Malls, Hotels, Christians and Malaysian culture

Greetings again from Malaysia. I've been here about a week and all is well. The first time I came to Malaysia (xmas 2005), I was fortunate in that my friends had recently graduated and had not yet started working, so were free to entertain me. This time however they are, fortunately for them, all working. Which means during office hours I have to rely on myself for entertainment.

Entertaining myself has meant lots of walking (aimless meandering with occasional harmonica action), and a healthy amount of reading (usually takes the form of me bumming around a foodcourt in a mall, or paying the least I can for a drink to not get thrown out of a nice hotel lobby cafe).

On a random walk around town.

Outside office hours I've been lucky enough to catch up with friends and to be taken to lots of local food spots. I was even taken to attend an Evangelical Christian Sunday Service, Praise the Lord!

Bah Kut Teh - pork bone soup served with tea.

I've also enjoyed trace amounts of what I think must be contemporary Malaysian (Malaysian-Chinese) culture. Specifically, the night culture. Strangely it didn't involve bars or alcohol. It mostly revolved around food and games.

Food is King in Malaysia and people expect to be able to buy food at any time of the day or night, be it Chinese, Malay or Indian food. Indian food is typically and rather famously found at 'mamak' stores. These are simple, but often huge, restaurants run by Indian Muslims. I think the phrase 'mamak' actually refers to Indian Muslims, but it is also taken to mean these kinds of shop-houses. Many mamak stores are open 24 hours. Other kinds of food can be found along the road sides or in large hawker centres (food courts), which are also open late into the night.

One evening we went to an area called 'Subang Jaya', which is a town attached to the side of Kuala Lumpur, and has several university colleges and thus plenty of students. We'd already eaten so arrived there to play table football (fussball) a bit before midnight. After my comprehensive thrashing, we left. Someone made comments about playing Counter Strike (a computer game, for those who somehow don't know), so off we went. We were lucky to find seats at the gigantic net cafe, which had a rather loud drone made from hundreds of gamers clicking, tapping, whacking their machines. This lasted until after 2am. We were all rather knackered. I heard more whispers about us getting supper (supper being the 4th meal of the day that I never before knew existed), thinking it was a joke. Of course it wasn't. Supper was after 3am. More jokes about us playing pool. 4am. Darts then took us to nearly 5am. And so, we'd made it to 5am, entertained, and completely sober. I was told this was not unusual, and judging by the crowds everywhere and when we went I could see that this was so.

My time at net cafe is up. More to follow.

Net-gaming at 2am.

Leaving Thailand, Arriving Malaysia

Hello from Malaysia. I've been a bit slack with my posts, but I'll excuse myself by saying I've been busy. I haven't got any pictures from Malaysia up online yet, they will follow soon.

Thailand
My final days Thailand went well. It was public holidays (being the Thai new year), and I spent the whole time with my friend Krisanai, mostly enjoying good food. I even met an elephant.

On two occasions we played host to groups of friends visiting from overseas. The first group were two Malaysians, friends of friends. Went around Bangkok, had lunch, checked out some shops, visited a temple, had dinner, visited a shrine, and even had our fortunes told. My soul mate will be 3 years older than me, and I will have three daughters, indicating that I am bit of a player. If I stay in my current job it will lead to good things.

The second group of friends were Japanese, one of them a uni friend. We had lunch, checked out some shops, then had dinner. After that was done it was time for me to prepare for my next destination.





Malaysia
It is now my second day in Malaysia. I've been spending my time in KL, while my friend is a work. Time is spent walking, resting, reading, eating. More from Malaysia to follow.

Bhutan
...Still miss the place.

Happy (Thai) New Year!

It's Songkran time in Thailand. That's the Thai new year. The main theme of Songkran is undoubtedly water. It's the hottest time of the year right now, and the first rains of the season are just arriving, bringing relief to all. At new year, water is traditionally poured on peoples' hands for respect or blessing. Water is also poured on Buddha images for similar reasons and for good luck in the new year. These days however these simple ceremonies have evolved into a country-wide water fight, with young and old getting out their water pistols, buckets, even firehoses to join in the fun of splashing water about. *

I felt rather sheltered today, driving around in my friend's car, not getting into any water-soaked action. This might follow in the coming days. If my camera survives it, you might even see some pictures.



I just went with my friend to a mall, poured some water on a Buddha image there, ate some yummy food, and came back to his place.


As exciting as it is in Thailand, I must admit to still feeling attached to Bhutan. I loved the place, the people, the general tranquility and wish I was still there!

* Please remember that I rarely know what I'm talking about and there's every chance what I've told you about the traditions of Songkran is wrong.

The Kingdom in the Clouds

I recently returned to Thailand after a week away in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan. Fortunately I knew some Bhutanese friends from highschool (via my little sister), so it was with them that I stayed and was taken around by. I had a crammed itinerary of temples, fortress-monastery-administrative-centres (dzongs), basketball, food, trip to the cinema, hiking & more. In fact, there was so much going on that there's no way I can document it all in my blog. Instead I'll aim for broad generalisation and let my photos fill in any details.

Paro Dzong (fortress monastery)

Bhutan is beautiful. It felt like being inside Hayao Miyazaki's film Princess Mononoke, with its forests, sublime landscape, folklore and nature spirits. Bhutan is mountainous and densely forested. It's people are friendly and peace-loving. It is occupies a slice of the Himalayas perched between the tall peaks of Tibet to the flatlands of India. Ethnically and culturally its people mostly derive from centuries of immigration from Tibet, though there are Nepali and Indian influences. Buddhism shapes the landscape through architecture, temples, prayer-flags, prayer-wheels and vast expanses of untouched forest (ok this is hard to qualify, but I think they have some kind of respect for nature spirits, to disturb the forest or lake would be rouse trouble). The culture is ancient and steeped in folklore and is very well preserved - most people wear traditional dress.

Ok, that's the broad-generalisation part done with. A cynic could list negative issues such as the abundance of stray dogs, poor medical facilities, bland food, poor literacy (less than 50%) and lack of infrastructure, but then I'm not very cynical and accepted these problems without much trouble. The food I even quite liked, most dishes being variants of cheese and chilli served with rice. They also enjoy Tibetan style dumplings called momos which were delicious. I even tried fried fern (with cheese and chilli).

This was originally going to be a trip with me and two friends from Thailand, but plans necessarily changed and in the end it was just me. All tourists must be accompanied by guides, so effectively I had a package tour for one. My guides/friends were excellent, and if anyone wants to go to Bhutan please get in touch with me.



I spent every night in the capital Thimpu, except for my last night where I stayed in Paro (near the airport). Most days out were thus day-trips from Thimpu. We made several hikes, reaching a highest elevation of about 4,100m. We visited many remote monasteries. I was even taken clubbing. Overall I had a fantastic time and lament the fact that I am no longer there. I found it to be friendly, tranquil, sublime and less obsessed by materialism than most of the West. I loved the place and hope to go back some day!

Please enjoy my photos =)