From Perth to the Philippines

There has been a considerable time lag between this post and the last one.  Our life in Malaysia has kept us very busy.  Both of us have been coaching teams.  I coached a U11 Girls' Soccer team.  This age group always brings some interesting experiences.  Maureen took on two teams this past term, despite everyone warning her against it.  She coached the Jr. Boys' Basketball team again this year and took up the post as senior coach of the Girls' Varsity Softball team.  The end result was that she exhausted herself trying to run different practices and games on the same day.  The softball team provided some fringe benefits as she traveled to both Singapore and Bangkok for tournaments with the team.  The concept of 'fringe benefits' is used loosely here, as accompanying a group of 15 to 17 year old girls to a foreign country is no holiday. Despite the coaching and the rest of the work related to school we did manage to make a trip to Perth, host Bruce and Lois Morrison, get in a rafting trip, lead a group on a high ropes adventure in the jungle, and head to the Philippines for a convention and beach holiday.  I also took a quick trip home in mid-February as my mom had developed some complications after falling and breaking her hip.  Things looked a little grim for her for a few days but she has now perked up and is on the road to recovery.  It was nice to get home and see her, as well as Cole and Alana, my brothers and their families, but the 5 day turn around left me rather exhausted.


We left KL for Perth as the festivities for Chinese New Year were heating up in Malaysia.  Perth seemed rather sedate and western after the pace of South-east Asia and this brought a nice relief for us. We went to see a high school friend of Maureen's who had traveled to Australia soon after high school and stayed.  Barb and her husband, Kevin, proved to be great hosts and we had a good time getting reacquainted with them and some other transplanted Nanaimoites in Australia and discovering Perth and the area around it.

Maureen and Barb on a Perth beach in Scarborough.  The weather here was perfect.  Warm but no humidity,  I didn't have to change shirts three times a day.

On our second day in Perth we took ferry to Rottnest Island, rented bikes and road around exploring beaches.  Perth is located in South-West Australia where there is a lot of mining happening.  We found things to be rather expensive compared with cost of living in KL.

The biking was easy as it was fairly flat.  We got to see quokkers (sp??) here.  Tiny little things that look like some sort of cross between a rat and a kangaroo.

Barb and Kevin keep a house boat at Mandurah, a toney resort community south of Perth.  We spent an evening on their house boat and then went out the next day to go crabbing in the Peel Inlet.

Sunset shots on the dock.  The marina was full of very big and expense boats.  As we cruised out of the harbour to go crabbing we seemed to pass thousands of million dollar homes. 
 

Hauling in crabs.

All of our visitors are taken to the Sky Bar now.  It has an incredible view of the twin towers.  We dragged Lois and Bruce here a couple of nights after they arrived.  The lounge is on the 33rd floor of a neighbouring hotel and is dwarfed by the towers.

The other place we like to take people to is Malacca. Her Maureen is walking with the Morrisons along the canal in the older Chinese section of the town. St. Francis Xavier Church is in the background.

Another stop on the tour of Malacca is the place where St. Francis Xavier was entombed for a few months before he was shipped to his final resting place in Goa, India.  Here are some local school girls hamming it up for photos by the tombstones.

Bruce, being helpful as ever, is filling out a questionnaire for some school girls on a scavenger hunt, inside La Formosa, an old Portuguese fort.

Manila is a shoppers paradise.  The goods are plentiful and cheap.  Here at Green Hills there were about 200 pearl stalls all vying for the ladies' business.

Hannah, the one in the yellow dress, is from Manila and so she led the assault on the stores.  Assembled here are the teachers from MKIS ready to take on the shops at Green Hills.

Maureen and I did take time to do a little site seeing in Manila.  We went to the old section of town and explored around the Spanish colonial area of Intramuros, built in the late 16th century.  Manila is overpopulated and polluted with sections of extreme poverty.  Despite this the people are welcoming and friendly.  English is widely spoken so it was easy to get around and communicate.

