Monday, March 28, 2011

My favorite weekend yet

Townsend came this weekend! We had a blast, and got to explore parts of the country I haven't been yet. But first, I want to share a story about a fellow exchange student's experience over spring break.

There are a couple of exchange girls here from Columbia. Due to the country's reputation, they are required to get entry visas to EVERY single country in the region. Considering the cost and time this takes, unfortunately they haven't been able to join us on alot of trips so far. However, spring break was a chance for them to plan ahead and get out. One of the girls decided to go to Indonesia with a couple of friends. They landed in the Bali airport, and was going through customs when she was stopped. They asked if she was Chinese, as China has the same color passport as Columbia (red) and when she said no, I'm Columbian, they took her and her suitcases aside. They informed her they would be going through everything, and that they did out in public. She said they searched every nook, lining, etc of her suitcase. They found an un-opened box of tampons, proceeded to open it and ask her what they were. When she replied with the answer, they opened one to see what was inside....how embarrassing! They let her through and that was that. On her way home, she traveled on a a different date then her friends. She was stopped again at customs and asked what she was doing. Traveling with friends. Where are your friends? They aren't coming back with me. Why not? They just arent.... Do you know that your missing a visa stamp? She told them that she submitted for the visa online and was granted it and given it upon arrival a couple days ago at that same airport. They decided to take her back into an interrogation room and ask her questions for the next 20 minutes. She said she was terrified and finally they told her she could go. What a terrible experience....

So back to Townsend. He landed at 1230am on Saturday morning, and just like what happened with dad and Max, I got confused about the terminals but his time I didn't make it in time, Townsend was stuck wandering around by himself for a little bit while I was freaking out about why he didn't get off the plane I was waiting for. But I eventually found him and we grabbed a taxi to our hotel for the weekend in Geylang. Geylang is the infamous Singaporean red-light district. I have never been here before or knew anyone else who had, but I figured it's Singapore, how bad can it be? Prostitution is legal and kept inside brothels here? Anyways, they had the cheapest hotel prices and was close to the MRT and airport! When I checked into the hotel that evening before Townsend arrived, it looked a bit different than every else I had been, but not that much. The streets were more crowded, there was more trash on the roads and it smelled a little bit more. It looked like a slightly cleaner version of all the places in Malaysia I had traveled too. No prostitutes in site, so no worries.

Well on our way home, at 1am, it was more crowded than in the evening. We saw a couple of "lady boys" that our taxi pulled out, and went upstairs for the night. The next morning, we were hitting Chinatown and downtown to join a school tour of a reservoir. We stopped at a corner Indian restaurant outside for a quick breakfast. Across the alley was a bunch of people just standing around. Then suddenly they all ran away and we saw a police car turn the corner. I've watched enough Law and Order to know what was going on here. There were only a few seats at the restaurant, so a guy sat down across from us to eat. He started to chat with us, and he told us that you must register and be inside a brothel to be legal here, but lots of women come from Thailand to stand on the streets illegally, which was who we were looking at. Most were normally dressed, shorts and a normal shirt, but there were a few in some more "professional" clothing. I guess that's why I didn't notice them before, they don't stand out.

Chinatown was great, we went shopping and bought some cute little local art pieces, went into the Buddha Tooth Relic Museum and Temple again, its just too cool! We hit a Hindu temple and then went into town. We got a free tour at Marina Bay Reservoir, one of 17 reservoirs in the country. We learned all about the contraptions used, and then got a tour of the little museum inside that talked about how Singapore is on top of its game in energy conservation. 30% of their water supplied to the country is NewWater, the recycled water from baths and toilets. The top of the beautifully designed building was a grass roof where there were tons of people picnicking and flying kites. The roof collected rain water for use and had large solar cells to collect solar power. Singapore really is super-eco-friendly.

The next day, we really had no plans, so I decided to take Townsend across the country to see my school. From one side of the country to another its a little over an hour train ride, so its another relaxing (and AC) way to see the country for cheap. We hopped on the MRT and went to school. He got to see how tiny my dorm was, the awesome view from the 7th floor, as well as the big highlights of campus. I took him to the mall/food area next to campus where I always eat and shop at.

There's this MRT stop called Chinese Gardens near my school that I always wanted to stop at. Literally the only this there is a gardens set in the middle of a very large field and lake. There were people flying kites and playing cricket. We went into the gardens, its mainly Chinese gardens with a Japanese garden site, as well as the Guiness Book's largest turtle "museum", which is a turtle sanctuary. The sign boasts over 3,000 turtles with 1,000 species. We wandered around the gardens, there were dragon-shaped bushed, an 7 story pagoda, a lake, some ponds, tons of turtles, coy fish, and statues of famous Chinese men, such as Confucius. We went in to the turtle museum, which had everything from tanked turtles to those in a tub you can feed to free-wandering turtles. We saw the most dangerous (shout out to the Florida-living alligator snapping turtle, one actually snapped at Townsend through the glass! We both kind of screamed....), the flattest, weird snake-head turtles, everything. They were all so cute!

We had a 4am wake-up this morning to get to the airport on time and for Townsend to work his Continental employee magic and get on the flights. I came back to my dorm to sleep. When I woke up, my roommate opened the door! She said she didn't have enough participation points to stay in the dorm this year, so she was kicked out and it took her this long to get assigned another room. She moves in officially tomorrow!!!

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Post-Spring Break Update

Dun Dun Dun. When I returned back from my break, there was my roommates name written on my door. I was no longer alone. Well, sort of. I found some notes under my door (the Hall ladies like to hand deliver notices) saying that I have a room mate who picked up her key card at the beginning of break. Her bed was moved around, so I knew she had been here. But here it is, 10 days after she picked up her key card, and she still hasn't shown up! Judging by her name, I am assuming that she is local. I have heard that lots of local students who live in the dorms still spend much time at their parents' house, so maybe she decided to stay there a bit longer of something? I'm patiently awaiting her arrival, it will be nice to have company!

Class has been going well. Had an Optics test this morning and it wasn't that bad. It is a little odd though, these mathematical equations. Math has no "language", everyone writes the same equations the same way, or atleast that's what I thought. There are different ways to write the same equations, but there are the general accepted forms of the equations for certain college classes. However, my optics class uses different versions of the equations than what I have been learning for the past 4 years. I won't bore you with examples, but it wasn't what I expected. The questions are still super easy compared to what I feel like should be expected, but we'll see when the exam time comes.

Townsend comes this weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Saturday, I had originally planned to join a small group of students who are going to see the Marina Barrage downtown, which is a reservoir that provides water to the citizens. There is an engineering professor who is leading the two hour tour. I think Townsend and I will still go, since we are nerdy and things like that are cool :)

I feel like there is nothing much more to write about today, but I think it is more that I'm just getting used to everything here that I notice little things less because I see them all the time. I can talk about somethings I learned in class though?

We just did a lecture on Women and Islam. Its a general stereotype, not just western, that Muslim women are "oppressed" by their religion, and we learned about how generally that isn't necessarily the case, even though there are always expections to the rule. There will always be sexists in the world. But what I thought was more interesting was us learning about harems. Brothel's, right? Nope. That's another bad western stereotype. It was quite funny, we were in class, and my teacher, being a Westerner, was trying to get the students to explain what they heard were stereotypes for harems. They answered bath houses, places for females only, and one even said they reminded her of the a kitchen b/c its another place where lots of women gather. The professor is giggling, nervous about saying "They're all prostitutes" To the class, but it eventually came out. Obviously out stereotype isn't shared around the world. But we got to learn when they really were, and how they weren't whore houses or prisons for women.

The first segregation of women started during the days of Muhammad. He had a wife, who was older and eventually died and then married another, Aisha, who is the more commonly known wife. Later in his life, Muhammad becomes a polygamist, which is allowed as long as the men can treat all his wives equally and provide for them all. These wives were all widowed women of husbands who died fighting for Muslims. If a women was a widow, she was an outcast in society at this time because she had no man's guidance, so he married them for protection and to raise their societal status. The veiling of women was actually a multi-cultural thing, practices in Greece, Christianity, North Africa, and the Middle East. It is unknown how its spreading got shared throughout the world, but it wasn't a "Muslim" thing for the oppression of women. Veiling started out as a status symbol, of age and respect. Muhammad's wives were segregated into a harem-like environment where no male was allowed to touch/see them, as they spoke to others through a physical barrier. This was because they were the Prophet's wives, so it was a status symbol that these "Mothers of Islam" were so special, nobody could see them.

This of course later was interpreted in a common sense of "my wife is super important, therefore no one should see her like Muhammad's wives". Unlike other common stereotypes, the kings, who had the large, vast harems, they were segregated from the population as well. It wasn't like people could see the King, but not the Queen (or actually Sultan during this time period). Nobody could see either. When the women wanted to shop, visit the doctor, etc. they allowed female doctors and vendors to enter the harem, so it actually gave a need for female entrepreneurs and doctors and educators. Other women from other harems could come visit as well.

