The Pearl of the Orient

Malaysia. the crossroads of SouthEast Asia. Historically, an important part of the Spice Road, home to some of the busiest ports in the region, and a melting pot of Malay, Chinese and Indian cultures.

Malaysia 's name comes from either Sanskrit or Indian and is said to mean"Land of Mountains"

Matt and I took a 17 hour train trip from Singapore north through the capital of Kuala Lumpur, towards our destination of Penang.

The train ride was long and uneventful...except for a Danish family whose favorite hobby was kicking my chair. Luckily, they got off in Kuala Lumpur...and I could get back to trying to nap my Singaporean hangover away.

The train ride was only supposed to take 13 hours, but long delays plagued us the entire trip resulting in a 17 hour journey. Normally this wouldn't be so much of a problem, but we were getting off in Butterworth to catch a ferry to Penang...a ferry service that stops at midnight.

As luck would have it, we arrived at 11:50pm and were just able to catch the last ferry to Georgetown on the island of Penang, get to our hostel and crash. Perfect.

Ferry to Penang....just made it!

Georgetown, a former base for the British East India Company, is full of British Colonial charm and multicultural sites.

Loaded with history. Imagine the Japanese Army marching down this street during the WWII occupation.

Matt and I had decided to skip Kuala Lumpur to spend two whole days and nights in Penang...and I'm glad we did. It was great just walking around the different neighborhoods...Chinatown, Little India...etc.

Its got everything you would hope from a former British colony in Asia...local charm and colonial architecture...cool.

Ask anyone who has been to Malaysia, and they will tell you the best thing is the food. Chicken Satay and the normal local delicacies were abundant, as well as the famous street vendors of Penang.

For me, far and away the best meal we had on the ENTIRE trip was lunch in the Chinese neighborhood of Georgetown. It was sliced, slow roasted pork, rice, green vegetable stuff and some delicious sauces.

Maybe the picture doesn't do it justice. It was so simple but so very good. It was/is exactly what I look for in an Asian style meal...simple but packed full of flavor. Washed down with a cold beer, we were in heaven.

Walking around the markets, we saw lots of cool stuff......like what the hell are these red prickly things?

It was a great couple of relaxing days in Penang...we didn't want to leave, but we had train tickets to Bangkok....so back on the ferry we went...goodbye Penang!

This train was far nicer than our last train as it was going to be an overnight trip....sleeper car! Wooohoooo!

The scenery in the north of Malaysia was very beautiful and interesting. There were a lot of stops where locals would get on, walk through the train and sell food etc.

Matt and I got way too much food, but it was delicious....much better than the crappy noodles we had on the train from Singapore,,,or the disugusting pizza i bought on the ferry. Train Noodles and Ferry Pizza would become synonymous for bad food or risky eating practices.

On the train, we made friends with the surrounding passengers, who turned out to be the weirdest cast of characters ever. You couldn't make this kind of stuff up.

There was a 50 yr old Australian guy, who had recently had an illness/surgery which now prevented him from eating solid foods...so he had a blender...and made shakes that included random food items, but almost always Bacardi.

His traveling companion was a 20 something Indonesian guy.

Across from us, we had a 25-30 year old Japanese student and later,  an early 20's Canadian lugging the biggest suitcase I have ever seen. What was in it? Books! He is traveling around the world with a 60lb suitcase of books...so he doesnt run out of reading material...what the?

There was also a 60 something Malaysian guy...who has been traveling the world since 1970. He was funny, wise and even did card tricks. He would prove to be the life of the party.

We all talked, drank beers and laughed our way through the Malaysian countryside.

It was like the beginning of a joke: " An Australian, a Canadian, an Indonesian, a Malaysian, two Americans and a Japanese student get on a train......."

When the train steward started folded down the bunks around 830pm, he did ours last...eventually , to be polite to the other passengers, we called it a night. A great evening followed by a great nights sleep.

Having a great time on the train to Bangkok.

In the morning, we woke up in Bangkok, Thailand! Stay tuned......

