Taman Negara

We took advantage of our 4 day Chinese New Year weekend and headed to Taman Negara with Chris and Cindy. The Malaysians claim that Taman Negara is the oldest rain forest in the world. At 130 million years old, it has not been effected by either Ice Ages or geological upheavals. It was established as a park in 1937 and is Malaysia's oldest and most prestigious national park. The name Taman Negara, in fact, translates as 'national park'. We spent two days in the park.
On the first day we traveled up river in a boat to some water falls. The jungle is absolutely amazing. It is so lush and green. We kept our eyes peeled for tigers and elephants but only saw monkeys and a variety of birds. We did see elephant tracks indicating where they bathe on the river. The boat had to stop a little ways from the falls or cascade. We worked up enough of a sweat to jump in the river. The water was cool enough to be invigorating and we actually spent quite a long time enjoying the swim.
Sunday was Maureen's birthday. We hiked to the beginning of the canopy walk. We were a little surprised to find out that we had about an hour wait to up to the canopy. It was a long weekend and as a result very busy. The wait though was definitely worth it. The canopy walkway is the longest in the world at over 600 meters. At its highest point you are 45 meters off the floor of the jungle. The view of the vegetation is incredible. It really demonstrates what a carbon sink the rain forests are.
After our canopy walk we decided (mainly my idea I think) to get away from the crowds and head off down a less traveled trail to a hilltop a few kilometers away. Walking in a tropical rain forest is quite a bit different from hiking Pulpit Rock back home. The roots of the giant trees, like the pelong, kedondong, and mersawa, are so close to the surface that avoiding tripping over them is a real challenge. Once we left the main trail the secondary trail was much more difficult to follow. Vegetation grows so fast, it is hard for the park staff to keep the trails maintained although with the markers on the tree and the fact we were following the river made this task not too difficult. The biggest problem were the leeches. We had read all about the jungle leeches in our Lonely Planet book and in other places but really had no idea what the reality of them was like. It had been raining for a few days after a dry spell and they were as active as they can be. Most are little tiny beasts about the diameter of a toothpick and 1 and 1/2 inches long. As soon as we stopped they attacked. They would head for your shoes in inchworm fashion at blinding speeds (well kind of fast). They would then crawl up the shoes and bury themselves in your socks. Maureen and I had our BC wool hiking socks and they were able to dig through these really fast. It took us a while to realize what was happening and by the time we did we were thoroughly leeched. I'm not sure if this was the kind of birthday adventure Maureen wanted or imagined. We hiked for a couple a kilometers before it started to rain (it rains a lot in a rain forest we found out). The leeches and the rain turned us back but not before we had some great views of the rain forest and had come upon an abandoned Orang Asli settlement. Next time we head into the jungle we'll be a little better prepared for the beggars with leech proof socks. These socks have a very dense weave they apparently can't get through.
The village that borders the park is situated on the river. You do have to catch a boat and cross the river to access the park. The village has many floating restaurants and that evening we found one. I'm always amazed the chefs/cooks here tend to prepare one plate at a time and so the dinners come out in stages. We used to think we had to wait for one another before we ate but we have given up on that and so meals are a rather staggered affair. The first person served will often finish their meal before the last person is served.
We retreated to our hotel (Rainforest Lodge) after dinner. A number of families, whose children attend our school, were there. Once they found out it was Maureen's birthday all the little primary children gathered round and sang her 'Happy Birthday'. I don't imagine that ever happened in high school. One of the moms had even brought some cake which she shared with us. This got me off the hook somewhat.


The roots actually served as steps on inclines. The trails were criss-crossed them.



The river boats did not draw a lot of water. It was amazing to see how much the river fluctuated from the rainy season, which is just waning, to now. The high water mark was clearly visible about 3 meters above the level it was this weekend. We could even notice a rise of about 1 foot during the rains that occurred while we were there.

We did spend a fair bit of time waiting out the rain. When it came down, it came down in torrents. So we took to playing cards and drinking bad coffee.

On the way home we stopped at a local market and ended up buying quite a few things. Daily necessities mainly, as they are much cheaper than in the city. We haven't gotten to buying meat in these markets yet. There are always so many fish which don't look too bad. The smell however can be a little overwhelming.

