to own rare precious beach front. They raise their 3 year old son and she is earning a degree from a college in Kuala Lumpur. I asked him if he had a car and he looked distressed, no, he’d had to buy a boat with his profits this year to make transport faster and more comfortable for guests. The family still has only the motorbike.

We met Pete from London on the morning leg of our ill fated bus trip to Bangkok. Pete was on the bus to renew his Thai Visa as required quarterly. Pete is about 40 and bought into a resort on the Thai island of Samuii. Pete was an IT manager and worked all over the world. While on a month’s vacation in Samuii he struck up an engagement with Ying, a Thai daughter of the resort. He reorganized his entire life and gives his all for their 22 room resort. Maximum capacity is 75 people. Paradoxically for an IT manager he does not advertise and has no web site, not even a Facebook page. Guests are either returning customers or dropped of by the island’s taxi driver. I asked him about their family and he said that Ying is raising a niece and nephew. He picks them up from school via motorbike quite often and even assists them with their English homework. The children are quiet around him and he seemed to reflect on that after admitting it. If you ever visit Samuii, look up Pete and Ying. Meanwhile he has hardly had a day to just go fishing by himself in the last 6 months.  

 

     

That's better

I seem to remember expressing disappointment about Malaysia. Not all of it, as it turns out. We just spent a couple of days in the Cameron Highlands, north central Malaysia, up in the hills. Much better! Maybe it helps that Tanah Rata is specifically geared to tourists, maybe because it isn't city (absolutely isn't city) with all those elbows and slums. I've discovered I'm very sensitive to the way the other half lives and how they care for themselves. There's a huge difference between urban and rural poor. I'll take the rural anyday.

Anyway, back to the Highlands. It has the oldest rainforest in the world, 155 million years, according to our guide. Unlike other Rainforests I've read about, the soil here is incredibly deep and fertile. The Malaysians use it to full effect despite the fact that there is damn little of it lying horizontal. Tea plantations (hundreds of acres) and commercial size vegetable gardens are all on an extreme angle with the vegetable gardens terraced. I saw one watercress farm of two acres. This makes for some unforgettable scenery. It also makes for some unforgettable roads. Our driver would regularly slow to a crawl and sound his horn around blind corners on the one and a half lane wide blacktop snaking its way up the hills. Cooperation among drivers was a life or death matter. All around was deep jungle, life feeding on life, every tree with its attendant parasites. Orchids bloom all over. Well, grow all over, only a few species were in bloom. Thou Shalt Not Touch or Pick, under pain of huge fines and even jail time, and the guide would be the one to turn you in. On the other hand, feel free to pick many edible fruits and enjoy them. Many are tasty, some are ................. interesting.

Lower right hand corner, a watercress garden,
the rest is vegetables in terraced plots.

Durian, one of the ..................interesting fruits.

Following our main theme, our hotel was not expensive. Also not new, built in the 1890's. I'm sure it's been through a few renovations, but I'm betting the bathtub is original. It fit right in with the main street of Tanah Rata, kind of a Wild West meets Southeast Asia. Concrete sidewalks instead of board, diagonal parking instead of hitching posts, open shop fronts instead of saloon swinging doors, still a wild west flavor. Our tours also were not expensive, less than RM100 (30 US) each for a full day out in the farms and jungle. At that, our guide/driver was very fluent in English and very knowledgeable about the area. Oh, the price included dinner. One jarring note was the many stops at, So Help Me Ghu, lawn and garden centers, indistinguishable from the ones in nearly every American suburb. Of course, the plant selection was a little different. The local flowers and shrubs looked like what we'd consider exotica while their exotica was cactus. Lots and lots of cactus! Apparently, the well-to-do were entranced with them despite (maybe because of) the difficulty of maintaining them in such a well-watered area. While I'm at it, I need to talk about the strawberries. The area has several strawberry farms, bearing constantly. If you've ever bought American supermarket strawberries and been disappointed by the resemblance to the taste of balsa wood, you'll understand my delight when I found these taste like those little wild strawberries I remember from childhood. Only big!

