Dragon Day

AM:  I saw the river yesterday, but not the sea.  So, this morning I headed to St. Kilda, the beachfront town that drew merriment makers out of Melbourne every week-end, probably for as long as there has been a tram connection.  The ride was short.   The town was quiet.  The beaches were deserted save for a few joggers, dog walkers, and a vagrant or two.  Bakeries seem to be the specialty of Acland Road, but the baked goods look better than they taste (same story as in most of Europe, sorry to say).  I found some books for granddaughters (one, soon two) at Readings, a locally grown bookshop.  (By the way, the Borders in Melbourne’s CBD was closing down forever and I’ll bet Readings was grinning!)  The name Paul Jennings had filtered into my aural environment somewhere along the way, so I asked for his books.  And, in them I found dragons.  Perfect (but little did I know that I would come face to face with a dragon in just a few hours).  I bought three Jennings at Readings, the kind of shop every town should have.  I could say the same thing for the place where I had a hamburger (without the egg, thank you, but alas, no ‘American’ mustard) for an early lunch.  It was chaotic and disheveled, but it had tables outside along the street.  It seemed to be the most popular place in town.  I have developed a technique to salve my newspaper-clipping angst.  I use my camera to take a picture of any article I would like to clip.  In passing by on the sidewalk, a man noticed and we had a good conversation about photography and the days of the 35mm.  I asked what the yellow sack on his back was.  Had it been red, he could have been Santa out of season.  It was his laundry.  Doing mine was last night’s work.

Filigree:  The answer is:  Richmond, New Orleans, and Melbourne.  What’s the question?  What three cities have the world’s largest collection of cast iron lacework?  (Actually, I think Paris outranks Richmond.)  Victorian filigree:   that was the focus of my afternoon walk.  I got off the tram in Middle Park (south of Melbourne) and walked for miles, all the way to Port Melbourne, by which time the sun was pretty low in the western sky.  All of these suburbs seem to be the product of the street car.  I found a date or two on some of the houses, and it appears these housing estates came into being in the 1880s, perhaps maturing in the early 20^th century.  The houses are really cottages, what would be called terraces here.  This is where the workers lived for the docks and industrial plants (including the brewery whose shell still stands as a condo collection) along the waterfront and the river.  The small yards (big enough for a shrub or two) are fronted with cast iron fences and their porches decorated with cast iron lace.  In the newer areas (Middle Park seems newer; Albert Park older), stained glass and ornate roof lines seem to have been the way to elevate your status.  These neighborhoods stretch for miles between the CBD and the beach at St. Kilda.  I really don’t know why travelers go to so many museums, when the best museums are neighborhood streets.  A historical placard or two would have made a world of difference, though.  And, these days walking tours delivered over cell phones are becoming the rage (though I have no cell phone here).

I could not stop snapping shots of lacy fringes and balustrades.  Confronted once was I:  by a local resident who wondered why I was taking a picture of his home.   “You do know why I am taking pictures, don’t you?”  said I.  He didn’t.  “Because Melbourne is famous for its iron lace.”  He and his wife seemed clueless about the history of their neighborhood, but they also seemed satisfied with the explanation.  I asked a passing pedestrian if he had ever been attacked by the rooftop dragon that lords over the street where he walks every day.  “Still alive,” said he, and then added a few thoughts about the gentrification that was going on.  Victorian filigree: there’s more in Melbourne than any other place in the world.  What surprises me is its geography:  it’s part of the neighborhoods where ordinary people have always lived.  To me, it looks so elite.

My apologies for loving the world's ordinary landscapes so much.  But, when you start looking, every landscape is really extraordinary.

Geographically yours,

D.J.Z.

Still Victorian

Old Vic:  I am still suffering from the sticker shock of trying to find a jacket in the CBD and the disorientation of unsuccessfully trying to find a second-hand store in North Melbourne.  So, this morning I headed to Old Vic.  That’s what locals call the Queen Victoria Market, which dates from 1878.  The main market shed, the old meat market, looks just as I remembered it from my last trip.  Today, though, it seems to be really a part of the city.  My recollection of the 1980s is that Old Vic seemed a bit farther out.  Perhaps because the huge skyscrapers that line the nearby horizon did not exist then.  Or, perhaps it is because I stayed in North Melbourne then and had to walk past the market into the CBD.  No matter, this market is where Melbourne’s spirit of place resides.  Save for the fish market, Sydney has none, and Adelaide has only one.  Melbourne has three.  Now, however, the grocery chains are closing in, but as busy as it was today, I would say the three markets have no worries, yet.   Indeed, the prices at Old Vic certainly can’t be beat in the CBD.  I prowled around and found some jackets and pullovers for $15 or $20.  Perfect, thought I.  I bought one.  I wonder if it will make it home with me. 

