Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Our long overdue video of Malaysia!

Sorry for the delay in getting this out to our friends and family. The wifi in India was too weak and the electricity was too inconsistent to load this video the boys put together or to post photos for our blog. It seems we are back in action here in Sri Lanka so here you are!

Enjoy and Merry Christmas to you all.


https://vimeo.com/home/myvideos

Thursday, November 6, 2014

Me Like Melaka; Pangkor What?

Having experienced the "big smoke" of cosmopolitan Kuala Lumpur, we were ready to scale things down a bit. The UNESCO World Heritage Site town of Melaka seemed to fit the bill.

Melaka/Malacca - the historical centre

The spelling of the town has been changed to conform with the systematic transliteration of Bahasa Malay into the Latin alphabet - it used to be spelled "Malacca", which seems to evoke more of the romance of the place. It has been granted a Heritage designation for good reason - a rich colonial history involving the Chinese, who entered into more enlightened trade relationships, along with the Portuguese, then the Dutch and finally the British, who all three nations had their hands full dealing with the local sultans and neighbouring kingdoms, none of whom ever rolled over as colonial subjects. We stayed in the old part of town, which is full of guesthouses and quirky little shops, along with temples and churches and, sadly, a Hard Rock Cafe.

A "traditional" Malaysian house in a working class part of town


The town is best explored by bicycle, which allows you to go any direction on any street (unlike automobiles, which face a number of one-way streets). The most fun can be had riding a bike along the riverside walkway, which runs for kilometres through town inland from the waterfront. It is difficult to realize that Melaka is (or at least, once was) a seaside town, as there has been a decades-long effort to reclaim land from the sea for commercial development. Beside the pleasantly chaotic streets of the old town there is now a relatively sterile series of  commercial blocs , beyond which is a high construction fence hiding the reclamation projects that continue to this day. The remains of the original Portuguese fort, which used to guard the mouth of the river, are now kilometres inland.

The quintessential method of Melakan transportation is the bicycle trishaw. These rickety contraptions consist of a single-speed bicycle with a sidecar attached. All are decorated in the most gaudy fashion imaginable (Hello Kitty is a common theme) and many are outfitted with stereo systems that put out more decibels than a Forest Lawn street racer. The trishaw jockeys hang out at all the tourist locations and hawk for business. It is one of those experiences that is so schlocky you cannot help but do it. We saved our trishaw ride for the Jonker Street Night Market, and had them cart us to the far end of the market so we could walk back.

Just like being on a honeymoon, but with your kids


The Night Market is one of those experiences that seems at first to be geared toward the tourist crowd, which some of it is (think cheap toys and gadgets). But there is a great selection of food, a lot of which is geared more toward the local palate, which means sea creatures and animal parts that most Westerners would never dream of touching, all grilled over coals or fried in some sort of batter. As well, there is a large stage provided for karaoke, and never a want of participants singing syrupy westernized Chinese ballads.

We ended moving between three different guesthouses, due in part to the popularity of Melaka as a weekend destination and our room being booked by prior reservations. Diwali celebrations were in full swing amongst the local Indian population as well, which livened up the nights not occupied by the Night Market. Otherwise, there is not a terrible lot to do in Melaka of the high-energy tourism persuasion, but it is a beautiful and interesting place to spend time. It is proud of its heritage, and accommodates all the different cultures that have and continue to inform it.

One of the features of Melaka was the heat. It was not easy to find a place to get away from the heat in the old town outside of our air-conditioned room, and we were ready to escape it. After much deliberation we selected Pulau Pangkor as our next destination. This is an island beach destination that the Malaysians are keeping secret from the rest of the world, but we were ready to pull back the curtain on this one!



We boarded a bus in Melaka and set off on a trip of indeterminate length. The vagaries of road travel in Malaysia are such that some bus companies doe not list arrival times, and a 200 km trip can take from 4 to 6 hours. That was the case for our trip, as the bus driver smoked and so the various stops along the way had to accommodate his vice. The buses do not have toilets on board, so if the bus is not scheduled to stop at a station every hour or so, the bus stops at one of the rest stops with which Malaysian highways are well appointed. The bus had other mod-cons, though, which included a personal entertainment tablet that showed movies (all in English) and provided music and games. We all opted to use our own headphones, though, and not the used ear buds provided on the bus.