Laos

Laos was so different from Bali. It also is a beautiful country with lovely people. Visiting both countries in succession really does demonstrate how geography, location, natural resources, history, etc. affects the development and culture of a country. Both countries really are special in their own way.
We followed the main tourist route in Laos. We flew into the capital,Vientiane where we spent a couple of days, bussed to Vang Vieng for a few more and then finished off our visit at Luang Prabang. The highlight of it all, I suppose, was a two day trek we took out of Luang Prabang into the mountains where we visited some hill tribe villages.
Again there is so much to describe and share that I'll stick with one thing, the trek. We booked our trip through Fair Trek. If anyone plans to visit Laos I would suggest you book adventures either through them or Green Discovery, both are local Laos companies and a significant portion of fees supports the villages the companies lead clients through. Our trip started with a long tail boat ride up the Nam(River) Khan. We started off with a guide and the three of us but were joined along the way by 7 others, couples from New Zealand, Holland, and England as well a lawyer from Paris. And again Maureen and I increased the mean age considerably.
Once we crossed the river, we hiked through rice paddies and teak plantations to the first village about 45 minutes into our hike. We began our climb after this. Our trip began winding up through a steep little valley that eventually widened out into magnificant vistas.. The climb was not too difficult although the descent later on in the day posed some difficulty for Maureen's knee. The views were simply incredible.

Our hike took us past a couple of villages. Each time we would be greeted by lots of little children smiling and giving us the 'high five'. The women would be busy working either, cooking, weaving, processing rice, or dealing with the children. Men were rarely seen. Occasionally we would see one with a rifle or crossbow heading into the bush. We once asked why we didn't see or hear any birds or animals on our trip. I think hunting explains why. This is their dry season so the rice fields were empty and it is their 'holiday' period.
We arrived at the village where we were to stay the night, 6 hours into our hike. There are about 35 families in the village. The homes are made from woven reeds, thatch roofs, and bamboo poles. Old age does have its advantages as Maureen and I were hosted by the chief of the village. A few of the villagers have set up 'guest houses' for the trekkers that pass through, the chief had the nicest ones. The guest houses are as primitive as the villagers own homes but comfortable enough. The toilets are outside and are the squat type with a bucket of water and scoop flush. Bathing is a public event, communal, at the shared water fountain. The beds are raised off the floor and protected with mosquito netting. Maureen found ours quite hard although I didn't really notice. We had comforters for bedding, next time we will bring along sleeping bag liners.
The village seemed to have a high proportion of children. Our guide told us that it was not uncommon for a family to have up to 10 children. I imagine the mortality rate is quite high. Those under 5 wondered around freely, either naked or only covered by a t-shirt. The women were all busy weaving thatch together for roofs or processing the rice. The older women all seemed to be chewing a red concoction of tobacco, roots, and other herbs. I'm sure from the look in their eyes there must be some kind of opiate in it. Every once in a while they would spit a red projectile off without warning and in any direction. The men seemed to mainly sit around keeping the fires going. There had been a wedding the night before and many were recovering from consuming Lao whiskey(home brew rice whiskey) or continuing the party. We were invited to join in on some of the circles. The whiskey is either shared with one glass or sucked up through a communal straw from a jug.
It was amazing how independent the children were, quite a contrast to over supervised and pampered children of the west. I woke up early in the morning and saw one little duffer (about 4 or 5) gather firewood and take a lighted stick from a neighbor's fire, walk the 100 meters to his fire and light it. His family stumbled out of their hut a half hour later or so to join him. Again he was dressed only in a t-shirt. I was bundled up in two layers of jackets. The village was quite high in the mountains and it really was cold at night and in the morning. On the other hand all the kids seemed to have runny noses and whoopy coughs.
Cole seemed to be a hit with the kids young and older in the village. He was usually surrounded the little ones and he spent his time giving them helicopter rides or playing a bean game with the wee ones. He, and by extension we, got invited to join an older group of youths socializing together. It was nightfall by this time and the only light was by candle and/or starlight. They were gathered in one of the villager's houses around a candle and a jug of Lao-Lao. One of the boys was playing a traditional flute type instrument. In order to court one another a girl would sing to a boy she was interested in speaking to and he would respond in song. There was an elder there supervising the whole event. The music, the singing, the candlelight, and even a bit of Lao-lao made it a magical event.
Our guest house on the right.