Old Welsh:  I planned my day around a 3 pm service at the old Welsh Church on LaTrobe Street in Melbourne.  Twice a month, the sign said, they had services in Welsh.  This was the last Sunday of June, so I expected the church to be open if not packed.  I really couldn’t imagine there being much of a demand for a Welsh-language service.  Mid-afternoon arrived, but nothing was stirring, not even a mouse, a rare bit of bad luck for me.  Fortunately, either the Welsh dragon or St. David must have had my best interest at heart, because the sign assured me that every Sunday there was an English-language service at 5:30 pm.  Instead of pouting, I pounded the pavement and prayed that by sundown, the doors of the Welsh church would be open unto me.  They were, though it was an unusual Sunday for these non-conformists (in a theological sense).  Indeed, the morning service had been cancelled, too, because the entire congregation was in Ballarat helping their sister congregation celebrate their 150^th anniversary.  At 5:30, there were only a few of us in attendance for what amounted to a short prayer service.  The congregation must be bigger, though, because the church has two ministers, one of whom speaks fluent Welsh (he grew up with it).  The other is learning it.  Shall I add that “The Scots Church” (the first Presbyterian church in Melbourne) is about two blocks in one direction, and the Church of England about the same distance in another.  The folks who founded Melbourne didn’t leave the old country behind; they brought it with them.  But, that’s just the way migration works. 

Geographically yours,

D.J.Z.

A Walk in the Sunshine

The Birrarung:  In Melbourne, it was a day of sunshine and white puffy clouds after a week that was wintry gray from what I hear.  I found the river first, just on the other side of the rail tracks from my hostel.  It’s name is the Yarra.  Instead of the grimy wharves and shipyards that defined Yarra’s yesterday, the river now forms the spine of a waterfront wonderland of parks and promenades backed up by ‘old’ Melbourne on one side and the new Melbourne of glitzy high rises on the other.  The tallest of those high rises reminded me of New York City simply because it is the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere.  Along the Yarra, I found a heliport, a giant Ferris wheel, and a circus under the big top.  There is also an installation of totems reaching into the sky, quite appropriate along a river with an aboriginal name (though not actually the aboriginal name of the river).  The only thing left of old Melbourne’s working waterfront is a row of figureheads looking like they were installed in the 1990s and now await some maintenance.  The arches under the rail line have been taken over by boutiques and one of them offers passage into the Melbourne aquarium, which specializes in the Southern Ocean.   Oh yes, the aboriginal name of the river was Birrarung.

The CBD:  Think of the Charles River in Boston and the Schuylkill in Philadelphia.  What comes to mind?  The scull races, right?  Melboune’s Yarra seemed made for sculling and reminded me of both cities.  Later in the day, I also thought of Baltimore.  Both of these cities still have their old shot towers, tall brick cylinders used to make shot for guns.  The lead was liquid at the top of the tower, solid and spherical by the time it reached the bottom.  Melbourne has done the most amazing thing with its old shot tower.  The city has put a dome over it and built a circular shopping mall, called Melbourne Central around it.  I wish Baltimore’s mayor could see it.  The tower is in the heart of the CBD now.  And by the way, that is what the Australians call their ‘downtowns’:  CBDs.  That stands for Central Business District.  By 5 pm, the day was but a glow in the western sky (remember:  Southern Hemisphere), so I decided the CBD was the place to be:  I went to see X-Men: First Class, which took me to back to New York City and the Westchester suburbs.   Nothing reminded me of Washington, DC, but other than that the Melbourne experience was papered with megalopolitan memories. 

It’s the middle of winter here, but spring-like.  An Australian I met in Thailand, however, told that the city had seen snow for the first time ever this year.  I know they have snow further inland, though.  I was in Ballarat, the gold mining town, more than two decades ago and it snowed.  Here it is cool enough for a jacket, though I don’t have one (only a single long-sleeve shirt).  I searched for second-hand stores with no luck (far away, I was told), and then checked prices at some CBD department stores.  Prices for anything began at $75 (on sale!), and the Australian dollar is now about equal to the US dollar.  Things seem very expensive here.  Tomorrow, I will look again for a sweater or jacket.  I think I will head to Old Vic. 

Geographically yours,

D.J.Z.

