Asian hospitality part two

I found the people in Malaysia and Singapore to be pretty pleasant to deal with for the most part. You still get the occasional person who acts like somebody pooped in their oatmeal that morning, but I think that's universal. I wanted to point out some folks who stood out, as well as some general observations.

While in Melaka we stopped for lunch at a famous place for chicken rice balls which were pretty good. The lady who was serving us seemed to recognize Ho Li, and went out of her way to keep us supplied with cool drinks, extra rice balls (Keith must have put down twenty by himself), smiling the whole time, and asking us about our trip. Nice lady, wish I'd have taken her picture.

Also in Melaka, we stopped for Rita & her sister to go look for some delicacy or another (we did this several times). They left me in the car with the engine running so I could soak up the AC (or aircon as it's called over there). Sitting under a tree right in front of me was an older guy in a uniform I didn't recognize. I indicated through the window that I'd like to take his picture and he nodded and smiled in consent. I took his picture, then rolled down my window to introduce myself. His name was Rom Kumar, and he was a Nepalese soldier who'd been in Malaysia for over twenty years, and had less than five to go before he could retire and go home. He said he couldn't wait to feel the cold air of Nepal against his skin again, I commiserated with him. Melaka was very hot, and I'd already had one episode of my knees going wobbly from dehydration.

As we were walking back down the hill that the fort of A Famosa in Melaka was on, a Japanese tourist asked me if I'd take his picture with the fort in the background. Of course I agreed, and he thanked me very formally in Japanese, I was glad to be able to say do itashi mashite in his language to tell him he was welcome.

The girls in the front office of the Royal Langkawi Yacht Club tried very hard to help us locate a friend's boat out in the anchorage, even though they weren't staying at the club.

We turned down a random road in Langkawi after we'd given up looking for our friends mentioned above and ended up on a track that led to a fishing village. We drove as far as we could go taking in the sampans that were high and dry on the mud flats. One of the few boats that was floating (closest to the sea) had a fisherman and his son working on the boat. We were catching a flight in a couple of hours, and had some drinks left over that we didn't want to carry with us on the flight. Rita offered them to the fisherman, who accepted everything except the beers as Muslims don't drink alcohol. They chatted for a while and he told her that if we could come back the next day, he'd take us out for a tour of the island in his boat. I wish we'd have found him the first day instead of two-three hours before our flight back out of the island!

We drove to the top of Gunung Raya on Langkawi because I wanted to see what the whole island looked like, plus I figured that it would be somewhat cooler up there. There were some spectacular views on the way up, and at times I thought our poor little Proton Wira rental car wasn't going to make it, but we finally did. At the top of the mountain is a large communications array that's under lock and key. There is also something that looked to us like a resort. We drove up that road to find more locked gates and some guards who were fairly interested in us. There was a large set of stairs that wound up around the building to the right, and I figured we could just go walk up those to take some pictures, but no, that wasn't allowed for some reason. To the left was a tall tower (highest point of the mountain), and some ornate gates. We asked if we could drive up there as well, but no, that wasn't allowed either. Well, could we walk up there? No, not allowed. Huh... So we decided to content ourselves with taking some pictures looking down onto the north side of the island which was all you could really see from our vantage point. The guards seemed contented with this, and promptly ignored us. After wandering around for a while, a European couple (they looked Italian to me for some reason) wandered out from the ornate gated compound and walked down past us chattering away happily. Now what was so special about them that they were allowed up there? No sooner had that thought gone through my head than the guards were motioning for us to come over to see them. Apparently they let people up into the compound (I'd started thinking of it as the Eagle's Nest), but only one at a time, and now they'd take us up into the security area so we could look around. It turned out that the Eagle's Nest belonged to Mahatir, the former PM of Malaysia, and it was guarded year 'round by these guys. To get into this gated compound you went through extensive security which consisted of carefully walking around the gate so you didn't fall into the gorge below. I'm not kidding, look to the left of the picture above and you'll see what I mean. Huge five meter high wrought iron gates, and all you do is walk around them to the left. Anyway, the guard turned out to be something of a closet tour guide, obviously very proud of the compound and took his time explaining things to us and showing us around, including taking us out onto the breezeway that connects the compound to the big tower I mentioned earlier. We weren't allowed into the tower itself for some reason, but the views from the breezeway were pretty spectacular. We made sure to take some pictures with the guard who's name escapes me right now, the Malays in particular seem to love having their pictures taken with you.

Asian hospitality part one

My relatives in Malaysia and Singapore were simply wonderful to us during our trip.

Rita's sister Ho Li, lives in Kuala Lumpur with her husband Gan, their four kids, Kristyn, Kathryn, Keith and Kenny, two Indonesian maids, Dar & Dawin, their driver Isa, who doesn't live with them but is basically on call 24/7, and don't forget Ben and Sam, the two golden retrievers. She works as a stock broker, and manages everything about running the household. I touched on this in an earlier post, but wanted to elaborate on her life a bit. While taking care of the household, children's functions, managing the maids, social activities, both adult and kids, etc., she found time to locate flights for us, as well as accommodations on Langkawi. She also took us down to Melaka to tour for a day, out for lunches, and to shop for the paintings we brought back (the really expensive breakfast at Raju's). Her schedule is incredibly hectic, but she seems to take it all in stride, as if we were the most important thing in the world. Now possibly this is just my westerner's view of an inscrutable Asian woman, but I never even saw her ruffled. I'm sure that we were a pain for her to schedule around, but you'd have never known it. I notice that even with all the evident stress, she laughs a lot, and she & Rita are thick as thieves. They talk to each other all the time, and I'm grateful that phone calls back and forth are as inexpensive as they are so they can.