Which brings me to the subject of Malaysian food. You will not find faddy Malaysian restaurants springing up in your neighborhood unless it's after everyone grows tired of the Scottish ones. All those excellent vegetables and fish and the whole thing gets turned into a bland, greasy mess. The stuff even looks awful. This from a guy who's known to eat damn near anything, especially if it's labeled foreign and exotic. Of course, my experience so far is with the roadside (or streetside) food vendors. Nevertheless, there is a lack of variety in their wares and presentation. Even the Chinese restaurants we've visited in this country seem to have toned down their usual savory presentations for the Malaysian market. Again, this with the availability of fine vegetables fom the mountains,carrots and dakon radishes you wouldn't believe, with sweet corn and tomatoes and green peppers year around and great home-grown spices, mostly exported, is just not to be forgiven.  One meal did live up to my expectations and we had to cook it ourselves. I suspect it's a Chinese Iimport called Steamboat and I've only seen it in Tanah Rata. Basically, you get a big plate of raw prawns, thinly sliced venison, lamb, fishballs, tofu, several vegetables and noodles with a double pot of chicken bullion on one side and a spicy soup stock on the other over a gas burner. Sort of a fondue. We made a terrible mess, but it sure was tasty.

On our last night in Tanah Rata we did a bit more exploring and found the other side of town. Most attractive, with a big soccer field, a basketball court, a huge park with several children's attractions (monkey bars, slides, etc.), very nicely landscaped. On the other side  of a canal were several new hotels and resorts. Up and coming, indeed.

An early morning ride out of the mountains and into Georgetown, on the Island of Penang. I  don't know if I've mentioned the palm plantations . More than half the time we've been riding buses here, from Malacca to Kuala Lumpur to Penang, we've been in sight of a palm plantation more than half the time. These  are the oil palm, bearing a nut which is pressedd for palm oil, probably Malaysia's major export.  Penang is proving to be a better location than either Malacca or Kuala Lumpur. Seems more prosperous, poverty nothing like as evident. We're in Georgetown at a nice hotel at about 39 dollars a night. Breakfast on the 5th floor patio included. Bus ride to the far reaches of the island cost about a buck each. Most of the Island is urban or suburban with a quarter or less set aside for a nature preserve. We went hiking there this morning. The hike lasted into the afternoon, about 10 kilometers with very little of it flat. You didn't think they'd preserve the horizontal land, did you?

The central prohibition is
"no lewd behavior"



Monitor lizard




First thing tomorrow morning, we're on a bus to Bangkok. Out of Malaysia and hopefully into much better street food!

Liz on Malaysia. and comments on Bali

Holding a Fruit Bat in Bali. He has claws.

Audience in Bali

Liz on Malaysia and Comments on Bali
If you visit Bali, set aside 150,000 Rupiah per person for the Bali Departure Tax. Travel guide books like Lonely Planet warn about this tax but our trip is to so many places that I failed to organize to the degree to manage this detail. I did not even have a method to make a note to myself due to lack of electronic references. Especially young people max out their cash and credit and then miss their return plane and are trapped in Bali because of this tax. I recalled reading about this tax in the back of my mind but ...

Mike pays our bills on this trip. Why is that? If you are an engineer who has split a dinner check with me or if you are on our Sunnybrook Golf League and recall that I left my handbag in the restaurant after the golf league’s final dinner, then you do not wonder why Mike manages our trip money. So far Mike has converted USD (Dollars) into Australian, New Zealand and Singaporean dollars, Indonesian Rupiah, now Malaysian Ringgits and soon Thai Bhats. As a team we play to our strengths. He would never deny me anything I request. I do not have to prove anything to him. I have a MasterCard (which I used once for Great Barrier Reef tour) but otherwise Mike pays for every meal, hotel, hostel, transport and incidental. Toilets cost 10 cents so I carry change .Mike found the ATM in Bali Airport so we got out of Bali with time to spare He feels naked without cash. He did not want to spend all our Rupiahs but since we were leaving Bali, we did not expect to need them. We bought Luwak coffee in the airport to close out cash on hand and then got burned by tax.

Population of Bali in 2010 is 3,891,000
Population of Oahu in 2010 is 953,000 Bali Land = 5,632 km²Oahu Land = 1,545 km².

We now carry toilet paper in our pockets. Almost every Malay toilet has a spigot for washing your bottom. Apparently spigots with water are preferred to toilet paper. A task for blind men is to sell toilet paper on the street. We saw these blind men in Singapore’s Chinatown and then in KL.

