We reached Kota Kinabalu (locally known as KK), after five hours on the bus of undetermined ownership. Lots of bus travel in this part of the world - small vans, school busses, big “motorcoaches”, etc. – but they are all identified and labeled according to where they go instead of who they belong to. Instead of company name emblazoned on the side, you’ll see a list of three destinations that that particular bus probably services for the rest of its life.
The motorcoach that we traveled on offered a number of delights not obtainable on Greyhound:
- Beauteous blue satin curtains with fringes that add a certain Victorian je ne sais quoi to crawling through the Malaysian countryside at 20 mph.
- The chance to develop an iron bladder. We were happy we hadn’t been thirsty that morning. During our hours-long, bumpy journey, not once did we stop at a bathroom. Nor did anybody ask to get off or express discomfort.
- Pretending you are a car. When we crossed into the state of Sabah (which apparently doesn’t care that we officially entered Malaysia elsewhere; perhaps it has country aspirations), everybody had to get off the bus and stand in line for passport stamps and awkward questions about customs – in the line of cars. It’s great the vehicular traffic was heavy that day and they had to slow way down before the checkpoint! Imagine if, as you traveled I-95 on a bus, the bus pulled to the side of the highway before the toll, then made you get out, wander into traffic, and pay at the window yourself.
- A personal chaperone. Well, if you have to stand in traffic, it’s nice to have someone making sure you get back on the bus! Since we were curiosities at the border (being the only Americans that day), the officers processed us last, and we watched the other passengers board the bus far ahead of us. “Is the bus going to leave?” Laura asked several times. Gee, I hope not, since all our worldly possesions are on board! Everything was fine: once we got back on, the chaperone (who we thought was just an old guy who liked to sit on the floor at the front) did a head count and we were off. Without a bathroom break.
- Fresh food every 10 feet. As mentioned in the last post, food is paramount to successful bus travel, so if you’re in need of an ingredient, just ask the busdriver to stop at a promising stand.
- Personal service. What the bus lacked in punctuality, it more than made up in personal service. We stopped for many people standing beside the road – even, incredibly, those who just chatted a few moments through the open door, then never got on! - as well as making whistle stops for those on board. Decided you’re not going all the way to KK? Get off at this rural crossroads; the chaperone will even carry bags to your front porch!
Nonetheless, we did make it to KK that afternoon. After a tense morning wondering if we’d get anywhere close and how we could possibly avoid going back to the Bandar Seri Begawan (Brunei) Terrace Hotel.
To hearken backward for a moment, the Terrace Hotel was the right price. We didn’t see the giant spiders that some reported on Trip Advisor. The desk staff was helpful and had a good sense of humor (“Can I see the Sultan?” “Ha, ha, ha!!”) But our room smelled funny. What do people actually DO in their hotel rooms that makes them smell so bad? So many “budget” places do, and all with such uniquely awful miasmas. This one smells like someone threw up and the maid poured too much disinfectant on it. That one smells like they prepared a body before you arrived. This suite hosted a sewage sampling convention. If my house doesn’t smell bad, I think my hotel room should remain inoffensive, too, right?? What strange activities do others do in hotel rooms that they don’t do at home? Um, well, besides the obvious, but they must wash the sheets, right? Or did the last guests not throw the linens in the tub, signifying that they need washing?
Getting back on topic, the Terrace hallways were dark and ours contained a stained couch that I remarked on as we got off the elevator one day. “That thing is long past its decorative function and I’m sure nobody ever actually sits on it.” Well, wouldn’t you know it: the next time we get off the elevator, three guys are seated on it, sort of crammed together. And they’re all looking at us defiantly, probably for the innocuous reason that we surprised them by (ding!) arriving at their floor when only 3 rooms total were filled in the entire place. In the unique calculus of travel, not only do people really sit on the item you sneered at, they fit more individuals than you thought possible right after you made the remark!! In fact, those three guys probably were headed to their rooms when the ineluctably attractive couch sidetracked them. “Hey, let’s sit here and talk it over!” Or even “This is the same couch I have at home!”
But all that is behind us now as we head for the Nexus Hotel, having bargained the taxi driver down to half of what he wanted, then springing a surprise McDonald’s visit on him. We hadn’t had anything to eat since the night before, having unwisely spurned victuals that morning when we had the chance because it was too “early.” One thing we’ve learned from this trip: when you see food, eat it. Because you never know when you might see it again.
One more report to edit! I’ll post it in the next couple of days.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Coming Attractions!
We're home and still very jetlagged, but I do have several posts "in the can" that I need to edit. As promised, they contain that all important comparison between Malaysian and American bus service, without which one just can't choose intelligently. Sorry to temporize, but our internet connections were either unreliable or hideously expensive in Kota Kinabalu and Singapore! When I'm able to exist on DST in Philadelphia, I'll get back to you. At the moment, I'm meandering through the wilderness of some European time zone, though I'm heading in a generally eastern direction...
