24 hours in London

Having survived the 13 and a half hour flight from KL to London, my re-entry into the western world for the first time in 417 days went pretty smoothly.  Even Heathrow was kind to me and I was through immigration and had my bags in 30 minutes.

I hopped on the wildly overpriced ($30.70 for a one way-ticket) but super convenient Heathrow Express and 15 minutes later I was at Paddington Station.  A quick glance at the Tube map (Bakerloo to Victoria - how could I have forgotten?) and I was bound for Brixton - a trendy London borough which had a bit of reputation the last time I hauled out to South London (2003) that is known for it's Afro-Caribbean flavor. Gentrification has set in the last 9 years and now it's one of the trendiest, most diverse and almost affordable places to live in London.

Like other major cities around the world, Londoners are not particularly famed for their friendliness. But in the nearly two years since I was last in the UK, I had completely forgotten about that unfailing, unrelenting habit British people have of saying 'please' and 'thank you'.  (In Malaysia, you simply get 'can' or 'cannot' in response to virtually every question - or statement.) I had also completely forgotten about the British love of forming a queue.

My route to Brixton involved a change at Oxford Street - London's premier shopping district - at 6:00 on a Saturday with only three weeks until Christmas.  I was gobsmacked by the orderliness of it all.  Anywhere in Southeast Asia (Singapore excepted) this would have resulted in a massive free for all - pushing, shoving, elbowing, stomping on feet - but instead people waited patiently for passengers to exit (what a concept!) and then in an orderly fashion we crammed ourselves into the carriage, while others waited patiently on the platform for the following train that was just a minute or two behind.

It was bliss. I can't remember the last time I felt that relaxed on public transportation!

I arrived in Brixton and met up with my dear friend and hostess, Rachel, and we set off for a delightful little restaurant called Honest Burger in Brixton Village (If you like a good old-fashioned burger, a touch on the rare side with delicious toppings such as cranberry relish, fried camembert, watercress and poppy seeds - this is the place for you.)

Our walk to Brixton Village brought me face to face with a crosswalk (or to be a Brit about it, zebra crossing).  We approached the crosswalk and Rachel just strolled into the street.  I remained glued to the pavement, braced for Rachel's swift and sudden demise by a car careening down the street at approximately 200 miles an hour.  She got across, I looked up, noticed a car waiting patiently for me to cross and she said, 'what the hell are you doing?' It all came rushing back, and I thought to myself, 'I could play at the this zebra crossing all day.  It's amazing.'

My 24 hours in London went by all too quickly, and now I'm in Chicago - London's chief rival for my affection (London or Chicago, I can never settle on a favorite)..

Anyway, since my return I've been maintaining a list of wonderful things I've forgotten about and/or previously took completely for granted:

• toilet paper
• dry bathrooms (with no muddy footprints on the toilet seat)
• real napkins that are not made of tissue/toilet paper
• knives in restaurants
• large gaps between cars travelling at high speeds
• a strict adherence to red lights and other traffic signals
• a complete lack of illegal parking
• people who walk at an acceptable speed (no Malaysian shuffle here!)

In short, I don't mean for this to sound like some anti-Asia rant, it's just really, really good to be home. 

Oh and for the record, I am completely embracing the cold weather.  It's so refreshing.

An embassy row

As with most third-world countries, it is necessary to get a visa prior to entering Myanmar.  Fine.  I've been through visa processes of all types - students visas, residency visas, dependent visas, working visas, tourist visas - not to mention renewing visas and transferring visas between passports. First world or third world, visa procedures are rarely pleasant, straight forward or efficient. So with a fully loaded travel schedule between now and our late January departure for Myanmar, we thought we better get the Burmese visas over and done with.

We found out what we could beforehand and got some advice from friends who had previously been through the process - it didn't seem so bad.  The application form is the most unofficial document you've ever seen - it's a document with absolutely no headings, seals, or insignias that would signal it is in any way an official government document.  It's so basic your average first grader could create it in Microsoft Word.

The drop-off process went smoothly and Ian was delighted when they said our visas would be ready for us on Monday. Splendid.

The best way I can describe the Burmese Embassy is to say that it resembles a small refugee camp.  Dozens and dozens of Burmese citizens, mostly young men, loiter around the front of the embassy and inside - and by inside, I refer to a courtyard surrounded by a corrugated iron fence with a few tents set up to provide shelter from the sun and rain - and there, dozens more people sit on filthy plastic chairs smoking and chatting - there are no tablets, smartphones, kindles or ipods here.  Everyone looks like they have been there for a very, very long time.

The contrasts between the Burmese embassy and the surrounding embassies are stark - even the Senegalese embassy a few doors down looks palatial by comparison.  The Irish embassy and ambassadors residence is just opposite - it is a modest mansion with a lovely pool - where the huddled masses from the Burmese embassy can just about peer over the spiked fence while the Irish ambassador relaxes poolside.

We left work early and arrived 15 minutes before pick-up time - which is strictly between 4:00-5:00pm.  There was already a queue with roughly 20 people in front of us and a rapidly expanding line behind us. 4:00 came and went. At 4:15 an employee appeared, sat down at the window and commenced eating a sandwich.  Another employee appeared.  Things began happening.  A few happy people came away with passports, a few travel agents waited on the side and a few people came away looking disappointed or frustrated. Uh oh.

Word began to circulate that passports were only being returned to people who had applied on November 29th (not the 30th like us - despite the fact that our receipt very clearly said that our passports would be ready that day).

No need to panic, we had requested the expedited service. We got to the window, put forward our receipt and the man flipped it over, shoved it back in my face, shook his head and said 'no' (and by the way, the expedited service doesn't exist!)

Time out.

Not only can I not be leaving work three hours early to queue at the embassy during my last four working days of the year - but I've got a flight to catch to the UK at the end of the week.  I need my passport.

Panic was rising and time ticking.  I've been through enough visa drop-offs and collections to know that the possibility that the window would be slammed shut at 5:00 regardless of how many people were still in line was a very, very real possibility.

I also know that this was probably about the last situation in which one should shout.  Shouting about third-world bureaucracy rarely achieves anything.  In fact, it can be downright counter-productive. Nevermind. Frustrated, stressed and wet (the heavens had opened) I  let loose.  'I MUST have my passport. I am flying to the UK tomorrow' (white lie, but given the circumstances . . . ) Repeat several times.  Man at the window shouts back.  After several unproductive minutes of trying to shout above the noise of the now torrential rain, he says, 'you wait, wait' and disappears into a dilapidated building.