The setting for the village was stunning.


Maureen watching the women at work. We watched a girl about 10 years old smash the rice inside the hollow log shown here. They smash it with a stick (log) about 4 ft long and 6 inches in diameter to remove the husk from the rice. It looked she had been at it all day. We both tried a shift, it was hard work. Here the older women are inspecting to see if the rice is ready to sift.



Cole playing a bean game with some of the village kids.

This is a typical scene. The women were working on weaving thatch for roofs while the children roamed about. This particular women was weaving until dark and was back at it when I pulled myself out of bed at 6:30 in the morning.

On the second day we separated from the others and headed off for more hiking in the mountains. The others were heading down to the river where they were going elephant riding. Maureen was much more interested in joining them than staying with us but we managed to keep her from jumping ship. This first village was Khmer. On our second day we traveled a bit higher in the mountains and stopped by a Hmoung village. There isn't much difference in looks or activity but they do each have a unique language. The Khmers have been in Laos since the 14th century while the Hmoung are more recent immigrants from China. They fled persecution in China about 150 years ago. During the Vietnam War the Hmoung were recruited by the US to wage guerilla warfare on the North Vietnamese who were using Laos as a supply line for their soldiers in southern Vietnam, the Ho Chi Minh trail. During this time eastern Laos became the most heavily bombed place on the planet. For nine years there were $2 million worth of bombs dropped on Laos each day. There are still many UEO's in Laos. (Unexploded ordinances) It was no surprise that after the Vietnam war the Lao turned to China and North Vietnam for support and became a communist country. Because the Hmoung supported the US they have become outcasts.
This is the Hmoung village. The women are working on stitching for blankets or some other craft to be sold in the night market at Luang Prabang. One big difference we noticed here was the children were fully clothed.
After visiting this village we had a long descent back down to the river. Once there we had another boat ride to some waterfalls for a swim. Maureen even got an elephant ride at this point.

The trek included many special moments. For example we came upon this woman heading down the hill with a full basket of firewood. She claimed she was 95 years old, she certainly looked it. After her short break we saw her stand up with the full load and then balance on each foot as she took her flip-flops off the other one to cross the stream.

Following are miscellaneous photos and comments of various other points of our trip to Laos.


Luang Prabang has many monasteries. Every dawn the monks and novices follow a route through the village to collect offerings of food from the villagers. This will consist of their only meal for the day. Some of the monks are very young, as young as 8 years old. The rest of their day is spent in meditation, study of Buddhist law, and maintanence of monastery or temple.


Sitting and watching the sunset was a highlight each day. Whether is was on the Nam Song in Vang Vieng as in the top photo or at a cafe on the Mekong in Vientiane(below) it became a favourite way to wind down at the end of the day with a Beer Lao.




Vang Vieng is kind of a wild west show. It is a backpackers hang out. One of the main attractions for young backpackers is to tube down the river. There are a number of stops along the river where one can take a rope swing out like Cole is here. (We made the stop on our kayak trip.) There are 'big' water slides into the river too. This all happens with consumption of copious amounts of beer and Vang Vieng's own rendition of the 'happy' shake, usually a concoction of alcohol, opium, metaphetamines, and anything else the bartender wishes to throw in. The whole scene was all a bit too much for Maureen and me.