I am gratified at the number of people who have emailed me, called our house, asked Jeff or bothered my parents about when the next post would appear. Within two weeks of our departure, my email dwindled to almost nothing (well, several companies did want me to enlarge certain personal appendages) and I never got any comments on the blog itself, so I was unaware that my scribbling was at all diverting. Thanks!
I also will post pictures illustrating particularly notable moments - you don't want to miss Adam's sad sack drying out after its dunking in the Borneo river. You will, however, miss the lamentations that accompanied the photo. "Who knows WHAT could be in that river? My clothes will smell terrible! I could catch something!" Then the slow dawning of a wonderful result: "Hey, my schoolwork was in there!"
I am gratified at the number of people who have emailed me, called our house, asked Jeff or bothered my parents about when the next post would appear. Within two weeks of our departure, my email dwindled to almost nothing (well, several companies did want me to enlarge certain personal appendages) and I never got any comments on the blog itself, so I was unaware that my scribbling was at all diverting. Thanks!
I also will post pictures illustrating particularly notable moments - you don't want to miss Adam's sad sack drying out after its dunking in the Borneo river. You will, however, miss the lamentations that accompanied the photo. "Who knows WHAT could be in that river? My clothes will smell terrible! I could catch something!" Then the slow dawning of a wonderful result: "Hey, my schoolwork was in there!"
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
If You Want an Adventure, You Can Take the Ferry
When you think Brunei, what's the first thing that comes to mind? No, it's shouldn't be Dubai, though it sounds remarkably similar and both Dubai and Brunei made their bucks on oil. You think money, right? Lots of moolah.
It seems that Brunei doesn't have much of it anymore. The Sultan's brother, the finance minister, was like a kid in charge of a candy store. He went wild and spent billions on frivolous expenditures. Hotels in Beverly Hills, thousands of cars, airplanes, wives and dozens of kids. Worse, the Sultanate is embroiled in a meandering legal case to recover additional billions that just disappeared under little bro's watch. In sum, what we've seen of Brunei is a legacy of former grandeur that is crumbling from lack of upkeep. There are large empty concrete monoliths downtown that used to be office buildings but funds don't exist to tear them down their decrepitude. Jolly light strings line the streets and used to twinkle in all colors, but haven't had bulbs replaced in years. Floral sculptures are still beautiful, but only because they are durable metal. There's an artful sewer arrangement to channel the monsoon rains, but be careful because the grates are missing in some places.
Not that this disturbs the sultan's personal comfort, though apparently he is trying very hard to keep his country afloat, working high atop his palace in a golden dome for an office (as Adam says, "The Sultan has mad love for his peeps."). His house has 1700 rooms, a banquet hall for 10,000, a huge movie theater, polo grounds, his own royal boat jetty staffed 24/7, and 200 bathrooms. We walked around the grounds - no, not peering in his windows, but wandering past the high spiked fence patroled by many uniformed guards. The gardens are spectacular, but bring some binoculars. The sultan has marital difficulties that must keep him up at night, though, so all is not no liquor and fun fun fun. He has three wives, but only the first has her picture all over the Sultanate next to the Sultan's picture. He might have divorced the second, but nobody is quite sure. Where's the third, and does she wear less makeup than the first?
I had asked the fellow at our hotel desk how I might talk to the sultan. "We have some things in common," I told him. "My town is the size of his country. Also, we're the only American tourists we've seen and he might want to hear how we've been enjoying ourselves." The clerk got a good laugh out of it. The guard at the palace also thought it was funny. I asked him if the sultan was home and he said yes. I said, "Can I talk to him?" He looked incredulous, laughed, and then said, "No. You can only meet him during his annual open house after Ramadan ends." I said, "But I'm very friendly and I've come a long way to be here." The guard agreed that I was very friendly, but unfortunately the answer was still negatory. Oh well. Perhaps another time. Like after Ramadan.
We did other interesting activities instead. We walked around one of the traditional stilt villages in Bandar Seri Begwan, the main town in Brunei. You take a water taxi across the river to the villages, which are communities on stilts over water. They have stores, schools, even a fire station all elevated and connected by rickety walkways. Have a toddler learning to walk? Be careful! Our self-guided tour was accompanied by giggling children who survived precarious toddlerhood. They were all waving and yelling, "HI!! What's your name!" Many adults also came out of their houses to view our careful passage. I guess we stuck out in a neighborhood where you don't just know your neighbors, you know when they shower because you hear the water falling into the river and see the suds floating away. Most doors were wide open, even if nobody was home.
