Doldrums
We are doing round two of Kuala Lumpur after a relaxing week in the Cameron Highlands. More on the Highlands in a minute.
Kuala Lumpur is a bustling city -- better, Vanya and I have decided, than neighboring Singapore. It is busy, with sidewalks disappearing arbitrarily and choking mouthfuls of diesel, but it is busy in a way that the Taman Negara jungle and the Cameron Highlands certainly were not. We are staying in a bustling Chinatown, overflowing with food, where an extremely large night-market kicks off every evening and hawkers ritually harass us to buy Chinese knock-off goods.
I bring up the Chinatown market not because it is particularly interesting, but because it was here that I had a truly insightful experience with my girlfriend. Having delivered a short lecture to Vanya on the proper way to bargain for goods, Vanya haggled a vendor down for a handbag, but decided to take a look at other stalls before making the purchase. He yelled his final price -- 30 RM (just under $10) -- as we walked away. Later, returning to this same stall, the vendor recognized us and again asked if Vanya wanted the handbag for 30 RM. I walked away for a moment (I should never have done this), and during my brief absence Vanya actually upped the price of the handbag. She countered his offer of 30 RM with an offer of 35 RM. Re-read that last sentence, I encourage you. Her defense, if you asked her, would be that she never heard his offer. Anyway, he accepted; he is a businessman. This surely is not a historical first in the long history of haggling, but it has to be a fourth or a fifth.
Having accomplished what we needed to in Kuala Lumpur -- beginning the week-long process for a Vietnamese Visa -- we caught a bus to the Cameron Highlands. The bus-ride was supposed to take around 3 1/2 hours and instead took 6 1/2, due to a variety of issues. We have had bad luck with buses in Malaysia. The other bad experience I had on a bus had to do with the movie 'Predator,' starring two future governors of US states (the other is Jesse "The Body" Ventura"). This experience was more trivial. I had never seen 'Predator' in full prior to this bus-ride. Anyone who has TBS has seen parts of it, but I had never watched it start to finish, never knew why Predator had such insatiable bloodlust. Anyway, the movie was literally moments from its climax -- Arnold Schwarzenegger is drawing his bow-string for the coup de grace, he is covered in mud, his muscles are gigantic -- when the line of people behind me forced me off the bus. I never saw him release the bowstring. Obviously I know how it ends -- he kills the Predator --but I don't know how it ends. Bad experience number three.
While in the Cameron Highlands, Vanya and I had, for all intents and purposes, left Malaysia. The Highlands do not feel like Malaysia at all. They are the former leisure and recreation resort for British colonial officials, many of whom enjoyed the respite from the intensely un-British weather in lowlands Malaysia. At 4800 feet or so, it is much cooler up in the Highlands than elsewhere in Malaysia; it feels very much like Seattle would feel right now. And, given that it is a former British enclave, what do you guess is grown up there? Tea... lots and lots of delicious tea. It is cheap and abundant. And, given that I am an American, what would you guess that I have been doing with a resource that is cheap and abundant? I have been completely over-consuming it! I'll drink it all, I tell you! In all seriousness, I have been drinking enough tea to disrupt my natural sleep cycle and have been sleeping horribly. But mmm... Consumption!
The Highlands were a really, really nice place, though, to waste away the traveler's doldrums. We ended up stuck with a few extra days in Malaysia as a result of the lengthy Vietnamese visa process... not enough time to go somewhere else, but a few too many days, regardless. As a result, we spent five full days in the Highlands, a very relaxing place to be. Our lunch usually involved a combination of tea and either cream scones or butter cake, followed by multiple games of chess. Our hostel, Father's guesthouse, has a no-shoe policy in most of the building, plays good movies every night, serves tea, and includes a bottle-opener on the keychain. Most of the days are interrupted by a monsoon at around four o'clock. Anywhere the tea is growing is, by default, beautiful.
Nor have we been lazy. We really have not been. We did a little package tour the first day, part of which took us through the plant of the major tea manufacturer here, 'BOH' tea. Our second day was spent on an exhausting 4 hour, round-trip hike that took us to 6666 feet, ominously enough. Day three I went running for the first time in three weeks, and then proceeded to hike another 6 miles with Vanya to a second 'BOH' tea plantation. For no reason at all, apparently, the tea factory happened to be closed, so after a cup of tea and some lemon-butter cake, we were dreading the walk back to town. So we hitch-hiked. Hitch-hiking is common in the Highlands -- our bus picked up some struggling backpackers on the way up and most guidebooks mention hitch-hiking as a mode of transportation -- and our first attempt met with extremely good fortune.