We compared Hawaii’s Oahu to Indonesia’s Bali by land mass and population to try to gain perspective and a frame of reference.
The land and populations are proportionate but the sprawl in Bali is just the opposite of Oahu. Motorcycles v.. 7 million buses passes 


I was told to visit Bali in Dec. 2007 while skiing with my son in Lake Tahoe. Guests went out of their way to tell me that a round-the-world trip must include Bali, that it is really safe, serene and special. Eat, Pray, Love added to the Bali cache. Our Queensland, Australia friends, Terry and Sue say that they only stay in Bali in guest houses without electricity or telephones, that’s how much they enjoy the rusticity. We stayed in the cool north outside of Ubud.

If you are a life long autoworker who takes pride in safety features, forget that value in Bali. Mike says that motorcycles are the symbol of the new prosperity but I see them as crippler of the innocent and aspiring in a country teeming with law abiding young people. A school of children in nice, neat uniforms is let out. A sea of motorcycles flows before us carrying these children and their drivers. Meanwhile our young male room attendant limps through his chores; the limp is from a motorcycle fall. Our 31 year old hotel manager, Sari had a spill as evidenced by the dirty sleeve of her uniform jacket our 2^nd morning there. She denied injury. Honestly, Mike and I were amazed by the skill of drivers and that we did not see any accidents but it doesn’t mean motorbikes are safe.
Sari, the 31 year old hotel manager is a Moslem woman from Java and the oldest person in Bali’s Raffles Holiday Resort. Sari is a smiling girlish looking woman who looks younger than her years. She does not wear a veil when at work. Her husband has no interest in learning English and lives with her 10 year old son on Java. She rarely sees them but Skypes them weekly from the hotel. Sari’s knowledge of English is indispensable to her management. When I asked her if it was rude to telephone Budi, the Celebrity Century’s assistant maitre’d since he had not seen his family in a long, long while. (Budi’s telephone # failed, good thing.). Sari told me no issue, that her guests are family. She told me that a Dutch guest actually visited her and went on to marry her aunt. Workers are taken for granted in Bali. Why should people matter since Indonesia is the world’s 4^th most populated nation comprised of 70 scattered islands with rampant corruption?

Temple in Bali

Because of high demand during Chinese New Year I booked the Luxury Coach from Singapore’s Orchard Road to Malaka. What‘s the most you can pay? $92. We had an assigned seat with individual TV movies. When we crossed the border we were surprised to see that Malaysia was a vast swath of green land, lots of landscape and garden farms supplying Singapore
Poster for Singapore: “You’ve heard of a garden in a city? Singapore is a city in a garden."

                          Live Orchids in Singapore's Airport. They have a butterfly house too.

Miles of palm trees producing palm oil and every type of tropical crop with a few shacks along the Malaysian interstate make for a nice ride, not unlike the US. .
We arrived at the Equatorial Hotel named after the equator because, duh, we’re really close to the equator. We went to a shopping mall to get Malaysian ringgets and then find a cab. I knew our hostel was really close by and that taxis trips are a big waste in a travel budget but Mike prefers taking a taxi with our bags especially when it is hot. He tried 3 ATMs before one worked. Meanwhile unlike Bali Malaysian shops sell pastries and desserts. Donuts and candy stores are in Malaysia that were unseen in Bali. Women are noticeably fatter than they were in Bali. They have skin problems too. The only butterfat type of dessert I noticed in Bali was an ice crème freezer case for a Nestles’ brand “Walls”. Indonesians are so lean and eat smaller food portions of meat. Malaysia is so wealthy and fat by comparison. I usually do not look at dessert but I asked someone (Diego) at breakfast who knows both countries and he agreed that Indonesians are so much leaner than Malays.