The harems consisted of the Queen, her single or widowed relatives (sisters, aunts, etc), and their female slaves and the king's concubines. Also, the male heir to the throne was kept in the harem until the day that he was to take the throne. This was originally supposed to be for protection and for the mom to help raise her kid and for him not to be influenced by outside sources, even though this ended up making the women's influence on the Sultan's decisions more to her side than anyone elses

Another thing that was interesting was the concubines. A rich king had concubines from all over the world, but this was for a "look at all the kingdoms I've been too and lands I've seen" sort of reason. The Concubines' children were the heirs, not the queen's children. This was so when the child was growing up in the harem, he wouldn't be influenced by the aunts/grandmothers of his mom, as the concubines had no family in the area and the boy could make more of his own decisions instead of being convinced to think a certain way. Also, that's what they were there for, to bare children, not to be used for sex. It was a law that any child born to a man, that man was economically responsible for that child, even though he would stay with him mother. So kings didn't just go around using all the women, as then he would be broke with child support basically.It was a woman's choice of her birth control and pregnancy terminations, so they're held the upper hand in that situation. And the vast majority of the harem were relatives to the king, and (obviously) you don't sleep with your relatives.

When a women left her child bearing years, she became a patron of the arts and architecture. She would donate large amount of money to have a mosque or library built, etc. This was her showing the world, hey I'm here and I'm powerful ($$). She was done with her mothering role and could now be shown to the society as a classy lady.

Day 6: KK to Singapore

We left for the airport to go back to Singapore in the afternoon, so we took the morning to stop at a Buddhist temple down into a small neighboring town in the morning for Max to Ooh over the cool architecture. We grabbed a taxi and headed to the temple, which was right behind the large blue state mosque (see in photos).

Puh Toh Tze Temple was a larger temple that I've been to through my travels. In the parking lot as a 20ft tall statue of a Buddha with a prayer pillow (for kneeling on). The entrance was much more decorated than what I have seen, with lots of animal protection (lion) and strength (elephant) statues. There were two main prayer halls, the later one having a 20 ft statue of the Buddha lying down. There were about 20 smaller statues of old Asian men doing weird things, like combing hair or yelling at someone. They had a multiple story "grave" area. It consisted of small grave markers that looked like book marks and urns with photos and words of blessing in them, stacked on lot of shelves through out rooms. There was a third smaller prayer room which held a free library where you could take books about Buddhism. There was a small section in English, and we snagged some "What Buddhists Believe" books, as well as the Dharma written in Chinese (because it was pretty and cool) and a book explaining the who/what/why of the different statues of monks/Buddhas.

We went back to the hotel to pack, as we had various bags for sharing and got on the plane to Singapore. We checked back into the same Indian hotel and had an interesting conversation with the taxi driver. He was older, in his 60s, and spoke very fluent English. He wanted to talk about the situation on Japan. He was saying how disappointing and unfortunate it is that many people are trying to make money off the situation, like the hotel prices in the cities are going up and the airplane tickets out of the country are much higher. HE said the Singapore Air tickets from Narita (Tokyo's airport) were like 3x more expensive than before. He also spoke of something interesting which he said he read in the newspaper: That some people believe God did this to Japan because of what they did in WWII and the fact that, unlike the Germans, they have no apologized to the world for their crimes. The Japanese did some pretty bad stuff to the people of South East Asia, such as their own death camps and marches, and purging the population of certain beliefs and ethnicity's. Given the age of this guy, as dad pointed out, he would have been born near or during the occupation of Japan in Singapore.

I took them out to Marina Bay Esplanade where we watched my good friend sing the other day. It was the ending of the music festival, and we went to the hawkers center and Max finally tried the meat-on-a-stick. There is something about any meat cooked on a stick that makes it just SO good, I think its the fact that they brush them with lots of oil. I've had these skewers in China, S'pore, and everywhere else I've came across them in SE Asia, they're amazing! We went and talked down by the Bay, looking at he city light and listening to music. The Marina Bay Sands (giant boat-like hotel/casino) and its corresponding mall was having a light show with changing lights and lasers for a long time. There was a 5 year old boy screaming with excitement, it was too cute!

I had a BLAST with everyone, that mountain was THE most amazing place I think I've ever been! Hope everyone enjoys the pictures!

Here are some extra things that we saw/thought about that I wanted to share :) 

We saw a lady in a burka walk into kfc. I was tying to figure out how she eats in public while in her burka. She can't lift her mouth piece because she can't show her mouth. If she eats finger food, has okay but what if it's soup? How does she eat in public?

There are no plastic bags in the national park which makes sense since they can't hurt animals if they get into the mountain. But even in KK
, the grocery store only gives outs plastic bags from Monday to Thursday.

When we were at Poring hot springs, all the staff were ladies and they were always in groups. When they took us to our room, two of them did. When we were eating and I asked where the bathroom was, two Ladies walked me there. Max said of course, they're battle buddies (Army talk) but we couldn't figure out why they did this., it seemed like it was a rule or something.

So there were lots of Muslim women climbing the mountain, meaning thy were fully covered in this heat and physically exhaustive sport. One girl had a shirt on that I could see up her sleeves a little and her "long sleeve shirt" underneath was actually arm coverings. That made me happy because it seemed like they wouldn't have to be so hot now.

You know how I know I've been here long? I have to translate the Malaysian or Singaporean accented English to the guys into American English. I'm sure everyone's heard thick accented English sometime In  their life and it's a bit hard to understand. I fully understand there's and keep forgetting dad and max can't and I have to translate or talk To them back in a certain way.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Day 5: Poring Hot Springs to KK

We woke up very sore. Dad made us get out of bed at 730 since he was already awake that mean everyone else had foo. We went back down to the restaurant for breakfast, our choice of Malaysia (fried rice or noodles) or American (toast, sausage which is really a fried hot dog, eggs, and baked beans and fruit) and we chose the American which also came with tea and watermelon juice. The tea here is all local, grown err from somewhere in Sabah or the mountain. At the museum in the park, I think I talked about seeing the gigantic beetles that were the size (bigger with wing spam) of my palms that could trip us, as Max put it. Anyway, we saw one today at breakfast! It was buzzing around a light post, but it was like a bird buzzing around a small lamp. HUGE. It was creepy and gross!

We went down to the springs for another try at securing a private bath but there was nobody there and the closed sign was out  though we were half and hour into their proclaimed opening time. We decided to try one of the open baths. In the end, we all jut jumped into one since the water would have taken hours to fill the tub so we just sat in about two inches of it and splashed it onto ourselves. 

Dad and I decided to go wander through the botanical gardens in hope of seeing a rafflesia, which Max stayed behind because he thinks flowers are gay lol. The gardens ended up bring a large plot of fences off jungle with wild and caged animals in it, still cool. There was a small cage off to the side before the entrance which I believe was the site for the rafflesia, but all I saw was a large orange-red bulb, so I'm guessing their out of season. It is only march and we're a mile up so its not super hot. 

Our first encounter was a Gibbon monkey in a cage. He was along and had a nice set of bananas there to eat. He was swinging all over the cage and his ropes making cooing sounds. He followed dad where ever he wandered around  the cage, he was too cute! Next, we happened upon an aviary. There were two type of birds in it said the sign, one that looked like a pheasant but had a larger tail and was colorful like a peacock. The other was a green dove. The birds were scarce, but we did see the doves flying above and a little family of peacock-like birds running around in the stream flowering through the aviary. Then we found  the monkeys. The bad moneys that were wild. We think they live here, and they're wild and not apart of  the exhibit. Dad was standing inside the bird net and outside were 3 monkeys. 2 were playing on the trees and other was staring at dad hissing. He was pissed. We had to go out that way, so we did, the monkey came closer. He was baring his teeth and hoofing and puffing while the other 2 were jumping through trees. Then he got even closer. He was about 30 feet away and we decides let's go NOW! King of scary.... He would have definitely attacked us.... 

The rest of the cages that held various animals were empty. There was a nicely kept cage for a slow loris, but the cage door was opened, I'm not sure if by accident or not, so he wasn't there. We saw deer tracks everywhere through the mud and dad and I each caught a few leeches sucking on our toes, just small ones about 1/4 of a worm. We found the deer eventually. There was a part of the gardens where from the outside you could feed them. The whole heard, maybe about 12 deer (males and females) were waiting inside for food. But we were on the inside too, but they didn't seem too concerned. They just stared and lied there. On our way back out, as we did a giant circle, we came across the pissed off monkey again. Immediately as soon as we were in viewing distance, we head the huffing and growling. Then I spied a baby monkey, very tiny, all caged up in the air. This monkey was the momma protecting the baby. After realizing this, we didn't stay around to watch her get closer to attacking. We saw a snake (in a cage) and that was it. Don't get me wrong though, it was a nice multi-acre jungle and it was beautiful and we saw many really cool things, just hard to explain, you need to see photos.