Her husband, Gan, although extremely busy with a business transaction he was working on (I never-ever saw him without both of his phones), similarly made sure we were comfortable, even though he left the minutiae to Ho Li. He took time out of his incredibly busy schedule to take us out for a couple of nice dinners, as well as a tour of the town to show us the sites. He's a jovial guy who loves to talk about skiing. He started skiing in Asia a couple of years ago, and when they came to visit us for xmas last year, he got to do some skiing here in the Seattle area as well (a whole other story). He had recently spent some time in China and took some lessons while there. When he was fitted for boots, he felt that they were too tight, but made the mistake of listening to his coach's advice, and ended up with a blood blister on his big toe. He was in incredible pain, but in typical Asian stoicism, he just cowboyed up and kept skiing. Now he's got a big black toenail to grow out, and a good story to tell. Rita had spent a fair amount of time looking for a pair of ski pants for him because they simply can't be found over there. We brought him some good insulated pants, I hope he gets to use them a lot.

He was also very proud of his house, he took me for the cook's tour to show me the whole property. He had had extensive work done to the house after he bought it, a lot of which related to security, but also for esthetics and light. He'd also added a swimming pool, which was a favorite hang out of mine, I spent a fair amount of time either playing with the kids, or swimming laps, plus it was the coolest place in the house. The pool also has a jacuzzi, but the pump and heater weren't working properly. I wanted to take a look at it, but the electrics scared me, and I had no desire to work on sketchy wiring while standing in a pool of water, plus I had no tools to work with.

One of the things I noticed is that my relatives are very-very-very reluctant to allow you to pay for anything. And if you mention something you might want, don't be surprised if it shows up after their next trip wherever. I had to learn to not say things like "I wish I had a Coke", otherwise some pretense would be found to go out for a bit so that they could "incidentally" pick up my wished for item.

While out shopping with Rita's brother Sun, we stopped for a snack in the basement of Sim Lim Tower. He made sure that I went to find a table, so he could pay for the snack himself. An hour or so later we decided to have lunch there after hooking back up with Rita who had gone somewhere less geekish to shop for a while. Again, he made sure that we went to go get a table while he went to choose some food for us. The only thing I was allowed to buy on that particular trip (except geek stuff for myself) was some extra drinks when the curry we'd ordered got a bit hot for everyone. One of the things I really-really wanted to do while I was in Asia was go sailing. After our trip to Langkawi and my failed attempts to find a boat to rent there, I was determined to find one in Singapore. The second day we were back, Sun took Rita & I out looking for that boat. At least in Singapore, there were boats to be rented, while in Langkawi, we had a hard time just finding any. The problem with the boats in Singapore is that you have to belong to the club that's doing the renting in order to actually rent them. I thought that my Catalina International Association affiliation would help, but no dice. So Sun drove us to probably six different yacht clubs only to get turned down at each. Some simply weren't open because it was CNY, and others wouldn't let you rent unless you were either a member, or with a member. Sun was picking up a friend flying in from Thailand that afternoon who was a member of the Republic of Singapore Yacht Club, who had J-24's for rent. I was very-very careful not to express a wish for him to host us on the boat because I knew he'd probably do it, even if he was only going to be in town for three days. I'm sure that Sun had better things to do, but you'd have never known it. The irony is, on the day that I got back to the US, someone on the Catalina forums responded to my query about someone in Singapore who could host us. Had I thought about it, I could have probably come up with the same solution myself.

Now when I've got visitors, I go out of my way to accommodate them as well, but I was starting to feel guilty about imposing on them. I know they don't view it as an imposition, but my western upbringing knows all about fish and visitors. I try not to make myself a chore for my hosts, but some is inevitable.

My mother in law lives with Rita's brother Sun in Singapore. This is traditional, the parents will eventually live with the oldest son. As Sun is the only son, the responsibility falls to him. She was sick, actually running a fever, but still rode along with Sun at midnight to pick us up from the airport, and make us something to eat when we got home. I don't think Rita even noticed that she was sick that first night, but after twenty some odd hours of transit, I don't think she can be faulted for not noticing. The next day, she was worse, and spent a fair amount of time in bed, something she simply did not want to do because it was her job to be a good host. My own mother was this way, you couldn't walk into her house without being offered a cool drink (usually ice tea, she grew up in the south), and she would go to the same length that Rita's mom was even if she were on her death bed. Now bear in mind that this was in the days running up to Chinese New Year, the biggest celebration of the year for most Asians, so her not cooking, chopping, shopping, etc. was an indication of how ill she was. Fortunately, Rita's oldest sister Doris brought her maid Linda over to help. Now, according to Rita this was also unheard of, her mom would never let someone else across the threshold to her kitchen unless she was simply incapable of doing it herself. Not that she didn't try, but between Rita, Doris, Linda & Sun, they were able to take most of the load off of their mom so she could rest. Every time I offered to help, I was gently rebuffed with a smile as if it were unthinkable for a guest to help. The illness didn't stop her mom from getting up in the morning to make us breakfast. On more than one occasion I'd get up and walk out into the living room, and she'd be snoozing on the couch waiting for us to get up so she could start cooking. Once again, I felt guilty about this, especially since I knew she was sick, but there seemed nothing I could do, except encourage her to rest. There's a bit of a language barrier, she doesn't speak a lot of English, and I speak far less Chinese. She understands more than she speaks, but I had to keep reminding myself to talk to her, instead of trying to talk through Rita or her brother. The day of the big dinner (I'm jumping ahead in time here) for CNY at Sun's place, Doris came by with her husband Cheong Heng, and children Su-An, Dexter and Su-Lin. She was concerned about their mom, so she decided to take her to the nearby hospital for a "jab", what we'd call a shot in the US. I'm not sure what was in the shot, but it seemed to help, she was on her feet the next day, and improved from then.