Minutes tick by.  He re-emerges to applause - he is carrying a basket of passports, escorted by a man holding a giant pink umbrella over the basket. Ian's photo is poking out of the top of the basket.

A few more minutes and we are safely away with our passports.  Drenched and back at the car we notice the stamps have been slightly smeared by the rain (but all remains legible).  I dried them in front of the air conditioning vent.  I hope we don't have to bribe a border agent when we arrive.

Leeched

Back from our second attempt to conquer Borneo, I'm pleased to announce that we've all returned decidedly un-head-hunted, but there was still plenty of blood-shed thanks to the local leeches.

The sun shining, we set off on an excellent hike into Kubah National Park that ends at a lovely, extremely slippery, two-tiered waterfall. The ranger at the station told all about how clean and clear the water was, recommending that we be sure and remove our boots for a quick soak and not even hesitate to drink the water (something which I met with great scepticism - 'drink the water' isn't something you hear a lot in this part of the world.)

After walking at a steady clip for about an hour and a half in 90 degree heat with 100% humidity, the hiking boots were shed immediately upon arrival.

A few minutes later my mother noticed that blood was streaming from my ankle.  I knew I hadn't cut it and noticing that the blood was flowing in a steady trickle from a tiny hole, I grimaced, said 'leech' and shrugged.  They're gross, but harmless.

Leeches are also remarkably sneaky.  They latch onto your undetected, getting into the most bizarre places (hours after we returned Thomas found one in his armpit and Ian located one settling in his belly button!)  They inject their victims with anaesthetic that prevents you from feeling the bite as well as an anti-coagulant  to ensure a steady stream of blood (which often continues long after the leech is done feasting and has fallen off of you in a blissful blood coma).

When we returned to the car, I noticed a red patch of liquid slowly creeping across the sleeve on my mother's shirt.  I paused, looked her up and down, and she - quite literally, looked like she had just been shot.  There was blood streaming down her leg, arms and chest. Fortunately, she's a nurse so the sight of blood doesn't really phase her. Examining her wounds (and more concerned about the state of her shirt than the leeches), she told us quite happily of how they actually still use leeches for medicinal purposes.

Ian cheerfully announced that at least we'd be free of consumption, the vapours and all other medieval disease.

The whole thing was a bit like that scene with the leeches in 'Stand by Me' only featuring a calm fifty-something woman rather than a passel of panicky teenage boys.

Clearly, I had underestimated my mother. She took it in stride and as we headed back into Kuching it was decided that an immediate need for beer(s) superseded the need for clean clothes.  We spent a happy hour slurping pork noodle soup and downed a few beers, while mom happily built a beer can tower before sauntering off for a long overdue shower.

Dancing in the street

Just in case any of you were wondering, the rest of the world was also watching the US presidential election with bated breath.  Needless to say, around lunchtime on Wednesday (when the election was called here in Malaysia) I swear I could hear the worldwide collective sigh of relief.

Tuesday night the US Ambassador to Malaysia was on our local radio station explaining the vagaries of the electoral system while colleagues and friends from Malaysia, China, India, UK, Germany, France and beyond were all ardently expressing their anxiety about a Romney presidency. 

As John Oliver (from the Daily Show) recently said, 'Barack Obama is running for re-election in quite possibly the only country in the world in which he could lose.'  How very true. 

In the run-up to the election the BBC carried out a 21-country survey of over 20,000 people and Romney was polling at a paltry 9%.
 
I've witnessed both of Obama's presidential bids from different countries and it would be impossible to overstate how closely the rest of the world watches us. Indonesia (a country that claims Obama for themselves) was keeping a particularly close eye and photos of students celebrating at his former school in Jakarta were plastered across this part of the world.  I did not encounter a a single pro-Romney foreigner during this entire election cycle.

When we went to Indonesia earlier this year, I felt more welcome there as a foreigner than I had anywhere else in a long time.  If you dropped in 'Chicago' you'd be given a broad smile, followed by a sage nod, 'ah yes, President Obama.'

Recently an American friend here in KL had a taxi driver who was informing him that, yes, he liked Barack Obama very much because he was a Muslim.  Funny how misinformation plays so very differently in different parts of the world.

As I said, the rest of world is utterly delighted (and relieved that it is finally over).  There was, quite literally, dancing in the street.

Fair weather friend

There are certain times of the year when I take immense pleasure in reminding everyone back home that the weather here doesn't change.  This feeling peaks between mid/late November through March.

But two years in, I am slowly starting to feel the more subtle seasonal shifts that we get in this part of the world. I'm slowly starting to associate surprise downpours (we've had 6 or 7 today) as a characteristic of autumn and winter.  It storms year-round here, but there is a marked difference in the intensity and frequency of the storms.

Maybe it's because I'm coming home for Christmas this year, so I'm keeping a close eye on the calendar, but I also seem to be gaining an improved sense of what the weather is doing back home. The lack of seasons has been something that I've found a bit disorienting.

I haven't set foot outside the tropics for just over a year now, and there have been points in the last year when I've really had to stop and think about what season it was back home.  Months have even ceased to have their normal seasonal attachments here - as for work and planning holidays I often tend to think in terms of the Australian (ie Southern hemisphere) calendar (no trips to Bali when the Aussies are on holiday!)

As much as I love never, ever having to get out of bed on a cold dark morning and sprinting through cold air to a hot shower, I have, more than once looked longingly out the window at a deluge and wished it was just a wee bit cold outside.

All I'm saying is, Chicago, don't let me down.  I need snow on the ground by December 13th.

Back to Borneo

We made our first trip to Sarawak nearly two years ago and now we're going back . . . with my parents in-tow (they'll do fine, really).

To get everyone prepared for our journey, I have been re-reading and insisting that everyone else read Redmond O'Hanlon's book, Into the Heart of Borneo.  This is one of my all time favourite non-fiction books and is essential reading for armchair adventurers and hardened travellers alike.

Redmond, his poet-sidekick James Fenton and their three charming and resourceful Iban guides all set off on an incredible adventure deep into the jungle in search of the Bornean rhinoceros. Pumped full of tuak (native rice wine), arak (a lethally strong rice brandy), hoards of sticky rice and boney river fish they have many (mis)adventures - particularly with the local wildlife, which includes:

• 166 species of snakes: including 2 species or python, 50 venomous snakes including, aggressive sea snakes which have been known to swarm in the thousands, three kinds of cobra, pit vipers and river snakes.  Let's also not forget the flying tree snakes.
• leeches: giant leeches, up to two feet long and tiny leeches that live in rivers and streams only as wide as a thread that patiently wait for you to drink them down so they can feast on you internally.
• mosquitoes. Enough said.