Typhoon

Cyclone Approaches: This is the day of the typhoon. It started as Level 1 and is now Level 3. I had my morning coffee at Starbucks, a first since I have been in China. Standard fare, but I don’t think the coffee is quite as strong as in the USA. You might also be interested in the way they serve sugar: in syrup form, a clear liquid, presumably from sugar cane. It’s much easier to use and you don’t have the waste of all those individual packets. By the way, there is no artificial sweetener in evidence here at the Dundas Street Starbucks. I dodge the raindrops back to the hotel. I write, rain falls, time passes. Lunchtime is here. I look for something other than Chinese. To the third floor of a street-side mall I wander, finding myself in front of what would seem to be a Japanese restaurant. I ask. No. It’s a sushi restaurant. Do you have soup? The reply is a menu (special one in Chinese and English). Good enough for me. I order ‘udon’ with beef curry. To drink (‘free’)? Watermelon milk. My waitress nods in approval. It soon arrives: watered down skim milk flavored with watermelon and charged with something else. My first thought is blueberries because there are darkish balls visible at the bottom on the glass. I make a mess trying to retrieve one. They are not blueberries; they are gelatin balls with little flavor, but the locals must like how they chew. The oversize straw makes it easy to slurp them up with the milk. It’s a new experience. Yes, I made a mess, which is something the Chinese here in Hong Kong do not do. I know that because there are never any napkins in these restaurants. I looked around: nobody had or needed a napkin. Except me (and it got worse after my soup arrived). Being the experienced traveler that I am, however, I quickly adapted by fishing the handipack of tissues out of my pocket.  You realize they were meant as a substitute for something other than napkins, right?  A substitute for something else that you don't consistently find in this part of the world.  so, what did I think of the soup?  I wished I had sat at the bar and fressed on the sushi as it passed by on the conveyor belt.  All the Chinese (including many high school students) seemed to be enjoying it.  What was I saying about Thai curries?

Frozen Yoghurt:  All day the rains came and went. Some pounded. I survived. In the evening, my umbrella and I went walking into the night markets nearby. In fact, the location of this Y makes it perfect for a true Hong Kong shopping experience. I ate ramen noodles and then stopped for something that seemed new here: frozen yogurt. It wasn't as good as Skinny Dip, but almost. The night markets comprise several parallel streets and cross streets. The streets are reserved for pedestrians and stalls materialize on the macadam. Prepared for the rain, they are: scaffolding and hoods over all the street vendors. I bought a pair of pants from a man who had been doing business here for 20 years. If you come to Hong Kong to shop, you should subject yourself to two experiences: (1) the night markets, and (2) the glitzy gallerias.

I am happy to say I survived the cyclone. People on the street call it a typhoon; weather forecasters call it a cyclone. I just wish it had passed directly over Hong Kong instead of targeting Hainan Island further south.


Geographically yours,

D.J.Z.



Father's Day Here

“Happy Father’s Day!”  I heard Bob and Megan utter those words half a world away.  Bob, of course, had to be reminded, but I have a feeling he will have no difficulty remembering Father’s Day next year.  By the way, it’s a holiday here as well as in the United States.

Three Orchard Road:  I don’t know why I am so excited to be staying at One Orchard Road.  Perhaps it reminds me of all the new fruits I have found in Southeast Asia; perhaps it is the bucolic imagery that seems to fit Singapore; perhaps it is the medallions that are built into the sidewalk; perhaps it is the connection to Von Thunen’s rings; perhaps it is just because I have heard about Orchard Road for so long.  And, now to enhance my excitement, guess what is located right next door at Three Orchard Road.  Hint:  it’s Sunday.  Answer: Orchard Road Presbyterian Church, with services in English at 9 am.  Do you want to guess what other two languages command services of their own?  Indonesian and German; surprisingly, not Chinese.  Do you want to guess what expat community this church was planted to serve?  Of course, it would be the Scots.  The Church of Scotland is the Presbyterian Church.  But is has long since outgrown that niche.  Now the pews are filled (yes, packed to the gills) with Asians, Europeans, and others.  Two new members were admitted today:  one Singaporean Chinese and one Brit.  Like every institution in Singapore, ORPC preaches the gospel of inclusion.  Now, they are facing a leadership challenge.  They need a senior pastor, and two prospects have withdrawn their applications before appointment.  “What’s wrong with us?”...that seems to be the question they are asking themselves now.  (Methodists never have this problem! J)  Excellent sermon, I must say.  I never realized what a pivotal role Jaffa played in the early history of Christianity.  Yes, the sermon was built around a place, Jaffa, and geographers love to filter everything through the map.  I was invited to stay for a light lunch in their large social hall next door, but I had a bus to catch and miles to go before day’s end.

Indulgence:  I am in the wet tropics, almost on the equator.  It’s the biome that produces the world’s cocoa.  The irony is that you never eat chocolate candy here in the tropics.  It melts.  So, it has been an age since I have indulged.  At the air-conditioned airport, the drought came to an end.  I bought the biggest Reese’s I have ever seen.  But, it wasn’t a peanut butter cup; it was a chocolate bar filled with peanut butter.  Never have I seen this for sale in the United States.  I felt I had to try it and evaluate its possibilities for the American market.  Besides, my first teaching job was at Hershey High School, and I passed the Reese’s plant every morning when I came to work.  I figured this encounter was meant to be.  Plus, I had a pocket full of coins that would do me no good in Hong Kong.  In an instant, that bar was mine.  Before I dug in, I had a bowl of wonton soup.  Then, I went to work.  My assessment:  delicious, but I still like peanut butter cups better.  In fact, I have it on good authority that Heaven’s walls are papered with peanut butter cups.