Doris & family had just recently moved into a new apartment that she wanted to show us. The first night she came over with her daughters, the youngest, Su-Lin, was nearly desperate for us to come over, but we weren't able to go that night. Ho Li's family (the Gan's) were on their way down, and would be staying with Doris for CNY, so we planned to go visit when the whole gang was there. Apparently it's simply not done to stay at a hotel or anywhere that's not family when you come to visit, so Doris's place would be swelled to capacity with the extra six people, but this isn't even thought about, you're simply accommodated. Similarly at Sun's place, her mom had given up her room for Rita & I so we'd have some privacy and our own bathroom. I felt incredibly guilty about this, but we'd have actually insulted them if we'd have chosen to stay at a hotel so we wouldn't put them out. Unthinkable.

Taking your breath and other things: Telaga Tujuh

Telaga Tujuh (literally Seven Wells) is located on the southwest corner of the island of Langkawi, close to our resort Berjaya. The seven wells are up at the top of about 700 steps which the locals tell you will take about ten minutes to climb. Yeah, right, if you're an 18 year old surfer, not an overweight, pushing 50 year old, more like 45 minutes plus, and you're going to want to make sure you take water with you (we didn't).

We started our trek up the falls by stopping at an ice cream shop so Rita could get a cone. As we started up the asphalt road (why can't we just drive up this part? enquiring minds want to know), a couple of westerners passed us (remember the 18 year old surfers...these two could have played that part). The girl warned Rita to be careful with her food, as the monkeys were aggressive, and would try to steal it. Up till this point we hadn't seen monkeys anywhere near us, but these seemed to be the magic words because no sooner than the warning been issued than a troop of about seven came out of the jungle and started closing in on us. It looked like a mother and several yearlings along with one other possibly female about the same size as the mother. I was amused to see how they had absolutely no fear and walked right up to us. They started to cluster around Rita's feet, eyes on nothing but what was in her hand, so she decided the best thing to do was to chuck her barely started ice cream cone across the drainage ditch. The mother was across the ditch in a millisecond with the cone in her hands, eating as well as any child would. As we watched, she deftly removed the paper cover so she wouldn't have to eat that, and continued to devour the cone, not sharing with any of her kids. We left the monkeys to their meal and continued up the hill on our "ten minute" walk.

The hill is a pretty steep incline, maybe 30° or so, but it's paved asphalt (makes the engineer in me wonder what admixture they used to keep it from slumping in the tropical heat, but that's another story), and occasionally a motorbike would roar past us, making me wish we'd rented one of those instead. The bottom of the road was closed off to vehicle traffic, but bikes could get around. To the right of the road was a set of stairs that Rita wanted to get onto thinking it'd be easier going. I thought the stairs were a good idea, but because they were currently below us, I wasn't about to lose altitude to get to them. I figured they'd eventually catch up to us, and I could save the heartbeats necessary to climb down then back up to where I already was, altitude wise. Make sense? Me either, but when your heart's pounding in your ears due to the exertion, that's the way your mind works, or at least mine does. We quickly realized we were in for more of a hike than we'd bargained for, but I've long since learned that you sort of walk yourself into shape in the first few days of vacation, so I wasn't going to let a little thing like a giant hill deter me. The builders thoughtfully included benches every 50 meters or so to rest on, and by about the third or fourth one, we were resting at every one, sometimes in between depending on the relative steepness. About halfway up, Rita was ready to quit and go back down. I was too, but wasn't ready to admit defeat, and the slightest indication that we could go back down hill would be jumped upon by the distaff side of my family, so I pretended to be OK as best I could. I'm sure the incessant puffing, red cheeks and dripping sweat were not any indication of my condition. Besides, we hadn't brought any water with us (stupid, stupid, stupid), and I knew there was water to swim in at the top, and by now we were closer to the top than the bottom, so why not go on? This wasn't helped by a couple of (German?) ladies who we met on the way back down from their visit. One seemed enthused by her visit, but the other when I asked "is it worth it?" replied, "it's not to die for, and if you miss it, you won't know what you missed". All this did was anger me as she obviously expected me to keel over of myocardial infarction or something, so I was more determined than ever to get to the top. Along the way a Malay guy came running UP to us, running in leather cowboy boots, long pants, but no shirt. He stopped while he caught his breath in the 20 seconds or so that took (another surfer wannabe I guess) and explained to Rita that we were a bit more than half way, then he took off again running. I watched him run up the hill, then noticed that he too had to stop and really catch his breath, maybe I'm not the only one who fakes things? At long last we got up to the top of the falls, and it was quite the sight. Again my engineer brain was asking how in the hell did they get all the materials up here to make two bathrooms, an observation tower, concrete walkways, etc? Most likely some poor bastards had to carry the sacks of cement up on their backs because the asphalt road had ended about 1/3 the way up,and all that was left was the stairs and the pipe. Somehow they'd carried up tons of cement, 18" pipe (the wells actually supply water for villages below), plus all the lumber to make railings the entire way up, etc. A large undertaking in equatorial heat, although it was actually quite pleasant under the jungle canopy, if a bit buggy.

We wandered around at the top of the hill, looking for a nice place to get out of the sun and into some water. There was a family camping up near the top, and they were washing dishes in the water which everyone else below them was swimming in, so we decided to walk upstream. We found a nice little grotto where the water was deep enough to sit in, if not swim. All I wanted to do was cool down anyway, so I plopped my butt in the water. Ahhhhh.... Rita did the same and we took some pictures to commemorate the occasion.