Singapore

After 5 days in Bangladesh, Matt and I headed out on the second leg of my SE Asia adventures...a 3.5 hour flight to the Lion City....Singapore!

Unfortunately, we had only planned a short stop in Singapore as we had planned a train trip leaving in less than 48 hours. We chalked it up to one of the drawbacks of travel....not enough time!

We got in around 11pm and went to our hostel. Where we thought we had reserved a twin bed room....

Time to cuddle up little buddy!

Fully rested, we struck out in the morning to pick up our train tickets for the next day and recon how to get to the train station etc etc etc...this would turn out to be a genius move.

After 5 days in Bangladesh, I was super happy to be back on clean, air-conditioned public transport...Matt who had been in Dhaka for 2 months, was in a state I describe as stunned stupid...he couldnt even function for the first few hours.

After getting our tickets, we went downtown and covered a lot of ground seeing all the sites.

We were both enamored with Chinatown, and spent the entire afternoon walking the streets and just enjoying the atmosphere. Singapore is a beautiful, ultraclean and orderly place. The temperature is pretty much the same all year....85F(31C) in the day, 75F(23C) at night...all year long!

I have heard from friends (most recently Suzanne, Kelly's Africa Trip partner) that they loved Singapore...I understand why, its amazing.

As always with traveling, the food plays a big part. Matt and I found a food court in Chinatown, where we sat for an hour or so, enjoying a couple of beers and some dumplings....yummmmmm.

Matt's hand is in the picture above, because I asked him to move his hand while I was taking a picture...so now I have 8 pictures of Matt waving his hand in my pictures....oh the fun never stops when you are backpacking in Asia!

Here is a video I took at the food court in Chinatown...pay special attention to the....uniform? of the waitress near the end of the video....weird. I guess when you are a waitress in a food court, you dress to impress!

It was great afternoon. Singapore is one of those places you can just walk around and be entertained.

I personally enjoyed the Asian architecture and flavor of the area. Very nice indeed. A great taste of Singapore, someplace I will definitely come back to with the Mrs.

In the evening, we met up with Matts friend Kyle who he knows from High School. Kyle lives and works in Singapore, so he gave us a place to stay on the second night and took us downtown to Clarke Quay.

Clarke Quay is a historic riverside area on the Singapore river that is now a pretty impressive and happening night spot. Load of clubs, restaurants and bars...some are even on refurbished Chinese Junks moored in the river!

We partied all night long, and didnt make it back to Kyle's until very late. We had already scoped out the train station and picked up our train tickets as mentioned earlier....Good thing...our train was at 830am!

See ya later Singapore....next stop......Malaysia!

Dhaka, Bangladesh...part deux

There is no tourism in Bangladesh. Matt cracked up when we saw an ad at the airport from the Bangladesh Tourism Department...it read "Come to Bangladesh before the tourists do!"...like thats gonna happen anytime soon!

Doing anything in Dhaka is...punishing. Once outside of the orphanage, we were immediately immersed in heat, noise, filth and chaos. All as oppressive as you can imagine. 100 degree heat, 16 million people, a city with little infrastructure...and as much chaos as you can pack in. Hold on, its a wild ride.

Just walking to the store, I took the picture below.

We saw entire families breaking bricks for a living. Smashing big bricks into little bricks, little bricks into pieces of bricks, and pieces of bricks into brick sand. Kids are put to work as soon as they can walk. We saw a 4 year old smashing bricks with a homemade tomahawk...no joke. The more kids you have, the more people you have to break bricks.

Its a sobering sight.

Next up? Hundreds of people waiting in line to get a cup of rice from a government truck. Same truck, same place, every day....wait in line....in the heat.

Luckily, it wasn't all gloom and doom. The locals were so very friendly and the kids were positively giddy when Matt and I played cricket in the street with them.

Another highlight was the food. Anyone who knows me knows that spicy food makes me sweat like a hooker in church...but when its 105 degrees out....who cares!

Does that food look spicy? You're damn right it does...and it was! Good Christmas they like their food spicy....its no joke....and delicious.