We had shorted ourselves somewhat in the food department, and had to count on bags of nuts and vending machine drinks along the way. We arrived in Lumut, the coastal departure point for Pulau Pangkor, famished, and ate some unidentifiable curried meats at an Indian restaurant. We then cinched up our packs and walked to the ferry terminal, 10 minute's walk away, and boarded the strange yellow ferry, which looked like a submarine that was no longer able to submerge. It continued as a colour-themed day, as when we arrived we boarded a hot pink taxi van for the fixed-rate, 15 ringatt ($5 Cdn) trip to the far side of the island.

There is no excuse for not being able to find a taxi on Pangkor!


We booked in to the Budget Beach Resort, where they gave us two double rooms for the same price as the family room. This was a welcome relief after having shared single rooms in Melaka and gave parents and children some valued private space from each other. The boys could watch B-rate action movies on the 13" tube TV, while mom and dad could remember what made them mom and dad in the first place.

Things on Nipah Beach, where we were staying, are very quiet. The road is lined with food and clothing stalls, and the main cuisine is fish. The island is predominantly Muslim, so alcohol is not easily obtained and consequently there is none of the usual buffoonery or late hours that attends resort towns.

Some school kids interested in the farang at the old Dutch fort


The highest degree of social disorder is represented by reckless motorbike riding, and we saw a few wipeouts  and their results while we were there. We rented a couple of motorbikes on our first full day and explored the island, which does not take much more that a day.

They start 'em riding motorbikes young on Pangkor - this bike was actually running


The island has some fascinating temples and ruins, as well as a working shipyard that makes Chinese junk-style fishing boats.

One of many temples


This will be a fishing boat in a couple of weeks - all hand-made


The pace on the island picked up somewhat (shifting from first to second gear) as the national holiday to celebrate Diwali approached. We actually enjoyed this as it woke up the town and the beaches for about two days.

For all that Malaysia is blessed with lots of coastline and islands, the beach culture there is relatively sedate and undeveloped. Fishing is very popular, and whole families will spend the day pulling tiny fish out of the water using poles from the beach. Women, whether Muslim or Hindu, swim fully dressed - long sleeves and pants with a head scarf for the Muslim women, full-length clothing or saris for the Hindu women. Many of the Chinese swim fully covered as well (including gloves!) to preserve lightness of skin, which is the preoccupation with them as much as tanning is with us. The majority of bikini-clad women or shirtless men were European, and we were about the only North Americans there. As scandalous as our beach attire was, the Malaysians were quite tolerant and considerate.

The beaches were beautiful, and from Coral Beach, a 5 minute walk away from our bungalow, it was possible to wade about 350m across to Coral Island at low tide. The Pangkor Island is well-populated by Hornbill birds, which are tame enough to pluck food from your hand, and monkeys, which while quite entertaining to watch, are mischievous and bold as well, willing to pull things from your cooler or bag and sit in a tree above you while they eat or pull them apart.

Hornbills at dinner time - bad luck for one lizard



Does this photo make macaque look too big?


Some of the other wildlife on the beach. We looked into adopting one but the paperwork is horrendous


We developed our own beach routine, with school in the morning followed by a migration to Coral Beach for the afternoon, reading in hammocks, taking cooling dips in the refreshing water, and enjoying roti and teh tarik at our favourite beach restaurant.

The easy way to get to Coral Island


Two rad and gnarly white dudes bringing SoCal to Pangkor


Tea tarik, a book and a hammock in the shade - the best possible way to enjoy the beach


The jet setting, jet skiing couple


The guy that took this photo is blessed


Ultimately, we had exactly the kind of lazy, laid-back beach experience we had been missing since leaving Koh Yao in Thailand, and re-charged ourselves to face the next leg of our journey! We are off to India!

Tropical sunset, blah, blah, blah


~Remy

Friday, October 24, 2014

Kuala Lumpur- love it and hate it

For us, the jury is still out on this very busy but interesting, cosmopolitan city. We arrived close to dark and by the time our taxi found our guesthouse and we were settled for the night it was dark. After dark is when KL really comes alive. Like New York City, this place never sleeps. You can eat, drink, shop or get a foot massage until the very wee hours of the morning.



Downtown Kuala Lumpur

A 10 minute walk from where we were staying

Personally, arriving in a new place is the very essence of why I like to travel. Peering from the air conditioned window of the taxi I can't wait to get out and explore as I pass by the very active streets filled with every kind of people imaginable. The women in full Birka intrigued me the most. Seeing thousands of women dressed from head to toe in black exposing nothing but their eyes is fascinating to me. They seem like black ghosts  floating along the streets as they walk with their families who are all dressed in very hip, trendy clothes. It's such a curious thing to see in everyday life and I can't help but wonder what kind of women I would find under all the heavy blackness. How similar are we?