On the way back down, we stopped nearly as frequently as on the way up. The steps are so steep, and stopping your (or at least my not inconsiderable) weight with each step got tiring pretty quickly. Our quads and calves would hurt for a couple of days afterward. About a third of the way down, we stopped for a longer breather than we had been, and this is where we met some of the most interesting people. As we sat there, a number of people walked by, invariably asking "how much further?". One group walking up was a guy with a gaggle of kids behind him. He walked up asking "what kind of accent is that"? referring to hearing another American accent. This turned out to be Joe Rooney, ex-USMC aviator, and a Delta Airlines pilot on extended leave to sail around the world in his 54' ketch "Leprechaun" with his wife and five kids. We talked to him for a while, and at some point I lamented about my inability to find a sailboat to rent upon which he immediately offered his dinghy to us so we could go exploring. That sounded like a good plan to me, and we made plans to meet up with him the next day. Joe's wife had just left that morning to fly home to Spokane, WA for a month, so he was trying to figure out whether their first meal as "bachelors" would be hot dogs or mac & cheese. One of the smaller children pointed out that there were no hot dogs so mac & cheese it was. The kids wanted to move on, so we said goodbye with every intention of meeting up with them the next day.

Soon after Joe & family left to head up the hill, a British couple, John & Valerie walked up asking the standard question, "how much further?". They stopped and chatted for a while as well, and as they were heading to Singapore right behind us, Rita invited them to join us at her family's Chinese New Year there. We didn't really expect to see them, but you never know. As it turns out,we saw them that same night as we were having satay for dinner in Pantai Cenang (Cenang Beach). They stopped and chatted for a while and said they'd look us up in Singapore in few days (they never did).

While talking to John & Valerie, another westerner walked by drinking a Guinness. Presuming him to be from the UK, I asked him if he had another for me. He answered in halting English that he only had one Guinness, and it was mostly in his belly. He was obviously carrying more beer with him, so I teased him about being greedy. It turns out that he was simply being literal, I had asked for a Guinness, which he had no more of, but he was more than willing to hand me a Carlsberg, which tasted just fine,even if it was a bit warm. I think he may have been Romanian, or something close to there, he definitely had a Slavic accent. I was to pass this little bit of karma on when we were ready to fly out the next day by handing a British couple three beers we didn't want to try to get on the plane with us. As it turns out, Air Asia doesn't care if you bring them, you just can't drink them while on board. Of course I discovered this about two minutes after giving them away. Oh well, can't hurt to refill the karmic tank.

After we walked to the bottom of the stairs, Rita wanted a soft coconut to drink, and I was dying for some cold water, so we stopped at one of the hawker stalls. The Malay lady running the place had the coconut whacked open before I could even get the camera out. We sat at a table talking out the hike we'd just had and within less than a minute, we had a long tailed audience eyeing her coconut. The macaques are fearless, will steal anything they can get their hands on, and they're fast. We shooed him away, Rita finished her coconut and wandered off to peruse the stalls. I sat there drinking water enjoying the shade and soon enough, my little friend was back. He hopped up onto an adjacent table, obviously eying the coconut, and judging whether he could get it from me or not. Pretty soon he decided and in a flash, he was in the air on his way to my table making a scooping dash at the coconut. I'd expected that he'd try something like this and as soon as he jumped, I swatted at him with my Tilley Hat. This surprised him, and he changed direction in flight, landing on the far side of my table from me. Now, this table wasn't more than four feet across if that, so I had a monkey basically right in my face. He kept making slight moves towards the coconut, and I kept raising my hat to swat at him again. Pretty soon he decided to retreat a bit to a cage where they keep their coconuts (to keep the monkeys out). The staring battle devolved into a hissing, glaring and flashing of teeth confrontation...by me. He sat there for several minutes contemplating his next move and just as I thought he was going to launch another attack, he wandered off behind a tree. I thought, aha, he's trying to lull me into a false sense of security, and sure enough, he kept peering around the sides of the tree. By now it had occurred to me to get my camera into video mode, so I started filming him with the camera, but deliberately looking away like I didn't see him. He wandered around at the base of the tree for a while then simply wandered off. I was disappointed that he hadn't tried again, I'd have probably given him the coconut since there was little left in it.

The short way 'round

The flight back from SE Asia is always shorter than the flight there, simply because you're not fighting the jet stream all the way back. Nevertheless, I was still dreading the flights, even if both legs were shorter than their outbound cousins. If you'll recall my missive about the flight there, you'll recall that my butt was in serious pain by the time we got to Singapore. I was determined that this wouldn't happen again. I'd seen an inflatable pillow designed to relieve the pressure on your tailbone in Skymall magazine on the way over and endeavoured to find one during the whole trip to little success. I had resigned myself to trying to make do with a couple of pillows under my butt to try to raise my tailbone up off of the seat pans of death on the flight back, and even experimented on our bus ride back to Singapore, with some success. My butt still hurt, but not as badly. Fortunately, my BIL Sun is a patient fellow and took us around to a number of malls, partly because Rita loves to shop, but partly just to show off pieces of his town. At one of these places there was a giant travel store, and they had a decent variety of inflatable pillows, but not the one I was looking for. In desperation, I chose one that was advertised as a lumbar support, but had sort of a moon sliver shape taken out of the back of it that I thought might do the trick. It was the only one that looked like it might actually last through both of the flights, especially considering that I'm not the smallest guy in the world. As it turns out, not only did it last through both flights, I came away from SeaTac airport feeling as good after a flight as I can remember. Yes, my butt hurt a little bit, but not enough to whine about, or even whimper. No, I didn't get any sleep, but that was no fault of the pillows', it had more to do with the Japanese elbow in my ribs and the cycling of the song "Afternoon Delight" for eight hours in my head. I have no idea where the song came from, although I do recall hearing it one day while driving around Singapore with Sun & Rita. It was driving me crazy, I tried to drown it out with songs that I like, The Entertainer, lots of Jimmy Buffet stuff, etc., but as soon as I wasn't actively trying to push it from my head, it'd pop right back up. Unbelievably annoying. The flight to Narita was only about half way full, so there was plenty of room to stretch out which was nice. This was not to be the case for the Seattle leg. I read about 500 pages of the book "The Hostage" by WEB Griffin, quite good, and finished it on the Seattle leg, about 800 pages in all. If you like his style (and I do), I think you'll enjoy this book.