We wet back for a quick nap, Max and I ran down the road to some local shops to get cheap water and we met our transportation back to the city.We stopped at the mountain's HQ to pick up some more people, Americans who were on a three week vacation, who we talked to the whole time back down 3 hours to the city. We are here now, with Internet getting caught up again with the world. The guys are transferring through the Narita-Tokyo airport in two days and we had to call United to make sure it was still okay and it is. Tomorrow we have a 1500 departure to Singapore, so we'll wander the city until then :)

Day 4: Summit of the Mountain to Poring Hot Springs

2am came quick. It was FREEZING inside, even though we were the only hut to have heat (they left the windows open). We had a "supper" waiting downstairs for us and THEY HAD OATMEAL WOOO! I was bundled in a workout shirt, poly pro, fleece, and my fleece lined jacket, gloves, hat, and head lamp and the guys had the same. And two layers of pants. And our bag packs. We were SET! We walked outside into the pitch black and it was oddly warm... But we seemed to one of the few parties to leave first, so we started up the first 700m of pure steep iron wood steps to the rock face. Thomas told us all the steps were made from iron wood harvested in Malaysia, it was very neat. At 700m up, we reached out first obstacle. Keep in mind, all we have are head lamps and it had been raining for about 8 hours previous, so it was WET! For the rest of  the 2.5km to the peak (at about 8.5km from the gate) there was a rope attached to the rock faces for us to use and follow. This 500m was part ledge, part actual climb. We scooted along a small edge near a cliff only holding the rope with our hands. Then, we had to scale the mountain using the rope up. The hard part was more the other people around us who decided to stop, so you had to stop while climbing to wait. The rest of the way was even harder. It was a steady steep climb of rock face at about a 50 degree incline (I'm guessing this, but it was definitely steeper than 45 degrees). We used the rope on the rock to guide us, but the rock was slippery and it was getting very cold. We reached the final check point where we had to show our ID's to prove we had a guide and we had a nice rest for a few minutes for the last bathroom up the mountain.

I finally got to sit down and look at the sky. I turned off my headlamp, and as we were out in front, there wasn't alot of light pollution up top. It was the clearest I've ever seen. When you look at photos of the milky way, you can see the actual variations of "black" in them, the sky color, the lighter part that looks like clouds, and the blackest black in between, and up here, you could absolutely differentiate between the different levels! I've never seen it before! You could see every star and planet. I saw the little dipper, but that's all I recognized. I saw 6 meteors just sitting there for <10 minutes. Amazing!!!!! All my fellow space nerd would have been envious hahaha

The rest of  the climb was cold, even windier as there was nothing blocking it, and I was starting to freak myself out. We literally couldn't see more than what our little headlamps gave us. I kept imagining that the edge was only a few feet away so I kept my head down and kept tracking. I was terrified I was going to fall off a ledge and I didn't even know where it was. The air was much thinner (obviously) and finally we saw a tiny light from what looked like the summit. We saw a few people who had reached the top and came down to take shelter in some boulders from the wind. They said there's little to stand and wanted to wait down here for sunrise. But we kept on going up. We finally reached the summit at 525am on March 16th. The peak has grown since the sign was put up to 4141m, about 13,454ft. Man, was is cold! I would say 30 degrees with howling winds. The sign was posted alot the highest boulder, but there was a gathering of boulders on top, so we climbed behind the sign with Thomas and found a little nook to snuggle in away from the wind. We still had about 30-45 minutes until official sunrise. We ate goo packs and fought over who got to be in the middle. 

The sun started to rise behind us ( we were facing north west) and we could finally start to make out some things. That huge bright orange glow wayy off in the distance was probably a burning oil rig in the ocean. We could see the coast line and mountains all the way to Indonesia (Indonesia is multiple islands, part of which is the majority on Borneo. Google it :) ). And we got to see the landscape. It was no other. Everything around us was flat rock. But steep, flat rock. There were cliffs from the summit down 100s of feet to the nearest point. There were other lower jagged peaks surrounding us from all sides. The actual sun was blocked by clouds, but the sunrise was still amazing. It was hard to get pictures. We took our final photos at the top and started the decent. By this time, there was a line of people waiting to get their photo taking, balancing and freezing on the steep rock faces, so we took a different route down from the towering peak to the steep incline we had ascended hours before. By now, we could see that it looks like flat rock that had all been tilted by a steep grade at once, it was very even. It's a bit hard to explain, look at the photos. But the surrounding peaks were just as spectacular! As the run continued to rise, we could see the sea of clouds in the distance, the twin peaks of the Indonesian mountains to the south, and the sunlight would hit the other numerous peaks. The photos I took are incredible!

We took our time getting down since we realized that we weren't going to fall to our deaths and the weather warms up quickly and the wind had died down. Thomas took me aside for a mini photo shoot near a pool of water, which reflected me and  a peak in the back for a very neat photo. This was the moment when I took the majority of the nearly 800 photos during our week trip. We took our time getting down, even though I kept slipping on the wet rock, but Thomas grabbed my hand and led me down some ways hahaha. There's not much to write about descending back down to Laban Rata, just photos. So go on facebook!!!!

We made it down to Laban Rata by 830am and ate our final breakfast and packed our bags for the descent down. Thomas was waiting at 930am, and we started our descent down the mountain. This was the hard part for us (meaning me and dad) as down is more painful on the knees than up. By this time, the clouds had set in, so our breathtaking views were quickly obstructed. We made fewer stops, but went at a very slow pace to not hurt ourselves. We had fun talking (about the Army, what else? haha) and made it down to the park HQ that afternoon for a quick lunch before transferring to the hot springs.

We arrived to the hot springs after a 45 minute drive from the park. Our guide spent 5 years in Kansas and Singapore, so we had a good time chatting away and there was no Malaysian style English translation for me to do for the guys. Our driver to the hot springs was pointing it all sorts of things. We passed a few farms and he said they grew cabbage and cows. We also passed a crumbling brick structure that he said was the last defense against the Japanese in WWII and then became the starting  point for the death marches there. He was chatty and we talked about the differences between Kansas, Singapore, and why he liked his hometown of KK so much better, be said everyone just relaxes and has a good time. If you don't have a job, its okay, because you are having a good time living. 

The spring was built right at foot of a hill in the jungle. It had numerous hostel style rooms and an outdoor restaurant next to a rushing mountain stream. There were rafflesia gardens, orchid and botanical gardens, waterfall trails, and the actual hot spring portion. Rafflesia are the largest flower in the world. Google them! They smell (apparently) like dead people. They were discovered on an expedition in the late 1700's, however the Dutchman's ship was attacked and his artifacts were ruined when he returned to Europe. He did had drawing to prove he had indeed seen the flower. However, in 1818 when Raffles, the guy who founded Singapore, came around, he "discovered" the flower as well and got to name it, naming it after himself. Hiking was the last thing we wanted to do as the soreness was starting to set in, so we grabbed out towels and crossed a swinging rope bridge over the stream to the hot springs area. 

This was not a western style place. Instead, it was more of a bath house and pool recreational area. There were two large rock pools (cement pools with rocks around them) filled with cold stream water for the children to play in. The majority o the baths were open baths. One stall held four bathtubs that fit two adults each and stood about 4'5'' tall. They had spickets To fill them from the cold stream water to the hot spring water. They had a couple of pools steaming with the sulfuric hot springs water, but they reached over 60 degrees C and were roped off. They best place to go were the indoor private baths, which were luxurious looking bathtubs in closed off rooms. As the majority of the people using he baths were locals (Muslims) I assume these were mainly for the woman to bath in. I sat in a small already filled tub for a little while the boys gave up and went to shower. We had told them we wanted dinner at 7 since hey asked, so a few hours later we headed down to the very nice outdoor restaurant. They served set meals and we had chicken, rice, squid,eggplant; and these vegetables that I keep forgetting what they are called. Appetizers were winter melon soup with chicken broth, very tasty! 

When we had dinner there were tons of bats flying through the opened air restaurant doing circles. This was good because they were getting rid of he bugs who wanted us and our food but it's very distracting to try and eat then here's hungry bats a foot over your head haha The showers were hot and the dorm beds comfy, so we slept afterwards.