I flew Cathy Pacific to Hong Kong with a stop in Bangkok.  The plane was full leaving Singapore, but I was the only passenger going through to Hong Kong.  I don't know what to make of that. I stayed on board and watched the clean-up crew get everything ready for the second leg of our flight.  They had it down to a science.  Upon arrival in Hong Kong, I caught the Airport Express to Hong Kong Central, then the MTR to Yau Ma Tei.  The YMCA was a few steps away.  I liked the Y so much in Singapore, I decided to repeat the experience. 

Geographically yours,

D.J.Z.

Add to Your Bucket List

This was my day to explore Malacca, fabled home of the Malacca Sultanate in the days before the Portuguese, Dutch, and then English (and for a few years, Japanese) took over.  The heyday of the city predates the British.  When you look at the size of the tidal creek here you wonder how this could ever have been the Singapore of its day; then you look at all the silt offshore and are even more certain that the British preference for Singapore was well founded.  Malacca’s only comparative advantage seems to have been its relative location at the narrowest point on the Strait of Malacca.   

The Fort and Nouriah:  Archaeological investigations turned up the remains of the Portuguese-cum-Dutch fort on the Malacca River.  One corner has been rebuilt to add another attraction to the tourist precinct.  Does it look puny!  I kept wondering if it was a scale model rather than a recreation.   Still, it is one of the anchors of a landscape that has brought Malacca international recognition as a World Heritage City, a prestigious UNESCO designation.  (Why does the US have so few World Heritage sites?)  So, here it is right in the middle of tourist central, along with a new site:  a nouriah, or waterwheel, of the type you see in Syria.  This one I couldn’t figure out:  didn’t understand whether there had been nouriahs along the creek in the past, didn’t understand why they built this one, didn’t understand what purpose it was to serve.  It looked nice, but again puny in comparison with the Syrian wheels and the one I saw in Toledo, Spain.  I would hate to think that they built a waterwheel just to look nice even though it seems to be completely out of place and out of time.  Didn’t like it.  Didn’t seem authentic.  I am pleased to report that it doesn’t even work; they can’t seem to get it to turn.  More research needed. 

Café Geographér:  From the clock tower in the historic intramural center of Malacca, I crossed the bridge into the historic residential sector, the area where the Chinese were quartered.  Thirsty though I was, I could not take more than a sip or two of the lime juice with licorice that I bought on the other side of the bridge.  In fact, I had a bad taste in my mouth until I made the discovery of the day (and maybe the trip):  a corner restaurant called Café Geographér.  So famous has it become, that it has been featured in Blue Hyppo commercials.  Don’t worry, I don’t know what that means either!  Of course, I had to have lunch there, so I sat down to a bowl of soup:  noodles, bean sprouts, eggplant, green beans, bean curd puffs, lots of great spices, and no MSG (very proud of that).  I ate it with chop sticks and one of those deep-dish spoons.  Of course, I told them I was a geographer.  They smiled, but didn’t seem to be impressed.  Still, I took lots of pictures and purchased a Café Geographér shirt.  I wonder if I could open a franchise in Virginia Beach.  They seem to be doing very well along Jonker Street in the heart of Malacca’s Chinatown.

Geographically yours,

D.J.Z.

Lion City

It was the 8 am bus that almost left without me.  I took a taxi to the Malacca bus station, quickly bought a ticket (by being a little pushy), and was the last passenger on board.  On my way to the Lion City was I:  an express 4-1/2 hours, border crossing included.  The cost was about $7. 

Arriving in Singapore:  Only a short bridge connects Johore, Malaysia, to the Republic of Singapore.  Then, a green parkway leads traffic into the city.  All I can say is Wow!  I wasn’t expecting so much lush vegetation, but for many kilometers we traveled through a forest and past the Singapore Zoo.  Then, the high-rises began to appear on the horizon.  But, Singapore is not a city (or country, since they are one and the same) of high-rise canyons.  They have done more than any city I have seen to create and preserve open space, parks, gardens, greenways, and street buffers.  The first thing I saw when I got off the bus was a mahogany forest.  Actually, it was less than a dozen mahogany trees (brought from Africa in the 1970s) that provided shade for an urban park.   My first observation of the cultural landscape confirmed my supposition that Singapore was an English-speaking country.   Signs and billboards seem to be tightly controlled (along with everything else here), but almost all were in English.  Three-quarters of the country’s population is Chinese, but they have taken to English, the language of international business, which is what Singapore specializes in.