We toured the village on the way back from our rainforest tour to see Proboscis monkeys. They're the biggest monkeys in the world, so it wasn't hard to track them - their weight bends the branches severely. We saw small groups hanging out eating leaves and shoots (Eats, Shoots and Leaves - a reminder for watching those commas!!). The males have enormous red schnozzes and resemble Jimmy Durante or Winston Churchill in his later years. The bigger the honker, the more appealing they are to the ladies, which don't have outsized noses but sure want their offspring to be popular. We also saw long-tailed macaques, though we couldn't get close to them lest they add to their collection of tourist artifacts stored in the mangroves.
The mosques are the most spectacular landmarks in Brunei. The one right in town was awe-inspiring, but the one about 20 minutes away was even more splendid. Tiles from Morocco, marble from Italy, wood from Japan, fountains illuminated by colored water - no expense was spared. We donned our obligatory black robes, took off our shoes and wandered around the warm, expansive marble floors. When we accidentally entered a restricted zone, a kind employee showed us around on a more extensive tour than the public gets to see (I guess we look deserving). We saw the library, the events hall (for weddings and such) and a boardroom where they make important decisions. Then he gave us all nice plastic mugs with an islamic saying on them. Must get that translated in case it says something like "Death to the infidels."
We had no exit plan from Brunei bound for Kota Kinabalu, Sabah - a Malaysian state north of Brunei that is the gateway to wildlife trekking. A travel agent told us the planes were full, but "if you want to have an adventure, you can take the ferry." It's easy, she said, so simple I don't need to sell you a ticket, you just go to the terminal tomorrow morning for the 7:30, 8:30 or 9 a.m. ferry and buy tickets before boarding. We arrive at 8:10 to find that the 7:30 ferry has broken down, the 8:30 ferry is now sold out due to the cascade of people displaced by the 7:30 fiasco, and wouldn't you know it, there is no 9 a.m. ferry, even though the newspaper schedule said there was. With sharp elbows and two helpful Malaysians who spoke english and stuck up for us, we managed to secure 4 seats on a 30-seat ferry to Lawas, where we would board a bus to Kota Kinabalu.
We left at 10 after securing our luggage on top - we sure are happy it wasn't raining!! - then sped off for some coastal cruising before turning into one of the many twisting muddy rivers running through the countryside. It was a pretty thrilling ride once we turned inland - mountains, crocodiles, boats in the way, dubiously marked sandbars, will our luggage fall off, will we expire from the smell of gasoline? Perhaps the local populace along the river makes money off the bags they fish out of the water. We all arrived safely in the middle of nowhere, but as we debarked Adam's bag fell into the water when the boatman (the same guy who sold the tickets drove the boat and handled luggage) was unloading it. His bag has some bad karma - it also fell off the ramp when being loaded onto our last Air Asia flight. They might have left it there if I hadn't snagged a baggage guy and said, "that's our bag." Oh, and Ms. Kemery, so sorry, but The Life of Pi you lent Adam is a little damp. It will make a good story, though (besides the one contained within, which Adam liked very much). "It's a little wrinkled because it fell in a river in Borneo." Just ignore those who will say, sure it did. And I'm a monkey's uncle.
At the moment, we are on a gorgeous AC bus with satin blue curtains, slowly making our way to Kota Kinabalu. Nobody has asked for our tickets ever during the entire sojourn - maybe only chumps actually pay. No pigs on top or chickens on board, but we stop to chat with people, pick up, drop off about every 20 feet. Need a ripe melon for dinner? Let's stop and get one! Didn't find a fruut you like at the stop 20 feet ago? No problem! Let's inspect this next merchant's wares! It's probably only 20 miles to KK, but it will take 3 hours. But at least we're getting there today to relax at our nice resort, bargained down successfully to less than half the price they wanted (Nexus Resort, for those who would like to see it online. Laura thinks it sounds like a gas station name, but the website makes it look pretty luxurious). Undoubtedly the bathroom attendant in Lawas helped our luck today. She who asked us, "Are you christian?" Then she asked, "are you protestant?" When I said yes, she said, "Me too!! For 10 years!" On our way out, she smiled beatifically and said, "God bless you."
Next post: stay tuned for a comparison between American and Malaysian long-distance bus service!
It seems that Brunei doesn't have much of it anymore. The Sultan's brother, the finance minister, was like a kid in charge of a candy store. He went wild and spent billions on frivolous expenditures. Hotels in Beverly Hills, thousands of cars, airplanes, wives and dozens of kids. Worse, the Sultanate is embroiled in a meandering legal case to recover additional billions that just disappeared under little bro's watch. In sum, what we've seen of Brunei is a legacy of former grandeur that is crumbling from lack of upkeep. There are large empty concrete monoliths downtown that used to be office buildings but funds don't exist to tear them down their decrepitude. Jolly light strings line the streets and used to twinkle in all colors, but haven't had bulbs replaced in years. Floral sculptures are still beautiful, but only because they are durable metal. There's an artful sewer arrangement to channel the monsoon rains, but be careful because the grates are missing in some places.