Day 3: Mountain HQ to Laban Rata (at 10,800ft)

We woke up bright and early at 6am. The the place we stayed at in the jungle had a nice view of the peak, which we hadn't been able to see before due to the clouds, but MAN it was clear this morning. At the peak you could see the tree line (where the trees stop growing because of altitude). It was SUPER rocky up top with multiple peaks and rock formations. Boy, was it high! After a nice buffet breakfast (no oatmeal :( ) we met up with a new guide, Thomas, (who was shorter than me) and Murray, a British man of 68years, at the HQ and hoped in the van to drive up 5km to the start, Timphon Gate. We jumped out of the van, our ID cards in hand to show we had a guide to the summit (its required) and Thomas handed dad and Murray a nice walking stick. We would hike 6km and gain an altitude of about 4700ft. The first 1km was a nice, steady climb up some incline and stairs. The jungle was beautiful, much reminded me of the could forest we saw in Costa Rica. We passed Carson Falls, a waterfall of about 20-25 ft right off the side of the path. Before we reached the 1.5km stop, we realized Murray and Thomas weren't wit h us anymore. We stopped and waited. Nothing. About 10 minutes later, Thomas came running up the path. Murray was "having oxygen problems" and Thomas wanted to escort him down the mountain and he would meet up with us later. I think Murray realized this was more than he bargained for and decided to turn around.

This stayed with me the rest of the day. When looking up this climb, it is referred to as the easiest highest climb in the world. Meaning if you aren't a pro, this is the highest you can get. As you will read and see photos, this doesn't mean its an easy climb. Its just the easiest when compared to the rest of the 14,000ft + + mountains in  the world.

From 1.5km-4km, is was a steeper rock stair climb. The scenery was beautiful and dewy and the weather was perfect. We all paced ourselves good, as there was real no need to race to the top since there was nothing to do at the guesthouse except wait for dinner and then sleep. The last 2 km (4-6) was pretty hard. The rock steps had gotten farther apart and it was a lot steeper. There are 2 helipads in the mountain, one at Laban Rata Guesthouse and the other on the trail. We found it and took a break there. Since it was the afternoon, it was cloudy this high up the mountain so we couldn't see the magnificent views to the bottom. But, you could see the magnificent views almost to the top (the top was covered in clouds too). There was no defined tree line, just a gradual lessening of trees, as there were so many types they all stopped growing at different levels.

As we ascended, the forest went through changes also. The majority of the hike until about 4.5km was dense jungle. Around 4.5km, it changed into coniferous trees. It then changed to a landscape I call the desert look, the small shrubs and flowers all looked like something I would find in Albuquerque growing in the desert. These had the best views, since you could see over all of them during the climb. It seemed to be always dewy or raining up here, so the flowers were in bloom! The desert-like shrubs had little white flowers that made the scenery and rolling cliffs look like they were snow capped. There were wild raspberries (mountain raspberries as another guide called it), clumps of other small berries, and pink and purple trumpet flowers. There were birds flying everywhere to get to the berries and would fly very close to humans for the fruit. We had also seen only squirrels and chipmunks up to this point, and that's all we did see throughout our time in the mountain. We saw lots at one of the many rest houses that were about .5-1km apart and they were fat, from climbers feeding them.

Then an odd thing happened, after we left the desert, we were expecting the tree line and then rocks, as the photos of Laban Rata showed it to be around less to no trees, but we suddenly ended up back in more dense jungle, but lush-er than before. It was greener and had different types of plants than the other types down below. IT was also cooler here, so there must have been a band of hot hair below it or cooler air where it was. We went back into the desert scenery and with multiple promises of "only 10 more minutes!" from other guides, we finally spotted the first of around 6 guesthouses than Laban Rata hosted at about 10,800ft into the mountain.

OMGG! The "showers" we took all ended up being us splashing the little water we could handle onto ourselves.

After the rain a few moments later, the clouds started to life and we could start to get a first idea of the peak (even though later we realized we couldn't see it from where we were). Immediately from the altitude of the guesthouse and up was sheer and jagged rock faces. There were all sorts of odd sharp edges at the top. Since there was no shrubbery to get in the way, the rain water raced down the mountain and  created temporary water falls into the cracks and crevices it wanted too. It was beautiful! You could follow a large trail of water from almost the top until it reached the jungle, a distance of about 3,000ft. I spent the next 30 minutes outside taking photos.

Dinner started at 430, so we were the first in line for the buffet. Before, we didn't have enough money for a snack so we were starving. We decided to save the gel packs for the summit and we didn't bring barely any money since we had all our meals, etc paid for already (and drinks/food were about 3-4x the normal price). We saw people humping large packs full of food for the restaurant and even mattresses (yes, little ladies and men carrying mattresses on their pack climbing the WHOLE distance. There was even a strap on their forehead to keep the think on their backs!!!!) so we understood the high price. All we got for free was hot water so dad made "brown sugar tea" where he poured brown sugar packets into hot water haha. Anyway, dinner was nice and we immediately went to bed at around 530-6pm. We had a wake up at 2am with a hike start at 250am, as Thomas told us when he eventually made it back up the mountain. It was in the 50s when we arrived in the afternoon, so I left with my clothes in my covers to keep them warm in anticipation of the cold morning. Of course, right after dinner it started pouring. And throughout our multiple anxious wake ups in the middle of the night, it ended up raining until about midnight!

Day 2: Kota Kinabalu to the Mountain

 Dad let us sleep in all the way until 9am!!! We woke up the next morning and had breakfast next door at the grocery store which had a bakery in it. we got "american" style breakfasts, which included a fried hotdog and baked beans, but it was very good. I wanted to see the beach, so we walked down a couple blocks until we got to the ocean. KK itselt is a large harbor, not much to swim in. The bank is a large fishing pier full of dead fish smells and boats. But the water was the beautiful teal green that you could see to the bottom and there were lots of little fish around. There were islands in every direction near and far we could see from the bank and the mountains off to the distance to the east of us. We wandered along the pier anad found the food market where they sold meat, fish, and veggies. We also found the cultural market, which was the variety of beach goods you see everywhere else but makde for a 5ft person to walk through, so the guys kept getting waked in the head by long strings of shells and beads. 


I had forgotten a rain jacket, so we started into the city center (about 8 blocks total long and 3 wide) to look for a jacket. After failing at one of the large typical Asian malls of random vendors that open late, we stumbled upon a department store hidden upstairs. I found a fully lined rain jacket from some no name label for the equivalent of 11usd!!!

We arrived at Taman Kinabalu around two in the afternoon. The drive was beautiful! It was a 2 1/2 hour drive into the rolling mountains of Borneo. The flat land didn't stay flat long and I was very glad to have taken motion sickness pills. It looked like a post card, as far as the eye could see there were mountains after mountains completely covered in trees. Every now and then, there would be a clearing along the side of one with a little neighborhood with colorful roofs or a tea or cabbage farm. In the distance, there was a VERY large peak of a mountain that stuck out from the rest with its super steep slopes. I immediately started trying to take photos while we curved through the mountains for almost an hour (we drove around it) to then find out later that this was NOT the mountain we were going too, the driver just laughed at me. When we neared the mountain, there were too many clouds to actually see the peak or the steep sides. All we could see was this HUGE waterfall, I would guess 800ft coming what looked like out of the clouds and disappeared into the jungle, after falling almost 1000ft!

Our driver told us our mountain guide and we would meet him at 730 the next morning after breakfast to start the climb. We got settled into our rooms, a four bed hostel along one of many places to stay along a snaking road a mile up into the mountain. We stopped at their park headquarters, which had the world heritage UNESCO monument (Malaysia's first as they advertise everywhere) and a museum about the mountain. The museum was a multiple room display set up with moutain models, climate and geology information, stuff about the different vegetation at the numerous elevations, etc. I read a sign talking about how the peak(4095m when the signs were made, but we found out its grown to 4101m, which is 13,454.7 feet) ) and park hq are at such different climates, it's like climbing from the equator (which the island crosses) to Alaska!! We entered a couple rooms with model animals and bugs and plants of the flora and fauna we will be seeing throughout the hike. There are giant squirrel, monkeys and orang otan, deer, anacondas, killer looking giant bugs and beetles, all kinds of variety. Dad and I took of into a trail for maybe an hour while max went back to the hostel , the time change finally catching up. The trails were very at as it's been raining non stop here for thirty hours and just finished. The trail was surprisingly full of clay. We heard an owl but that was it there was a nice stream running through the trail too. At six we had a climbers meeting we listened to a little speech about what we would be doing in the morning. Then off to our buffet dinner and now we are about to sleep, all backed up and anxiously awaiting for the morning :)

Day 1: Singapore to Kota Kinabalu

Sitting in our hostel bunk beds at Taman Kinabalu on my touch. We just got here a couple hours ago after a three hour drive through the rolling mountains is Sabah, one of two Malaysian providences in Borneo.