Orchard Road:  The bus dropped us all by the side of the road, not at a station, and I had no map.  The driver pointed everyone to a taxi station (so far in the distance I couldn’t see it), but I had a better idea.  Coming in, I had identified a metro station (Paya Lebar), so I hoofed it back there and boarded the Circle line to “One Orchard Road.”  That was the address of the YMCA, and I just hoped they would have a room for me.  They did.  I never knew much about the micro-geography of Singapore, but I did know Orchard Road, the city’s main shopping corridor.  To me, One Orchard Road sounded like the most prestigious address ever.  I wasn’t disappointed.  I was amongst the buildings of Singapore Management University, a beautiful urban campus; the commercial corridor began a few blocks away.  Like the Malaysians, Singaporeans are in love with shopping malls:  that’s what lines Orchard Road, some of the biggest malls you have seen, and all air-conditioned, of course, which has to be one of their attractions.  As for its name, the road used to lead from the civic precinct into the orchards that supplied the city with fruits and vegetables, just as Von Thunen would have predicted.  Laid into the sidewalk now are medallions commemorating all those wonderful tropical products from mangoes and bananas to star fruit and pomegranates. 

Geographically yours,

D.J.Z.

Repeat After Me: Orang Asli

Freeways and Malls:  Kuala Lumpur has allowed itself to be gobbled up by freeways.  They criss-cross the city in every direction.  I can see why mass transit patronage is not as high here as it is in other cities.  The Malaysians have taken to the car in a big way.  They have also taken to ‘The Mall’ in a big way.  It seems like you are never very far from a shopping mall.  My comfy little hotel, in an older part of the city, was a block away from ‘The Mall.’  That was its name and it was writ large in English on the side of the building.  With it were offices and hotels.  This is the form that new development takes in KL:  lots of vertical development that seems divorced from its surrounding neighborhoods.  In fact, getting from one old neighborhood to the next is a very pedestrian-unfriendly ordeal.  The woman I met with her baby in a stroller was not too happy about the difficulty of taking a walk.  And as she pointed out to me, motorbikes seem to think it is OK to park on the sidewalk, making her and her stroller descend to the street to get around the blockage. 

Street Market:  Early this morning, I discovered a street market not far from The Mall.  Food for the family, some clothes, a newspaper vendor, and breakfast on the street: all there for the people of Putra.  Eating breakfast from a vendor or a sidewalk shop seems to be popular here.  This was not Chinatown, but there seemed to be lots of Chinese in the mix.  One man told me his family had come from China four generations ago during a time of troubles (I asked what the troubles were about, but got no answer I could understand).  He loved being a Malaysian and hated the Communists.  He told me Malaysia was a poor country, so I pointed at the skyscrapers only three blocks away and said I disagreed.  I am still not sure what he made of that, but I do think he was delighted to be speaking English to an American visitor.  The image that will remain longest from my market morning?  A live chicken getting his throat slit for a customer.  I flinched and looked away. 

Orang Asli:  For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  Malaysia may be going through a cycle that all modernizing nations go through if they have an indigenous population.  The tentacles of development are taking hold of every part of peninsular Malaysia (Malaya) and strangling the forest peoples out of existence.  Of course, this has been going on for at least a century, but now the Malaysian government seems to feel bad about it (my interpretation), so they are anxious to publicize the nobility and wisdom of the Orang Asli (‘original peoples’), the collective term for dozens of different native tribes.  I visited the National Museum which had both a permanent exhibit and a special exhibit on the country’s indigenes.  The theme of the temporary exhibit was beliefs and traditions; it took you into the Orang Asli’s spiritual world in the setting of a recreated forest village.  Animists, they are, but to some extent the earth might be better off if we were all animists: Malaya’s original peoples believe that large rocks and open spaces such as swamps, lakes, and water holes have their spirits and guardians who must be respected and appeased.  Western religions have killed off the spirits of nature, and western civilizations have done a fine job of destroying so much of the natural earth.  This may apply to eastern civilizations, too.  How the Orang Asli see some of the spirits that co-inhabit their world is the subject of much contemporary sculptural art that was on display.  It was some of the most creative I have seen.  Orang Asli:  I just love saying those words!

Geographically yours,

D.J.Z.