Bali

Bali is beautiful. The landscape and people are so peaceful and gentle. We spent the first few days in Kuta, the main beach resort. This was two days too much. It is a touristy place full of too many loud Aussies. Our Aussie friends from school warned us of this and pleaded with us not to judge all of them by those found at Kuta. We stayed in a rather nice boutique hotel though and enjoyed the food and the shopping that Kuta had to offer. We did hire a car and driver one day and explored around visiting a temple and did some snorkeling. Cole managed to meet some locals and kept himself occupied surfing and checking out the nightlife. The highlight of Kuta was definitely watching the sunsets at the beach. Everyone would gather to watch and awe at the sight. Musicians would play, there would be soccer and volleyball games going on, the hawkers were out in full force, and mostly people sat and basked in the beauty.
After Kuta we spent 7 days in Ubud. Ubud is the cultural centre of Bali and was certainly incredible. So many images and memories will be stuck with us forever. My highlight definitely was a bike tour we did. We were picked up early in the morning and driven to the ridge of one of the active volcanoes on the island (last eruption was 1963). Here we had a great breakfast looking over onto the lake with a view of the three craters of the volcano. From here we were driven to a little interpretation centre where they process coffee. I got to see how coffee was roasted the traditional way over an open fire. Bali has their own style of coffee. After roasting they grind it into the finest powder imaginable, it is then served as a sort of instant coffee or basically camp boil-up coffee. Strong, with a sludge about an inch thick in the bottom. We also got to try some of the most expensive coffee in the world, Lemack coffee. This coffee is gather from the feces of a cat-like animal, the Lemack. (Yes you read that right) Apparently the cat only eats coffee beans that are at the perfect stage of ripeness. Funny, it sort of tasted like s--t too. (Of course this leads to many questions I didn't ask like: Who figured this out? and If the cat is eating this stuff why isn't it digesting it? Maybe it is like corn) Anyway we started our bike ride after this tour. Since we had gone up to the volcano the biking was downhill and easy. The countryside was unbelievably beautiful and very traditional. We saw women walking to market with bundles, baskets and whatever balanced on their heads. People bathing in the streams by the side of the road. Priests leading a group of worshipers to the village temple. Workers at every stage of the rice production, tilling, planting, weeding, harvesting, and thrashing. Our guide was great and he spent a lot of time explaining everything to us. We even got to try thrashing the rice. We visited a family compound and saw how most Balinese still live. It is interesting as each region specializes in a certain craft or trade as well as rice production. The village where we visited a family were mat weavers. Others would be wood carvers or painters or some other trade. In the family compound there will be 5 or 6 extended families living communally. Everyone has a role in the production of their craft and rice production. Even the old granny had a job to do. After our ride we were treated to a feast of smoked duck and other wonderful treats.
We did a number of other things in Ubud that were all great. We went river rafting on Christmas Day. The scenery along the route incredible. We saw tropical birds and monkeys. We were pummeled by waterfalls dropping from the 30 metre high canyon we were in. At one point there were reliefs carved into the rocks for about 500 metres.
We rented scooters and headed to a beach on the other side of the island and got lost and separated on the way back.
We ate and ate. The food was fantastic. Maureen and Cole took a Balinese cooking class and so we will be able to try some of their food at home.
We went to the Kecak Fire Dance with a chorus of 100 men. We went to a Lebong Dance at Ubud palace. Both we unique and another highlight.
The markets and shopping were plentiful so Maureen had a great time shopping. Everything imaginable is available. She has become a master bargainer.
I rented a mountain bike a few times and went exploring the countryside. Again the sights were astounding such as men gathered in a circle massaging their cocks (oops did that come out wrong, roosters that is) and then pitting them against each other.
I've left some pictures which can't do Bali justice.
Maureen checking things out in the market.
The reliefs on the rafting trip.
Women throughout the countryside carried their loads on their heads. This lady was carrying a basket of offerings to the small temples in the rice fields. All the fields are terraced and she would make the 3 step up to the next terrace without skipping a beat or dropping her load. This was the area we stopped to thrash rice and we soon gathered a troop of children and other curious locals.
It was difficult to get a good photo of the dancers because of the light but the movements were so graceful and beautiful.

Cole's Here

Cole arrived last Monday. The week has even gone by faster with him here. Monday was a holiday so we did have a bit of a chance to show him around the neighbourhood a little bit. He has spent some time at school with us and managed to check out things downtown. I took my 'personal day' Friday and we did some bike riding and checked out Batu Caves. Batu Caves is a Hindu Shrine. The caves are enormous. The entrance has a flight a flight of 272 steps leading to the Temple Cave. We were informed as we climbed that each step taken on the stairs adds one day to your life. (I might do this a few more times in the next year) At the foot of the stairs is golden statue of Muruga, a Hindu deity. It is about 100 feet tall and is quite an impressive sight. The caves go back into the mountain quite a distance and there are a number of Hindu shrines within the caves. In February they celebrate Thaipusam. Thousands of Hindus descend on Batu Caves, the men pierce their tongues and cheeks with metal skewers and attach hooks through various parts of their body as an act of penance and to honor Murgura. The women carry large coconut milk pots to fulfill their vows of penance. I think they get off a little easier.


