Little India in KL

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These days have been quite active for my standards, and as a result I did not manage to sum up the courage to settle on my computer and write. So now I am days behind the blog’s exorbitant schedule, which is bad.

So, back to KL: well, to summarize: very nice! I experienced a lot of highway driving, but apart from that I have to admit I really liked Malaysia as a whole, KL included.

A flight attendant I had met on the Air Asia shuttle bus had told me that KL was a bit like Hong Kong but in a smaller scale, which is kind of true. The city is clearly booming, sky scrapers are indeed scraping the sky, night clubs are packed with young trendy Malaysians drinking bottles of Black Label and Belvedere vodka…

And yet the central areas – Chinatown, Little India, up to KL Central – are all quite small with many low rise buildings, some of which still have remnants of a colonial architecture, which is quite charming. But the looming presence of the  Twin Towers is always present, with their sister the KL tower.

But again what is most appealing is definitely its cultural diversity. One day I was observing wild animal life in some spiritual Hindu Batu Caves, another day I was eating fried noodles in Chinatown; and another day again I was siting in a restaurant, digesting tranquillo, when I realized that the place had become suddenly packed. But the weirdest was that everyone had food in front of them and yet no one was eating… Aaah, it’s Ramadan, how could I forget… At 19h30 the prayer was heard indeed and at once everyone digged in with a voracious appetite. Voracious.

Yesterday my friend Faye – whom I had met in New Zealand 3 years ago – took me on a day trip to Melaka, the birth place of Malay civilization. The saying goes: “the one who has seen Melaka has seen Malaysia”, and that is almost true.

Melaka became in the 15th century the capital of the Muslim Malay Sultanate, although its founder was originally Buddhist (prince Paramesvara had fled the falling Srivijaya empire based in Sumatra in the end of the 14th century). Soon Melaka became an important trading port and many Chinese sailors ended up finding a Malay wife and settling there.

The result is Melaka: a Chinatown with its pastel colors and colonial architecture (some English and Portugese had also settled there for a while) that makes one feels like in Merida (Yucatan, Mexico) and yet it is Chinese speaking, an indian looking mosque (the minaret is built like a stupa), european styled street planning (no sense at all, not like the squared American cities)… The list goes on.

But the best of all is that the city gives the feeling of having a soul, a history, as the buildings look old and aren’t necessarily restored, which is an amazing thing in Asia (I found the Forbidden City in Beijing absolutely boring); although this is maybe the point of view of the spoiled European that I am, as 2000 years old Roman buildings are everywhere in my home town, Arles.

Ramadan food market

After the monkey fight (see post bellow) we went for the night food market that takes place in times of Ramadan, the fasting month for Muslims. Around 5p.m every days people gather at these markets to buy food to bring home and finally get to eat after a long day fasting. But as a result the food market is bustling, there is food every where, all kind of food, all kind of people (Chinese and all non-Muslim Malay enjoy this food party just as much as the worshippers). And Malay food is just awesome: a mix of the best from Chinese, Indian, Kebab, Indonesian food styles that make something absolutely great.

After Beijing, Dunhuang, Bishkek, Dushanbe, Almaty, Bangkok… I am now in Kuala Lumpur, capital of Malaysia. Like in many other places I’ve ended up going to on this trip I would have never thought I would go there until a couple of weeks ago, until unplanned events occurred bringing twists and twicks and shmicks to my original itinerary: until my friend Faye told me to come by.

Master Monkey v.s Vicious Snake

So yesterday Faye, her brother Jeremy, his friend Alex and I went sightseeing at the Batu Caves, and there we witness some interesting wild life: tones of monkeys, snakes and roosters. But it became really interesting when a big snake decided to have for lunch a baby monkey left unattended.
The snake jumped incredibly fast on the baby and entangled it the way boas typically do (we all witnessed this right?). At that point I thought that there was no hope for the baby monkey.

But then all the monkeys started whistling and yelling at the snake and the dominant male decided to fight the snake!
After playing around for a couple of minutes the Master Monkey (MM) launched a decisive attack which destabilized the snake, which in turn fell down from a cliff. But while the snake was falling, MM continued to try to grasp the baby from the malicious snake and finally succeeded. Then MM bit the snake, forcing it to back up, away from the baby monkey.
And it worked!

Finally, two guys came and fought the snake and managed to take it away in a box. Indian snake masters…

Indian Fakirs taking care of the mess

A shark under the Sugar Wreck, Perhentian Island

So, I have to set myself to get some writing done now. Since Bangkok I have had a rather pleasant time, mostly diving and doing my advanced open water certification. To sum up, I left  Bangkok on the 14th and reached Koh Tao on the following day. I had bargained my course so I got the transportation included, as well as the accommodation actually. But as a result I saw myself being put on a big tourist VIP bus, packed with… tourists, all of them complaining on how horrible the trip was, too cold, too hot, bad seats, etc… So that was an experience in itself. I am not used to that.