New Day, New Country

Leaving Thailand:  It’s a travel day.  I leave Phuket today.  I am going to Kuala Lumpur (KL, for short), Malaysia.  Air Asia makes winging your way around this part of the world easy and relatively cheap.  It’s cheaper if you can buy a ticket online, but I can’t, at least with Air Asia.  I have tried several times, but they will not take my credit card information.  I asked at the airport and the airline says it’s the credit card company.  I email my credit card company and they send a canned response that says it is the airline.  It doesn’t really matter, though.  At every airport, the airlines all have ticket counters where you can walk up and buy a ticket up to the time of departure.  It seemed to me that the prices were only about 15 dollars more expensive.  It is mighty convenient, but if you did it in the US you would pay premium fares.  Let me say it out loud:  US airlines are the least progressive on the planet and spend most of their time thinking up new ways to charge for their tickets and other services.  Here’s another example.  I might attend a conference in Montreal in the fall.  So I went on line (while in Patong) and priced a ticket:  over $700.  I then sent an email to my travel agent in Virginia:  same price.  By comparison, I will cross an international boundary flying from Phuket to Kuala Lumpur and pay about $100 (for advance purchase, it is less).  How do the US airlines get away with it?  My backup plan (if I actually choose to go) is to fly to Burlington, Vermont, and rent a car for the Canadian portion of the trip.  Maybe on a slow day soon, I will write more about budget airlines.

I can’t say that Phuket was one of my favorite places, but it has come to feel like home over the past five days.  I now have a favorite restaurant, a favorite coffee shop, a favorite ice cream parlor, and a favorite deck chair by the pool.  Oh, I shouldn’t have admitted that!  Just remember, this is a resort island, so accommodation prices are low.  I would certainly return here, but I think tourism is gobbling up the island, which is the very resource that attracts visitors.  Some restrictions on development are badly needed.  Returning to the airport by taxi (a 50 minute drive), I became even more away of how sprawl has crept along each and every road.  The airport, though, is right on the beach; it is very modern and welcoming.  I bought my ticket, passed through border control, and waited for my departure.  From the air you get a broader view of the Andaman Sea and realize what a tropical paradise it is. 

Arriving in Malaysia:  A little more than an hour later, we landed in KL.  As usual, there was a landing card to fill out.  Here is what it said in red caps at the bottom of the card:  BE FOREWARNED DEATH FOR DRUG TRAFFICKERS UNDER MALAYSIAN LAW.  I wondered if I should get rid the aspirin in my backpack.  I think I arrived at the Budget Airline Terminal, which is separate from the main terminal.  And, it did seem a little ‘budget.’  Thirty US dollars to get into the city by taxi.  Nix that idea.  Where’s the bus?  Finally figured out the answer to that one.  Price?  Less than US $3 to the Central Station (and it's really far away).  From the station, I paid about 30 cents (US) to take the train to the part of town where I had identified a place to stay.  Of course, everything was priced in Malaysian ringgit.  (Yes, the currency used to be the Malaysian dollar, which is what I was expecting.)

I am a card-carrying member of Hostelling International, so for this leg of the trip, I decided to go back to budget accommodations.  I checked the HI website and found a place in Kuala Lumpur, and it seemed rather centrally located (a priority for me).  It turned out to be a two-star hotel (Wira Hotel).  Instead of dormitory quarters, I got a private room and a nice one at that.  Price?  About $30 US, breakfast included and free wifi, too.

The journey to KL was fun.  In fact, it was more fun than usual because when I left the hotel in Thailand, I had neither a plane ticket nor a place to stay in Malaysia.  Whenever there are some unknowns in the equation, it makes travel exciting.  I have often said that there is nothing more exhilarating that arriving in a city where you have never been with no advance planning.  You have to figure it all out from scratch.  But, as the ‘unknown’ becomes the ‘known,’ you feel like you have learned so much and another city has been added to your collection.  By the end of this trip, I will have visited 37 of the 101 largest cities on the planet.  My hobby:  collecting places.

Geographically yours,

D.J.Z.

Sunday in Patong

Green Season:  We are in what is called the “green season” here.  It extends from June to September, and it is the monsoon season.  It has just begun.  Obviously, it is not the tourist season, but I get the sense that Phuket is doing everything it can to up their visitor totals this time of year.  80,000 people on the island work in the tourist industry.  The European languages are heard everywhere; now, it seems the Thais want to encourage more Asian tourism.  Here’s a riddle for you:  A new Center for Language Skill Development has just opened up here on Phuket.  It is offering free language classes to those 80,000 workers.  What five languages will initially be offered?  (I’ll tell you later.)  My assessment is that English is neither well-understood nor well-spoken here.  Part of the problem, I think, is that so many languages are spoken by the tourists who populate this island.  English, though, is spoken by more than Brits and Australians; it is spoken by everyone else who visits (a slight exaggeration) as a second language.  Then, there is the international language of the global corporations which communicate in signs and symbols.  They offer a heavy dose of Western culture but often try to tailor it to local sensitivities.  What is difference about Ronald here on the beachfront in Patong?