After the conference was over we hopped on a bus and headed south to catch a ferry to one of the 7107 islands in the Philippines to spend some time at the beach.  Nine of us from the school rented a house in Puerto Galera.  It was superb, sitting on a point overlooking one of the many bays.  It came with a maid who cleaned and cooked for us.

We were  about 1 1/2 km from the town itself and so enjoyed the hike into the village for groceries or meals.

This was the little local beach just down the steps from the house we rented.  The weather was perfect.  The temperature was about 32 degrees with a slight overcast and a nice breeze to keep the mosquitoes away.

We could go down the beach and watch the local fishermen haul in their catch for the day.  They never seemed to have much in their boats but what they did have was shared with everyone on the beach.

The boys went to watch some cock fighting, which was being held in an arena right next to the rental.  Here one of the winners is being sewed up for the next time.  It is a rather brutal affair.  There are no draws only ones that live through it and ones that die.

Some of us spent an afternoon sailing.  Peter, our guide, dropped us off at one spot to go snorkeling.  The snorkeling was actually very good but unfortunately the current at the time was so strong it was a little tricky in the water.

Sunset from the sail boat.  We did have a great day with strong winds ending with a beautiful sunset.  The only thing we missed was seeing the dolphins that abound in the waters.

There are two main forms of public transportation on the island, tricycles, as shown above and jeepneys, extended jeeps with bench seats.  Here Maureen and I are on our way to Sabang a diving area on another part of the island.

The little tricycles were used for hauling both people and goods.  Here they are stacking up a load of furniture but you would also see them loaded down with produce and other goods to be shuttled from one part of the island to another.

We want to go back to the Philippines again sometime.  We explored one area besides Manila and of course while we were there learned of lots of other places to see.  That kind of reflects our whole experience outside of  Malaysia.  We have a taste of South-East Asia, just a nibble.  Just enough to whet the appetite.
We spent the first day on our return to KL dealing with passport renewal.  We've used up all the available pages in our passports and need to renew.

Thaipusam and Bawang Assan Longhouse

We do get a lot of holidays at MKIS.  Our weekend was book marked with Thaipusam on Friday and Kuala Lumpur Federal Territory Day on Monday.

We went out to the Batu Caves, the site of Thaipusam, on Thursday evening with a couple of other teachers from school.  The festivities are in full swing on Friday and into Saturday but there were enough pilgrims on Thursday night to get the flavour of the event.  I called it Thaipusam Lite.  Batu Caves have been a Hindu shrine for over 200 years.  The caves are enclosed in a massive limestone outcrop.  The entrance to the cave is up a flight of 272 steps.  Sitting at the foot of the stairs is a massive golden statue of Muruga.

During Thaipusam the steps and the area at the base of the stairs to the caves is overtaken by over 1 million pilgrims.  Pilgrims take part in Thaipusam for two reasons, either to give thanks for some special blessing they have received during the year or to make penance for some sin they have committed.  On Thursday night there were no more than a couple thousand pilgrims taking part in the pilgrimage up the mountain.  There are a couple of sights along a near by river where the pilgrims gather to prepare for their ascent up the stairs.  The first first step cleanse themselves either in the river or at the temporary outside shower stalls put up at the river site.  Most of the men and some of the women will then get their heads shaved.  They then dress themselves in a golden or yellow robe for the pilgrimage.

Most of the folks we saw were families and after cleansing themselves they would pick up their pitchers of milk and line up to be blessed by one of the priests before heading up on their pilgrimage.  There were a few hardcore devotees who prepared themselves in a special way for their walk up the stairs.

One fellow had what looked like a BBQ skewer shoved through one cheek and out the other.  He also had small hooks on his back.  His task was to walk up the stairs holding a burning offering in each hand.  The flames were rather big.  We walked beside him as he stumbled up the stairs. It was quite a struggle for him to make it.  Another fellow had large hooks placed into his back with numerous bunches of fruit attached, apples, oranges.