Finding our guesthouse was like trying to find a needle in a haystack in this hot, humid, steam- bath like city of over 6 million people. Cars, buses, taxis, mopeds and people are all jostling for position  but eventually we were let out to the welcoming arms of The Orange Pekoe Guesthouse. I didn't take a photo because I didn't want to worry my loved ones about how we were living but thankfully the inside was a thousand times better than the outside.
Our priority is always to make sure the boys are happy and comfortable wherever we are. If we lose their enthusiasm we are hooped. This place was great! It had a lovely little lounging area, a communal kitchen with chocolate cereal and wifi. Perfect!
Jalan Alor street was our first stop as we really needed to eat. The streets were packed with people, cars, and really, really disabled people begging for money. We had a hard time eating the very mediocre food we ordered ( we miss Thai food already!)  and in the days to come the boys refused to ever go back here even with the bribe of coconut ice cream.

You can get ANYTHING to eat here, except chicken fingers. Chicken feet, yes.

Jalan Alor is bustling!

fondue on the street!

Eventually we ended up spending time at 3 different guesthouses during our 6 nights in KL. Our favorite was the Sahabat as it was from here that we discovered our favorite Indian restaurant- TG's Nasi Kandar. This place was open 24 hours and served up some killer roti stuffed with banana and served with delicious daal. Chicken Mertebak- a roti filled with chicken, potatoes, onions and spice served with a fragrant sauce was what we had for breakfast every morning and it was here that we discovered Teh Tarik with ginger. This was the best Chai I have ever had and it cost us about .30c a glass. Remy and I spent hours here every morning eating, drinking, people watching and reading the English newspaper while the boys slept in. At night the staff would create a special plate of  sliced cucumber and carrot just for Bowen. Do you know how hard it is to get raw veggies in an Indian restaurant? We ate here at least once a day but usually twice. I screwed up the photo transfer to my computer so I lost the photos we took here but take my word for it, it was great.

Look closely at the image of the queen puffing on a stogie


When we weren't  eating we were seeing movies ( $5 each!) visiting the massive sparkling shopping malls until we were frozen from the air conditioning, visiting the Islamic Arts Museum , the Planetarium and the Menara (KL) tower and the indoor amusement park. Reflexology is BIG here so all four of us had the full one hour treatment for $16 each. That was so fun Remy and I did it twice!

The Pavillion shopping centre

a great place to drop the boys for a few hours


 Batu Caves was our one big excursion located about 15 km away. The massive gold Hindu statue and the 272 steps leading up to the caves were spectacular but the real hit for us was Jerry, the tiny pet monkey of one of the restaurant owners. We spent a LOT of time playing with Jerry which has created the desire in both boys to now have a pet monkey. I must admit, Jerry was very cuddly and very, very cute!.

The golden Hindu statue at Batu Caves. Note the 272 steps just beside.



Jerry, the monkey won all our hearts!

Malaysia is a mostly Muslim country so the lack of alcohol is very apparent. You really have to go out of your way to find it and when you do it is very expensive. Ok, beer is about $2.50/ bottle in the stores or about twice that in a restaurant but relatively speaking, this is expensive! Spirits are even pricier. It's refreshing though to go to a restaurant or a beach and not see anyone drinking, including us.

As interesting as this place is we found the constant haze from the deforestation in Indonesia to be too much for our pink lungs. Next stop is the Unesco World Heritage city of Melaka.

~Liz 



















Sunday, October 12, 2014

Thai Heaven! Koh Yao Noi Island

Don't you dare jump on me!
This blog is slightly out of sequence and should have been posted before Hollis' awesome video but hey, I've been busy! Read on....

Thailand has it's ups and downs but for us we found most of it to be up especially when we landed on a small island off the east coast of Phuket. It's tiny and can be driven around in less than an hour. There are no stop signs, traffic lights or even a Starbucks; although they do have a 7-11. It just wouldn't be Thailand if there was no 7-11. The main industries are rubber production, and tourism although the island doesn't even exist on most maps. It was on the advice of the owner ( Kim)  of our last accommodations that we decided to come here and are we ever glad we did!

The "sap" or latex being collected from the rubber trees



The latex is flattened and hung to dry to get ready for shipping



These rickety old machines are used to flatten the rubber. Driving through these forests it smells like balloons!