They Fed Me:  This was the hardest Sunday for picking a church to attend; in fact, I was first told there were none in Patong (the largest town on the island).  I couldn’t believe that, though, so I hit the Internet and found the House of the Lord Church, which advertised itself as an international church.  It was close, half a block from the beach in an arcade of shops and restaurants.  It had occupied this space for a year, and there was room for maybe 40 people.  The service lasted two hours (yes!).  In fact, we stood to sing for so long that half the congregants sat down half way through.  It was spirit-filled singing with a guitarist and song leader up front.  Words were projected onto a video screen (including their English translation).  I had a surprise, though.  All visitors were called one by one to the microphone to tell a bit about themselves.  I was the first.  Then the Australian woman, then the Swiss man married to the Brazilian, then the Finns who were on their honeymoon.  Then, the Australian man said he would pass; I talked to him later, though, and he told me to call him when I got to Australia.  He didn’t seem to be shy.  No one seemed to be in a rush, including the preacher.  The sermon was on Jehoshaphat, but I caught only bits and pieces.  It was delivered in Thai, then translated into English by a Thai man who goes by ‘Joseph.’  This is the first church that handed out lunches (fried rice with fried egg on top) after the service, so we all sat around and talked for a while. 

Geographically yours,

D.J.Z.

The Anadaman Sea

Monkey Cave:  As you know, monkeys thrive in this part of Asia.  Near Phang-Nga (on the mainland) is monkey cave, the site of Wat Sawan Kuha.  In the cave is a huge reclining Buddha made of gold.  (Why am I suspicious that all these Buddhas are made of real gold?)  Of course, a temple requires a monastery, so monks are around to tend to the needs of their lord – and the monkeys.  Geographers know that caves indicate limestone lithology.  Here in the wet tropics, there is plenty of water to dissolve calcium carbonate and huge pockets form underground.  Roof collapse often opens the caverns to the outside world.  That’s what we have here, a huge cave with two fine entrances and an abundance of stalactites and stalagmites.  Actually, I found the cave much more interesting that the Buddha.  Am I allowed to say that?  The monkeys seem to know enough not to go too far into the cave, but they love the trees outside, though they seem to be a little scarce when it is pouring down rain, as it is today.  Yes, today is proof that we are in the monsoon season.  Not that it rains all the time, but there are always clouds in the sky and today there has been complete cloud cover and periodic rain.  The advantage of thick clouds?  It is cool and pleasant. 

007: I got on a long-tail boat at the port town of Phang-Nga.  It was propelled by a powerful motor and captained by a skilled mariner driving from the rear.  Out into Phang-Nga Bay we went.  Much, if not most, of the bay is part of Ao Phang National Park.  One of its 42 islands became world famous in 1974:  James Bond Island.  Go back and watch Man with a Golden Gun; you’ll see it.  I walked that beach today and saw the offshore islet, Ko Tapu, standing tall and proud.  You wouldn’t believe the number of long-tail boats that visit each day; it has to be one of southern Thailand’s most famous attractions.  Fortunately, everyone docks on the opposite side of the island and visitors walk to the famous beach.  Khao Phing Kan (the real but never-used name of James Bond Island) along with the others were formed from the same processes that created Monkey Cave.  The bay is studded with limestone islands, remnants of a karst landscape that was drowned by the sea.  Each island (really, large sea stacks with vertical sides) is covered by tropical forests and fringed by mangrove swamps.  It is magnificent and mysterious looking in the rain and mist that enveloped our boat on this afternoon’s voyage. 

Koh Panyee:  None of the islands have enough of a coast for settlement.  Their sides plunge into the sea.  Nevertheless, a village of about 200 homes has developed off the island of Panyee. Every structure is built on stilts and they are all connected by boardwalks.  As a fishing village it is several centuries old, but now it is also a tourist destination you can even take a room here for 500 baht.  Panyee's population is Muslim and they are raising funds to build a mosque (though they have always had a masjid, or praying place).   It must be wild to be a kid here.

Geographically yours,

D.J.Z.

Into the Hills

Excursion Day:  Chiang Mai is geared up for travelers.  You can rent bikes and scooters, take hiking excursions into the mountains, or arrange shorter bus tours.  Today, it was time for a brief excursion into the mountains to visit a hill tribe village.  It turns out the tribe was the Hmong, one of five or six tribes living in northern Thailand.  Until a few decades ago, the basis of their economy was poppies.  After all, this is the ‘golden triangle.’  Now, they have transitioned to tourism and handicrafts.  In fact, to get to the real village everyone must pass through a gauntlet of shops offering lots of embroidery, traditional clothing, hats, and some jewelry; food, too.  I spent a few bhat on handicrafts in the hope of quashing any idea of returning to poppy cultivation, especially since the village had very few visitors today.  But, again, this is not tourist season here.  

We were fortunate to see a funeral taking place in the council house.  A body I could not see, but I could see the crowd of people gathered around the opposite side of the room.  Not much mourning, and I suspected a ‘celebration’ would come later because food was being prepared in lavish quantities on the back patio and decorations (I suspect for a funeral procession) were being made down a side alley.  The Hmong here are Buddhists, but they came to Thailand centuries ago from China.  So, they practice Chinese burial customs:  they bury their dead.  Thais follow the Indian burial customs: they cremate their dead, the Hindu practice. 