The guys arrived safely into Singapore yesterday. They landed almost an hour early and I was at the gate waiting with food and water in hand, my favorite foods from bread talk, the bakery that makes those ham pastries I've talked about. 5 am came quick when the prayer tower from hr mosque a block away sang for he first prayer of the day luckily dad didn't make us get up :) not until 9 anyway. We ate breakfast in the hotel. Max enjoyed the chili sauce they serve with everything here, not the kind we have at home, most of it's like mashed chiles and oil. Anyway, I took them the Hindi temple in little India, max loved it! The intricate detailing of the sculptures around the temple were his favorite, as churches are nothing in comparison to architecture to their entrance o hundreds of deities and animals of all sizes and colors. Most things were closed there, as 10 am is still early for this county especially on a Sunday.

We wandered off to bugis, a large shopping in district in Singapore in search for a rain jacket, which I realized I had forgotten for our trip. We found nothing, but we went through the latest outdoor vendor shopping center in Singapore. It was like the china shopping malls which is where all the vendors are literally on top of each other and it's cheap clothes and watches and souvenirs, with the good knockoffs hiding through secret doorways. We walked straight downtown, and the guys got to see the impressive marina bay sands hotel and casino ( boat tower) and the Singapore flyer ( ferris wheel). We walked along the water to the merlion, Singapore mascot. He was covered j. A building, apparently they built a temporary hotel around him for a few days to shoot a movie. We walked down boat quay and Clarke quay where we party and here's good food. Of course hen it started to rain and hey guys ended ip soaked, as I had had the only umbrella. I found out the large building that looks like a lotus flower by marina bay sands is the worlds first art AND science museum and it had just opened the Friday before. Max was very impressed by the building so we went over to have a look across hr bay. 30$ pp to get in with no student discounts sent us to elsewhere in the city.

We jumped the mrt to china town, on the way out the guys had issues.  tapping their cards and dad just about jumped the stall haha the Chinatown mrt is literally in the middle of it's busiest vendor shopping and eating road, so the immediate view was pretty impressive. We stopped at he local Hindi temple again, as a community prayer was just ending and I wanted to show max the men who run the ceremonies. I took them to the Maxwell hawkers center where we had a quick lunch of curry chicken and rice. Next was the Tooth Relic Buddhist Museum and Temple, the first temple I went to in Singapore, the five story one with he two story Buddhas in it. Max about dropped to the floor. The impressive sculpting of the Hindi temples were quickly put to the back burner once he got to see the aesthetics of Buddhist artwork and sculptings. He literally took photos of everything. We went up all the floors, the guys very happy we skipped the museum, including the top floor with the actual tooth in it. This is the no photo room with the glass enclosures around yet another room which held the throne ( a stupa) that held the tooth. It had a camera in it so you could monitor the tooth. The rooms is completely plated in gold, including the floor.  


After drinks and getting max to try a lassi, a yogurt milk drink at the Indian restaurant, we grabbed a taxi to The airport. We arrived into Kinabalu after dark and went right to the hotel. We went wandering a little around out little corner of the city, which is very small. It's Max's birthday today, so we agreed to go eat Italian! We went for pizza and it was amazing! Dad got to see how expensive beer is at these "nice" places and I got to use a salt shaker for the first time in HOW many weeks :) Got an decent time wakeup for tomorrows adventure to the mountain :)

Saturday, March 12, 2011

One More Pre-Spring Break Update

Sitting on the mrt. I'm on my way to check into the hotel and wander little India waiting for the guys. They had to change flights (carriers actually) because of the earthquake, they are goin to Korea instead of Japan. They're flying here via Singapore air. I read and heard they only have business and first class, they're super fancy and corporate! It's pouring outside, bad thunderstorm. But no earthquake effects. Singapore is pretty much protected from most natural disasters due to it's location in hr middle of many larger islands and shallow seas.

So last night we went out to the Escapade to watch our good friend (phd vulcanologist) sing with the summertime jazz band as the opening act for a two week festival called mosaic music festival. She was amazing!! There was about 8 of us, screaming and cheering but the crowd loved her and her voice was perfect for the music. I posted Facebook videos if anyone's interested. One fun thing about living in the city, they do stuff like this all the time :) there's always something going on. We hung out in marina bay for a couple more hours having snacks and beer, it was a great night and good spring break starter. 



At the hotel now, checked in. It's very nice, the room has a regular bathroom and shower but an interesting bed set up. There are three of us, so three single beds. The room is 2 "levels" a bottom level to get to the bathroom and a raised level by only 3-4 stairs with the three mattresses on the floor. Different, but very cool. We are in the heart (not the tourist part) of Little India. I do have to say, it is quite fun confusing the locals. I was starving and went to get some good tandoori. The Cricket World Cup is on, India is KILLING South Africa (if I'm following the game right lol) so all the local food joints are packed. Everyone gave me looks when I sat down at a local place (and not the 100 tourist places down the street). I ordered and ate with my hands and there were looks of awe. Its kind of entertaining. The waiters kept wanting to know if I was there to watch the match and if I understood anything. 


Okay, off to take a nap before the 1am airport pick up: )

Friday, March 11, 2011

Pre-Spring Break Update

Spring Break started at 1530 today after my Optics class WOOHOO! Dad and Max come tomorrow night for a quick day in Singapore before flying to Kota Kinabalu (Malaysian Boreno) so we can climb Mt. Kinabalu, a 13,500ft mountain above the clouds. Also home to some of the rarest creatures on Earth (including that cute little primate I posted on my FB, slow loris). I can't believe my stay is already half way over. I guess I can contribute that to my travels, another reason why my blogs have been from the weekend and nothing else. We can back from our trips Monday morning, I go to class that afternoon, and spend the week doing HW, and taking my fresh laundry straight from the wash to my bag pack for the next weeks' trip. After spring break, I have only 3 more trips out of the country, so things will be slowing down and I'll get to spend some more time exploring this lovely country I'm in now :)

I finally watched the DVD my tour guide "snuck" to Alma and I from Vietnam. It was a French DVD, over layed with an English translation, further underneath a loud Vietnamese translation. Therefore, I understood none of what was said. Instead, I googles the French title and found out that it is a French-made Mini-series that played in the 90s called Unknown Images: The Vietnam War. The writer got ahold of over 20,000 hours of American video footage from the war and showed the world in a 3 part mini-series. I watched about 30 minutes of the long DVD, it was mainly about Americans (since the video was ours) and some about the South Vietnamese. It was the segment on how the soldiers were treated, and what they did on a daily basis, not relation to the war but to personal time. There were some very gruesome and un-edited clips of the medic tent. I tried to search more to see if somehow the DVD wasn't allowed to be view in Vietnam, which would make sense given the secrecy of the whole thing. I couldn't find much about it, as it was either in French or googleing the title gave me war stuff, not about the series. I did find a comment from a post-war born South Vietnamese person who was glad to have watched the show on TV (I don't know where this person lived, but I believe Vietnam based on what he/she wrote). They were glad to see the "true images" of the war that they did not grow up during. I'm sure you can find it for free online to watch if anyone is interested. Its made by a famous French producer, Daniel Costelle, who has made many documentaries in his career.

I feel like I'm learning more about the Islamicate society here in Singapore than I am anything else. I don't remember if I explained this before, but Islamicate refers to the Muslim society and NOT the Muslim region. My Islam history class is VERY interesting, our teacher knows everything in the world and she gives us every interesting articles to read about the topic and stuff written during the period, stuff like why were many mosques back in the day just converted churches? What does it mean for one religion to convert, and not destroy or start from scratch another religious church? Between that and the book I just finished for ROTC, where the author would sit down and ask men many tough questions about why they believed what they did, I'm learning alot.

Chinese is going well also. I am learning the characters quickly (at least I think). We had our first test, which was only worth 5% or our grade (their grading here is so odd). The test went pretty bad, it was a listening test and the subjects we were listening to I swore spoke faster than I even do in English... but I find that the characters are actually easier than the pinyin. As some of you may know about the Chinese language, there are tones in the language, which make it hard to learn. For instance, the word "ma" can be said with 4 different inflections, and mean completely different things. However, each of those 4 inflections have a completely different character, making the characters a little easier than the pinyin I believe. There is a way of writing them through al that confusing madness, and when I'm out about looking at characters, they just look more understandable (even though I still have no idea what 98% of it means haha). There are only 6 strokes, may of them the same thing but mirrored. For instance, a diagonal to the left and a diagonal to the right are considered 2 different strokes, even though they are almost identical. Also, there are alot of characters, mainly the more complicated ones, that are simply multiple single unit characters (simple ones) that are smashed together. For instance, the word for male, is actually 3 characters ,and one of those is the word for "Strength", so it makes sense. Many words that are associated with the females have the female character in them, such as mom and Mrs. But then, there are many exceptions. The word for surname, the name you take from your fathers side, has the female character in it which makes no sense. So sometimes it can be a little misleading.