We spent at least an hour watching another fellow have what seemed like a 100 hooks embedded into his back.  All of these had bells and flowers attached.  Once these were attached he smoked up something strange, chugged a few beer, and then proceeded to bless his followers before they all headed up the hill with him in the lead.  All these extreme devotees were accompanied by a group of drummers pounding out some iritatingly loud rythmn on their drums.

 

  

 

Bawang Assan Longhouse

We spent most of Friday lazing around our condo and packing up for our trip to Sibu.  Sibu is on the island of Borneo, in the East Malaysian sultanate of Sarawak.  Air Asia had a ticket sale on at some point last year and I picked a 5RM ($1.50) destination to explore.  That should have been the first clue that it might not be a popular destination point.  The second clue should have been when I could not glean any information from anyone on our well-traveled staff about the area.  The third definately should have been when I couldn't find any information in any of the guide books or online about Sibu.  I suppose I was holding out hope that this was the last great unexplored parcel of land in Borneo.  I was somewhat wrong.

Sibu is the third largest city in Sarawak and lies on the Rawang River.  The Rawang flows deep into Borneo and is the thoroughfare for transport and commerce into the region.  It is an enormous river and at Sibu, 60 kilometers from the coast, it is still a mile wide.  The area around Sibu is completely flat.  So flat that the tidal surges up the river at this point are still 10 to 12 ft high.  This leaves a long neglected section of sludge between the river and the shore for half of the day.  This area was filled mainly with logs and similar debris, but similar to most of South-East Asia it also has a lot of garbage.

The city is composed mostly of people of Chinese descent.  The British brought the Chinese over by the thousands during the colonial periods to work on the rubber and palm plantations.  When the British pulled out the Chinese took over pretty well all commercial interests in the area and began to rapidly expand the forestry industry deep into the interior of Borneo.  The Rawang brings thousands of logs to Sibu each day for the saw and plywood mills.  Much of the rainforests of Borneo end up here before being shipped out to be assembled into furniture for an Ikea (or whatever) near you.  Sibu apparently has more millionaires per capita than any other city in South-East Asia.  The affluence is well apparent by the palatial homes we could see on the drive from the airport into the city.  It was interesting to note that the husband in the homestay family we stayed with worked in one of the sawmills as a security guard.  He indicated that out of the 1500 employees at the mill about 1200 were Indonesian workers.  Their compensation for a 12 hour shift at the mill was 15RM, the equivalent of about $5.  A little less, I think, than the IWA wages back in BC.  Deregulation and non-union labour has benefits for some I suppose.  The sad part is that the Indonesian workers are there because it is better than opportunities in their home country.

 

This is outside of the longhouse we stayed in.  All made of wood and everyone cooks with a wood stove. Hmm.

  

The walkway in front of the longhouse.

  

The communal veranda.  During most of the day it was filled with children playing and older folks visiting.  During the evening the adults gathered to share stories and tuak.

After a long search I did find that it was possible to take part in a longhouse stay outside of Sibu so after spending the first night in Sibu we headed 50 km out of town to a Iban longhouse village called Bawang Assan.  The Iban's are an indigenous people of the region.  They were know in the past to be headhunters and although we did see evidence that this, I believe the practice was abandoned long ago.  The longhouses are the traditional dwellings of the Iban.  They stretch all along the river systems of Borneo.  The entire structures are on stilts to keep above the tidal surge that seems to be prevalent along the rivers. Here large numbers of families live under one roof with separate quarters to each off a large communal veranda.  The longhouse we stayed in had quarters for 34 families and there were 6 longhouses in the village.

 

This gruesome site was hanging from the rafters in one of the other longhouses we visited.  Our hostess didn't really want to talk about them.  There were about a dozen bundled up together.

  

The village was situated on a tributary of the Rawang, the Bawang.  This is the little jetty where everything docks.  During the day a supply boat (Walmart) visits.  I'm sure it has one of everything.