Less scary native species include the elusive clouded leopard, cranky sun bear, big-eyed tarsiers, tiny slow loris, agile gibbons (they can swing from branch to branch for distances of up to 50 ft at speeds up to 35 mph), mighty orang-utans and countless species of birds including the revered hornbill.

Although parts of Borneo are now as developed as anywhere else in Malaysia, deep in the jungle there are still unruly natives prowling about with lethal blowpipes and who were reportedly head-hunters up until the 1960s. Despite ever-increasing development and the devastating destruction of huge swathes of primary rainforest for ever-expanding oil palm plantations, Borneo still possess a slightly wild edge.  It's not New Guinea, but it sure ain't a tourist-packed Thai island either.

We won't be hitting the jungle quite so hard as Redmond and James, but we have every intention of spotting a few orang-utans, visiting a Dayak longhouse, squeezing in a few jungle treks of our own, relaxing on the beach (hopefully without sea snakes!) and no vacation would be complete (especially with Thomas Galli) without a few beverages.  I can't wait to be back in Borneo.

Nickeled & dimed

My number one rule of international travel is that with a credit card and a passport you can get yourself out of (or into) virtually anything.  My second rule is the old Douglas Adams maxim, 'have towel will travel.'  After that, everything pretty much boils down to common sense and a bit of luck.

I turn 30 this January and we've decided it's time to take the plunge and visit Myanmar (Burma).  My travel philosophy is going to need a bit of reworking.  While rule number two will likely continue to serve me well, rule number one  is out the window.

Incredible changes have been sweeping through Myanmar over the last year (hence our decision to go), but one thing that hasn't changed is that it is a truly 100% cash economy.

The Burmese currency - the kyat - cannot be exchanged outside of the country and once in Myanmar  there is literally one hotel in Yangon (Rangoon) that will give cash on a credit card (at a whopping rate of 12%) and there is not a single ATM in the entire country that will take an international credit or debit card.

 This means we not only need to budget carefully and bring all the currency that we want to exchange into Myanmar with us, but they are also rather fussy about what you bring along to exchange.

We will need to bring - brand spanking new - completely flawless- no wrinkles, folds, tears, or spots US dollars.  These pristine dollars will also need to be post-2006 (the bills with colour on them) and not begin with the serial numbers CB (rumour has it they don't take the other US currency because the North Koreans successfully counterfeited the older bills - many of which found their way into Myanmar.)

On top of that - we will get the joy of haggling to exchange on the black market as the black market rate is actually much, much better than the 'official' rate which is roughly 1/10 of what it should be!

I think the money situation will probably be the most challenging part of our trip - I can survive power cuts, no internet, bad roads, slow travel and bureaucracy.

We've got until January to learn all we can and get visas, but this is one trip where we are really going to need to do our homework.  If anyone reading this has been to Myanmar - any travel tips and advice are extremely welcome!

Super sweet-tooth

When people ask me what I like most about living in Malaysia,  I have two answers ready: the weather and the food.

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The weather bit is pretty self-explanatory, what's not to like about a year-round tropical climate where you only need a wardrobe for one season and can spend every weekend lounging poolside or go to the beach on a whim?

Now not everyone would enjoy the food as much as we do - particularly if you have an aversion to spicy food (or fried stuff).  The food in Malaysia is much like the people - diverse.  It's an amazing blend of Chinese, South Indian and Malay cuisines - everything from deep-fried yam baskets stuffed with chili chicken to banana leaf curries to rich, spicy coconut-based soups full of ginger and lemongrass.

My preferences for Malaysian food definitely reside with the spicy, savoury stuff - but Malaysians are quite famous for having a bit of a sweet tooth and their deserts range from the bizarre to the truly disgusting.

Let me start by saying these people love sugar.  Love. They put it - in vast quantities - in everything.  Breads, juice, coffee, tea, even batter for frying. The sugar craze is so out of control that there are actual public service announcements telling people to limit the amount of sugar they put in their tea.  I've even heard that there are restrictions on how much sugar one can buy in a single trip to the supermarket.

Just yesterday, we went for a Sunday stroll in the park which was brimming with all sorts of vendors selling cold drinks, chips, popsicles and in once instance, what was quite literally an ice cream sandwich - a hot dog bun filled with three scoops of ice cream.

It gets worse.  Another common dish is a tropical fruit salad that has a dressing comprised of sugar, peanuts, chili and  . . . . shrimp paste.

Creamed sweet corn and red beans are also frequently featured as a topping for desserts like cendol (chen-dole) which is essentially shaved ice with coconut milk and these slimy, green worm-like noodles made from rice flour and pandan.

A lot of what I find so off-putting about Asian deserts is that they lack the sweet/savory distinction that is so  prevalent in Western cuisine - there is also often an issue of texture, I think the photo says it all.

I'm not a remotely fussy eater - and frequently blindly put myself into the hands of my Malaysian friends and trust that they aren't going to feed me anything that will kill me - but I drawn the line at slimy desserts. 

There's plenty of scary savoury stuff out there too, I was chatting to a colleague from Spain the other day who said, 'I quit eating wildlife after some tribesmen fed me monitor lizard.'  We all have our tipping point.

Sinking ships?

Monsoon season is nearly upon us - as evidenced by the massive thunderstorms that have begun rolling through most afternoons.  Here on the west coast things don't get so bad, but the east coast gets the full brunt of it and as such slowly closes down between October and November.  The east coast is home to Malaysia's best beaches and islands so it seemed sensible for us to make a quick trip before the end of the season.

We're off to Pulau Tioman - where one has the option of either flying or going by ferry.  It's a short flight and thus a very small plane (I don't do light aircraft) so I convinced Ian that going by ferry was surely the best option.  Then yesterday I got a vague email from the proprietor of our hotel that there was about to be 'severe disruption' to the ferry service.  At first I assumed he just meant that the monsoons were early and that was causing delays, oh no - according to Bernama (the Malaysian equivalent of Reuters of the AP) this is the problem:

PULAU TIOMAN, Sept 10 (Bernama) -- Four of the eight ferries serving Tioman Island were grounded since they did not comply to safety requirements and equipment required under the Marine Department rules.

East Coast Region Marine Department director, Wan Endok Wan Salleh said the ferries, which were en route to the island via Tanjung Gemok-Tioman-Mersing, would resume service after the ferry operators had fulfilled the safety requirements.

He said their non compliance of safety requirements was found after the department held a four-day awareness campaign, that commenced last Friday, in collaboration with the marine police, Marine Park Department and the Maritime Enforcement Agencies.

"About 44 summons were issued to ferry and passenger boat operators during the campaign," he told reporters after a safety campaign for jetty, ferry and passenger boats here.

