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.