Carpets

Carpets have been sort of theme over the past two weekends. Last Sunday we accompanied Chris and Cindy to a Persian carpet auction. They had been there the day before, bought 5 carpets and were going to show us the ropes. Apparently Chris has done considerable research on carpets so he was going to give us expert advice. Another teacher, Laura (from Regina via Laos), also joined us. The Iranian carpet fellow was having a 4 day auction, Sat/Sun last weekend and this weekend, selling 104 carpets each day. Well, when the auction started Maureen started to bid on the first carpet but Cindy outbid her and got it. Our group bought the first 6 carpets brought out to auction. We ended up with two rather nice ones, a runner and the one pictured above. I kind of dragged Maureen out, kicking and screaming, after we bought these two. Good thing because Chris and Cindy bought 8 more and Laura bought 5. They do go really cheap and they are beautiful handwoven carpets. (There are some advantages living in a Muslim country as trade between Iran and Malaysia is free and open.) This weekend Maureen is in Singapore with some of her primary teaching buddies. My job was to go back to the auction and look and see if there were some that were going really cheap and pick up a few as gifts to take home. Well ,I went but I failed in my task. I ended up buying a rather nice larger carpet and then I hightailed it out of there. It is so beautiful and went for such a good price.
Report cards are over and done with. I got to spend my birthday doing parent teacher interviews. 100% of the parents turned up for their interview. They are all very keen and concerned about their child's education. Now Maureen and I in the middle of our teaching assessments. Maureen had her first visitation by the principal last Friday, fortunately no one drowned (her station is the pool now). Mine is next week.
I had the weekend to myself with Maureen in Singapore (except for a couple of hours at the carpet thing, but they feed you an Iranian lunch, so it was ok) I went biking up Genting Highlands again. I really love that ride. It is so lush and green and virtually no traffic on the road. It is about a 18 km ride to the top which takes a little over an hour and a half. The ride down is fast and wild. I was on my own and I guess the monkeys think you are an easier target. I had two of them charge at me. It is a bit freaky as you know they can leap about 30 ft if they want to. Last thing I want is some monkey putting his fangs into my neck. I need pepper spray!!
I knew I was going for an even longer ride today so I went for a massage last night. The only massage I've been able to find is of the Thai massage variety. The women who do the massage are all pretty stocky and very strong. With a Thai massage, the masseuse digs her elbows or feet between each muscle fiber in your body. They stand and lean into the massage with as much force as possible. The more you call out in pain the harder they seem to push. After the massage they then wrap your body up into unbelievable contortions. It feels good at the end but I think I'm going to find a gentler variety of massage.
Today, Malcolm (a teacher from Manitoba who retired, moved to BC and then figured he wasn't quite ready for retirement) and I did a 65 km ride to and from Fraser Hill. Fraser Hill is another old tea plantation and ex-get-away for the expats to a cooler climate. This is another curvy road up the mountain. This is the main road to Fraser Hill but still had very little traffic on it. The ride was great even though we got caught in a tropical rain storm on the way home.

Old fart on the road up to Fraser Hill. After the parent teacher interviews we went out to dinner with another teaching couple from the school (Australian). The guy shares the same birthday as me, only two decades earlier. This is a large reservoir of drinking water for KL.A sample of the jungle views on the ride up. Looks like BC except that the vegetation is all tropical: palms, bamboo, etc. And when we got soaked by the rain, we were warm. While we were stopped here we could hear the monkeys jabbering away in the trees around us.