We were picked up by an older Chinese man named Lyn in his pick-up truck, a farmer who had lived in the Highlands for fifteen years. In the truck with him was Nabim, a mustachioed Indian man who is head of tea-processing at this particular tea production facility. Nabim spent a decent portion of the ride explaining to us exactly how to brew the perfect pot of tea (use a porcelain teapot). After dropping us off at a junction where we could catch a bus back to town, Nabim yelled after us to come back, that his friend, John, who had just pulled up, could take us up to town. John drove a nice BMW, and Vanya and I hopped in the back seat with a very elderly Indian woman heading in the same direction. On the ride into town John (an Indian-Malay), informed us that he was the pastor of a Christian church in town, and that, if we would like and weren't doing anything later that evening, we could join him and some church-members for a fellowship dinner. We were to be at a street corner at 5:30 if we decided to come.
We decided, after some deliberation, to go. John picked Vanya and me up in a clunky van, with his daughter Sarah in the back-seat and a bearded, Indian man named Morgan in the passenger seat ("I am like J.P. Morgan, you know?"). We spent part of the ride talking about rich Americans, like Bill Gates and NBA superstars and Paris Hilton (I defended only Gates), with all of them surprisingly well-informed on things American. They were all very easy-going and asked us quite a few questions about life in America.
We did not realize until the van pulled up that dinner was to be held at the 'BOH' tea estate that we had hiked to earlier in the day. Nabim and his family were hosting the Fellowship dinner. In what I can only imagine is a relic of a much older style of land-ownership/labor practices, Nabim's housing is provided by 'BOH' tea and is actually on the estate. 'BOH' Tea has now had just three owners, all family members from the same Scottish family with middle names like "Archibold." Nabim's house was just around the corner from the tea-processing factory and had an amazing view: hill after rolling hill covered in tea plants.
The dinner, we were told, was not a "potluck." Seeing as this was a gathering of Christians, there was no luck involved. This was a "potbless." Vanya and I mingled a bit before eating, speaking on end with Lyn, the Chinese man who had picked us up earlier. As a farmer, he was an endless repository of information regarding agricultural techniques in the Cameron Highlands. He grows cucumber, zucchini, and tomato, some of which he eats, as well as fifteen types of herbs, which he does not eat and instead sells to hotels and cruise-liners. We also spoke for a while with Morgan, who we came to find out was a renowned tour-guide in the Cameron Highlands and speaks five languages. Dinner came and came and came. I started with too much salad, then moved on to generous servings of mee-hoon (a noodle dish), stingray ("vengeance for Steve Irwin!" Morgan exclaimed), small potatoes, garlic bread, a sort of radish paste, barbecued chicken, and many other dishes, all washed down with iced lemon tea. I had eaten to capacity, but went back for another plateful, mostly as a sign of appreciation to our hosts. Having mostly filled my plate (again), one of the women snuck an entire, 12 inch, barbecued mackerel on my plate, doing the same to Vanya. There was an impossible amount of food.
After dinner, Pastor John, Morgan, Nabim, and Lyn sat around the table and talked to Vanya and I while the women and children milled about and watched Mr. Bean on satellite television. Our hosts did most the talking, much of which covered asian politics. John and Lyn were amazingly well-traveled -- John especially -- but both had come to the conclusion (independently) that Malaysia was the best country to live in. "It would shame me if you were hungry and I did not invite you to dinner," John said. "This is Malaysian hospitality." At one point Lyn asked me what Americans thought of Malaysia. I mumbled a reply, saying that most Americans might envision something similar to Vietnam, and that they might know that Malaysia is a Muslim country. Really I had no idea. He laughed and said that, in his opinion, he believed that Americans might think Malaysians still live in the jungle. Still on the subject of America, Pastor John mentioned September 11th. "This is something that Americans do not realize. Their news is world news. We were all watching the television when that happened. And we are in the highlands of Malaysia!"
Later, the group circled around, a couple of songs were performed, John preached , and group-members gave testimonials to Christ. As the group began to filter out the door -- we had been there about four and a half hours -- John, for the first time, asked both Vanya and I where we stood religiously. We both expressed ambivalence regarding this question, the big question. As we were heading out he door, he asked, "I am just curious... what does this mean that you 'don't know?'" I never had time to answer, we were out the door and heading to Lyn's truck. On the way home we listened to FM radio -- "a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh..." -- and Lyn told us about the role that chrysanthemums play in Buddhist ritual. Which I do not yet fully understand.
Anyway, this is enough for now. Tomorrow evening we fly from Kuala Lumpur to Hanoi, Vietnam, where Vanya's french-speaking abilities will be put to the test, and I will work hard to eat as many Vietnamese breakfast doughnuts as possible. If there are terrorists on the flight (or if I spy them anywhere, for that matter), I can tell you all quite frankly that I will fight them to the death.