Not that this disturbs the sultan's personal comfort, though apparently he is trying very hard to keep his country afloat, working high atop his palace in a golden dome for an office (as Adam says, "The Sultan has mad love for his peeps."). His house has 1700 rooms, a banquet hall for 10,000, a huge movie theater, polo grounds, his own royal boat jetty staffed 24/7, and 200 bathrooms. We walked around the grounds - no, not peering in his windows, but wandering past the high spiked fence patroled by many uniformed guards. The gardens are spectacular, but bring some binoculars. The sultan has marital difficulties that must keep him up at night, though, so all is not no liquor and fun fun fun. He has three wives, but only the first has her picture all over the Sultanate next to the Sultan's picture. He might have divorced the second, but nobody is quite sure. Where's the third, and does she wear less makeup than the first?
I had asked the fellow at our hotel desk how I might talk to the sultan. "We have some things in common," I told him. "My town is the size of his country. Also, we're the only American tourists we've seen and he might want to hear how we've been enjoying ourselves." The clerk got a good laugh out of it. The guard at the palace also thought it was funny. I asked him if the sultan was home and he said yes. I said, "Can I talk to him?" He looked incredulous, laughed, and then said, "No. You can only meet him during his annual open house after Ramadan ends." I said, "But I'm very friendly and I've come a long way to be here." The guard agreed that I was very friendly, but unfortunately the answer was still negatory. Oh well. Perhaps another time. Like after Ramadan.
We did other interesting activities instead. We walked around one of the traditional stilt villages in Bandar Seri Begwan, the main town in Brunei. You take a water taxi across the river to the villages, which are communities on stilts over water. They have stores, schools, even a fire station all elevated and connected by rickety walkways. Have a toddler learning to walk? Be careful! Our self-guided tour was accompanied by giggling children who survived precarious toddlerhood. They were all waving and yelling, "HI!! What's your name!" Many adults also came out of their houses to view our careful passage. I guess we stuck out in a neighborhood where you don't just know your neighbors, you know when they shower because you hear the water falling into the river and see the suds floating away. Most doors were wide open, even if nobody was home.
We toured the village on the way back from our rainforest tour to see Proboscis monkeys. They're the biggest monkeys in the world, so it wasn't hard to track them - their weight bends the branches severely. We saw small groups hanging out eating leaves and shoots (Eats, Shoots and Leaves - a reminder for watching those commas!!). The males have enormous red schnozzes and resemble Jimmy Durante or Winston Churchill in his later years. The bigger the honker, the more appealing they are to the ladies, which don't have outsized noses but sure want their offspring to be popular. We also saw long-tailed macaques, though we couldn't get close to them lest they add to their collection of tourist artifacts stored in the mangroves.
The mosques are the most spectacular landmarks in Brunei. The one right in town was awe-inspiring, but the one about 20 minutes away was even more splendid. Tiles from Morocco, marble from Italy, wood from Japan, fountains illuminated by colored water - no expense was spared. We donned our obligatory black robes, took off our shoes and wandered around the warm, expansive marble floors. When we accidentally entered a restricted zone, a kind employee showed us around on a more extensive tour than the public gets to see (I guess we look deserving). We saw the library, the events hall (for weddings and such) and a boardroom where they make important decisions. Then he gave us all nice plastic mugs with an islamic saying on them. Must get that translated in case it says something like "Death to the infidels."
We had no exit plan from Brunei bound for Kota Kinabalu, Sabah - a Malaysian state north of Brunei that is the gateway to wildlife trekking. A travel agent told us the planes were full, but "if you want to have an adventure, you can take the ferry." It's easy, she said, so simple I don't need to sell you a ticket, you just go to the terminal tomorrow morning for the 7:30, 8:30 or 9 a.m. ferry and buy tickets before boarding. We arrive at 8:10 to find that the 7:30 ferry has broken down, the 8:30 ferry is now sold out due to the cascade of people displaced by the 7:30 fiasco, and wouldn't you know it, there is no 9 a.m. ferry, even though the newspaper schedule said there was. With sharp elbows and two helpful Malaysians who spoke english and stuck up for us, we managed to secure 4 seats on a 30-seat ferry to Lawas, where we would board a bus to Kota Kinabalu.