As I walked down the jetway at Narita I noticed all the round eyes in front of me stopping at a crack in the wall of the jetway...you could see your breath, something not generally possible in the equatorial heat of Singapore. The cool air flowing into the jetway felt wonderful, such a change from the heat! I'd have stayed there longer if it weren't for the mass of people getting off the flight behind me. I took my time getting to the next gate because we'd arrived early, and it was more than two hours before I needed to be anywhere except a bathroom, which needed to be much earlier than that. A quick pit stop on the way through security (why do they not only run you through security, but take away your drinks, when you're basically locked inside the terminal with no way of getting access to anything you didn't bring with you in the first place, and you had to get through security to get there), and then off towards my next gate. I wanted to dash off a quick email to R to let her know I'd gotten there OK, as well as the success of the pillow, but I had no Yen, and there were no money changers around. It turns out that you can use US currency in the stores there, they just make the exchange for you with no problems, and give you change in Yen. So convenient.

Internet kiosks take 100 ¥ pieces for ten minutes of access time. They should refund you for the time you have to wait for the keyboard to catch up with your typing... I tried sitting out my layover at the gate, but it was right in between two of the automated walkways, and they had a continuous loop of "the end of the walkway is approaching, please be careful" playing with women's voices, one version in Japanese, immediately followed by the English version. That lasted about five minutes before I couldn't stand it, so I wandered off in search of a good people watching place that wasn't aurally annoying. I found a stand of seats that were directly in front of the end of the walkway, which has the sound playing in the other direction, so it was pretty quiet. I really wanted to read my book, but I knew if I did, I'd end up finishing it about the time the flight boarded, and I'd have nothing to read on the flight.

The flight to Seattle, was nearly full, but I'd "upgraded" to "coach with a tiny bit more room" for about $200 US, so I was up against the bulkhead, close enough to see business class but far enough away that I had to walk aft so I wouldn't use the wrong head because of "security concerns". Who says that the US is a classless society? In any case, I finished my book, and donated it to one of the stewardesses who'd chatted with me about WEB Griffin for a while. She hadn't read the book and I didn't see any reason to carry it any more, I rarely if ever re-read paperbacks. Sleep was elusive as usual, but I catnapped a bit, at least on this flight I didn't have to keep wiggling my butt just to try to stay out of pain, I simply couldn't sleep. Then there was the Japanese guy with his elbow in my ribs...

While we were in Malaysia, we'd bought some nice paintings that the framer had packed up for us into a single large but fairly light bundle. I expected to have some trouble with it at the customs desk when I got back to the US, but this was not to be. The customs officials were far more interested in the bak kwa which I'd made a point of declaring since I figured I was going to secondary for the paintings in any case. Bak kwa is a sort of pork jerky that's one of my favorite things, and my SIL Ho Li had made a point of bringing a bunch down from KL for us. Unfortunately, none of it made it past the customs folks, and most likely ended up in the incinerator, although one of the ladies working the counter looked like she was Chinese, so maybe she took it home. I hope someone got to eat it, but it's not likely, the guy I was talking to told me that they could lose their jobs if they ate it. Too bad, I was looking forward to having some... Oh, and the paintings that were about $500 over my allowable limit for free entry? Not a word, and they never even asked about the half drunk bottle of booze I'd forgotten to claim. Odd, huh?

Durians

Rita loves durians, if you've never had one, and you're a westerner, you don't know what you're missing, and you may never want to find out. The day after Chinese New Year, we went shopping on Arab Street and drove past a number of stalls selling the fruit. We stopped so Sun & Rita could get out and find "a good one". They eventually came back with two, a couple of different kinds. Apparently they're graded by their relative stinkiness, and if you're wanting to introduce someone to them, you want to start at the low end of the organoleptic scale before going to full scale warfare on someone's senses. They secured them in the trunk of the car, but you could smell them even from there. Sun made a point of walking up the stairs to his place instead of taking one of the elevators so he wouldn't expose anyone to the smell while enclosed in them. They hustled them through his apartment and out onto the balcony so they could open them and get to the flesh. Here are my impressions:

• Smell: broken sewer at a rubber processing plant. At least this is what it smelled like to me on the outside. The inside isn't as bad, and up close it's almost pleasant, sort of the inverse of how gasoline (petrol for my readers in SE Asia) & skunk can both smell sort of pleasant at a distance, but nasty up close.
• Taste: not so bad (see linked article above for more opinions), I'd eat it again if it weren't for the:
• Aftertaste: well, not so much aftertaste as the burps. They seem to go on forever, and you get the dual pleasure of both tasting and smelling it all over again, long after you though it was over. ugh, naaasty.
  
• Texture: creamy, sort of like a thick pudding with a giant seed in it, not bad actually.
• The edible parts of the fruit are encased in a thick spiny shell, and then some surrounding membrane, so they end up looking like beige lumps in white cocoons. You simply pop the fruit out of the cocoons. To give you an idea of what they look like, here's the Esplanade in Singapore that resembles a durian.
  
• After eating it Rita had her mom pour some water in it. I was curious about this until I read this article.
  

The flight to Langkawi

In order to fly to Langkawi we first had to get to KLIA LCC terminal to pick up our flight on Air Asia. KLIA is about 45 minutes or so from KL, and the LCC (low cost carrier) terminal is sort of out and around the back side of the main international terminal, out in the middle of nowhere.