It's difficult to have the "beach hut" experience in Thailand much anymore. The huts have been replaced by towering condos or luxury resorts that can accommodate way more people, but not here. We have stepped back in time.

Our cute little bungalows on the beach!
Liz and Remy's front porch


Pasai Cottages are located right across the street from the Andaman Sea with a gorgeous view of the rocky karsts that jut straight out of the sea. Our bungalows rented for about $18/night  each and had their own bathroom with cool water shower. The boys were a bit weirded out by the flimsy nature of these little places but we loved them!

We spent our first 6 days enjoying the sun and puttering around the island on it's one 18km road that passed through several little villages. Each village had it's own personality and we quickly discovered quirky people and fun things to do and see in each of them.

Joy spoke very good English and quickly became our friend   

Super cute musicians











A typical middle class house on the other side of the island



We would often drive all the way to the other
 side just to get cheaper water at the 7-11or feast on the most delicious pad thai. There is zero crime on the island so the one police station is pretty dull and the roads are safe because there are no cars so the boys were free to ride the bikes and explore on their own.

Let's get back to the main road!

The 5 island tour by longtail boat was one of the highlights for us . We spent the day with a nice German couple and visited some of the most beautiful beaches we have EVER seen.

heading out for an incredible day

we are VERY happy in this picture

A boy and his rope swing



Imitation of the little Japanese tourist

longtail boats


 The Thai cooking class was the other treat.  Remy and I made a 5 course meal with our teacher, Mina and brought it home to enjoy with the boys.

Produce from Mina's garden! She even grows her own rice!!

"What a paradise!! let's stay longer!" And so we moved to the more deluxo places down the street called Sabai Corner.  The bungalows were similar to the ones on the beach but these ones were built on the hill in the jungle so we could watch the birds and feel like we were living in a tree house! We found ourselves there every morning enjoying their ocean view and homemade bread for breakfast anyway so we packed up our stuff and off we went, happy as clams.

Moving day
Our bungalow is peaceful and private

And then the rain started..... At first it was pretty cool to see how much rain would fall in such a short period of time. It never got cold so we could enjoy it from the relative safety of our hammock on our deck while we sipped fruit juice or Lipton tea. This was fun for a day or two as we learned the cycle of the rain and could bust a move to the village or our favorite restaurant before the deluge started again. But it just never stopped.

waiting out the downpour


 For 7 long days it absolutely poured on and off and we just couldn't get dry. The air was so wet it crept into our bungalow through the slats in the walls and all our stuff was just ever-so-slightly damp.  By day 7 we were all kinds of cranky and ready to move along. Moving day was sunny and bright right until we got to Krabi via water taxi where we caught a car taxi to the airport bound for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We literally just closed the trunk of the car on our packs when the skies opened up. Phew- we dodged that bullet!
Kuala Lumpur will be another shock to the system and if it's raining there to it's ok, we will just go see a movie.


~Liz

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Thursday, October 2, 2014

More of Phuket



Hollis wrote a great blog about our time in Phuket but I thought we needed to show you more photos. One of our family rules is that you can't mess with someone else's blog so I am left to make a second one of Phuket.

This was a place I really wanted to see after I read so much about the devastation after the tsunami in 2004. I had a fantasy that it was white sand, palm fringed and very laid back. Quite the opposite is true.  Phuket is a huge island and very over developed. The traffic is chaotic and the pace is very, very fast. We are now lounging on Kho Yao Noi Island for a few weeks to recover! ( I'll about it soon) We did enjoy a few hours at the beach but as Hollis said, it was hard to relax when we were constantly bombarded with hawkers trying to sell us sunglasses.

Anyway.. we kept an open mind, we ate our way through the crazy vegetarian festival, we swam at the famous beach I saw on tv then got the hell out!

inside the tuk tuk on our way to ride go carts


Our transportation today


Bowen loves the tuk tuks

The bus in Phuket town


Thailand is full of temples all very beautiful



You can see the Portuguese influence in the architecture


Thais dress in white for the vegetarian festival. Lighting incense at the temple

Our hippie son making happy


Some beautiful places to explore


Bowen digs the spiral deep fried potatoes. About .50c


All vegetarian made to look like meat. All delicious!


Phuket beach- finally


A typical long tail boat at Phuket Beach

Our oasis amid the chaos- Shanti lodge, Phuket




~Liz