Gasoline is $2.50 per gallon; Mike converted the currencies and then liters to gallons several times to be sure of this figure. In Indonesia I expect birth control is centered around transportation. In Bali gas is sold in glass bottles by the liter. How many family members can fit on a motorbike? We’ve seen a family of 4 (baby and toddler) on a single bike whereas in Malaysia families have cars. Big difference. 5 family members may ride in the car and it is a whole lot safer. Yes, I’ve seen a Malay man steer with one hand and hold down a toddler with the other. Typical family size in Malaysia is 3 children per couple. So in Bali families are smaller and thinner in size than in Malaysia.
　
How did we decide to tour Malaysia?
Initially we were going to take a train from across the border in Singapore to Bangkok. That was it. We had no plan to see Malaysia until we asked a stranger for directions in Melbourne. Lian Todd walked us to a bus stop and chatted with us. We e-mailed. After our 3 days in San Remo we returned to Melbourne and met Lian for dinner. She even picked up the tab. Lian is a Chinese Malaysian who makes Melbourne her home. She inspired us to visit historic Melaka, Kuala Lumpur, Cameron Highlands and Penang. I had no knowledge that these places existed before we discussed with Lian. Then we read 2 books. A Town Like Alice by Neville Shute begins in Malaysia and moves to a farm station in Australia. The Dunstan’s gave us their copy of Gavin Menzies’ 1421, How the Chinese Discovered the World. Both books raised our awareness of Malaysia. We booked hostels to get through the overcrowded Chinese New Year’s season in Malaysia until we move into timeshare in Pattaya Feb 4-11.

Why did Lian immigrate from Melaka to Melbourne? Why does Mike dislike Malaysia? Discrimination. Rigidity as manifest in religion. Because Lian is Chinese she faced discrimination in education in Malaysia. In Melbourne Lian is a librarian and a textbook publishing success. Meanwhile Moslems control Malaysia. We see veiled women everywhere here. To Malaysia’s credit today the United Nations classifies Malaysia as a developed nation. This nation of 28 million advanced from undeveloped status just a few decades ago. Airport security and government officials appear highly professional, friendly and honest.
In Torah study class the explanation I heard for covering women in Orthodox religions is to not distract men. Women are to be modest and proper. Men are to focus on religious studies (The Koran or the Torah). The sight of a woman’s elbow, knee, neck or the hair on her head might cause a man to behave in some sexually depraved way. Sexual nudity in statues is illegal. We saw statues wearling bras and panties in the Custom House Museum. Meanwhile Asian women. Korean, Chinese or from wherever, Asian women wear sexy shorts and t-shirts. They stand up for themselves and do not worry about the Moslems. Gender discrimination is not tolerated in China (unlike Japan).
Personally I wear long pants, long sleeve shirts and a sun hat but eh gads, my neck is exposed. I do not measure up as pure but women seem nice to me any way. Women with veils are in positions of authority in the airport and elsewhere so I am satisfied that they have choice and career paths.

I had diarrhea starting in Melaka and because I was indisposed we did not tour Kuala Lumpur. All I saw was Sogo, the dept. store where we bought this lap top. I missed The Petronas Towers! Believe me I would have if I could have! I wanted to send a card to our workplace from the top of the towers showing us enjoying a cocktail but that was not to be. So regrettable but unavoidable. I got over the diarrhea in the Cameron Highlands by taking a lot more Imodium and also some pills for stomach cramps. I am still unsure of my stomach. The cramps indicate bad water probably because I drank the water in the bottled water cooler in the Melaka hostel. I do not dare drink that water again. I toss water bottles away when plastic bottles are an environmental nightmare. Litter is an issue here; Malays are not tidy; they use Chinese and Indians to do their dirty work. Such a shame that I am a contributor to landfills. Before Malaysia we boiled water in electric kettles. Now our HI (hostel international) card takes us to hotels (without kettles) but where breakfast is served.

                                   River front in historic Melaka. We took a boat excursion.

                                Monitor Lizard on the Riverbank during our Boat Excursion

We had interesting chats with 2 middleclass Chinese families who are striving to learn all they can about the world. We discussed Admiral Zheng He, a hero who is both Chinese and Muslim. They said that Chinese schools still teach that Columbus discovered America. Such a shame that this error in fact is still being perpetuated even by the Chinese when Admiral Zheng He deserves the credit.
　

                                                                                    Admiral Zheng He, Chinese eunuch who led exploration of the world in 1421   

                                                             Sultan's Court in 1421

                     Malaysia,a democracy has 9 kings that rotate every 5 years.                     