We were set to just take a cab or a bus, but Rita's sister Ho Li insisted that we have Isa, their driver of 18 years, fetch us there. I felt sorry for Isa, but apparently he gets double or triple time when he does things like this so he doesn't mind. Ho Li instructed him to drop us off, but to wait around to make sure our flight was on time, and to let us sit in the van with him in the AC until the flight was ready to go. This seemed over the top to us, there was bound to be AC in the terminal, so we got out at the curb, called him after a few minutes, thanked him for the ride and told him we were on our way. This would come back to bite Isa because he hadn't actually checked for himself that our flight was on time, we'd just told him he could go, there was no way for him to know our flight had been "re-timed". Apparently Isa is terrified of Ho Li, and goes out of his way to avoid her wrath, so we (or at least I) had no idea we were setting him up for a scolding when we let Ho Li know that the flight had been delayed (or "re-timed" in AA's quaint way of letting you know you weren't going to get where you were going in the time frame you assumed you would). We had borrowed Kathryn's (Ho Li's youngest daughter) phone for the trip, so there was constant SMS messages going back and forth. We let her know that the flight was delayed and that we'd be getting into Langkawi late. This apparently set off a small firestorm with Isa getting his ear chewed for not checking on the flight himself, poor guy. There was no way to apologize to him for this because we were never out of earshot for the rest of our time in KL. On our way back, we simply took a bus.

Now I don't want to paint my SIL as some sort of monster or something, she went out of her way on this occasion and many others to make sure we were comfortable, taken care of, etc. She also was instrumental in not only finding this flight for us, but our accommodations as well on Langkawi. She runs a strict household, managing four kids, two maids, a career as a stockbroker, social hosting, tutors for the kids, coaches for the kids, sports for the kids (seeing a theme here?), etc. How she keeps it all straight is a wonder. She demands a lot from her kids and staff, but they're well taken care of, and need for nothing.

While waiting for the flight an American couple sat directly behind us, actually bumping us with their arms as they tried to snuggle up to each other and smooch. Malaysians frown on overt displays of affection, and these were on their way to needing a room. Overall we weren't too impressed with them, and I feel embarrassed when I see fellow Americans making complete Americans of themselves. All of AA's flights are cattle call, you find your own seat when you get on board, similar to SouthWest Air's flights. When they call for you to queue up to get on the plane, they make a point of taking disabled, elderly, and people with kids, or pregnant onto the flight before the rest of the passengers, a policy that I have no problem with, although it irks me to see a family with a bunch of teenagers getting on a flight before me simply because technically they have kids, but the kids are perfectly able to take care of themselves. Anyway when they called for the queue, the two snoggers I mentioned earlier got into that line almost certainly because it was far shorter than the line the rest of us were in. By no means were they the only westerners who did this, but they were the only ones who managed to get through the queue, almost certainly lying by saying she was pregnant. Now, I suppose it was possible that she was three or four hours pregnant, but her belly was as flat as any models. The humorous part came when the Malay women in front of us started giggling about it, and we were behind them rolling our eyes with them. Several other western couples got on the flight, but they either had small children and strollers, or they were elderly and could use the extra time and assistance from the crew. One couple in particular caught our attention because they could be us in 20 years or so. Western guy, Asian woman, obviously very comfortable with each other, enjoying each other's company.

The plane was a new-ish 737-300, perfect for island hopping, and other than them doing a hot refuel while we were on board, everything seemed hunky-dory. They boarded the flight pretty quickly, and not surprisingly, the snoggers were up against the forward bulkhead, feet up on the bulkhead closest to the forward exit so they could get off the plane first. Once the buttoned up the plane and it started to cool down, I relaxed trying to wiggle a bit more comfort out of the not-sized-for-my-butt seat. Pretty soon we taxied out onto the runway, and it was throttles up for the takeoff. We got about half way down the runway, the nose just starting to feel light, and...throttles down, emergency reversers, smoking brakes as we came to an emergency stop. Whew! First time for me and a bit nerve wracking. They taxied back to the ramp and started fiddling with the starboard engine, running it up and down. The co-pilot explained that they'd gotten an emergency warning siren and "standard procedure called for an aborted takeoff" and "everything was under control, don't worry". Needless to say this worried me. However, an aborted takeoff is far better than the alternative, so I calmed myself down, and explained what was going on as best I could to Rita because she wanted off the plane. As it turned out, the actual flights (re-timed to three hours later) went off without a hitch, and they firewalled the engines to get us there in 45 minutes instead of the normal 60 or so. We got to Langkawi in the middle afternoon, lots of little islands & boats underneath us as we approached, so it was a very nice end to the flight.

Smashed duck, suckling pig and other delicacies

While walking around China Town in KL the other night, one of the stalls we stopped by was selling smashed ducks. Basically this is exactly what it sounds like, ducks that have been plucked (but not beheaded), and then smashed flat. You can see some of them behind Rita's head in this photo. Pretend that her eyes are open...



That same night we drove past a watch repair shop that had a giant sign that said "Kedai Jam 25", this roughly translates to "shop open 25 hours a day". How'd you like to get your watch repaired there?

Another store we drove past a couple of times (along with lots of other places...), was a stall that sells Hokkien Mee. These words are said with some sort of reverence, but with force, as if saying it loud enough will make it even better tasting somehow. I have to admit that it's pretty good once you get past the smell and look. The smell is an oily melange of pasta, sea food, and thickened soy sauce (I think), and the look is like dark slimy worms with bits of vegetable and shrimp, cockles, etc. This particular stall has been referred to innumerable times while I've been here, apparently it's one of the last ones in KL that still cooks on an actual charcoal brazier instead of propane, and it's been in the same place for decades. Each time I eat it, I have to steel myself to get past my initial revulsion, because I know that it actually tastes pretty good, and it's just my Western upbringing that makes it revolting. I find this to be a theme here, especially with the Chinese food for some reason. The Indian and Malay food in general doesn't get this reaction from me, but some of the Chinese food is hard to get by my initial reaction. Of course, I'm married to a Chinese lady, so this has repercussions, although she takes it in pretty good humor, and I'm always willing to try stuff at least once, even though my gag reflex is in full swing. Ask me about shark fin soup and black chicken sometime..."tastes like chicken" takes on a whole new meaning...