Cole with a friend inside Batu Caves.






Here is a clip of a section of the road that we bike up to Genting Highlands. You can see how quiet, green and beautiful the ride is.




Last night we took Cole down to the center of Kuala Lumpur. This is really only the third time we have been there since we've come. We got caught in a major traffic jam getting there and got lost for about an hour on the way home. I don't imagine we'll be heading back there too often. It is a great place to just walk around and enjoy the sights and sounds of a big city though. We went to dinner at Jalan Alor. This is a street restaurant area. The food is local, good, and cheap. After that we wondered the streets checking out the sights. I've included a couple videos of hip-hop dancers. On one corner the dancers gather and the groups challenge each other. A performer from one group will do a few moves and then the other group will send out someone to respond. They really are quite talented.



















Cole left this morning for Penang to spend a day or two. He will then catch the ferry to Langkawi, an island on the east side of Malaysia just south of Thailand. He took up an offer of one the parents of a student in my class and will stay at the Sheraton Beach Resort.(The dad is the GM of the resort.) A rough backpackers life. Maureen and I are left this week to take part in all the Christmas activities. Today we are attending a couple of open houses, one is a cookie exchange thing and another is an invitation from one of my parents for Gluhwein n' cookies. On Tuesday we are going to the Canadian High Commissioners residence for a carole sing and party, complements, of course, of all the generous Canadian taxpayers. (Merci by the way.)
Friday was the staff Christmas party. It was a great event. We were able to bring Cole along and he got to see how wild teachers can be. The food was good. The dancing lasted until the wee hours. After we headed out to one of the local establishments. Maureen and I were chased out not too long after we arrived by the smoke (everyone smokes here) and the loud music. We left Cole hooked up with some of the single teachers who managed to take good care of him.

On Friday school is out at noon and we head off soon after for Bali. The blog alas will be quieter than usual for a while. We are in Bali until December 30, we then return to KL and head off to Laos on January 1st. We are in Laos until the 10th of January. School starts up for us on January 12th.
Maureen and I hope that everyone has a wonderful Christmas and New Year. Right now the pangs for home are strong as we miss friends, routines, and yes even the snow. All of you are in our thoughts and we really wish you the best.

Best of Broadway! Lah!!

This is the town square at Fraser Hill. Fraser's Hill is at 1500m and hence a lot cooler than KL.


The title was the name of the drama production put on at the school this week. The Lah is a Malaysian thing. Sentences in English are usually ended with lah or can lah. I guess the way Canadians say, eh. I tried to include a movie clip of the finale but had problems. Instead I put a short clip from the play from the Annie section. A lot of my Grade 5 munchkins were involved in this. The scale of the production of the production was something else to behold. About 250 kids from Grades 2 to 12 were involved. The level of talent is very high. A lot of parents, I'm sure, have had their kids take voice and drama lessons. Maureen and I worked at all three performances as 'head of the house'. I'm not really sure what our duties were other than supervising the ushers and making sure the audience behaved itself during the performances (no flash photography, no crying kids etc.). The director is a cute little Filipino gal, who has studied drama all over the world including some famous school in New York. She is married to a Canadian fellow and just completed her Master's last year at Simon Fraser. We thought the production was an unbelievable undertaking but found out the 'big one' is in the spring. The extra-curricular expectations here are pretty high. I guess when parents (well their companies in 99% of the cases) pay $22500US in tuition a year they can expect a lot in return.

Maureen has been bagged all week after her adventure in Singapore. She went with 7 other teachers, 5 from our school and 2 from another international school. They decided to fly because the price difference between the bus and plane was negligible. The problem arose when there flight was delayed in the return by 5 hours. She didn't arrive in our condo until 3:15am Monday morning. Needless to say this kind of slowed her down for the week and has left her fighting a cold. Other than that she really enjoyed Singapore.
Singapore was part of Malaysia for a short time in the early 60's. Singaporeans are mainly of Chinese decent and after a series of squabbles with the Malaysians they were booted out of the union of Malay states in 1965. From 1959 to 1990 Singapore was ruled by Lee Kuan Yew. He pushed through an ambitious plan of modernization and industrialization that has created one of the most prosperous cities in the world. He and his political allies have also created one of the most controlled states in the world. Maureen was scared to death of dropping a kleenex out of her purse or some other such offense as there is an immediate $500 fine. There seem to be rules and fines for everything including gum chewing. The other side of this of course is that everything is very well organized and run. There are no traffic jams in Singapore. People actually signal and shoulder check when they change lanes there. Crime is non-existent. Those in possession of drugs are executed. There is no defense or excuse.
The other downside of being in such a prosperous city is that everything is extremely expensive and believe it or not Maureen didn't shop. She really does like bargains. She did have a Singapore Sling at Raffles though and checked out the city thoroughly.