In Doi Pui we were maybe15 miles away from Chiang Mai, but you get to the village via a switch-back road that climbs and climbs into a rainforest.  It is both cooler and mistier in the mountains; I can see why we passed one of the King’s palaces on the way; it’s a relief being up in the hills.

Wat Prathat:  On the edge of the mountains that overlook Chiang Mai was Wat Prathat Doi Suthep temple.  A wat is a monastery temple. I cannot vouch for all these facts but essentially this is the story.  A monk discovered a relic of the Buddha and took it to the Lanna King.   The king put the relic on the back of a white elephant which was sent into the mountains around Chiang Mai.  The elephant stopped and died at what became the site of the temple here.  The first shrine built was to house the relic, a bone, but lots of other temples have been added to the site.  The aspect of the story that does not get mentioned prominently is that the monarch who commissioned the elephant and built the first part of the temple complex was the King of Lanna.  Any use of the word Lanna here in Chiang Mai hearkens back to the time when northern Thailand was a kingdom of its own.  When you visit Wat Prathat, you are seeing Lanna history, not Thai history.  The people of Chiang Mai take pride in their royal past. 

The most interesting part of the temple compound was the “cemetery” that surrounded a bodhi tree.  Remember that most Buddhists in this part of the realm are cremated, so the cemetery provided individually-size cubicles for the ashes.  The cubicles were arranged around the tree trunk.  The names of the individuals, including some Americans, were inscribed on the “front door” to each compartment.  Now, their souls are in heaven with Lord Buddha.

Geographically yours,

D.J.Z.

It Tickles

I chose to stay in a hostel here in Chiang Mai, but I took a private room with air conditioning.  Breakast on the front patio is included.  It is inside the moat, meaning in the old city.  Most of the tourist hotels are well outside the historical core.

Doctor Fish:  My feet took a leap into the deep today.  I couldn’t resist a fish massage; that is, I let a tank of fish massage my feet.  I had never heard of this before arriving in Chiang Mai, but on the very street where I am staying, I discovered Fish Spa.  I read the sign, walked past, laughed out loud (lol), went back.  In the window was a tank full of ‘guppies’ that looked like tiny catfish; they were the doctor fish.  First, the proprietress washed my feet on the front step.  In I went, hopped up on a bench behind an aquarium, and dangled my feet in the water.  The little guppies started a feeding frenzy.  It tickled.  They scoured all dead skin and who knows what else off my fleshy phalanges.  Especially the areas between my toes did they like.  This lasted half an hour.  Now truthfully, I can’t say my feet felt any better, but it was an experience I will never forget.  I wonder if a franchise in Virginia Beach might find a market.

Serendipity is wonderful.  A fish massage was not my objective this morning.  Getting a haircut was.  Be assured, though, that I did get my hair cut right outside the main gate to Chaing Mai.  (Yes, all the old gates survive!)  I was the only customer.  I got a shampoo, a head massage, and a haircut for $5.  Now, I look Thai and I have added to my international collection of haircuts.  Remember:  “The haircut is the souvenir that doesn’t take up any room in your luggage!”  Where did you get your last haircut?

Chiang Mai:  Chiang Mai is a big city with a small town atmosphere.  I can see why Americans like it here.  There are thousands.  I hear they get together and celebrate July 4 every year (sponosred by the VFW).  I met a teacher who had given up on California (where he wasn’t even a teacher), moved to Thailand, and got a job in a government school.  Instruction is in English.  He says there is a plan in the offing to provide all instruction in English for all students.  Not verified, but it does make sense.  Thailand has its own hill tribes that do not speak Thai, plus none of the neighboring countries speaks a mutually intelligible tongue.  English will help modernize and knit the region (southeast Asia) together.  If you need a job teaching English as a second language, come to Thailand.  You will need a certificate, but you can get one here.  There are flyers all over.  In India, the role of English may be explainable by England’s overly long colonization.  In Thailand, however, there was no colonial period, and English has no history.  I suspect the first infatuation came during the Vietnam War when Thailand meant R&R for American troops.  The Thais learned that English meant money. 

The cost of living here is very low, and the city has apparently become a mecca for retirees, from both the US and Europe.  Housing is cheap and foreigners can own property (but not the land).  Plus, all the amenities are here or a quick hour-flight-to-Bangkok away.  Coffee shops, pubs, restaurants, sidewalk food vendors are ubiquitous.  I am finding free wifi here much more easily than in Bangkok.  I like this laid-back town.  Judging from the newspapers available, so do the French, Germans, and Italians.  The newspapers look like they have been printed on a large-format printer and stapled together.  News stands abound, and there are at least a dozen used book shops.

 

Geographically yours,

D.J.Z.