At our Chinese New Year dinner with Dato' Soo and his family at Noble House, we had a ten course meal, of which I would only order maybe three or four courses again. My favorite was Yee Sang, which is sort of a shredded salad with raw salmon & what looked like yellow tail, with a plum sauce and crispy crackers over the top. Really-really good, but I had the same reaction, "ugh, do I want to eat this?". One bite convinced me that I did, and I had several servings. I'd go through this same trial for each of the next nine courses, with the exception of when they served "thousand layer cake", which looked good to start with, and tasted better. The suckling pig was pretty good, as were the shrimp, but since I couldn't eat with my hands, I ended up not eating much of the shrimp because I don't have the polite skill of being able to shell a shrimp in my mouth while not offending anyone. What I was able to sort out with a fork and spoon was pretty good, but if I'd have had my hands to work with, I'd have been able to get more shrimp down my gullet. Shark fin soup was nothing like I expected. They only use the "good" part of the fin to make "the best" soup, so the fin is basically a shredded meat that reminds me of pickled ginger both in look and texture. Of course everything you've heard about the shark dying after the fin's been harvested is true, and they even have radio commercials in KL encouraging people to not order the soup to try to curtail the fishing practice of simply trimming the fin and throwing the shark back to die because the meat isn't worth anything. The taste wasn't bad, but the textures and feel in my mouth was hard to get by, and the black chicken that was served in it looked like rotten meat to me. Visually this was a tough one to get by, but knowing that each bowl cost roughly $100US (there were easily 16 guests at this dinner, you do the math) made me want to at least give it the college try. The chicken actually wasn't bad, and the black flesh is simply, um...black flesh, which tastes...just like chicken. Apparently, the chickens are grown this way without any special effort by the farmers, they just have black flesh. Very weird to look at, but I'd eat the chicken again. The soup? Not so much. My least favorite was the dried blood & liver sausages along with some other highly salted and dried foods. I don't remember what this was called, but perhaps it was because I was getting pretty full, and the prospect of more oily salty food just wasn't sitting well, I had to do my best to get this course down. It didn't help that my BIL was serving for me, so I got more on my plate than I wanted in the first place. All of the dried food is eaten with arrowroot, which by itself is pretty bland, but tastes good, so I made a show of taking more (you're very encouraged to take more) by taking more arrowroot and eating that by itself, of with tiny chunks of the dried meats. I've had some of the dried sausages in other places, and I liked them, so I think my problems getting this down could be related to the heat, and my relative fullness. I find that I don't have much of an appetite over here, and I ascribe it to the heat for the most part. This doesn't bother me too much, it's not like I don't have some extra to go around, and dropping some tonnage isn't going to hurt me.

Hey, big man!

After we ate dinner in downtown KL the other night, my brother in law Gan wanted us to see some of the city, so we drove around for a while checking out the sights. One of the stops was China Town. It was nearing 11pm when we got there so some of the hawkers were starting to close up, but there were plenty left. The photo to the left gives you an idea of how tight the press of humanity was, I took it in a rare gap in the crowd. As we walked along, there was the occasional other gwai-lo walking around like me, but for the most part, only Chinese folks. Every DVD you can think of was for sale, and they weren't shy about trying to get you into their stalls to look. Shouts of "hey big man!", and "yes sir, right here" rang out from all sides. I quickly learned to just shake my head, which usually worked to dissuade them. Failing that, you pull out the ubiquitous right hand shake that means something to the effect of "nothing, no, can't find it, don't want it". You do this by extending your hand out in front of your body a bit, with your fingers splayed, and your thumb & forefinger sort of towards each other (I think). This seems to be a universal gesture. While waiting for a plane to Langkawi several days later, I watched the airline staff using to to indicate that they couldn't find a missing passenger.

How deep is that trench?

We took a bus from Singapore (SG) to Kuala Lumpur (KL), which is pretty convenient, even the customs & immigration are not too difficult. The offices are on opposite ends of the causeway between SG & Johor Bahru, the most southern city in peninsular Malaysia. You simply get off the bus in each place, and breeze through customs, at least if you're gwai-lo / mat salleh (foreigner, white devil, etc. in Chinese / Bahasa Meleyu). I've only been searched once on this entire trip, which was in Narita, where I was actually searched 3x in about as many minutes. In any case, I simply walked through both, Rita, who's Malaysian, gets searched nearly every time.

We were seated very near the front, with only a middle aged Chinese woman in front of us, who promptly pulled down all the shades so we couldn't see out the front, and turned off all the AC in her section, then proceeded to cough and hack the whole way. I was irritated with her, and was waiting for her to fall asleep so I could go turn on all the AC again. Fortunately the AC on the bus worked very well, and eventually got too cold, something I thought was impossible in SEA. About half way through the trip, they stopped the bus for a piss stop, drink break, etc. She was the first one off the bus, and we followed slowly behind her. I was looking at the drinks & whatever on the little truck in front of the tandas (bathrooms). All of a sudden, I heard a yelp and a thud. This poor woman had walked right into a four foot deep concrete trench that was only 18" wide or so. I helped get her out of the trench and took a look at her injuries, which were slight, although she probably had some nice bruises on her legs judging by the abrasions on her pants. A silver bracelet had fallen off her arm, and one of the Malay guys working the truck jumped into the trench to get it for her. His head barely cleared the top of the trench and he needed an arm up to get back out. She was somewhat lucky in that had she fallen about two feet to her right, she would have almost certainly hit her head on the grating she was supposed to have walked across in the first place.

Was that the King?