And then I reached the fabled Koh Tao, biggest diving training center in South East Asia. On the book (Rough Guide South East Asia) it said it was a relatively quiet island, with great diving; yet I really felt like being on a production line when diving. I had prepared myself to that, and still this was much worse than I thought it could actually be.

However, I still enjoyed diving even though once again every dive site was crowded with divers, because diving is just too fantastic. I had forgotten how the underwater world is… Today I saw a big jelly fish swimming around, with in it a multitude of mini fish playing in this natural playground. Very nice!

Apart from diving I also wanted to write a bit more about Thailand, which is a very intriguing country. First of all I am amazed by how nice  and smily can the people be! As a French chick rightuously put it: “I just feel good in Thailand!” And indeed, the people are so friendly that one just feels good, even in the touristy areas. Taking the overnight train from Chumphon to Sungai Kolok was a great experience, as firstly the beds were confortable, and second it always makes me feel good to see smiles on faces!  I would even dare say Thai people are an unlimeted source of happiness! I wish I had time to explore this country.

I also went through the supposed-to-be-problematic/dangerous Southern area of Thailand (where muslim Thais have fough against the government for ages), and there also I only saw happy Thais, bhuddist and muslim.

And then I crossed the border to Malaysia, where I once again was greeted by happy people. Our taxi driver was very friendly (and not only because of the money I gave him), and in every shop I’ve been until now people were smiling to me. And now I’m on the Perhentian Islands, or Pulau Perhentian, which is a small paradise. There ARE cheap place to stay, unlike what I had heard on my way there. And tourism is still quiet, compared to Koh Tao. Diving is great, as usual. I went on a wreck this morning, called the Sugar Wreck. Very fun.

Gods Party

Bangkok Bangkok. Ok in my previous post I might have sounded slightly skeptical about this place, but there’s actually more to it than just drink tourists everywhere. There are also Buddhist God’s parties in the King’s Grand Palace!!! Wonderful.

This morning I felt just a little bad about not having gone beyond the Rambuttri Street, a little street packed with Guest Houses, 24h bars, food stalls and tourist T-shirts. So with my new Danish friend – Jacob – we went to the King’s Grand Palace. After having paid the 10$ admission fee we finally made it inside this holy place and crawled our way through the crowds of tourists. I had forgotten how much I can’t stand such crowds.

Anyhow, we followed the 10h30 free English speaking tour guide so we heard some interesting stories, which I will not relate here because it is not appropriate; and also because I didn’t really listen.

And there is more! The crowded streets, busy almost 24h even where there’s no tourists, the food smells (humm padthai), the suffocating heat, your head exploding from the spicy food at every meal time, the Thai language (sounds really crazy), the Buddha all around the city… Bangkok is just Bangkok.

Bangkok's clouded sky.

Bangkok. At first I had not planned at all to come here. Then I arrived in Central Asia, realised that I would not be able to go back to China, and thus I would have to fly to Bangkok from Almaty or Tashkent (Uzbekistan) in order to catch another flight for Hong Kong. And then I finally got overflown by the visa hardship of Central Asia and was forced to prematurely leave this area. And once again Bangkok was the only other place to go, so now here am I, in Bangkok, the city of Angels.

My first contact with the spirit of Thailand was the couple travelling next to me on the plane from Abu Dabi. He was old, full of tatoo, drunkard, British; she was young, pretty, petite, Thai. Nice!!! Very nice indeed. And then the streets crowded of tourists drinking bug cocktails in 24h bars, ending up sleeping on the sidewalk for some of them.

The worst was to see a 9 years old girl selling flowers at 3 a.m in front of a bar, completely high on exctasy. She was walking like a robot as her locomotion system was corrupt by the drug. And no one else took notice. I was shocked, especially since the day before I had watched Slumdog Millionaire… And the drunk tourists continuing their drinking as fervently as ever.

Another young guy who was selling lighters in order to make enough money to go back to school the year after told me: “welcome to Bangkok!”

Nursultan Nazebaev's home

Recently I have been moving too fast to keep track on my blog… So I will write about Almaty while I’m already in Bangkok. Maybe I’m becoming lazy.

Almaty. I had read many things about this place, and yet nothing could have prepared me to what I saw. Ok, this sounds maybe a little too dramatic; yet what to say when I saw about 10 different wedding processions in 2 days, each of them constituted of an enormous limousine followed by several by white Mercedes S600 (the biggest, most expensive of all Mercedes). I was also shocked by the big contest taking place in this city: the one who gets the biggest BMW or Porsche SUV! I could have been in L.A.