Saturday night the Parent Association hosted a dinner for teachers. The theme was western. The group was rather small but we managed to have fun. Maureen taught a group of keeners a five or six line dances. As the event was outside this was enough. They all needed to wring out their clothes after. All this is still a bit hard to comprehend. It's turned December, the Christmas decorations are up but it is so hot and humid outside.

Today we drove up to the hill resort of Fraser Hill. We managed to get in a little hike. There are lots of birds up there. We were looking for exotic types like hornbills etc. but only managed to run into a large owl. There were a number of Malaysian bird watchers on the trail when we told them of the owl they were unbelievably excited about this and we had to show them where we saw it. I guess owl are rarer than hornbills in Malaysia. The cameras and lenses these guys had were very large and expensive. We did have to pull off a few leaches after our walk. They like to crawl inside your socks.




Broadway Lah video.

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.

Week 16

That is hard to believe. We've been here for 16 weeks and it still feels like we are just beginning to settle in. As we listen to report of snow and the onset of winter back home it seems even more strange. The weather is the same now as it was when we arrived. 32 degrees and humid. On the way up the elevator today, a little girl and her dad got on with us. The girl was in a school uniform and we started talking to her about school. Her dad said that at the end of this week, a seven week holiday would start. Maureen asked if it was their summer holiday. They kind of gave us a funny look and said, "No it is just holidays." I guess it is always summer here. Sunrise and sunset has also been consistent. The sun has risen at 7:00 am and sets about 7:00 pm everyday.

Well, for those of you following the blog you'll be happy to know that no shame was brought to the Bukit Utama Line Dancing Club on account of Maureen. She enjoyed herself last week but has decided that 3 days per week are a little too much of line dancing even for her. She will back off to one apparently. I've included a picture of some members of the club and one of the whole group preparing to strut their stuff.


On Wednesday (Tuesday back in NA remember) we were invited to one of the American teachers condos for an election party. There are a number of Americans at the school and they were ecstatic with Obama's win. I think we were invited to accept an apology on behalf of the group, who had for the last 8 years been claiming to be Canadians when traveling around, as they were embarrassed about their leadership and foreign policies. Here is a photo of them smiling and flashing the V sign.

Last week was an awful week at school. On Tuesday, one of Maureen's Grade 2 PE students, asked to go see the school nurse part way the morning. She was complaining of being dizzy and nauseous. The nurse called her mom to come and get her. Her condition rapidly got worse and by the time the mom arrived the nurses had already made arrangements for her to be transported to a doctor's office about a 1/2 block away. They immediately called for an ambulance and rushed her to the hospital. She was put on life support right away but did not make it. The whole school is still reeling from the shock and speed of her death. Tomorrow evening her memorial service will be held at the school.
The school really is a center in the lives of the students and parents whose children attend there. Yesterday(Sunday) I was at school doing some work and about 30 families(all Swedes, if I can judge by the blond hair) showed up to play game on the sports field. It was neat watching the families all have fun together. The school is the expat families focal point. Hence the reason for the memorial service at the school.

Friday night about 50 of us hopped on a bus and rode to the Heineken brewery for a tour. One of the parents from the school is the master brewer and he invited us for a tour. It was rather interesting. We got to see the production end of things which was rather fascinating considering the volume they put through. 70000 cans and 50000 bottles and a bunch of kegs every hour. What most enjoyed, of course, was the opportunity to sample their products in pub that they have. They also fed us and gave us a goodie bag at the end of the night. I've included a photo of some of the revellers.

The rest of the weekend was pretty quiet. We did manage a bike ride ourselves out to the rubber plantation. It is actually quite close to us and provides a bit of a respite from the city. I've included a photo of the planation itself and one of a tree being tapped.