So, our second night in KL, my sister and brother in law (Ho Li & Gan) decided to take us out for dinner. We drove into town, took the obligatory pictures in front of the Petronas Towers, etc. While we were walking into the front of the hotel where the restaurants were, all of a sudden people come storming out of the hotel, security guards, managers in suits, and then armed police, literally splitting our group in half. We ended up right next to the door blocked by security folks while a Rolls Royce pulled into the valet area with police escorts both in front and back. The hotel manager hustled out to the car, bowing to whoever was inside, hands together to his forehead like you'd hold your hands in prayer. Turns out it was the ex-king, now Raja of Perlis, one of the Malaysian States, and his entourage. He walked by us not ten feet away, I was stunned that security let us anywhere near him, I've shaken the hand of a US president, but it wasn't without dozens of Secret Service folks around, and in very controlled circumstances, I can't imagine GWB just showing up at a restaurant and walking by the hoi polloi. It hadn't occurred to me to take a picture, but it's possible we were on the news that night as we were directly across from the news cameras as they filmed him walking into the hotel. It was over as quickly as it started, and we continued on our way to dinner.

What cable do I need?

So, before coming over to SE Asia, I'd found a "new" GPS unit to use as a backup to my "old" GPS unit. In reality, both are older Garmin models, one a GPS 12, and the other a GPS 12XL, very nearly identical, and the price was right on the 12XL, only $55 in a pawn shop. I like having a GPS with me when I travel for a few reasons, one, it helps me find my way around, two, it gives me something tangible to bring back with me after my trip so I can say "I was there", and three, it gives me something to do while on boring road trips, like the bus route from SG to KL. Five hours of listening to a bus drone on while driving through rubber plantations on a freeway that's as boring as any in the US gets pretty old pretty fast, especially if it's at night and you can't see much anyway.

Anyway, I was talking to my friend Chris, and he gave me a link to a freeware chartplotter software package, but I'd need a cable for the GPS units to talk to my computers. While searching for a cable online, I ran across a page called Pfranc, which is a site created by a guy in Oregon who sells data/power cables that he makes himself. I found a guy who'd franchised for Washington State, but decided to look in Singapore & Malaysia just for fun. Turns out there's a guy in Singapore, Daniel Mok, who makes and sells the cables as well. I contacted him, telling him that we'd be there last week, and could I buy a cable from him. No problem. After some exchanges of email explaining what I needed (I thought), then several phone calls between my brother in law Sun & Daniel, we met up with him to purchase the cable. Got back to Sun's apartment, and the cable didn't fit. Turns out that there is a voltage difference between the two GPS units, which doesn't make sense to me, as they both run off of 4-AA batteries, but apparently the 12 runs off of 5-8 VDC, and the 12xl runs off of line voltage, 12 VDC. Both plug into the cigarette lighter in your car or boat, but one runs at a lower power, and the other higher. The higher power cable is blocked by a pin in the center of the plug on the GPS so you can't plug it in. Of course, this is the one I have with me, so the cable I'd gotten wouldn't work with the GPS I have for this trip. And of course I found this out the evening before we were leaving for KL, so there was no way to make an exchange. I wrote to Daniel explaining my predicament, so he called Sun, asking about the exchange. This created a fire storm of SMS messages going back and forth from SG to KL, I think all the female members of my sister in law's family got at least one message from Sun, asking me for clarifications. Mostly while I was swimming in the pool with the boys. Eventually it was ironed out, and I will end up with two cables for less than the price of one in the US.

The breezes of Singapore

When we were planning the trip back to Singapore & Malaysia, I was dreading the heat and humidity. I remembered getting off the plane in Kuala Lumpur five years ago when I came over here to first meet Rita (another story), and seemingly walking into a wall of hot, humid air. This time, getting off the plane in Singapore, while the heat was palpable, it wasn't oppressive like I remembered, or thought I did anyway. After Sun picked us up and dropped us at his apartment, as we were standing outside, the wind was fairly howling by us, and it was surprisingly cooling. Getting up to his place on the third floor, I was pleasantly surprised how quickly his place cooled down as soon as we opened the doors & let the breeze through. Although I wouldn't want to sleep in the relative coolness of the apartment, sitting around and eating a quick dinner was quite pleasant. I was still very thankful for the AC in the room so we could sleep comfortably.

Chased across the pond by the sun...

We left Seattle around noon-thirty on Tuesday afternoon to have the terminator line chase us a third of the way around the world, only to catch us in Tokyo. We took this picture out the window of the terminal in Narita during our layover. The play of the sun in the clouds was fantastic, but it didn't dawn on me to ask Rita for the camera until it had dropped beneath them.

The flight over was uneventful, at least to Tokyo, the only problem was the seats as usual. I have no idea how an aircraft seat could be engineered to be so painful on your butt. I spent a fair amount of time wandering around the plane trying to stay out of the seat, but eventually you have to go sit back down, and continue enduring the pain. By the time we got to Narita, we both were feeling it, but not too badly. This was to change...

The flight to Singapore, while shorter than the Seattle to Tokyo run, was a bit bumpy at times, so you had to stay in your seat. Bumpy enough at one point to have R poised with her barf bag, but it calmed down to the point where her inner ear quit complaining, but not where the seat belt sign came off, so the torture continued. She managed to sleep for a few hours, I catnapped between trying to find positions where it didn't hurt so bad. I finally found a spot where if I wedged my right leg in the right position, my butt didn't hurt quite so bad, but there was a price to pay, the wedging action pressed the strap of my sandal into my little toe so hard I thought I was wearing a blister. Finally just kicked off the sandal and all was (relatively) better. I was never so glad to see Changi airport in Singapore. We called R's mom & brother to come get us, fortunately Sun, Rita's brother, only lives about five minutes away from Changi, so her mom was walking through the doors almost exactly the same time we got to them, while Sun waited outside at the curb. Boeing needs to talk to Volkswagon engineers about their seats. Sun picked us up in his Passat, and while I dreaded sitting down again, the ride to his apartment was thankfully (nearly) painless.

By the time we got to Sun's place, the sun was long since past us, and a nice moon was up in the sky. It took about twenty hours to get here, and I'm trying not to think about the trip back because it's longer flying into the sun...