I keep hearing how easy Malay is to learn. Malay is written in letters like our language and has similar pronunciations as we use for each letter. I have found one main difference that I can't seem to get over. When ever I attempt to pronounce a Malay word that I see on the street or on a sign, I tend to assume its complicated or whatever reason I Do it, but I pronounce the last syllable as the main syllable. I am pretty much always wrong in the pronunciation, therefore botching the word and making no sense. the words all have a 1st syllable emphasis, which makes sense because easy languages should have easy words to pronounce, but I still keep messing it up and confusing everyone haha.

Nothing more to report. I will most likely be without internet during my spring break, so the blogs will come later when we get back. Here's our itinerary if anyone's interested :) Sunday at about 1am Dad and Max land, we are staying near Little India for the night for a nap. In the morning, I'll take them around Little India, Chinatown, and Marina Bay (the main city) to let them see the sites. We board a plane to Kinabalu that evening. On Monday morning, we hop a van early to make it to the mountain base. The gate closes at 10am to get into the Nat'l Park, as its a law you must have a guide to hike the mountain and they all leave early, therefore there's on reason anyone else should be coming into the park later. That day we will be walking around the jungle and getting used to the altitude, as we are already a mile above the sea-town of Kota Kinabalu (KK). Tuesday morning, we meet up with our guide, grab our bag packs, and climb to 11,000ft. This should take a good couple hours, but I hear the hike isn't too bad. That evening we will get to our "hotel" which are little wooden shacks without AC at 11,000ft above the tree line. Wednesday morning at 2am, we will be woken up to finish the last 2-3hrs of the hike in the middle of the night to reach the summit, which will be at 32 degrees potentially, even though the island is in the middle of the equator. We will then sit up there, freezing, overlooking probably the most beautiful view of the sky and milky way, as we are above the clouds and nothing will be blocking the view from the sky. We wait for sunrise and watch the sunrise from the peak. We then go back down to our "hotel" for breakfast and a break before heading back down the mountain. That evening we go to Poring Hot Springs in the park for some well deserved relaxation in hot water. Thursday morning, we head back down to KK maybe to wander the beach and see the town. We leave Friday afternoon for Singapore, where we will be having dinner in the city, because you can't leave Singapore without seeing its beautiful lite-up night skyline. The guys will be leaving bright and early Sat morning and I get to come back to NTU to study for my Optics Midterm :) Happy Spring Break!!!

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Day 2-3: Pulau Penang, Malaysia

Alma and I woke up early this morning for a quick flea market trip before the hour and a half ride to the north west part of the island to explore the jungle. After a delicious breakfast of fruit, tea, and black current toast, we hopped on the bus to the soccer stadium to walk to e market. I had heard wonders from many different travelers about the Lorong flea market, bu we were sadly disappointed. Maybe it was just a bad day, or my amature eye couldn't catch treasures, but it was full of use clothing, desk supplies, sunglasses, and a few lives of brass artifacts that were junk. There was a man who was selling very cool pieces of wood and rocks he has found, but the pottery was printed and brass was too worn in. We ran back to the hostel to get our bagpacks packed for the trip and went to 7-11 for some snacks and water. I have yet to visit one place, even in china, that doesn't have 7-11s all over! They always have the cheapest and coldest water. The guy behind the counter may have been a 'lady boy'. Alma had been in twice and seen hm in a dull face of makeup, foundation and all with bright green contacts in. Unfortunately when I ran in he had decided to dress down. We have seen a good handful of men dressed up in Malaysia. We have seen one or two in Singapore, but homosexuality is illegal here so I'm not too sure. We have also seen a huge percentage o guys who carry purses; not bookbags or messenger bags, but legit purses. Odd. Anyway, the bus took off around the island. 

We passed through the resort part of the island to the north and he bus had a majority of rich European and American vacationers In thin straps and goofy hats. At the end of the line we arrived at Taman Negara Pulau Pinang, Penang island national park. It's under consideration for unesco status, and looks like a rain forest. There was a smaller population of animals than expected, but it was still beautiful. We decided on a couple hour trek on the south of the park to hit a canopy walk then head to the famous monkey beach for a swim, it was intensely hot and humid. They have a meromictic lake, which means the lake is full of liquids that dont mix ( there are about 50 in the world but a good handful are in new York) but a park helper said its dry season so the lake is low and it's jelly fish season so swimming isn't advisable, hence the monkey beach decision. I am slowly realizing just how creepy monkeys are, especially the smaller ones here that look like little shrunken humans with fangs who aren't afraid of people. Thanks mom, for rubbing your distaste of monkeys on me :) the trail we took was lather less popular trek, so it began quietly.There were many little signs about trees and information about the jungle along the trail on the rolling hills of the jungle.One sign told us that if you would eat a mangrove leaf, it would be salty as this is where the extra salt the tree soaked up from the ocean goes to. One pointed out this 7ft deep dried up stream that ran along a large majority of the trail. We found a sign saying it wasn't from water, it was from cattle. The cattle were used to pull trees down to the villiages and towns from the jungle and used these paths which eventually carved 7ft into the ground! 


The canopy trail was very small, connecting only about 4 trees. IT was more for the fun than to look at. There was a stream dammed up with a scary danger sign with a soldier pulling out a gun to stay away. We ran into the ocean, but right before we came out of the jungle, we found monkeys. They were the little ones that looked like humans with long tails. We found them swimming in the steam, about 20 of them in total up the banks. Some were in the water swimming and diving, others were in the trees. Then there was a splash. Then another. The monkey's were jumping into the water from the trees! Alma grabber her camera and started shooting video, we caught one even doing a belly flop! They would jump into the water, then go back up the trees to clean themselves, then jump back in, so cute :) 


We eventually reached the beach. It turned out NOT to be monkey beach, but it was quiet and nobody was realy around so it was perfect. There was a fence a couple meters from the sand that enclosed a university. There were about 4 buildings, including laboratories and dorms. It took up less than the size of our front yard. We changed into our bathing suits and went floating, as the water around here is very salty, so its very easy to float. The sand looked like raw sugar, thick and see-thru. There were no large shells, only very small swirly ones. But they came in EVERY color and I get the "pearl" description made at the airport, as all the little shells were made of mother of pearl. There were white, purple, maroon, and even hot pink! I grabbed a handful to bring home. We napped in the sand, it was wonderful. There were some locals (in speedos....) who were swimming. One came up to me and showed me his water bottle which was full of clams. He offered them to me to eat, I declined. 

Daytona Beach. I was swimming and came across this leaf. It was big and flat. I remember thinking how col it would be if this leaf had traveled to Daytona all the way from Africa and I had found it. I kept it for a couple months, but knowing the likely hood of that actually happening, I eventually threw it away. Here I was in Malaysia, looking at that exact leaf.  I'm sure this tree grows somewhere in Florida, as they are both tropical places, but it was just cool to think about :) 


That was basically the end of our journey. We ate at this awesome outside Indian place waiting for the bus and got back to the hostel. We stopped at another flea market, a street market near the mosque and I found this cute little anklet. We've seen it on little Indian kids, its a silver anklet made up of jingle bells. It was a cute souvenir of the cultures that created my new home. It started raining, so we went back to the hostel and slept. In the morning, we got up bright and early to go to the snake temple. It is a Buddhist temple near the airport. When the temple was being built, vipers decided they wanted to be a part of the temple and stayed around. The monks decided to let the snakes stay in peace instead of expel them. Because the monks were nice to the snakes, rumor has it that's why the snakes have never bitten anyone. Well, as it was near 730am, the snakes were apparently still sleeping. We saw maybe 7 , when there is supposed to be 100's. The temple looked like it literally just opened, even though its supposed to open at 5am, but snakes and snakes and atleast we saw a few! 


The airport, as well as much of the city, had another language written on many signs, Arabic. I found have figured just as much, there being majority Muslims in the country. The airport had alot of arabic, and many signs had their "secondary" signs in this language. There was no English. 


It was a nice trip, but not the top of my list. I guess we have been doing some pretty exotic things recently, so a quiet slow vacation would seem to be such. Also, I think I was disappointed with Georgetown. I think this might be due to the fact that, after living in North Va and seeing the colonial sites they had to offer, Georgetown was a smaller version of things I have seen before. And since most of the sites were rebuilt in the 40s with the post-war lack of materials, the white stark buildings were just not the same. I VERY much enjoyed the park though, and wish we had spent more time there!

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Day 1: Pulau Penang, Malaysia

The day started off with a rough start, as the taxi arrived over 20 minutes late and Alma and I may have both slept in a little, but we made it on our Plane on time and arrived at the beautiful island. Penang, spelled Pinang by locals after the Malaysia word for areca palms. As we left the airport in our pre Paid taxi, as taxis aren't as prevalent as other cities in the region, we drove to a temple, Kek Lok Si. The center of the island is forest, and is very hilly. Beautiful tall peaks covered with jungle and steep rock cliffs were everywhere, with stores and apartments snuggled along side of thrills and valleys. Much of the buildings on his part of the island were very old, dirty and in a bad need of a paint job. There was construction everywhere. There aren't large towns near the airport, so many it was new construction but most of it looked like reconstruction. The airport sign called this city he pearl of the orient, but I really wasn't seeing it.