Most meals consisted of the same items. Bread...Yellow mushy stuff...Rice...Brown mushy stuff, and unidentifiable meats in spicy sauces. One sauce I believe came from Satan's underpants....in fact, thats what I would order...since they don't speak English and would bring the same stuff anyway.

"Some Yellow and/or Brown Mushy stuff, some Bread and some Rat meat bathed in Satan's underpants sauce please...thanks"

Its really unbelievable not only the amount of activities we squeezed into 5 days, but also the variety. Besides hanging out with Bangladeshi gangsters and playing bumper cars with motorcycle rickshaws, we also went to a soccer game in the big stadium...oh and crashed a wedding.

Thats right, we crashed a wedding....in Bangladesh....a Muslim wedding. Who has big giant b**ls? We do, thats who!

 Matts buddy Marshall has a sister who was going to a wedding, so because Marshall is 19 and doesnt know any better, he decided we should just show up. We were a bit fuzzy on the details until we got there and realized "hold on....we weren't actually invited (like Marshall said)...wait a second, why is everyone staring at us?"

Matt and Elodie....wedding crashers

Well at least it was a small wedding...of 600 people!

It gets better.

The waiters had no idea what to make of us...especially when we told them Elodie is a vegetarian. They were completely stunned and confused. So much so, that they just hovered around her and every 30 seconds or so, scooped more vegetables on her plate.

I took this picture right after I signaled to the waiter that I thought she needed some more veggies.

Bon Appetit! Her face says "STOP TELLING HIM TO GIVE  ME MORE VEGGIES!" or actually it probably says something like that in French....because she is from France.

It was an amazing trip. One I certainly wouldn't have made unless Matt (above) was in Bangladesh. Kudos to his adventurous spirit....Bangladesh...crazy!

I also cant say enough nice things about Elodie and the orphanage we stayed at. If you are looking for a worthy cause to donate to, look no further. They are making a REAL difference in the lives of many street children in Dhaka. You can click on the link below for information about their charity.

http://www.partenaires-association.org/

Stay tuned for our next stop...Singapore!

Dhaka, Bangladesh

The plane touched down in Dhaka at 4:30am. I was excited to finally see and experience what, some would say, the most chaotic place on Earth is like. As I would soon find out, nothing is easy in Bangladesh. My excitement was short lived as the airport personnel couldn't get the jetway up to the door of the plane. For 20 minutes, I stood jammed in the aisle with 150 Bangladeshis and waited. Then, just when we thought they had it fixed...they didn't...and it was prayer time. The already crowded aisles  now became a giant pushing match as some more devout passengers tried to get to the front or back of the plane to find a patch of open space to pray. Once people started their prayer rituals, the doors opened, the hot air and smells came in...and all hell broke loose.

Welcome to Bangladesh.

Bangladesh, formally East Pakistan, is a mostly flat, coastal tropical lowland on the Bay of Bengal sandwiched between India and Myanmar (Burma). It has a population of 160 million people, roughly half as many people as in the United States or Europe...but they are all packed into an area slightly larger then Iowa. It is one of the most densely populated places on Earth, and with a per capita income of only $638, it is also one of the poorest.

I came to Bangladesh to visit my friend Matt who is here for a few months working for Grameen Bank. It was an opportunity I could not pass up. When would I have another reason or a chance to see Bangladesh?

After exiting the plane down a set of stairs to the tarmac, I  moved quickly towards the terminal building to beat the crowds at Immigration. I was one of only two Westerners on the plane, so I assumed it would be quick and easy to get my visa. Once again, Bangladesh had a different plan.

The visa office was closed....of course! I went to passport control (which was completely empty, no lines...nothing) and was told to go back to the visa office. I went back to the dark, closed visa office and tried the door...it was open and inside everyone was on the floor sleeping. There were a few awkward moments as I politely woke up the immigration officials I needed to issue me a visa, but after 15 minutes, a bunch of rubber stamping and $150, I had my visa. Back at passport control there were now 15 lines of over 50 people deep and none of the lines were moving. Knowing a bit of how things work in this part of the world, I did what the locals do....I cut one of the lines.