 

Back side view of the longhouse.  It was surrounded by rice fields.

We had some very gracious hosts who taught us a lot about longhouse life and Iban customs.  We got to try on some of their traditional costumes, make some of their food, and drink tuak, their home brewed rice wine.  We were actually scheduled for two nights at the longhouse but quickly realized one would be enough, so at the end of the second day we arranged for a ride to the airport and caught a flight back to KL.

 

Maureen making some cookies with our hostess.  All deep fried in palm oil of course.  The most difficult part of the process was getting down and up from the little stool.

  

Some of the cookies.  They were actually pretty yummy.

 

Dressed as Iban.  I wouldn't wear the loin cloth and Moe wouldn't go topless. Sorry.

Christmas 09 (finally)

One thing Kuala Lumpur has over the Kootenays is thunder storms. I sat on the deck for over half and hour this evening watching one pass by.  The sky would flare up and thunder would crash about every 20 seconds or so.  I was literally in the middle of it all.  This is a fairly regular occurance, a bit unnerving but quite spectacular.  And then the rain.  The sky literally opens up and it comes down in sheets.

Cole and Alana have been gone for three weeks.  So much anticipation, a blur of activity, and now it is a memory.  It was great to have them here. We had a wonderful Christmas together. Cole arrived on the 14th of December, about a week before Alana.  He hung around with us for 4 days and then took off to Yogyakarta, Indonesia's cultural/spiritual centre.  From all accounts he enjoyed his trip throughly.  He spent a couple of days visiting the temples of Prambanan and Borobudur. 
Alana arrived in December 21st.  Unfortunately her plane was late and she had traveled for over 31 hours so our plans to show her the town didn't materialize.  We left early the following day for Bali where Cole met us.  This is our third trip there and we sort have things figured out for us.  We drive past Kuta, the Aussie party beach, as fast as we can and head for Ubud, which is the art/cultural center of Bali.  We stay at the same hotel and do some of the same outing.  The bike ride down from the volcano is wonderful.  Another of the Canadian teachers working at the school joined us and she commented that this was the highlight of her trip to Bali.  Cole and Alana went on a rafting.  We figured out which dance performance we like best, the Kecak.  Our favourite activity though is just to walk in the countryside through the rice fields.  It is so beautiful.

We traveled to Lovina Beach in the north for a few days around Christmas.  We stayed at a very nice boutique hotel.  It really is unbelievable what something the price of a Quality Inn will get you in Bali.  The hotel had 8 rooms and only one other was occupied while we were there.  It was fully staffed with reception, chef, service staff, bartender, garden and pool staff, and security. Interestingly enough the other room was occupied by Grace and Ken Wilson's ex-son-in-law.
Lovina was wonderful but the ecomonic crunch and lack of tourists has really hit there.  It was a little sad on Christmas Day evening walking to a restaurant we had chosen and to pass many others that were fully staffed, bands playing, and not a soul in them.  The owners would be waiting expectantly with Santa hats on at the entrance for potenial clients.
Far too soon after we returned to Ubud Cole had to leave to head back to Canada.  We stuck around another day and left with Alana to return to KL.  We spent New Year's Eve with some friends in an area near our school.  We went to dinner at the biggest buffet thing I have ever seen.  It was all Japanese and although it was buffet style everything was prepared fresh.  You just went up and told them what you wanted and they cooked up and delivered to you.  Incredible.  Alana did have a 4 am start to head back to Canada so we did have an early night.  Fireworks are really big here so it was impossible to sleep when midnight hit so Maureen and I watched them ignite the sky from half a dozen different venues from our condo.
After Alana left was spent a few quiet days in Kuala Lumpur before heading for Langkawi, an island in the north of Malaysia not far from the Thai border.  We spent our time reading, lounging on the beach, and exploring the island a bit.
We did manage to spend some time with Pat Dooley who was here attending a conference.  She took a couple days after the conference and we headed to our favourite town in Malaysia, Malacca, to show her around.  It was nice to touch base with her and get caught up on Nelson and the school district.
School is always busy but rewarding.  The students here are really nice.  Last weekend was the night of the brewery tour.  One of the dads from the school is the brew master at the Heineken brewery and he invites the teachers to the brewery once a year.  He gives a tour of the facilities and access to the brewery pub.  Heineken brews Heineken (of course), Guiness, Tiger, Ankor and a number of others.  Opening the taps for teachers is kind of a dangerous thing to do but everyone behaved him/herself.  He also puts on a buffet supper and at the end gives a goodie bag.  This year there was a shirt, some coasters and other stuff I didn't really take note of.  Quite nice.