The temple we can to was beautiful, and also under construction. It's called the largest active Buddhist temple in south east Asia. There is a famous bronze statue of one of the deities that is well over 100 feet tall. It was under construction, as they were building a structure around her maybe from weather protection. I was surrounded by Indonesia high school girls who lined up to take photos with me. They had all the temples and pagodas of a typical temple, including the 1000 Buddha hall. Large beautiful gold colored deities were everywhere. The whole temple was on the side of a hill, so you got a wonderful view of the city below and jungle above. There was lots of places saved for worship alone that we couldn't go into, but we talked down the numerous stairs into the town and found the bus stop into Georgetown, the World UNESCO British colonial town we are staying in near the coast on the north east of the island.

I have read the bus, RapidPenang, is the best mode of transportation throughout the island, and I completely agree. For a maximum of 4RM (a tad over 1usd) you can get ANYwhere on the island. So we rode the bus for about 30-45 minutes for 2RM. Can't beat that! We arrived at the bus stop, overlooking the teal water of the Straits. After a little confusion on how far down to go, we stumbled on Love Lane, and found our guesthouse. There is a little sign at the start of the road of a fat Chinese man, saying the Chinese called it Love Lane because the old rich men used to keep their mistresses hidden here! Throughout the day, we just kept getting a little harder and longer stares than most places, and I can see that as this isn't a huge tourist destination compared to the surrounding areas. We went walking into the heart of Georgetown and saw beautiful old buildings.

The Church of Assumption, built in 1786, was one of many churches built on the island when the Brits came to occupy. Immediately following it was the Penang State Museum (more on this later), the old Town hall, St. George's Church, also built in the early 1800s. We noticed that there were no windows in the churches (as well as many others we saw during the day). Maybe glass just wasn't an imported island, we couldn't figure it out. Our first real stop was to Ft. Cornwalis, an administrative fort, being built in a star shape, meaning it was not meant for defense. They also later figured out that the Navy couldn't get their ships in, so this fort had no real military/defense significance throughout its life. Built in 1786, it originally had 17cannons and 32 pistols on its outer wall for protection. There is a lighthouse inside, a prison, and the first Anglican Church built ever (as the sign claims) with the first recorded marriage the ex-wife of the British founder of Penang, Fransis Light, in 1799. Inside some of the rooms of this tiny fort, were photos and artifacts from the original renovation. Even though this island has always been inhabited, somehow over time the fort got buried into the mud and had to be dug up. Archaeologists found blueprints from 1893 and using them, managed to dig up everything from the old buildings, walls, bridges, even motes! They found more  cannons, as throughout the years more cannons were added to the exterior walls taken from pirates who invaded the Johor dynasty when the Dutch took over. The Japanese attacked and occupied this island during WWII as well, using the fort for weapons storage. The first bombing was Dec. 11, 1941, and the British surrendered and soldiers and civilians fled the next day. We walked around the northern coast for a minutes. The beaches aren't on this side of the island, but there was a park to see into the beautiful and shallow ocean. It's very close to mainland (theres a bridge which I want to find to take a photo of connecting it) and we saw anchored barges in the bay.

We turned around and went into the Penang State Museum. The area, being a well funded UNESCO site, had very well preserved buildings and numerous artifacts, which made for a pleasant reading in the museum. It went through chronological order of the history of the island, as well as customs of the numerous emigrants that came to the island, from literally everywhere in SE Asia. The island was originally names Single Island, Pulau Ka Sata. When the Brits came, Light was in the doghouse with the king for some reason so he named the island Prince of Wales Island. Later, Pulau Penang was adopted. 90% of today's population is an ethnic mix of Chinese, Malay, and Indian, just like Singapore and they have a Little India and Chinatown. Being Malaysian, there is a large population of Muslims and mosques around as well. The British acquired the island in Aug 11, 1786. The Sultan Abdullah of Kedah was being attacked by the Burmese and Siamese and did this for protection, brokering an agreement of mutual use with British rule. Immediately Light went to work to build the forts, etc on the island. There was a large exhibit in the museum of 40s music. When the Japanese occupied the island for 3 years and 8 month, there was a large ban on radio music and news, therefore music became even more important to the population. The Japanese kind of "let the island go"", allowing opium smoking, amusement parks, 'dance"bars, lots of bars, etc to keep the population happy during the occupation. The museum itself used to be a school. It was heavily damaged during WWII, the east wing being completely demolished by bombing which was never rebuilt. The original plans had a beach street running along the coast, which is a good block away from the beach now, due to land reclamation and clamming beds along the east coast.

I learned a little about ethnic weddings in the areas. Muslims would pick set up marriages btween their children. The most sought after trait of a woman was not her beauty of domestic skills, but her ability to recite the Quran in a beautiful voice. The  Baba Nyonya people, Straits-born Chinese, had a 12 day wedding, complete with numerous rituals and different dresses on each day, including even a hair combing ceremony! They had elaborate dress as well as crowns and head dresses for the bride. Chinese funerals are just as elaborate, with a continuous ceremony and prayer on the 7th, 49th, and100th day anniversary of the death of the loved one. They would burn life size paper replicas of the decease's worldly possessions in order to hasten the wealth in the afterlife.

We walked around just a little longer. It was ver hot today and  there is no protection from the sun out here. We were about to walk into the famous mosque of Georgetown, but the call to prayer went off and we couldn't go in. In front of mosques are large towers what broadcast call to prayers and sang a song, which i recorded. At once, Muslims slowly started to filter in for the 5pm prayer. We went and sat on a bench, and quickly got yelled at for relaxing around the mosque not in proper dress.

Our guesthouse is nice, its an old colonial building. Our mixed room has about 12 beds and heavily AC-ed which is awesome! There is only one computer, one bathroom, and one shower. They are nice, but small. This is a very different kind of place that we had  visited before. There are pick pockets who like to steal tourists purses, we were getting screamed at by some random guy in a shop, only to find out he wanted to warn us to turn our sling purses away from the roads for men on motorbikes who snatch them. Tomorrow we hit the flea market and jungle and beach, so it will be a different kind of adventure for sure!

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Day 3-4: Hue, Vietnam

Today was a city tour, which was more of a war sites in Hue tour followed by some nature seeing. Our guide was hilarious. We toured with the same company as the day before, but Trung was busy. We had "Matt", a translator for the Marines from 1966-73, and my driver, Boon. We took motor bikes (scooters), which was 99% of the preferred transportation in the city. Drivers obey the stop lights, and that was it. But it was very fun and a fun way to travel :)

The first stop was the Pagoda, a Buddhist monument built in 1601. The people saw a silver haired fairy, with blue pants and a red robe come down from the sky. They were frightened, but the fairy said she was from heaven. They built the pagoda in her memory. There was an old blue car on display. In 1963, one of the Buddhist monks locked himself inside, parked in from of the pagoda, and light the car on fire, killing himself in the name of bringing religious freedom to Vietnam. there were little monks-in-trainings, boys in Blue robes (compared to the light orange ones the older men wore). The monks have shaved heads, however the trainees had all shaved heads but long bangs. They were pouring a trash bag full of fish into bowls. Matt said they would release them into the river in he name of Buddha to bring good luck. Matt went on to tell stories about himself. He was a monk for 5 years during his life, studying at Da Lai.He told us about how he tended jasmine flowers and talked to them, everyone thought he was crazy (he was crazy haha). He then told us that his first wife was a Princess, as her great grandfather was an emperor. More on this later.They divorced after the war because he had no money. He also told us about the time he was seduced by a VC spy, before the engagement to his first wife. Him and a beautiful lady fell in love and decided to wed. He had to first meet her family to make sure they were good. He was having beers with the Sergeant Major who was a part of the MI soldiers he worked for, he showed him a photo of the family in front of their house, as he was going the next morning to meet then and was excited. The Sergeant major said NO, that is a known secret house of the VC, you are being lured into a trap and set to be killed, so he didn't go. He also told us that some of the trees, called yellow trees, came at $5,000 a pop because they came from a famous banzai garden. On our way out, he pointed out an orphanage where lots of American children were living. We asked about American mothers who abandon babies. He said no, they are from Vietnamese working girls who meet American men..

We made a quick stop to a bronze/clay factory. This was the place that the artifacts (pots, cannons, etc) were made for the Citadel (more on that later). The factory isn't around any more, as the bombings took it out. He said something like they had some things restored in Laos and there were very old structures standing, but his accent was very thing so I'm not sure. The oldest artifact they know of bring made here was from 1631.