He said the summons were issued for operating without license, employing incompetent captains, overloading and insufficient safety equipment.

Splendid.  This is what my fear of flying gets me - and this is particularly worrying because:

A. I (alongside two cousins and a friend) have already been on this ferry service twice this year (on the bright side I'm alive to tell the tale).
B. As you may have guessed, Malaysia isn't exactly at the top of the public health and safety charts - so my fear is things must have been quite bad for this to happen.

Oh well, we're off . . . .  hopefully for a weekend of snorkeling and relaxing in the sun - not floating in the middle of the South China Sea as shark bait. 

Dirty laundry

We have the luxury of having a laundry service in our condo and as a result I never have to iron anything.  Brilliant, right?

Well, we recently got some new ironing ladies. (I don't know what happened to the old ones, but they were very good).  The new ones are both painfully slow and don't do a very good job.  And much like their predecessors the new staff do not speak any English, but what does it matter?  It's not an act that requires a great deal of communication.

I picked up some shirts the other day and as usual the receipt was taped in some bizarre place, just waiting for Ian to set off with a piece of paper fluttering from his wrist or shoulder.  To save him this embarrassment I pulled off the tag and without even looking at it handed it to him to put in the bin.

I then heard a peel of laughter and Ian handed me back the receipt:

Orang Putih translates literally as 'white man.'  So just imagine if you went to the dry cleaners and picked up your laundry and it said 'white man' or 'black man' or 'latino man.' (For the record our previous ironing ladies just wrote our condo number on the receipt.)

At least they didn't write 'Mat Salleh' which is a more derogatory term used to describe white people - which roughly translates as 'mad drunken sailor' and has it origins in describing the bad behaviour of sailors on shore leave in Borneo in the colonial era.

This incident is so typically Malaysian.

Malaysia is often thought of (and frequently is) a pretty racist place.  Throw together a healthy mix of Malays, Indians and Chinese (and as a result Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists with a sprinkling of Christians) not to mention a healthy aboriginal and expat population and you at once have a truly wonderful cultural and ethnic diversity but also a recipe for much conflict and strife. 

Malaysia does certainly not rank high on the politically correct scale (ahem, see exhibit A above) - and sometimes I think that's a virtue, it's an easy thing to overdo.

Anyway, we got a good laugh out of it.  My Malaysian friends and colleagues also got a kick out of it (but only after I assured them that we were not offended - then they too thought it was hilarious.)

Pachyderm Playtime

No trip to Chiang Mai would be complete without spending at least a day with Asia's largest mammal.

The hills around Chiang Mai are full to bursting with a wide range of elephant parks, sanctuaries and trekking agencies. As ever with Asia, animal welfare is rarely top priority and it's worth doing a bit of homework to make sure you are supporting a place that properly looks after the elephants.

We settled on the Elephant Nature Park which is home to 38 rescued and rehabilitated elephants - mostly former work elephants that sustained serious injury or elephants that were orphaned at a  young age.

The Asian elephant is endangered with only 25,000-33,000 elephants left in the wild.  Their once vast habitat covers a huge area expanding from India and Nepal in the west; east to Vietnam and south to Malaysia and Indonesia.

 Much smaller than their African cousins, the Asian elephant still weighs in at about 11,000 pounds when fully grown. Despite their massive size, these animals are truly gentle giants - even the most wary visitors are boldly feeding, petting and even bathing with the elephants in no time.

The park is in a lovely setting, surrounded by hills, lush jungle and a shallow stream - which is essential for elephant bath time! The park gets busy, but they have pretty effective crowd control by limiting numbers and by breaking visitors up into small groups.

The park allows you to spend a lot of time with the elephants - and a lot of that time is spent feeding.  These massive vegetarians eat for 16-18 hours a day and take in well over 300 pounds of fruit, vegetables and grass each day.

Bath time is of course of the highlight.  These elephants bathe everyday to rinse off and cool down, but no sooner are they clean than they go and roll around in the very mud they just rinsed off.  The sun is strong in this part of the world and a good coat of mud and dirt makes for a pretty effective natural sunscreen.

On the whole it's an incredible experience (if a bit pricey - even by western standards at around $75.00 a head) but it's all for a good cause and a great way to support a local business.  Just be prepared to get a bit dirty and maybe even get covered in a bit of elephant snot.

For those of you accessing this from the Register Mail, you can view the rest of my photos from the Elephant Nature Park and read the full blog at www.wherecanigetadrink.blogspot.com.

Close encounters . . . of the Galesburg kind

Sitting in Chiang Mai at a small local restaurant serving up breakfasts of congee and dim sum a middle-aged white guy sauntered over to our table and announced, 'Ever since people like you (meaning tourists) starting turning up in here they put up their prices.'  He then cracked a smile and in a deep Midwestern drawl said, 'Where ya'll from?'

I said I currently resided in KL, but we were all - for lack of a better term - 'native Americans.'  We gabbed for a minute about the virtues of Malaysian cuisine and he turned to ask my travel companions where precisely they were from, two promptly responded with Colorado (unashamedly ditching the home states of Alabama and Texas) and then my third companion did something I gave up doing years ago, she said, 'Galesburg, Illinois.'

Pinpointing Galesburg geographically during a foreign encounter can be a bit of a challenge. Few people (Americans often included) have a detailed image in their head of the location of cities and states across our vast country.  So I often say 'near Chicago' or just 'Illinois' and am pleased when I get a response of 'that's kind of in middle, right?'

Well, this jolly character had no trouble pinpointing Galesburg at all.

'Galesburg, Illinois you say?  You know Galesburg is the only place in the world I've ever been where you can get fish bait and tackle out of a vending machine at a gas station.'

Turns out our new found friend had once worked for the Knox County nursing home and was now a permanent resident of Chiang Mai where he runs a small guesthouse.

We carried on for a bit and eventually the Alabama origins of one of our party were exposed. Unsurprisingly, he knew a little something about Alabamaians too.  He says,

'Well, I know a guy from Alabama out here. He sounds like a first class hick but he's smarter than hell and he's got two masters degrees and speaks and writes fluent Thai.  I asked him awhile ago if he ever wanted to go back and put that fancy education to use and make some money. 

Nah, this guy says. See I'm not the most attractive guy in the world and back in Alabama the girls wouldn't piss on me if my heart was on fire but out here they can't get enough of me and the weather's warm and the beer cheap.'

 Needless to say it's a small world and growing smaller and this little encounter with home put a smile on my face for the rest of the day.

Thai tales

Apologies for the hiatus, but I've been on the road ticking off a few more stops on my endless travel checklist. 