And the worst is that apparently 5 or 6 years ago the streets of Almaty were almost empty of cars, except for a couple of government cars and some old Ladas. Now rush hours are synonym of traffic jam.

That was the first thing I noticed. Then I went to have some food in the evening with a British guy I had met in my hotel room, and we ended up spending 15$ each for a basic meal with a local beer. And the place was packed with locals Kazakhs drinking 9$ pints of imported beer, or even mega-margaritas for 15$ a glass!!! Even in Montreal I would never spend that much money, unless it’s a special occasion. And yet the beer was flowing! And this is not particular of that restaurant we went to; all restaurants are packed the same way!

A daily situation: car crash on busy streets in Almaty, with big construction in the background

The next morning I walked around to observe the situation. I straight away noticed the many construction cranes all around, which gave me the feeling of being in Beijing. I could maybe even say that Almaty is the Shanghai of Central Asia. Zee Almaty Blast!

The Road to Dushanbe, bordering Afghanistan

Now, it has been a couple of days without writing anything, so here am I, back on press. Last time I wrote I was kind of stucked in Khorog, waiting for a mean of transportation for Dushanbe, fervently hoping to be able to catch a flight. Well I did not managed to fly, so I took a car and was on the road for 22h, non-stop, with 3 Swiss. This is why I wanted to avoid driving.

To summarize, we started at 8 a.m on Tuesday, and arrived at the Hotel in Dushanbe – capital of Tajikistan – on Wednesday, 6 a.m. Exhausting. Not only it was long, extremely long, but also literally painful. The road was unpaved almost the entire way, so I managed to sleep maybe one hour in total. We crossed numerous rivers, passes, passport check points with crazy Tajik military, etc…

And arriving in Dushanbe I thought I would be able to finally relax, but this was impossible. First of all the sweet babooshka at the  Hotel reception refused to give us a room until 8 o’clock, so we had to sleep on the carpets in the front hall. But then she didn’t wanted us to sleep on the carpets so we had to fight countless times, and in the end we got a room.

But then it was already 8a.m, so I had to go out again and find the damn Uzbek embassy in order to try to get an Uzbek visa. After walking through the whole town I finally found out where the embassy was; only to discover that I needed to renew my Tajik visa before doing the Uzbek one. Welcome back to the visa world. Then I met another Swiss on a bike, coming straight from Afghanistan, who told me that he had been waiting for more than a week for the visa renewal and still no sign of success.

Ah! That’s when I realized that Uzbekistan was not in any part of my destiny, so I decided to get myself a new mission: get to Bangkok as soon as possible! So I walked through the whole town again, this time trying to find a travel agency so I could book a flight out of this  dark visa nest… After some time I found out that there is one street – ONE – where all the travel agent are. So I went there, only to hear that all flight are full so I had to wait until Sunday in Dushanbe. 4 days in Dushanbe, no way!

But after some time my dear travel agent managed to get me the last seat on a plane to Almaty, Kazakhstan, for the following day. Great! And then he found another last seat from Almaty to Bangkok on the 8th (so tomorrow now). Previously I would have to wait until the 13th to get to Bangkok (thus missing Sandra). So finally things start working out !

Of course there was a last impediment to my success: they don’t take credit card in Tajikistan (the guy said “welcome to Tajikistan ha ha ha”), and no ATM has money in it! So I searched the whole town, once again, and in the end managed to find a ATM full of cash, thanks to an American guy learning Tajik in Dushanbe. Never underestimate a lone American.

So, then it was only 6p.m (I had then been awake for 36h) when things got sorted out, and I could go and have a beer with shashlik on the plaza next to the hotel. And that was really, really nice.

Beer and Shashlik in Dushanbe

Yesterday I was in Ishkashim, at the entrance of the Wakham valley, for the Afghan Saturday market. One a week the border opens and people from both sides gather together to shop, sell, and eat shashlik with palov. I was happy to witness that event and specially meet some Afghans in their own country.

First of all I was really amazed to see that people were that friendly and happy! Maybe it was because of the market day, but it was still fantastic to say ‘assalamu aleikum’ with the right hand on your heart to everyone, and everyone answering you with a beaming smile in the same fashion, and sometimes even tanking you for saying ‘hello’!

Then I bought an Afghan hat and two turbans, just so I can say that I have a hat and a scarf bought in Afghanistan. I think this country would have amazing to travel to if not at war.

So now I’m back in Khorog, on Sunday, when everything is closed, hoping to get a flight tomorrow to Dushanbe, the capital. I went today to the airport but apparently there is bad weather so the plane is not coming from Dushanbe. Tomorrow inch’ Allah they said. Else I’ll have to take a Chinese minivan for 24 hours or more depending on Allah’s mood once again. I love transportation in Tajikistan!