Next we stopped at the Royal Arena. Every June, and sometimes in between, the King would fight a tiger (King of the jungle who knew Kong fu) versus an elephant (animal of war and fighting). The tiger would be kept tied us, as it broke its chain once while fighting and attacked the crowd. Bill knew a guard, who opened the locked fence and let us walk inside the arena. There were little rooms with the scars of an opening gate where the main tiger and little tigers were kept. The tiger cracked his teeth, but since he knew kong fu, he jumped onto the back of the elephant and cut off his head with his claws. But the tiger eventually died. In 1904, the fights stopped. This was because of the French; They took over from 881-1958, when the Vietnamese finally surrounded the French soldiers at a concrete museum and they surrendered. They were slaves to the French during this period.

Next we stopped at a Buddhist monastery, a large multi-acre area where temples, meditation gardens, and housing was for the monks. I believe the current Living Buddha came from Vietnam, and there were many books and paintings done by him in a gift shop where you could buy his paintings. The paintings were more words of wisdom in beautiful calligraphy in many languages. Phrases such as "You are not a creation, you are a manifestation" and "I know you are there and I am happy". He was nominated for a Nobel peace prize. On the entrance was a blown up letter, with his full contact information including e-mail (which he answers from anyone). If you want to become a real monk/nun, you have to contact him and get his approval. Matt told us that Thich was offered to do a movie, which he accepted for the salary of $50 million. He then gave all the money to the poor people in Vietnam. When we entered the monastery, we had to stop the bikes and shut off the engines at first, there were monks/trainees mingles with believers having a meditation walk around the area. When we made it back to one of the temples, morning prayer was going on so we sat in while the monks and little monks-in-training chanted and banged on gongs and bells, I got a video, it was very beautiful. As our tour guide was a monk for 5 years in the past, he took us around the monastery, telling us what each room and decoration was for. He showed us the "VIP" table, where important people could have sit downs with monks. We saw there they ate lunch, sitting in pillows in silence. We went into a meditation patio area where the shrugs were cut into words: Ten Yac: quietly calm yourself; Tien Lee: Mentally pray. We saw the large graves that were built for past monks. He then told us a story, yet again about a proposal. There was a woman who came to pray with him all the time at his monastery when he was a monk, she was very rich. She invited him over for tea at her house and asked if he could leave the monastery and marry her. He asked what her lunar sign was, she was a tiger. HE declined her offer, as his ex-wife was a tiger. He said is she had been a monkey or horse, he would have left and married her.

Our next destination was a quick stop at an incense making factory. It was pretty much a gift shop, with a single gal at a table rolling incense, sandalwood and Cinnamon. Matt told us that you could get class 1 incense for about $5/kilo, or class 5 for $5000/kilo! Its made my mixing glue with the ground up powder of the scent. Its then rolled into a stick. That's it, too easy. We stopped at lunch next, where we found the previous days van driver. Matt knew the owner, a very friendly older lady. Afterwards, he sent us off to look at the Tu Doc Tomb. This was the emperor that was the great grandfather of his ex-wife. He didn't go in with us. The tomb looked more like a huge garden, surrounded by 30ft tall walls. There were numerous buildings, mostly old and destroyed from the war, but they were slowly being restored. The first was a temple for the minor wives. Matt said he had around 42 wives, with numerous daughters and a couple adopted sons. There were tons on temples for the emperor, his subjects, a lake with a man made island in it, etc. WE finally found the actual tomb. Before you walked in, a large memorial including the headstone was before it. The headstone, a 15ft tall piece of steel, was surrounded by a beautiful arch way building a monuments. The headstone was an autobiography of the emperors life. Behind it was another pond, with more ornate pieced of sculpture and buildings, and finally the actual tomb, just a cement looking casket.

We rode the motorbikes up a little hill, covered in perfectly lined trees. We saw lots of this throughout Vietnam, which I assume was the re-planting of trees after the war. On top of the hill were 3 bunkers built by the French in 1901. They were later used by the Americans, one was a TOC (Tactical Operations Center). We went inside, they were very short and plain. On the other side of the hill was a cliff going down to the Perfume River, this was the beautiful picturesque part of the river you see online, it was a beautiful blue green with sampan boats and hills in the background. Matt pointed out various hills and areas where "Eagle" was, a main base of the US. He showed us an LZ for the 101st Airborne during the war. We learned the story about how the perfume river was named; there were two kingdom's in Vietnam a while ago and they decided to combine, the king of one kingdom marrying the princess of the other. As the princess was not from the kingdom in Hue, when they were ion a boat during their honeymoon on the river, she asked her new husband what the river was called. He told her he hadn't named it but she could name it. She looked around and saw the banks filled with beautiful flowers that made the air smell wonderful, so she named it the Perfume River.

Our final stop was to the Ni Tunnel Prison, a prison of the South for holding the VC. On the way to the prison, however, we took some back roads, We were probably 15 miles south of Hue into the country. We went through dirt roads, forests, and up and down the hill backs of the city. We drive through these hilltops that were completely covered in graves. Matt told us they had only been started since 1945. He said in life, you want a big house, in death, you want a big grave. They were everywhere, thousands of them. There is no order, just find a piece of land, buy a couple square meters, and build whatever kind of grave you want. There were probably 15 hilltops in the range COMPLETELY covered in graves, from bottom to top, it was incredible! we saw dogs and people running around through them, even a mountain goat and her little baby and some cows munching on grass.

We went through a small town to the south and into miles and miles of rice paddies. We were told that under the paddies were tunnels the VC used to get into the South. The US found out and napalm-ed every single field to try and smoke them out, destroying the whole food supply for the surrounding areas. There were people out digging around in bare feed with the straw cone hats, Matt said the rice grows faster is it gets messed up. It was beautiful. We stopped quickly at this little museum run by an old lady who was a professional farmer. Inside were various tools and household items of the traditional framer. While Matt translated, she went around showing us all the tools on how to use them and how they processed rice. We also ran into a flood marker, marking floods form the 90's that wer about 10 and 15 ft high above the paddies, all the way from the river which was about 15-miles away!!

We reached the prison, which wasn't very much. On the way up the road, there was a huge memorial and temple built to remember the VC who had died there. We went walking into the words, running across a Vietnamese sign which read (we only read one line out of many) that said "chose to die for the country". The French had used the building on the top of the hill as weapons storage before the South turned them into a prison. We only went unto one building, a small two story structure about 1/2 the size of a house. It had 8 cells lines up on either side, a size of a large pantry with a bench inside. They had mannequins inside representing the small space the prisoners had, including a set-up of 3 Southern soldiers throwing a bleeding, blind folded prisoner into a cell. We left quickly, as Matt said he didn't like to be there too long because it was too sad.

Our day had ended. He dropped us off at the Imperial City and we parted ways. Before he left though, Matt gave us each a DVD he had made. They were about the Vietnam war. He made sure to tell us only to show them to "certain" people, and "You are American, you will watch out for me" before he patted my check and hugged us good bye.

The Imperial City is the "city limits" of the royal emperor and his court. In the complex separated by large walls, were originally 150 buildings built in 1804, finished in 1833. The City had been hurt in 1947 from a Nat'l disaster, and pretty much destroyed in 1968 from the US bombings in Hue. When I mean destroyed, (look on FB For a photo of the destruction), I mean gone. None of the buildings were left standing, only the wall. They had slowly started reconstruction and renovation, but there wer maybe 7 completed structures (out of 150) and the remain of maybe about 10 more. It was very sad, but that is a consequence of war. Save your people or save your people's history. The first building was the Citadel, the most famous building in the whole entire city. It was the throne room, where the emperor sat. The columns inside were all redone, but a piece of an original one with burn marks on it was on display inside. The throne was covered in gold, a small arm chair surrounded by a gold stage and overhang. Compared to anything in Europe royalty, it was very small. There was only one chair, no place for the empress or his children. After the Citadel, you were inside the Forbidden Purple City. This was the residence and prayer and daily living area of the royal family where no outsiders were allowed. Then my camera died :( Besides a UNESCO video showing a digital recreation of the 150 buildings, there were not many more signs around the site, so I didn't learn much else.

I checked out later that day after stopping to shop a bit on the streets. It was my time to get on a plane and head to Saigon for a night. I arrived at the airport, my hotel taxi no where in sight, and picked up a non-English speaking driver who tried to bargain with me the price for 100,000d (d=dong), the currency). I told him yeah right, turn on the meter. 2 miles down the road to my hotel, I had charged up to almost 350,000d!!!!! I literally had NO cash, as I was paying the hotel driver in USD. Lucky, we ran into my hotel taxi driver as he was pulling out (an hour late from my arrival) and he paid for the cab. The night was uneventful after that and so was my 7am wake-up and hope back on the plane to Singapore.