My most recent adventure took me to Thailand's second city, Chiang Mai.

Chiang Mai is not the image of Thailand that probably pops into your mind.  No tropical islands with sandy beaches, sparkling water and all night parties.  Instead think dense jungle and limestone mountains - at a glance northern Thailand seems to have more in common with Laos or Northern Burma than its own vibrant southern half.

Chiang Mai is about as laid back as an Asian city of 150,000 people can be. It's firmly on the tourist trail, but the locals seem to have (mercifully) adopted an attitude of laid-back indifference rather than the in-your-face and buy-my-stuff approach.

The city is old - established in 1296 parts of the original city walls still stand and the old town is mostly surrounded by a large moat.  Colourful Buddhist temples abound and when temple fatigue has settled in there are plenty of places to drop in for a cold (and cheap) beer.  It goes without saying really that the food is superb and the choices endless.

As usual, the best stuff is often the cheapest - pad thai, mussel omelettes, double-fried radish, crispy pork, spicy grilled beef from the local street vendors is pretty much a no-brainer.  I'm also pleased to report no tummy troubles on my end, but I think I'm developing immunity to some Asian bugs - a few of my less-indoctrinated travel companions didn't fare quite as well - but were genuine troopers nonetheless.

Perhaps the real highlight of Chiang Mai is the Sunday Walking Market.  The market is exactly as it sounds - every Sunday at 4:00 the major thoroughfares of the city centre are shut down and vendors hawking food, clothes, jewelry, trinkets, paintings and more set up camp for the evening.  Tourists and locals alike ply the streets in search of a good bargain - and at Thai prices bargains abound.

I've been to enough markets that I generally consider myself immune to the temptations of the same old stuff - but even I picked a up a beautiful handmade bedspread made by the Hmong people who live in the nearby mountains - at a truly extravagant $60.

But one of the main reasons people flock to Chiang Mai is because it serves as the base for some of the best elephant camps and trekking in the world. Hear all about our day with our pachyderm friends in the next installment.

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 For those of you accessing this blog via the Register-Mail don't forget you can access the whole back-catalogue of my travel adventures at www.wherecanigetadrink.blogspot.com .

You can also check out my photos of Chiang Mai.

Travels to the South Pacific

Well Ramadan is into full swing which means I'm in a country of cranky, dehydrated, hungry people who should all be banned from driving until it's over.  Therefore, it seems the perfect time to go on vacation and leave the circus behind.  Also, I have a few visitors currently en route.  One visitor is a cousin whose journey will originate in Galesburg, this is what she is in for:

• a 3 hour, 180 mile drive from Galesburg to Chicago, 
• a 3.5 hour flight, and 1750 miles to Los Angeles, 
• overnight in LA, 
• a 6,500 mile journey - and 12 hour 40 minute flight to Shanghai
• followed by a layover in Shanghai 
• a 5 hour 2,700 mile flight from Shanghai to KL
• and finally a 45 minute - 30 mile drive from the airport home

That's 11,160 miles and roughly 21 hours of flying alone - roughly three days door-to-door, she also will cross the international date line and lose a day of her life. Suffice it to say there is no easy way to get here.

Surviving that, I think they've probably earned a trip to the beach.  So we are off to Pulau Tioman an island off the east coast of Malaysia, which would be familiar to many as the filming site of Bali Hai for the classic 1958 film South Pacific.  We will enjoy three days of snorkeling and taking in the crystal clear waters of the South China Sea.  I'm hoping that will have made the journey worth it!

Jungle fever

When I first announced to my mother that we were moving to Malaysia she had a panic attack accompanied by visions of her precious daughter residing in a terrorist-infested, cholera-ridden slum. 

It took quite awhile to convince her that Malaysia is perfectly safe (far safer than the US actually) and relatively disease-free. Personal safety is something that I have thought about very little since moving here, but for someone who previously rarely got sick - illness has been a fairly constant companion.

Most sickness is exactly what you think (and expect).  Food poisoning. Street food is generally perfectly safe in Malaysia. Common sense rules apply - if there are rats, unclean surfaces, and no soap then you give it a miss. Obviously.

 But, every now and again you get burned.  When we first arrived here we were both mildly ill about once a week (and we lost a ton of weight) but nearly two years in - I can't immediately recall the last time I had a nasty stomach bug.

Early on we went to India - I was there for nearly a month and survived without a single case of 'Delhi belly' as they call it.  This is probably a world record. So after India I was feeling a bit smug. I thought if I could get through India without getting sick, I could eat literally anything, anywhere.

Oh, how wrong I was.

Cambodia has certainly been the worst to date, to this day I don't know the exact source of poisoning, but I lost 7 pounds in 4 days and at the time - I probably would have been okay with just dying.

Unfortunately though, it's not just about dodging stomach bugs.  Malaria has largely been wiped out in peninsular Malaysia and in other developed pockets throughout the region - but it still abounds in much of Borneo and less developed countries like Myanmar.

Dengue fever is still a very real threat and one that thus far we've successfully avoided.

Food-related illnesses aside, I still do tend to just get sick here more often.  I'm currently coming off a viscous cold that has been lingering for nearly a week.  Locals have all sorts of theories on illness, but the most popular source of sickness seems to be air conditioning.  It's ironic, because this is a nation of people who do everything they can to avoid leaving their indoor hovels and love to crank their air conditioners down to sub-zero temperatures.  But then you get sick and they say, 'too much air conditioning, lah.'

Flying high

I've lived in four countries on four continents, been to dozens of countries around the world and all across America.  All that travel adds up to a lot of time spent in airplanes.  I'm going to let you in on a little secret, I'm terrified of flying.  Terrified.

Flying is, without question, my least favourite activity in the world.  Not only is it uncomfortable and inconvenient, it's just plain unnatural.  Cruising through the sky at 38,000 feet? Give me a break, I'm not supposed to be up there.

I know precisely how ridiculous this fear is - flying is the safest form of travel, etc. etc. Yes, I know.  Terrorism doesn't scare me particularly - but cracked wings, high-altitude stalls, frozen temperature gauges - these are the things that lead to sleepless nights even before the shortest of flights.

Before moving to Asia the vast majority of my flying experience was between the UK and US and inter-European flights. I've crossed the North Atlantic dozens of times and until moving to the tropics I took for granted just what a smooth, turbulent-free route that generally is. 