The passport officer scrutinized my passport, visa and landing card, asked a few questions and was already to stamp me in...he just needed my address and phone number in Dhaka. Uh oh....I had Matt's info in my checked bag!...duh, what a rookie mistake. I told the officer I didn't know it and he said it was not possible unless I had it. So, I said, oh now I remember and wrote down an imaginary phone number....good enough...stamp, stamp, stamp...enjoy your stay in Bangladesh.

After waiting 20 more minutes for my rucksack, I exited the terminal where Matt was waiting with a motorcycle taxi, 100 people standing around staring at him and big stupid grin...."Dude, prepare to be Dhaka'd."

Dhaka, the largest city and capital of Bangladesh, is a sprawling city of approximately 14 million people that has experienced an explosion of growth since Bangladeshi independence in 1971. Chaotic does not describe the mayhem that is daily life in the streets of Dhaka.

Once Matt and I got on the road, he filled me in on his job and the neat little place he found to live. Rather than stay at the hotel that was suggested by his employer, he found a room for rent at a local childrens shelter run by a French Non Governmental Organization (NGO). Talk about immersing yourself in the local culture! Matt had arranged a room for me there as well. Just us, a handful of staff,  and 60 Bangladeshi street orphans.

After settling in and touring the shelter, we headed out so Matt could show me the area we were staying. We grabbed a quick bite to eat, I got a shave and shopped for shirts. After a while of just poking around locally in Mirpur (our district) we hopped in a CNG (compressed natural gas motorcycle taxi) and headed down into Old Dhaka. It was Friday, which is the first day of the weekend for Muslims, so with less traffic the trip should have taken 30-45 minutes. Little did we know, our driver (who spoke no English) had no idea where he was going. He pulled over 10 times to ask directions and every time we would end up having a 10 minute conversation with someone new who would then tell him where to go. At one point, a brake cable snapped on the CNG so we had to pull over and wait as he fixed it. In all fairness, it only took 10 minutes, but it was just one more delay. The whole trip was really grueling, not to mention time consuming....then it started to rain. At one point we were parked in the rain..just sitting on the side of the road, because he spoke no English, we spoke no Bangla and there was noone around to ask for directions. Matt and I had a good laugh.

Eventually we got to the area we wanted and the rain let up, but both the Star Mosque and Armenian Church were closed. We rang the bell at the church and a caretaker let us in, so closed schmosed, we're in!

Matt checking out some graves at the Armenian Church in Old Dhaka

After exploring a bit of the area, we hopped in a bicycle rickshaw and went to the soccer stadium for the 4 o'clock game. It only costs 60 taka (60 cents US) to get in so why not? As is usual with most Bangladeshi public events, there were only men in the stadium...and the soccer was not very good, but it was certainly interesting. As foreigners, whenever we are in public people just stare at us. Unlike most places I have been, there are no tourists in Bangladesh. You dont see any Westerners unless you go to the area where most are based, in the Diplomatic area of Gulshan.

After being stared at by several hundred dudes and then being attacked by ants, we decided it was time to move on.  After 8 hours in the Bangladeshi heat and smog, walking in filth, riding in open air motorcycle taxis, and sweating through our clothes several times, we went back to the shelter where I had the most glorious cold shower of my life. The cold water wasn't ice cold, just perfect...amazing.

The plan for dinner was to meet up with Elodie, the French psychologist that works at the shelter, and go to a fairly expensive Korean BBQ Restaurant because they sell beer. Alcohol is illegal in Bangladesh, but foreigners are permitted to purchase and drink it. We struck out after dark in a CNG for the 45 minute ride. At one intersection, there were police shining flashlights into every CNG and rickshaw as they drove by. As luck would have it, one policeman shone his light at us, just as my big white dome was peering out at them. They yelled at us to pull over and came over to question us. They asked us where we were from and questioned the driver, but as it turns out, they were super friendly and probably saw an opportunity to talk to foreigners. They cut us loose after 5 minutes and even made sure our driver knew where he was going.