Kuala Lumpur is a bustling city -- better, Vanya and I have decided, than neighboring Singapore. It is busy, with sidewalks disappearing arbitrarily and choking mouthfuls of diesel, but it is busy in a way that the Taman Negara jungle and the Cameron Highlands certainly were not. We are staying in a bustling Chinatown, overflowing with food, where an extremely large night-market kicks off every evening and hawkers ritually harass us to buy Chinese knock-off goods.
I bring up the Chinatown market not because it is particularly interesting, but because it was here that I had a truly insightful experience with my girlfriend. Having delivered a short lecture to Vanya on the proper way to bargain for goods, Vanya haggled a vendor down for a handbag, but decided to take a look at other stalls before making the purchase. He yelled his final price -- 30 RM (just under $10) -- as we walked away. Later, returning to this same stall, the vendor recognized us and again asked if Vanya wanted the handbag for 30 RM. I walked away for a moment (I should never have done this), and during my brief absence Vanya actually upped the price of the handbag. She countered his offer of 30 RM with an offer of 35 RM. Re-read that last sentence, I encourage you. Her defense, if you asked her, would be that she never heard his offer. Anyway, he accepted; he is a businessman. This surely is not a historical first in the long history of haggling, but it has to be a fourth or a fifth.
Having accomplished what we needed to in Kuala Lumpur -- beginning the week-long process for a Vietnamese Visa -- we caught a bus to the Cameron Highlands. The bus-ride was supposed to take around 3 1/2 hours and instead took 6 1/2, due to a variety of issues. We have had bad luck with buses in Malaysia. The other bad experience I had on a bus had to do with the movie 'Predator,' starring two future governors of US states (the other is Jesse "The Body" Ventura"). This experience was more trivial. I had never seen 'Predator' in full prior to this bus-ride. Anyone who has TBS has seen parts of it, but I had never watched it start to finish, never knew why Predator had such insatiable bloodlust. Anyway, the movie was literally moments from its climax -- Arnold Schwarzenegger is drawing his bow-string for the coup de grace, he is covered in mud, his muscles are gigantic -- when the line of people behind me forced me off the bus. I never saw him release the bowstring. Obviously I know how it ends -- he kills the Predator --but I don't know how it ends. Bad experience number three.
While in the Cameron Highlands, Vanya and I had, for all intents and purposes, left Malaysia. The Highlands do not feel like Malaysia at all. They are the former leisure and recreation resort for British colonial officials, many of whom enjoyed the respite from the intensely un-British weather in lowlands Malaysia. At 4800 feet or so, it is much cooler up in the Highlands than elsewhere in Malaysia; it feels very much like Seattle would feel right now. And, given that it is a former British enclave, what do you guess is grown up there? Tea... lots and lots of delicious tea. It is cheap and abundant. And, given that I am an American, what would you guess that I have been doing with a resource that is cheap and abundant? I have been completely over-consuming it! I'll drink it all, I tell you! In all seriousness, I have been drinking enough tea to disrupt my natural sleep cycle and have been sleeping horribly. But mmm... Consumption!
The Highlands were a really, really nice place, though, to waste away the traveler's doldrums. We ended up stuck with a few extra days in Malaysia as a result of the lengthy Vietnamese visa process... not enough time to go somewhere else, but a few too many days, regardless. As a result, we spent five full days in the Highlands, a very relaxing place to be. Our lunch usually involved a combination of tea and either cream scones or butter cake, followed by multiple games of chess. Our hostel, Father's guesthouse, has a no-shoe policy in most of the building, plays good movies every night, serves tea, and includes a bottle-opener on the keychain. Most of the days are interrupted by a monsoon at around four o'clock. Anywhere the tea is growing is, by default, beautiful.
Nor have we been lazy. We really have not been. We did a little package tour the first day, part of which took us through the plant of the major tea manufacturer here, 'BOH' tea. Our second day was spent on an exhausting 4 hour, round-trip hike that took us to 6666 feet, ominously enough. Day three I went running for the first time in three weeks, and then proceeded to hike another 6 miles with Vanya to a second 'BOH' tea plantation. For no reason at all, apparently, the tea factory happened to be closed, so after a cup of tea and some lemon-butter cake, we were dreading the walk back to town. So we hitch-hiked. Hitch-hiking is common in the Highlands -- our bus picked up some struggling backpackers on the way up and most guidebooks mention hitch-hiking as a mode of transportation -- and our first attempt met with extremely good fortune.