Hot weather and tropical storm systems make for extremely turbulent flights in this part of the world.  I've now crossed the Bay of Bengal nine times since moving to Malaysia and every single time it has been a stressful, hair-raising experience.  Travelling east over the Bay of Bengal is particularly bad.  In the roughly three hours you spend over the water a solid one and a half hours of it is heavy turbulence - not gentle shaking, but turbulence that feels like a carnival ride, you can actually feel the plane losing altitude and your stomach dropping right along with it.

I'm pretty sure each of these crossings has taken years off my life.

I was giving a talk about travel to a group of seventh graders last year, and a student asked me what my scariest travel experience has ever been - all I could come up with was crossing the Bay of Bengal. 

I run a strict Airbus and Boeing policy, I won't set my big toe on any other make of plane - the same day we flew back from Indonesia in May (on an Airbus) another plane in Indonesia - a brand new Russian plane crashed into the side of a mountain killing everyone on board. When there is a crash or major incident I fret and obsess over it for days.  The Air France crash from a few years ago still lingers.

Aside from severe turbulence and a couple of ropey landings in storms, I've never experienced anything approaching an aviation disaster.  I do however know several people who have had flights re-routed or performed an emergency landing due to cracked windscreens or a loss of cabin pressure - I figure it's only a matter of time before it happens to me!

I've had a nice break from flying recently, I haven't been on a plane since May, but that will end in just a few short weeks when I'm off to Thailand.  My anxiety is already rising- but so long as the  anticipation and excitement of visiting a new place can exceed my anxiety, I'll manage.

I've also made it clear to my husband, that when we pack up and move back west for good - we're either taking the trans-Siberian railway or driving (yes, I'd probably rather drive through Pakistan than get on a plane given the choice!)

And speaking of exciting cross-continental land journeys, we currently have a student who is riding a 110cc motorbike through 21 countries from Malaysia to the UK as charity ride for the Red Cross - last we heard he'd made it as far as Bangkok - you can follow his blog at http://www.goingnotts.com/  or if you're feeling generous you can donate to a good kid working for a good cause: https://www.justgiving.com/goingnotts.

For those you accessing this blog through the Register-Mail you can read more about my past exploits and adventures at www.wherecanigetadrink.blogspot.com. 

I welcome comments, questions, ideas and suggestions about this and future blog posts.

Weather woes

So Facebook tells me that there is a bit of a heatwave in the Midwest.  Welcome to my world.

Coming from a place that truly has four seasons, it is the birthright of Midwesterners to complain about the weather. Winters are wiled away dreaming of swimming pools, fireflies and the scent freshly mown grass.  Come summer you yearn for that nip of crisp autumn air, hot chocolate and the first big snow.  Then there is March, everyone hates March.

I have now been 'seasonless' for 7 years.  After five years in the UK (four in Scotland and one in England) I can say with confidence that the tales about bad British weather - are not nearly dramatic enough.  It's awful.  I had been to the UK twice before I moved there, but only for a total of a few months time - not long enough to grasp how truly miserable it really is.

Don't get my wrong, I am an Anglophile through and through.  I love the UK.  In many ways it offers a much higher standard of living than the US (excellent healthcare, 39 weeks statutory maternity leave, and 28 days minimum paid vacation), the food is far better than its reputation allows, they have fine ales, the people are generally charming (hell, I married one of them) and it's full to bursting with history, culture and diversity.

But, there is the weather.

The Scottish tourism board says it rains 250 days a year (yeah right, more like 350).  On the rare occasion it's not raining there are the days where it so grey and/or so windy as to make no difference.  It never gets warm enough to wear shorts, the North Sea (on the east coast where I lived) remains dangerously cold year round and in the winter it is pitch black by 4:00pm.  On a nice day there is potentially nowhere nicer on the planet, Scotland is gorgeous, but you might only get 10 days like that in a year.

England is only marginally better.  It doesn't get dark quite so early and you might be able to justify breaking out a pair of shorts once or twice in a year, but the seasons don't really change - British weather is really one long extended spring followed by a long extended winter.  On the rare occasion the weather does change - panic and chaos ensue.

Two years ago at Christmas the UK had a cold snap.  My husband was in the air - en route to London from Malaysia when the snow started falling.  I lost him for two entire days.  Heathrow was closed, the other UK airports were either closed or didn't have runways big enough to cope with an A380 (the Airbus jumbo-jet that carries 500+ passengers).  They eventually landed in Paris, the airline tried to send him back to their base in Dubai.  After 5 hours of queuing he finally managed to get Eurostar tickets and a train to London.  After 56 hours of travel, he finally managed to call me in Chicago to let me know he was alive and that Don Quixote had nothing on him. Meanwhile, this is how Heathrow was dealing with the snow:

So when we decided to move to Malaysia the weather was potentially the single thing about which we were most excited.  Just a couple hundred miles from the equator, the weather here really does never change.  The amount of rain varies a bit throughout the year, but the temperature generally peaks at between 93-97 degrees everyday, it rarely dips below 80 even at night and the humidity is always high.

When we first got here the novelty of the hot weather was such that we spent every moment we could outside.  Now we've gone a bit native and generally agree that it's too hot to go outside.  Don't get me wrong, I love the weather here - and maintaining a wardrobe for just one season is brilliant - but it's amazing how quickly you take things for granted.  In no time my Midwest roots will get the better of me and I too will be yearning for cold and snow.

So, a bit of free advice - enjoy this heatwave while it lasts.

Seeing Singapore

Nearly two years in Malaysia and we have finally made our first trip to Singapore.  Singapore as we know it was established as a British trading post in 1819 by Stamford Raffles (for whom everything in the country is now named).  After years of British rule it was occupied by the Japanese in WWII - then went back to the Brits before it became part of an independent Malaysia in 1963.

 The union with Malaysia was a short, unhappy marriage.  Singapore was a wealthy city, lacking natural resources with an ethnic Chinese majority - the rest of Malaysia was Muslim-Malay dominated, significantly poorer but rich in natural resources - within two years Singapore was expelled from Malaysia and became an independent state.  Despite a relatively peaceful co-existence today the rivalry between Malaysian and Singapore remains palpable.

Although Malaysia has developed rapidly and is now at the top-end of second-world country status, Singapore and Malaysia are still complete opposites - where Singapore is clean, orderly and expensive - Malaysia is dirty, chaotic and cheap.

I wasn't overly-charmed with Singapore - don't get me wrong, the ability to safely cross the street, the lack of garbage, extreme regard for health and safety and the general efficiency of well, everything, was refreshing - but beyond that it's just like any other modern, first-world city.  I can see why the Brits enjoy it, they love to tour their former colonial stomping grounds and to European eyes Singapore is something completely different - but skyscrapers are less impressive to Americans; we have some pretty good ones at home.