I've a number of pictures that follow.  They are a bit out of order but I will try and caption most so you have an idea of what they are.
Sorry for this line thing but I couldn't figure out how to turn off.  It is actually driving me crazy (not that it takes much)







Langkawi





The top photo is from lookout at the top of the cable car ride in Langkawi.  The views are incredible and the karst outcroppings are spectacular.


Sun set on the beach we stayed at in Langkawi.


The old man a the top of cable car ride in Langkawi.

 Maureen on the beach at Langkawi.  It is nice.  The water is ok for swimming.  You just have to watch out for the jelly fish.
The next two photos are from the cable car itself.  It is quite the ride up.  The vertical seems about twice that of Grouse Mountain.  If you look really carefully at the mountain behind Maureen on the beach you can see the cable car platforms.




Sunset on the beach at Langkawi.  This is right out in front of our hotel.


Bali
The following pictures were all taken on our trip in Bali.


Maureen came running back from the washroom for the camera.  Everything in Bali is presented so nicely.  This was the view from the toilet seat in a restaurant.


 We watched these girls play a game with their shoes.  They were so happy playing with nothing.


The following shots were all take on the bike ride down from the volcano.



This shows some of the hazards you have to watch out for on your ride.  The Balinese, as well as everyone else in South East Asia, pack every thing on their scooters.
Below is a picture of the gang.  We were all Canadians, us, another teacher from MKIS with her daughter and friend, as well as couple of nurses from Ontario who were working in Australia.


After the bike ride the spa was in order.  Alana is here in a flower bath taken after a full body massage.


Cole in the market.  Maureen has bought a few baskets from this guy.  The photo of the baskets that come later were taken at his stall, which is the market in Ubud.

Cole in the monkey forest in Ubud.  He had a banana in his pocket (really Mae West) and the monkey would take it from him

 Walking in the rice fields, while taking a break from the bike ride.

Cole with a rice field worker.  He really wanted his photo taken with Cole for some reason.  Probably because of the 'stach'.

One of the stops on bike tour is a family compound.  We found the children having fun playing in the yard.

This a view of the walkway at our hotel in Ubud in the early evening.  It is very beautiful.

Cole and Alana in the market above.  The aforesaid baskets at Ubud market.

At the Lake Batur temple on the way to Lovina Beach.

We stopped at the top of the climb up the mountain on the way to Lovina. For $2 Cole got to have his picture taken with a giant bat, a big snake, and a lizard, much to his mother's disgust.

At the hotel in Lovina Beach, the north part of Bali.

The hotel pool.  All to ourselves.

We resisted going out to see the dolphins until the last day.  Every second male asks to take you out to see the dolphins in the morning.  They come to feed in the shallow waters off Lovina Beach.  It is a bit of a gong show.  They take you out in these little narrow boats with out riggers.  The four of us plus the captain filled the little boat.  You are about 700 meters off shore with about 60 others filled with tourists waiting for the dolphins to appear.  When they do all of the boats chase them down to get a closer look.  Our captain seemed to have a better knack thank goodness.  He would predict where they would surface next and then take us out to wait for them quietly.  In many cases he was right and we did get some nice close up views of them surfacing.
The top photo is of some fishermen heading in from their early morning fishing trip.  The bottom is one of the dolphins surfacing.