We left at 10 after securing our luggage on top - we sure are happy it wasn't raining!! - then sped off for some coastal cruising before turning into one of the many twisting muddy rivers running through the countryside. It was a pretty thrilling ride once we turned inland - mountains, crocodiles, boats in the way, dubiously marked sandbars, will our luggage fall off, will we expire from the smell of gasoline? Perhaps the local populace along the river makes money off the bags they fish out of the water. We all arrived safely in the middle of nowhere, but as we debarked Adam's bag fell into the water when the boatman (the same guy who sold the tickets drove the boat and handled luggage) was unloading it. His bag has some bad karma - it also fell off the ramp when being loaded onto our last Air Asia flight. They might have left it there if I hadn't snagged a baggage guy and said, "that's our bag." Oh, and Ms. Kemery, so sorry, but The Life of Pi you lent Adam is a little damp. It will make a good story, though (besides the one contained within, which Adam liked very much). "It's a little wrinkled because it fell in a river in Borneo." Just ignore those who will say, sure it did. And I'm a monkey's uncle.
At the moment, we are on a gorgeous AC bus with satin blue curtains, slowly making our way to Kota Kinabalu. Nobody has asked for our tickets ever during the entire sojourn - maybe only chumps actually pay. No pigs on top or chickens on board, but we stop to chat with people, pick up, drop off about every 20 feet. Need a ripe melon for dinner? Let's stop and get one! Didn't find a fruut you like at the stop 20 feet ago? No problem! Let's inspect this next merchant's wares! It's probably only 20 miles to KK, but it will take 3 hours. But at least we're getting there today to relax at our nice resort, bargained down successfully to less than half the price they wanted (Nexus Resort, for those who would like to see it online. Laura thinks it sounds like a gas station name, but the website makes it look pretty luxurious). Undoubtedly the bathroom attendant in Lawas helped our luck today. She who asked us, "Are you christian?" Then she asked, "are you protestant?" When I said yes, she said, "Me too!! For 10 years!" On our way out, she smiled beatifically and said, "God bless you."
Next post: stay tuned for a comparison between American and Malaysian long-distance bus service!
Monday, March 23, 2009
Welcome to the Cuttlefish Room
We departed the Perhentians a few days ago, flying out of Kota Bharu to Kuala Lumpur. In the airport, we acquired the requisite junkfood: potato chips in BBQ Curry Dude and Duh! Tomato flavors, Chokie Chokie Stix (should we really eat these chocolates, or is it too dangerous?), and some Kit Kat pieces (instructions on package: "This is a break best enjoyed in an air-conditioned place."). We passed on the large premium cuttlefish floss package emblazoned with: For Spring Festival Gift." We do hope nobody was counting on any for Easter. As we checked in, someone passed us carrying a pillow that said, "Love me Little, Love me Long." Well, which is it?
We flew on Malaysia Airlines, which is much like the Malaysians we have met: friendly and very helpful. For fun, let's compare and contrast the service we received on Malaysia Air with that on US Airways. On MA, the seats are multi-hued, with each seat a different fun shade. On US Air, the seats are also multicolored, but that's because the ground crew never cleans them (did I mention that on our trip to Las Vegas, Pam found an entire package of pretzels dumped under her seat cushion? They don't just crunch when you eat them!) On MA, they served lovely pink guava juice free of charge on a flight lasting one hour. On US Airways flights lasting one hour, we get, absolutely free, the chance to worry about where our luggage is going. In fact, US Air has the gall to make us pay for water - and it's colorless!! MA's slogan is: More than just an airline code, MH is Malaysian Hospitality! US Airways slogan (unofficial, but we learned it from a flight attendant): We're Not Happy Until You're Not Happy! Finally, when we got off the plane, a nice woman from MA gave us each a small package containing Ferrero Rochers and dark chocolates, then she said, "Thank you for flying Malaysian Air." She practically had to pound us on the backs and wave smelling salts as we got over our shock. US Airways gave us...um, yeah, I'll let you know if I think of something positive.
If you come to Kuala Lumpur, make sure you stay more than one night, because the airports are more than an hour away from downtown, where they have only oil palms as neighbors. Curious ride into the city: palm oil plantations for miles, then some sparse development, then suddenly legions of high-rises and street after street of identical homes. Weirdly, almost all of these were empty. The city itself, however, is boomtown. Glittering architectural jewels of buildings and lovely parks, with just a fringe of the lower-cost hodgepodge homes/apartment buildings. In just 150 years, they've come a long way from a backwater where prospectors searched for tin but ended up dying of malaria instead. The Petronas Towers are beautiful - shiny like aluminum, nice ribbed design, lit attractively at night; Jeff and Adam got up early to stand in line for free tickets to cross the bridge between the two towers, even though it is only on the 44th floor. Good thing they did - this weekend was the culmination of a week-long school holiday, so KL was mobbed.