 Also, having been to so many other Asian countries and cities, Singapore just feels like someone came in and cleaned it up for the tourists.  It lacks a certain sense of authenticity and it should be no surprise that Singapore does feel so 'unauthentic' - of over 5 million inhabitants only 3.25 are citizens - the other nearly 2 million people are foreign permanent residents and workers.

Despite great affluence (Singapore has the 3rd highest per capita income in the world) Singapore has a dark side.  Chewing gum is famously banned and canings for relatively petty crimes make the news regularly as do Singapore's draconian anti-drugs laws - but the lives poor migrant workers are particularly grim.

As of May of this year nine Indonesian maids had fallen to their death in Singapore (some accidental, some under investigation).  There are frequent stories of beatings, sexual abuse and even murder (last year the body of maid was found stuffed in the water-tank of a condomimium which was also contaminating the water supply) and only from 2013 will maids legally be required to be given one day a week off work.

I complain about Malaysia (sometimes a lot) but given a choice between the two, I'd still probably stick with Malaysia - but it's certainly nice to have Singapore just 200 miles down the road.  If you ask a Malaysian what do you think of Singapore they will say, 'Oh, it's so stressful! So organised and so many rules!' If you ask a longtime expat in Malaysia what they think of Singapore they say, 'Oh, it's so relaxing!  It's so organised and everyone follows the rules!'

Indian wedding survival guide

Exactly one year ago today I woke up in Chennai, India at 3:00am with just a few hours alcohol-induced sleep and stumbled out into the stifling heat of the Indian summer - so began the finale of the traditional week-long, south-Indian wedding that had reduced me to a shell of a woman.
  
The bride had warned us - and anticipating our helplessness in the face of daunting tasks such as sari fittings and communicating with Tamil-speaking drivers, the bride enlisted an army of friends and relatives to escort (er . . . babysit) us about Chennai.  (If not for their help and guidance I'd probably still be trying to figure out how to tie a sari.)

Things kicked off the night we arrived with a 'small get-together for close friends and family' (probably around 100 people) at the home of the parents of the bride.  There was a huge marquee bedecked with jasmine flowers, a well stocked open bar and buffet and a local DJ was on hand to play some Tamil classics.  It was easily the equivalent of your average Western wedding reception - and this was just the pre-warm-up, warm-up.

This was followed by a hungover shopping frenzy - all the girls getting fitted for saris, salwar kameez and stocking up on matching bangles whilst the boys fussed over kurtas and sandals.

Our next event was Sangeet. Sangeet has northern Indian origins (from the Punjab) but is widely practised throughout the country (and certainly within the Indian diaspora).  

Loosely defined Sangeet is a grand affair during which the friends and family of the bride and groom perform a range of traditional (and not-so-traditional) songs and dances - rehearsed for weeks - even months in advance.  

Sangeet was like a night at the Oscars (or perhaps the Bollywood equivalent) - the bride and groom literally looked like movie stars.  It was almost inconceivable to me that this was the same girl with whom I had shared a dank, crappy dorm with as a graduate student.

Next up was Mehndi - another open bar affair at another posh hotel.  The bride spent the majority of the day perched on a throne whilst four women attended to her covering her hands and feet in henna.  Female guests also queued up to have a mini-version done on their own hands.

After Mehndi came the engagement and finally the wedding itself.  The engagement and wedding take place at a marriage hall.  The engagement began with a procession of singers and dancers followed by the bride and groom in a horse drawn carriage.  (This is followed by a lot of stuff, which quite frankly I didn't understand!) The following day at the appropriate auspicious time as determined by the Tamil calendar the wedding ceremony begins. In this case a very early 5:00am.  

There were priests chanting in Sanskrit (I think) whilst the groom was primed for the ceremony.  Following this was a fantastic display of the groom 'running away' as the bride 'chased' after him.  Persuaded to return, the bride and groom are hoisted on the shoulders of friends while the bride attempts to çapture' her husband by throwing a wreath of jasmine around his neck.  (This was again followed by several costume changes and lots of things I didn't understand).  

There were well over 1000 people in attendance.  About a week after the wedding I was chatting to the mother of the bride and she said, 'oh I keep bumping into people we forgot to invite, I'm so embarassed!'

It was a truly unforgettable experience and I really (still) can't thank Lavanya and Ayyappan enough for their attention and hospitality.  (You can have no idea how glad I am that they came to our wedding first - theirs would have been an impossible act to follow.) 

I would of course also like to add a great big happy first wedding anniversary to Ayyappan Hariharan and Lavanya Iyer.  Their first baby is also due today (but is so far showing no signs of making an appearance!)  

PS Indian weddings are not for the faint of heart.  Pack plenty of asprin.

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You can also view my photos of Sangeet, Mehndi and the wedding.

Tropical transport traumas

If there are two things in this world that wind up my husband, it's paying too much for transportation/parking and a meal without enough carbs (we'll come back to the carbs some other time - today is all about transport).

This normally patient, reasonable man pushes the boundaries of sanity when confronted with an issue of 'over-priced' transportation.  He brooded unhappily for hours (and still frequently re-lives) a traumatic parking experience in downtown Chicago. He actually did the math on how much a parking space at Bloomingdale's makes in a year (depressingly, it makes a lot - more than me if occupied nearly 24 hours a day 365 days a year).

There was the $7.00 taxi ride in Laos that threatened to destroy (and according to Ian, bankrupt) our entire holiday and there are the unwitting taxi drivers in KL that occasionally take him for a tourist and try to get him off the meter (insert here a long string of expletives in an English accent).  There's also the far-reaching conspiracy to make access to London's Heathrow airport cost the equivalent of a large diamond ring.

Over the years, we have probably saved upwards of $10 and lost nearly 20 hours of our lives over by taking a firm stand against corrupt transportation.

Then we went to Indonesia.

Now as I mentioned before Yogjakarta is a touristy town with touristy hassles.  Yogja has a complete over-abundance of becak drivers.  Becaks are the Indonesian of equivalent of the rickshaws and tuk-tuks that ply the streets throughout the rest of Asia.

 Becaks in Indonesia are typically un-motorized - they are almost always comprised of small carts attached to the front of a rusty old bike, pedaled by a poor, sinewy, sun-tanned man ranging anywhere from the age of 20-60.  Occasionally you may get one that is pulled by a horse.

 It's a thankless, hot job and with there being so many becaks, you'd think that competition would be fierce - and it is, when it comes to stalking and harassing tourists.  It's hot, you're tired, you relent.

Okay, okay to the kraton, how much then? 
20,000 rupiah.
You're joking.
No, 20,000.
No.
How about 10,000?
No.
Seriously?
No.