We got to the restaurant and got a table in a private room with 2 other (empty) tables. To be alone in Bangladesh...ahhh. Plus there was air conditioning and beer....yippppeeeeee!

Making new friends

We had a great dinner, and it was nice getting to know Elodie. We had fried tofu, kimchi, vegetable omelet some bbq's steak (cooked right at the table) and a bunch of beers.

After a while they seated some other people in the room, including two guys behind me. At one point Matt saw one of them drinking Soju, Korean rice liquor, so he asked where they got it. The guy said they bought it at the restaurant you just have to ask for it. To make a long story short, we got a bottle of soju and ended up moving over to the other guys table.

We had just made friends with a guy who apparently runs many things in Dhaka...his name is Happy.

Happy (center) and me (right)...and the ever present bodyguard, Azim, in the background.

Happy said there was a party and he would take us. Matt, without hesitating, said we would all love to go. Ten minutes later, we were packed into the back of Happy's Land Rover bombing down the dark roads of Dhaka.....surreal.

30 minutes later we were walking into the Radisson hotel ball room which was packed with Bengalis of all shapes and sizes...dancing to Western music. Unfortunately the lights went on and it was all over within 15 minutes of us getting there. It was 2am and we were wiped out.  Happy had his driver bring us home, as long as we promised to go out with him the next night.

I got home and passed out...completely Dhaka'd

Intended for mature audiences only...but not too mature

Arriving home after a 3 month trip I spent nearly a whole day loading my photos on a computer and then selected a bunch for a highlight reel to put on a memory stick.

Intended audience? The Sistahs.

Several times over the course of my trip I was caught snapping an odd photo by one of my fellow travelers. When given the WTF look, my reply was "for The Sistahs"

My dirty feet, cracked heels, dodgy toilets, animals in compromising positions...
We're always going for a laugh in my family. And if you can't get the laugh, go for the gross out.

Highlight reel in hand - the next few days were spent visiting, laughing, hugging, eating and of course, telling Africa stories and looking at photos. I couldn't ask for a better audience. My family were interested, intrigued, curious and patient. I still can't believe they didn't give me a smack in the mouth and tell me to shut up after a while, I really couldn't stop talking about my trip.

Fast forward a few more days and it's Christmas. The Hub is in town and we'll be visiting with his extended family for the day. Mom, Dad, cousins young and old, and of course a full compliment of great aunties and uncles. What's this? I think to myself. A new audience that hasn't been listening to me drone on about my travels? They are full of questions and comments. I was thrilled with the opportunity to rehash and relive my adventures yet again.

They clamored for pictures (clamored? Okay, maybe I am laying it on a bit thick. But they certainly expressed a polite curiosity.)

The memory stick! I thought. Genius! I had been toting it around since giving my family the slide show the previous week. It wasn't until a young cousin was plugging it into the computery dohickey that I remembered all the inappropriate photos included in the group.

Internal panic ensues as I remember the zebra penises and dirty toilet stalls. Why oh WHY didn't I create an alternate highlight reel?!?! Why did I have to go for the gross out so frequently?

A rushed and oft repeated disclaimer comes gushing out of me. My words tumble and stumble as I try and explain these photos were meant for my sisters and there may be some...erm...unsavory shots among them. I apologize profusely before the first image even hits the screen. Some nervous laughter from the crowd but they assure me they can handle it.

It's not until this image hits the screen that I realize the depth of my gaff. How astoundingly foolish I was in not having the forethought to create a group of photos suitable for in-laws and great aunties.

So because I am a glutton for punishment, because I can not help but wallow in my own humiliation and because after all that I still haven't learned an important lesson in decorum. Because I am a product of my family and will still always go for the laugh and then the gross-out....I decided a blog post of inappropriateness was exactly what was called for to ease my embarrassment.

Farts are funny.  Bodily functions are funny.  Zebra penises are funny.  And humiliation at the hands of my very own self?  Also funny.

And if I didn't make you laugh, I at least made you say "Ew!"

Should I be worried that my in-laws read the blog?

-k.

p.s. a couple photos "borrowed" from my fellow travelers