Disappointed in Malaysia

I don't know why, but I'm disappointed by Malaysia. Perhaps it's just backlash from exotic Bali. Maybe it's because Liz has come down with a case of Montezuma's (or his local equivalent) revenge, thus limiting our touristing. Maybe I'm suffering from depression at losing our netbook. Oh yeah, we got the bag back, sans netbook. Damn! I'm still mulling over the security implications of this. As far as I remember, it was "clean" as far as sensitive data and the like, but did carry an address list of friends and family. Only time will tell. But, all those pictures. Does that mean we have to go to Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand again? Wait a minute, a ray of sunshine there!

Anyway, both Malacca (spelling varies, the locals seem to prefer Melaka) and Kuala Lumpur (commonly referred to as KL) are mostly comparatively modern downtowns with historic districts surrounded by really drab housing areas. Every other woman wears the muslim headscarf and full burqa can be seen on occasion. Granted, there was lots of western dress visible, and nearly no exotic native apparel. Maybe that's what I miss. I was surprised to find that Malaysia has been Muslim since its founding as a nation in the early 1400's. Some Hindu and Buddhist influence and the ubiquitous Chinese but you can not escape the dominant Muslim presence. Other than that, the cities are fairly orderly and mostly depressingly workaday.



Apartment block - typical
Cruise ship, also typical



In Malacca, our hostel, the Backpacker Freak Hostel (Would I make  that up?), was the only place available during Chinese New Year and was as basic as it gets but with a very pleasant atmosphere. Lots of foreign travelers, mostly German and Chinese. Nearly all with some English skills, the single uniting theme we've seen in hostels. If I'm going to travel with one language, it had better be English. It's located right on the edge of the historic district, just across a strange little amusement park. During Chinese New Year, this park was jammed. From the common room in the hostel, we saw some interesting dragon shows (Durn camera batteries were exhausted!) and lots of fireworks. All through the park and the historic district, the most colorful and noisy pedicabs hauled Chinese tourists around. Saw lots of museums relating to the changing influences on on Malacca and the rest of Malaysia, from the founding Muslim prince to Portugese to English, Japanese, then independence. During a quick river cruise we saw that the most colorful areas (walls painted in all manner of pictures) were Chinese.

Pedicabs like this all over streets of historic area



River scene, lots of shops line riverbank





St. Paul's Church, built 1600's, used by the British in 1800's for gunpowder storage





More pedicab






All that's left of old Portugese fort



Exotic Bali

This morning a very well educated Malaysian woman and I were at breakfast, trying to find a more descriptive word than "exotic" to describe this island. No luck. Alien, bizarre, beautiful, different, unexpected, surprising, several others were tried. Nope, exotic it is.



Our introduction to the place had us wondering if we had made a huge mistake. Off the plane at 9:30 at night, pay 50 dollars (500,000 rupiah.Wanna be a millionaire? just get 100 bucks out of the ATM) for a visa, find out one of our bags was lost (more, much more on that later) and a flatly terrifying two hour journey to our hotel. On the good side, our driver was there waiting with a sign with our name. Unfortunately, his English was too lacking to give us much information on much of anything. Leaving Denpasar on our way to Ubud amid a swarm of motorbikes (all of them under 250cc and single cylinder, thus not quite qualifying to me as real motorcycles), over narrow dark roads through some of the least promising landscape we've ever encountered. The roadside in the headlights looked like one gigantic slum nestled RIGHT up aginst the road for mile after mile. Constantly being passed by aforesaid motorbikes, our driver staying resolutely in the center of the road until the last moment to allow oncoming traffic to pass. Once our senses adjusted to the combat-like atmosphere we realized we were passing thousands of stone (alright, mostly cast concrete) statues of mythological creatures, shops full of glass cases with all manner of consumer goods, vodka bottles of bensin (gas), wood carvings, etc., high stone walls with closed gates and open workshops of all types. In the dark it all looked like Dogpatch squared.

The exotic part started as soon as we passed the gates to the hotel. Down a curving brick paved drive to a small parking area, the entire staff waited to meet us with the traditional "saloom" greeting (hands steepled together, in front of face, you've seen it in many asian movies). All four of them, all sweet looking young ladies maybe 17 years old. Quickly ushered into our quarters, not room, a bungalow of good size, all window and curtains on two sides. The bath down a set of steps, the shower area open to the sky. Once more, exotic as hell. Same with breakfast. Not one thing a westerner would recognize as part of  a morning meal with the exception of excellent high octane coffee. Fried rice, noodles, wokked vegetables, breaded fish, barbecued chicken, sorry, forgot the white bread (not toast, a completely foreign concept) and jam. All for the two of us. Did I mention this was served on an open air patio distinctly labeled Lobby? Since the serving staff outnumbered us two to one and nobody looked old enough to leave high school and was all female I felt like daddy at the daughter's tea party.