At this point I probably have to forcibly restrain Ian and drag him off down the street.  He mutters obscenities under his breath, I comment on how the exercise is good for us anyway.

No doubt you're now wondering, well how much is 20,000 rupiah?  It's a lousy $2.00.

But, let's put this into perspective.  A school teacher in Indonesia makes that much in a whole day of teaching - and this guy who has been having a siesta under a frangipani tree all morning wants that for 20 minutes work.

It's a tough call.  In local terms that ride should cost between $0.30-0.50 - so $2.00 is a hefty mark-up.  I'm usually pretty happy to pay a bit of a tourist premium, but more than quadruple is irritating my sense of fair play.  Also, I suppose with such an over-supply of becak drivers that these guys probably go without a single fare for a day or two at a time.

The thing that I find most surprising (and what Ian finds more irritating) is that they won't come down $1 - they'd still getting double to triple the amount they'd get on a local fare and aren't having any of it.

A few of these encounters put Ian off Yogjakarta entirely and nearly Indonesia as whole.

There was one insolent driver who dared take my husband for a fool and wanted $5! This was the straw that broke the camels back - Ian launched into a five minute diatribe on how it wouldn't even cost that much to go twice the distance in KL where everything is doubly expensive and in a real car, not a rickety old bike.

The man probably spoke less than 25 words of English, so I let it slide.  I'm also pretty sure he got the message.

Every time someone asks Ian about our trip it begins, 'Oh it was amazing, but . . . '

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For those you accessing this blog through the Register-Mail you can read more about my past exploits and adventures at www.wherecanigetadrink.blogspot.com.  You can also view my photos of Yogjakarta.

I welcome comments, questions, ideas and suggestions about this and future blog posts.

Indonesia: Yogjakarta

Continuing on with our Indonesian adventures, it's now time for a stop in the city of Yogjakarta - pronounced Jog-ja-karta and often shortened to just 'Jogja'. Despite its relatively small size at just under 400,000 people, Yogjakarta is without question the cultural epicentre of Java - and Indonesia as a whole, overwhelming even the capital city of Jakarta which is home to over 10 million people.

The best possible way to sum up Yogjakarta is that it's cool. It's young, it's trendy, there's fantastic public art, museums, street dancers, musicians and a thriving industry of both authentic and knock-off local arts and crafts (artistic attractions that are often in short supply in Muslim societies).

It's as set-up for tourists as anywhere in Indonesia (outside of Bali) which naturally brings with it all the hassle and annoyance of any touristy place.

You could spend weeks just getting dragged around batik shops (batik is an Indonesian/Malaysian art of painting cloth with odd pipe-like tools).  Most batik is dreadfully tacky and overpriced. Fall victim to a smooth-talking member of the batik mafia and you could find yourself back home with a skinny wallet and piece of cloth so ugly it's not even fit for displaying in the basement.

But learn to tune out the noise and Yogja is a rather special place.  It's clean (but not sterile), a wander down the less hectic residential lanes is as pleasant as a stroll around the neighbourhoods of Paris (if you can stand the heat).  Old men playing chess, kids flying kites, becak (tuk-tuk) drivers enjoying a mid-afternoon siesta and countless flowers in bloom set the scene.

The centre of the city is surrounded by run-down white walls within which lies the 'kraton' - the sultan's palace. The sultan still resides here and it has all the third-world, banana republic charm you would expect.  Thanks to a long colonial legacy, the palace is thoroughly European - and much like the colonial administrators must have done, you can visibly see the palace wilting in the tropical sun.   Baroque architecture and furniture were not made for the tropics.

The kraton is generally unimpressive, but the east meets west contradictions are thoroughly amusing.  The accompanying museum is mind-blowing.  Room, after room, after room of dusty cob-webbed furniture (European of course) chipped porcelain dolls, stained wine glasses and  . . . dirty oven mitts, sieves and cheese graters - some possibly dating back as far as 1975.

In all seriousness, this may have been the highlight of the trip.  Those cheese graters and sieves would be uninteresting if they had belonged to Elvis or the Queen of England - but the Sultan of Yogjakarta?  This is a public official so minor that I can't even remember his name.

I've been to a lot of crusty old museums all around the world (Russian museums in particular come to mind) but this was pretty special.  We giggled over it the rest of the afternoon.

More on Yogja in the next instalment - negotiating transportation and dodging food-poisoning.

Moving to Malaysia

I'm pleased to announce that this blog will now also be featured on the online edition of my hometown newspaper the Register-Mail. So in hopeful anticipation of an increased readership, now seems as good a time as any for a quick recap on how and why I ended up in Malaysia.

After suffering five long years of cold and rain in Scotland and England my husband (then fiance), was offered a job as an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Nottingham (yes, that Nottingham - Robin Hood, Sherwood Forest etc.) Only the job offer (mercifully) was not in Nottingham, England but at the university's Malaysia Campus.

Yes, Malaysia.  That long, skinny country dangling off the edge of Asian continent right below Thailand.

Up for an adventure and a rather dramatic change of scenery we snapped up the opportunity and in six short weeks found ourselves on the 13 hour flight from London to Kuala Lumpur.  Woefully unprepared for life just 200 miles north of the equator (one doesn't require a lot of hot weather clothing in the UK) we stumbled into the stifling tropical heat and humidity and so our adventure began.

Despite the fact that virtually everyone speaks at least some level of passable English here (particularly in the city), finding a place to live, organising an internet connection, buying a car and most importantly of all  - making sure the air-conditioning works were all 'interesting' experiences.   Experiences that brought out the best and worst in both of us - countless lessons in patience and communication whilst simultaneously reinforcing our sub-conscious prejudices and pre-conceptions.

Mark Twain once said:

'Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.'

As always, Mr Twain was undoubtedly correct, but sometimes I wonder if living in a place just can't tip the balance back in favor of narrow-mindedness.

It's now been nearly two years since we came to Malaysia and with the exception of a few near total meltdowns (almost always involving some totally egregious native driving stunt)  and our fair share of food poisoning we've had a pretty good time.

In the last 20 months we've seen wild orang-utans in Borneo, been to a week-long Indian wedding, stood on the edge of a volcano in Java, scaled ancient temples in Cambodia and much more.

With so much happening in this part of the world and so much to do and see, we are nowhere near ready to say goodbye just yet (although, we certainly do miss good cheese and affordable wine!)

So to see what we've been up to, take a look through the archive of our travels and stay tuned for more - I'm currently in the midst of wrapping up on our recent Indonesia adventure and Singapore is up next.

I always welcome comments, questions, thoughts and suggestions.