We stayed at the Hotel Istana, which didn't disappoint. It looked like Ivana Trump decorated it in the '70s. Very ostentatious, but very nice with spacious clean rooms, a pool (though when it began to sprinkle rain, an earnest pool guy came running out waving a little "Pool Closed" sign and we had to get out) and a view of the Petronas Towers. The evening's entertainment was viewing the city's #1 attraction: stupendous shopping malls. King of Prussia, Mall of America, hang up your signs in shame. These KL meccas are malls on steroids: many stories, soaring atriums, more chains and brands than I ever knew existed. The store clerks were a little overinvolved, though. As we entered, they began to follow us very closely, smiling happily but nonetheless putting a chill on our shopping experience by hanging on every word, peering over our shoulders, etc. In our whole evening, we ended up purchasing a Ribena drink and two cans of kaya, a delicious coconut custard jam. Oh yeah, we are big spenders in the land of Asian plenty!
Bound for Brunei, there was much lamentation as we left the Istana for the airport after a fabulous breakfast - "why do we stay one day in really nice places and four days in rooms that smell like mildew??." It wasn't until we cleared passport control that protests died as we came upon the most wondrous store: "Country Tidbit and Candies Cottage." Here, one could purchase such indispensable items as cuttlefish floss in myriad colors and lengths (the whole collection housed in its own airtight chamber due to the smell, hence the sign on the door encouraging the wary: Welcome to the Cuttlefish Room. Which, come to think of it, could be metaphorical for the entire travel experience. You choose to go there. It takes some bravery to take the plunge. The scents are unique. Generally, the denizens want you there. And it's likely that something you eat will taste nasty.) Many buyers were also inspecting Black Herbal Cubes in large and small sizes, wife biscuits, fish cookies, coconut strips, dried fruits of all shades, durian cakes, dried and sweetened flowers, fluorescent seeds and radioactively dyed candy. Should you have a need for prunes, you definitely must stop by. They had - I am not making this up - at least 40 flavors of prunes - salted, dried, tiny, gargantuan, black, red, with pits or without, one kind for stopped up old ladies and one kind for dried up old geezers - including a bin curiously labeled "Big Lover Prunes." When I bought my pumpkin seeds, I commented to the people behind the cash register that they really must love prunes here, but I got a blank look in response. Obviously prune adoration is no laughing matter in Malaysia.
When we arrived in Brunei, immigration was concerned about one thing only: did we bring any alcohol? Oh no sir, just these hallucinogenic drugs here. OK! As long as you don't bring alcohol. Anyway, it's getting late, so I will wrap this up and tell you in my next post about our fruitless efforts to talk to the Sultan of Brunei. And they didn't even care that I'd already met the pope, who is responsible for far more than 400,000 souls (the tiny little population of the Sultanate).
We flew on Malaysia Airlines, which is much like the Malaysians we have met: friendly and very helpful. For fun, let's compare and contrast the service we received on Malaysia Air with that on US Airways. On MA, the seats are multi-hued, with each seat a different fun shade. On US Air, the seats are also multicolored, but that's because the ground crew never cleans them (did I mention that on our trip to Las Vegas, Pam found an entire package of pretzels dumped under her seat cushion? They don't just crunch when you eat them!) On MA, they served lovely pink guava juice free of charge on a flight lasting one hour. On US Airways flights lasting one hour, we get, absolutely free, the chance to worry about where our luggage is going. In fact, US Air has the gall to make us pay for water - and it's colorless!! MA's slogan is: More than just an airline code, MH is Malaysian Hospitality! US Airways slogan (unofficial, but we learned it from a flight attendant): We're Not Happy Until You're Not Happy! Finally, when we got off the plane, a nice woman from MA gave us each a small package containing Ferrero Rochers and dark chocolates, then she said, "Thank you for flying Malaysian Air." She practically had to pound us on the backs and wave smelling salts as we got over our shock. US Airways gave us...um, yeah, I'll let you know if I think of something positive.
If you come to Kuala Lumpur, make sure you stay more than one night, because the airports are more than an hour away from downtown, where they have only oil palms as neighbors. Curious ride into the city: palm oil plantations for miles, then some sparse development, then suddenly legions of high-rises and street after street of identical homes. Weirdly, almost all of these were empty. The city itself, however, is boomtown. Glittering architectural jewels of buildings and lovely parks, with just a fringe of the lower-cost hodgepodge homes/apartment buildings. In just 150 years, they've come a long way from a backwater where prospectors searched for tin but ended up dying of malaria instead. The Petronas Towers are beautiful - shiny like aluminum, nice ribbed design, lit attractively at night; Jeff and Adam got up early to stand in line for free tickets to cross the bridge between the two towers, even though it is only on the 44th floor. Good thing they did - this weekend was the culmination of a week-long school holiday, so KL was mobbed.