Lunch in Ubud

View in Hotel

Out into town after breakfast. Our shuttle driver dropped us off in Ubud after another tense (to us) adventure. A distinctly frontier-like atmosphere, interspersed with unimaginably old stoneworks. Our drop-off point was obviously the umpteenth use of a stone-pillared pavilion. Along the narrow road (yes, filled with traffic, evidently as undisciplined as ever) were shop after shop, most of them open-fronted hard up against the sidewalk, where one existed. Take your pick, textiles, 7-11 stuff, a two-story coffee shop/restaurant obviously dedicated to the tourist trade (There was a LOT of stuff dedicated to the tourist trade!), an amazing profusion of exotic (there's that word again) fruits, and tchochke (Yiddish word, pronounced choch-key, the stuff on your grandma's mantle and in that china closet) beyond description.

We  picked up a few essentials,shirt, pants, the all-important wall-outlet-to-USB adaptor, some of that exotic fruit (I highly recomment mangosteen), poking into this shop and that. Some things started to make sense. Prices of all items were incredibly low compared to western. For sure, overheads had to be kept low. Therefore, no place for fancy displays or shop decorations. The  right-of-ways were likely older than western civilization and property along them jealously protected. Probably a lot of real estate was grudgingly given up just for the road width provided. Even though traffic seemed chaotic, there were none of the accidents I would have expected were westerners driving this way. There was a different set of rules, unspoken, that I apparently wasn't privy to.

On the way back to the hotel, I was able to stop concentrating on our imminent demise and start looking at the scenery. Rice fields, fruit trees, vegetable gardens, villages, jungle vegetation everywhere behind the shops and more visible as shops faded on the outskirts. Everywhere, somebody was doing something productive with a leisurely air speaking of enjoying the moment. Now and then, a heartbreakingly pretty vista completely different that anything I'd ever seen outside of postcards. You've heard it before, pictures can't do it justice.

Dinner at the hotel. This time from a menu. Compared to lunch in town, horrendously expensive, nearly 20 bucks. Of course the menu was in Balinese only (at least it used English letters) so the we asked the waitress to read it to us. At least that way we had the pronunciations right, though we had a twenty question and pantomime thing going as to what the vegetable words represented. No matter, I don't know what to call what I had but it was delicious. We did finally get through to her that spices were OK. That livened things up considerably. No wonder breakfast and lunch had seemed bland!

Next day, Liz was wary of facing traffic and wanted to plan a couple of tours with the hotel manager, a lady from Java named Sari, incredibly 31 years old, married and the mother of a 9-year old boy, so we took a day off, just hanging around the hotel and watching life around here take its languid pace. Lucky us. The entire island came under a day long pounding rainfall. Just as glad to be out of it.

Morning, breakfast, tour. Just a short one. Not a big deal, just a couple of temples (famous ones, you don't have to go far to see any number of  temples), Kintimani volcano and a memorable coffee stop. First was a quick stop just for a view of the famous terraced rice paddies. Now, many paddies are mildly terraced, it's the easiest way to do the job, given a properly placed water supply. Bali has these water supplies in abundance. The terraced paddies go right up thirty degree hills for hundreds of feet, Narrow strips of irrigation then a drop and another narrow strip, repeat as necessary. Gorgeous! Old as hell as well. We were handicapped by a driver with very limited English so the travelogue was missing. I have no idea where I was, not that it really mattered. We saw this theme repeatedly, though not quite so spectacularly. That this was a standard tourist stop was reinforced by the number and persistence of the roadside merchants. This theme was also repeated.

What can I say about these temples that hasn't already been said by dozens of travel writers. Let's just get all of them out of the  way by saying that they bespoke incredible age, wonderful craftsmanship, imaginative visualization of the forces beyond human control as personified by various religions deities. Also, a great deal of serenity and a lot of pragmatism. These are after all, residences of generations of priests.