We were picked up by an older Chinese man named Lyn in his pick-up truck, a farmer who had lived in the Highlands for fifteen years. In the truck with him was Nabim, a mustachioed Indian man who is head of tea-processing at this particular tea production facility. Nabim spent a decent portion of the ride explaining to us exactly how to brew the perfect pot of tea (use a porcelain teapot). After dropping us off at a junction where we could catch a bus back to town, Nabim yelled after us to come back, that his friend, John, who had just pulled up, could take us up to town. John drove a nice BMW, and Vanya and I hopped in the back seat with a very elderly Indian woman heading in the same direction. On the ride into town John (an Indian-Malay), informed us that he was the pastor of a Christian church in town, and that, if we would like and weren't doing anything later that evening, we could join him and some church-members for a fellowship dinner. We were to be at a street corner at 5:30 if we decided to come.
We decided, after some deliberation, to go. John picked Vanya and me up in a clunky van, with his daughter Sarah in the back-seat and a bearded, Indian man named Morgan in the passenger seat ("I am like J.P. Morgan, you know?"). We spent part of the ride talking about rich Americans, like Bill Gates and NBA superstars and Paris Hilton (I defended only Gates), with all of them surprisingly well-informed on things American. They were all very easy-going and asked us quite a few questions about life in America.
We did not realize until the van pulled up that dinner was to be held at the 'BOH' tea estate that we had hiked to earlier in the day. Nabim and his family were hosting the Fellowship dinner. In what I can only imagine is a relic of a much older style of land-ownership/labor practices, Nabim's housing is provided by 'BOH' tea and is actually on the estate. 'BOH' Tea has now had just three owners, all family members from the same Scottish family with middle names like "Archibold." Nabim's house was just around the corner from the tea-processing factory and had an amazing view: hill after rolling hill covered in tea plants.
The dinner, we were told, was not a "potluck." Seeing as this was a gathering of Christians, there was no luck involved. This was a "potbless." Vanya and I mingled a bit before eating, speaking on end with Lyn, the Chinese man who had picked us up earlier. As a farmer, he was an endless repository of information regarding agricultural techniques in the Cameron Highlands. He grows cucumber, zucchini, and tomato, some of which he eats, as well as fifteen types of herbs, which he does not eat and instead sells to hotels and cruise-liners. We also spoke for a while with Morgan, who we came to find out was a renowned tour-guide in the Cameron Highlands and speaks five languages. Dinner came and came and came. I started with too much salad, then moved on to generous servings of mee-hoon (a noodle dish), stingray ("vengeance for Steve Irwin!" Morgan exclaimed), small potatoes, garlic bread, a sort of radish paste, barbecued chicken, and many other dishes, all washed down with iced lemon tea. I had eaten to capacity, but went back for another plateful, mostly as a sign of appreciation to our hosts. Having mostly filled my plate (again), one of the women snuck an entire, 12 inch, barbecued mackerel on my plate, doing the same to Vanya. There was an impossible amount of food.
After dinner, Pastor John, Morgan, Nabim, and Lyn sat around the table and talked to Vanya and I while the women and children milled about and watched Mr. Bean on satellite television. Our hosts did most the talking, much of which covered asian politics. John and Lyn were amazingly well-traveled -- John especially -- but both had come to the conclusion (independently) that Malaysia was the best country to live in. "It would shame me if you were hungry and I did not invite you to dinner," John said. "This is Malaysian hospitality." At one point Lyn asked me what Americans thought of Malaysia. I mumbled a reply, saying that most Americans might envision something similar to Vietnam, and that they might know that Malaysia is a Muslim country. Really I had no idea. He laughed and said that, in his opinion, he believed that Americans might think Malaysians still live in the jungle. Still on the subject of America, Pastor John mentioned September 11th. "This is something that Americans do not realize. Their news is world news. We were all watching the television when that happened. And we are in the highlands of Malaysia!"
Later, the group circled around, a couple of songs were performed, John preached , and group-members gave testimonials to Christ. As the group began to filter out the door -- we had been there about four and a half hours -- John, for the first time, asked both Vanya and I where we stood religiously. We both expressed ambivalence regarding this question, the big question. As we were heading out he door, he asked, "I am just curious... what does this mean that you 'don't know?'" I never had time to answer, we were out the door and heading to Lyn's truck. On the way home we listened to FM radio -- "a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh..." -- and Lyn told us about the role that chrysanthemums play in Buddhist ritual. Which I do not yet fully understand.
Anyway, this is enough for now. Tomorrow evening we fly from Kuala Lumpur to Hanoi, Vietnam, where Vanya's french-speaking abilities will be put to the test, and I will work hard to eat as many Vietnamese breakfast doughnuts as possible. If there are terrorists on the flight (or if I spy them anywhere, for that matter), I can tell you all quite frankly that I will fight them to the death.
posted by conor | 11:58 PM
1 Comments:
You are just hilarious... I couldn't help but wonder when the question would arise as to your religious beliefs. Ha. Anyway... Love you tons and miss you. Sounds like you are having an AMAZING time and I can't wait to hear what happens next. Love you!!! Hey--try to figure out where you might be in April, k? ;)
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