We stayed at the Hotel Istana, which didn't disappoint. It looked like Ivana Trump decorated it in the '70s. Very ostentatious, but very nice with spacious clean rooms, a pool (though when it began to sprinkle rain, an earnest pool guy came running out waving a little "Pool Closed" sign and we had to get out) and a view of the Petronas Towers. The evening's entertainment was viewing the city's #1 attraction: stupendous shopping malls. King of Prussia, Mall of America, hang up your signs in shame. These KL meccas are malls on steroids: many stories, soaring atriums, more chains and brands than I ever knew existed. The store clerks were a little overinvolved, though. As we entered, they began to follow us very closely, smiling happily but nonetheless putting a chill on our shopping experience by hanging on every word, peering over our shoulders, etc. In our whole evening, we ended up purchasing a Ribena drink and two cans of kaya, a delicious coconut custard jam. Oh yeah, we are big spenders in the land of Asian plenty!
Bound for Brunei, there was much lamentation as we left the Istana for the airport after a fabulous breakfast - "why do we stay one day in really nice places and four days in rooms that smell like mildew??." It wasn't until we cleared passport control that protests died as we came upon the most wondrous store: "Country Tidbit and Candies Cottage." Here, one could purchase such indispensable items as cuttlefish floss in myriad colors and lengths (the whole collection housed in its own airtight chamber due to the smell, hence the sign on the door encouraging the wary: Welcome to the Cuttlefish Room. Which, come to think of it, could be metaphorical for the entire travel experience. You choose to go there. It takes some bravery to take the plunge. The scents are unique. Generally, the denizens want you there. And it's likely that something you eat will taste nasty.) Many buyers were also inspecting Black Herbal Cubes in large and small sizes, wife biscuits, fish cookies, coconut strips, dried fruits of all shades, durian cakes, dried and sweetened flowers, fluorescent seeds and radioactively dyed candy. Should you have a need for prunes, you definitely must stop by. They had - I am not making this up - at least 40 flavors of prunes - salted, dried, tiny, gargantuan, black, red, with pits or without, one kind for stopped up old ladies and one kind for dried up old geezers - including a bin curiously labeled "Big Lover Prunes." When I bought my pumpkin seeds, I commented to the people behind the cash register that they really must love prunes here, but I got a blank look in response. Obviously prune adoration is no laughing matter in Malaysia.
When we arrived in Brunei, immigration was concerned about one thing only: did we bring any alcohol? Oh no sir, just these hallucinogenic drugs here. OK! As long as you don't bring alcohol. Anyway, it's getting late, so I will wrap this up and tell you in my next post about our fruitless efforts to talk to the Sultan of Brunei. And they didn't even care that I'd already met the pope, who is responsible for far more than 400,000 souls (the tiny little population of the Sultanate).
Saturday, March 21, 2009
In Paradise
I must make the same recommendation about the Perhentians that I made about Naithon Beach: if at all possible, go there. Wow. These two little islands are gorgeous and nearly deserted, which means their water is glittering; the low key native way of life continues (the fishing boats remind me of Howl's Moving Castle: colorful with all manner of useful items hanging off every square inch. We ran across one fellow two beaches over who spent a whole two days burning bits of an old vessel. Whenever we passed him, he was staring pensively into the fire, poking stick in hand. What must it be like to have a lifestyle like that: "Honey, I think I'll spend a few days burning the old boat."); the corals have been growing undisturbed for eons, the fish and general marine life are enormous and plentiful and happy.
We saw animals here we've never seen in the wild elsewhere, like blue spotted rays, yellow boxfish, hundreds of parrotfish feeding in a school, cushion stars, schools of foot-long needlefish, a three foot long barracuda, more stonefish (this time a more comfortable distance away), a grouper more than three feet long moving ponderously and accompanied by a coterie of blue cleaner wrasses (who probably feel they've hit the jackpot work-wise). And it was charming to see all the anemones of many kinds dotted with blissful clownfish of all types. Laura discovered a condo arrangement in one place: about 20 large anemones all right next to each other, packed with clownfish big and small. They must have trouble figuring out whose anemone is whose. All these were accompanied by dense clouds of tiny little fish, some of whom swam along schooling in the shape of a bigger fish. (And you thought that scene in Finding Nemo was fantasy.)
The land-based animal life is quite healthy as well, living in a beautiful loud jungle filled with flitting birds, huge dragonflies and monitor lizards about five feet long. We went for a trek over to another beach through the jungle and it was miserable - buggy, filled with mosquitoes, narrow, slippery, crisscrossed with trippable roots and platoons of army ants. We were not enchanted - until we saw the family of dusky langurs heading our way. Four sizeable gorgeous black furry monkeys with white goggles on, accompanied by a smaller juvenile. They were using the path, too, coming from the opposite direction. They saw us, paused, and then advanced matter-of-factly. They veered off the path just a few feet in front of us to eat a mushroom. We watched them eat as they checked us out, too, then they headed off into the dense jungle. Last night, we slept through the commotion of a six-foot long python wandering onto the resort grounds - it took the staff about an hour to wrangle him off the property and safely back into the forest.