Now let's talk about that memorable coffee stop. You've of course heard of Luwak, aka "weaselshit" coffee. It isn't really a weasel, more of a cute sort of civet cat, not that dissimilar to a possum. Yes, they do eat the ripe coffee cherries and excrete the seeds. Then, enterprising individuals collect these droppings, wash and roast them and grind them into coffee. Excellent coffee. Let me say that again. Excellent coffee. With and after effect that wasn't exactly a caffeine buzz but more like half a beer on an empty stomach. While I wouldn't pay the stateside price, 6 bucks for a two-cup pot of it along with a sampler of three more locally grown varieties and two teas and locally grown chocolate is some kind of bargain. Oh, toss in a couple of hand-rolled cigarettes of excellent locally grown tobacco. Rolled at your table by a master of the art, making it indistingushable from a machine-made cigarette. Check that one off the Bucket List.

Then the volcano. I really don't know if I was seeing clouds or volcano smoke at the peak. Just put it down as gorgeous. Had a terribly overpriced buffet lunch (almost twenty dollars, including beer) with a view of the volcano and a lake that has to be an old caldera. Hair raising (getting a little less so) ride home, just in time for a cloudburst. Met with an interesting pair of Aussie women who were pretty much old Bali hands and considered it the ultimate inexpensive week's vacation. Spent the evening drinking beer and playing Uno. How's that for a wild night?

Another day, another offbeat if delicious breakfast, and off to see the Balinese dance. Too cool. I've forgotten to mention Balinese music. Odd rhythms played on sort-of xylophones, bells and drums. Liz swears many of the rhythms are being used in modern popular music. I have no ear, so will not disagree. The dance is actually a morality play, opera and ballet all rolled together. Thankfully we had a program describing the play. Even without the program, the playful, earthy bits would have jumped out at you. The costuming of course was gorgeous (I seem to be using that word a lot. Good reason, I'm trying to avoid exotic.) You could easily see that these dances were being fine-tuned for a few hundred generations by players travelling form village to village, the Eastern equivalent of wandering minstrels.

More temples. Each one has its own theme, its own beauty. The last, Tanah Lot, was definitely unique in that it was built on a rock just off the western shore. This temple was notable in that this is where the Indonesians come, by the thousands. Also unique was the mass of hucksters betwen the parking lot and the temple. Sigh. Just gotta get used to some things.  Almost forgot the Monkey Forest. Yes, also a temple and sacred to the local macaque monkey. Inhabited by hundreds of them, obviously a ready made tourist trap. Whatthehell, it was fun, and the monkeys are extremely well behaved, so long as you keep your empty hands visible. They are also extremely polite about delicately taking the peanuts off your open hand. They also expect you to mind your manners and don't even think about petting them. Dignity, you know. There were also fruit bats. Some entrepeneur had a dozen or so tame ones. Pick one up, spread its wings, get your picture taken. The smooth leathery wings were fascinating, as was the size of these things. a 4 foot wingspan!

I mentioned missing luggage. Herewith I'd like to paraphrase the late, great Mark Twain in his letter to the gas company, available in a delightful volume of his letters, "A Pen Dipped in Hell". Ahem. The goddam airport goddam lost my goddam backpack. They have no goddam idea where it goddam is and I'm goddam sure it's goddam well lost for goddam ever. There's a lot of goddam stuff I'm goddam going to goddam miss and if it isn't goddam obvious by now I'm goddam mad! Thank you.

The big tragedy is, like an idiot, I had the netbook in it. All those pictures gone. Also I'm going to really miss my other set of REI clothing and that wonderful REI underwear. Yes, Ann, they were worth the price and would dry very quickly. I don't care if they make me look a cross between a tourist and a cheap mercenary, they are very comfortable and now the one set is all I've got.


Liz Here

"87.2 Hard Rock Radio Bali" with alternative and rap music accompanies us on long road trips. A silent focused young driver chauffeurs us to Raffles Holiday Resort. We meet Aussie girls who let us know we have overpaid for our $50 per night room that drop to $35 per night the last 2 nights.

Jean Dunstan in San Remo (Vic, Australia) advised us on where to stay in Bali. She said go to Ubud or Sanur but avoid Kuta. Since we like mountains over the beach I chose Ubud. We are close to a volcano.



Barong Dancer