At least for marine life, Malaysia seems to have figured it out: protect your pristine wild areas, people will pay lots of money to see them, and everybody benefits. They have many national marine parks, they distribute much comprehensive and easy-to-understand information to their people about why they should protect their wilderness. They also apply creativity, such as banning flippers when they discovered that protected feet make people more likely to stand on/contact corals. They also have recruited teams of volunteer divers to remove the invasive and damaging Crown of Thorns starfish from reefs. This contrasts rather sadly with Cambodia, where we took a half day snorkel trip and saw gorgeous coral - and no fish. In fact, our boat captain fished while we snorkeled and we watched his catch expire on our trip back (we went to the market in Cambodia also, and were very disappointed to find they were fresh out of fried bugs). When one is desperately poor and hungry, what else is there to do? But it's such a sad cycle.
Anyway, back to our forest hike: we reached the new beach quite mosquito-bitten and sweaty and hot, so we quickly became another uncomfortable, virtually continuous state since we arrived: salty. I think we've spent at least 75 percent of the time here damp and/or salty. We've managed to avoid serious sunburn, but Jeff has had to employ a unique sunscreen that was nonetheless extremely effective. It's always with you, it completely block the sun's rays, you can get it off with ease though it deploys in an instant and it causes no allergies: his hand (which sat on the top of his head when he forgot his hat). We're leaving tomorrow and perhaps it's for the best: we've all got itchy rashes that only a luxury hotel in Kuala Lumpur can cure.
We saw animals here we've never seen in the wild elsewhere, like blue spotted rays, yellow boxfish, hundreds of parrotfish feeding in a school, cushion stars, schools of foot-long needlefish, a three foot long barracuda, more stonefish (this time a more comfortable distance away), a grouper more than three feet long moving ponderously and accompanied by a coterie of blue cleaner wrasses (who probably feel they've hit the jackpot work-wise). And it was charming to see all the anemones of many kinds dotted with blissful clownfish of all types. Laura discovered a condo arrangement in one place: about 20 large anemones all right next to each other, packed with clownfish big and small. They must have trouble figuring out whose anemone is whose. All these were accompanied by dense clouds of tiny little fish, some of whom swam along schooling in the shape of a bigger fish. (And you thought that scene in Finding Nemo was fantasy.)
The land-based animal life is quite healthy as well, living in a beautiful loud jungle filled with flitting birds, huge dragonflies and monitor lizards about five feet long. We went for a trek over to another beach through the jungle and it was miserable - buggy, filled with mosquitoes, narrow, slippery, crisscrossed with trippable roots and platoons of army ants. We were not enchanted - until we saw the family of dusky langurs heading our way. Four sizeable gorgeous black furry monkeys with white goggles on, accompanied by a smaller juvenile. They were using the path, too, coming from the opposite direction. They saw us, paused, and then advanced matter-of-factly. They veered off the path just a few feet in front of us to eat a mushroom. We watched them eat as they checked us out, too, then they headed off into the dense jungle. Last night, we slept through the commotion of a six-foot long python wandering onto the resort grounds - it took the staff about an hour to wrangle him off the property and safely back into the forest.
At least for marine life, Malaysia seems to have figured it out: protect your pristine wild areas, people will pay lots of money to see them, and everybody benefits. They have many national marine parks, they distribute much comprehensive and easy-to-understand information to their people about why they should protect their wilderness. They also apply creativity, such as banning flippers when they discovered that protected feet make people more likely to stand on/contact corals. They also have recruited teams of volunteer divers to remove the invasive and damaging Crown of Thorns starfish from reefs. This contrasts rather sadly with Cambodia, where we took a half day snorkel trip and saw gorgeous coral - and no fish. In fact, our boat captain fished while we snorkeled and we watched his catch expire on our trip back (we went to the market in Cambodia also, and were very disappointed to find they were fresh out of fried bugs). When one is desperately poor and hungry, what else is there to do? But it's such a sad cycle.
Anyway, back to our forest hike: we reached the new beach quite mosquito-bitten and sweaty and hot, so we quickly became another uncomfortable, virtually continuous state since we arrived: salty. I think we've spent at least 75 percent of the time here damp and/or salty. We've managed to avoid serious sunburn, but Jeff has had to employ a unique sunscreen that was nonetheless extremely effective. It's always with you, it completely block the sun's rays, you can get it off with ease though it deploys in an instant and it causes no allergies: his hand (which sat on the top of his head when he forgot his hat). We're leaving tomorrow and perhaps it's for the best: we've all got itchy rashes that only a luxury hotel in Kuala Lumpur can cure.
Friday, March 20, 2009
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