Market in Kota Bharu

After my previous post people might think that I spend my life having fun on paradise islands… but it’s not true! As many of my friends could confirm easily, I am a hard worker. So after 5 days on Pulau Perhentian of hard labor Sabrina and me went to Kota Bharu to discover a bit these Malays people. We ate at the night food market, listened to the prayers, observed men women interactions in this part of the Muslim World, went to the vegetable market (picture above), got a haircut (for Sabrina)… Busy we were.

Being Buddhist

(Jungle Temple…)

And then it was time to change a bit of scenery, so we went Buddhist temple hopping on Friday. Kelvin, the son the our guests at Ideal Traveller’s House drove us around the northern province of Tumpat, along the Thai border.

Our legendary luck stroke once again as we ended up in the middle of a festival of some kind, so we got free food and a free bamboo leafs packet making course, taught by old Thai women (picture above: me not understanding anything about what she’s saying… with the monks in the background wondering what’s going on).

That was really fun, as there was no other -westerner- tourists whatsoever. After the third temple we got tired of it and went back to Kota Bharu, as it is known here. That night we tried to have Tum Yum soup, but a tropical rain forced us to go to Pizza Hut, and it was my first time; and I have to say: these American pizza are really awful. I would go further: it is a real sadness that whole countries around the world get to discover la pizza in the American way, and probably will never get to bite on a real pizza.

This is a tragedy.

Coral Bay at Pulau Perhentian

Malaysia!!! I finally managed to escape the frenzy of Hong Kong for a delightful ten days. After almost a month and a half of school, parties, suffocating heat and stuffiness, and a constant bath among billions of people I needed a break. So Sabrina and me flew to Perhentian Islands, for the second time in my long and eventful life. We first wanted to go to El Nido on Palawan, Philippines, but then a typhoon flooded the country. We then though of going to Pulau Weh, an other island in Aceh, Indonesia, but once again Mother Nature (la pachamama, caramba!) played against us and sent earthquakes on Sumatra. Really not nice. So in the end we went to Pulau Perhentian, ignoring the people suffering all around; but what is there to say, eh?

BBQ corner...

Anyways, Marco, Morten and Marcel, three friend of mine, joined us on this little piece of paradise. This (on the above picture) is where we had dinner every night: fish bbq! Amazingly really nice. There is little better in life than beach, sun, and bbq; except beach, sun and bbq on Perhentian. That is said.

But I should also praise the incredible people of Malaysia. It is really a wonder, for such nice people is definitely what makes the most of Malaysia. You may come for the Petronas Tower, or the Orang Outan, or Borneo, or even Perhentian Islands, but it’s the people who are the best asset. Every one is just so nice! And on top of it I really like the interesting symbiosis between Malays Chinese, Hindu and… me, I guess.

Malaysia is my favorite country in Asia, so far, and only Central America could equal it in terms of the “I just feel good here” scale.

Concert at Grappa's Cellar

Tonight I decided I’d try a story in pictures because to show Hong Kong I need both. So, this is thus the story of an ordinary Saturday night in HK.
We (us, the exchange students) had already gone out in the famous lame clubs of LKF (Lan Kwai Fong) on Friday, so Saturday we tried to have an easy night. First we had dinner at the residence. Great dinner. With Scottish Baileys for dessert. Then around midnight we started to shake ourselves and went toward HK Central to assist a rock show that my friend Lara had told me about; and it was actually quite fun to see a concert here. But since we were slightly late there was only half an hour of the show left, so we headed toward LKF to see this place while being sober, for once.

After hours

On the way I stopped and took this picture of a [late] worker. It was 1:30 a.m. Hong Kong literally never sleeps; everyone run 24h non stop.

Lan Kwai Fong

Anyways, we still made it to the busy LKF which we found quite more trashy now that we weren’t feverishly drunk. The place was packed, since it was Saturday night. It’s funny how perspectives change with alcohol. So we had a beer from 7/11, wandered among the crowd, and headed back to the residence.

Horny horns, and incredibly enough people buy and wear them...

I also noticed this peculiar phenomenon: I saw many people – boys and girls – wearing this astonishingly beautiful party accessory… and then I found the dealer. Why???

Finally we took a cab, one of these big Toyota that I haven’t seen anywhere else than here in HK. They must have a special factory producing these cars because they all look old fashioned, and yet some of the cars are brand new. I guess it gives a special ‘touch’ to Hong Kong.

Half an hour later we were back at the dear City University student residence, which I already find annoying. The walk between the university campus and the residence (5 min uphill) is the most tiresome: it’s almost impossible to reach at the residences without being soaked in your own sweat. And there are no shops around the residence, so one end up going up and down quite often.

Another critic (I like to criticize, of course) would be to the lack of place ‘to be’ on campus or at the residence. Since it’s bloody hot it’s not really nice to sit down outside, but there’s nowhere to go except the miniature bedroom and the Homey Kitchen!

Which of course leaves the pool; the fantastic 50m open-air swimming pool where I go almost everyday to swim and tan… And then beside the pool I also have to work on my homework: practicing portrait photography and write short stories… So I can’t really complain about my life in HK!

Today Sabrina and me went sight seeing in Central, Hong Kong Island. After walking a bit we got tired so we took one of the double deck tram: best way to visit Hong Kong! Here are some pictures. Writing is too tiring tonight…

At the Airport

Hong Kong! Where to start from?
Maybe from the start then. This is a story that begins to be repetitive but once again I should first say that my original plan did not include Hong Kong for 2009-2010! Sabrina and I wanted to go in exchange to the American University in Cairo for a year, but we got to go only for one semester; so we had to chose another destination – anywhere – to spend the fall 2009 semester. And Hong Kong was our choice. Our ‘exchange manager’, Pauliina Rouleau (now in maternity leave), suggested Hong Kong, as there was spots available, so we said: “why not?” And here am I.

I was never really interested in discovering HK. I always though that it was much more interesting to go to rural China, which I would lamely but truly say is ‘more Chinese’. I also always said that cities did not interest me, specially the huge ones. But Hong Kong is just amazing, crazy, crowded, busy, shiny, big, traditional, western and eastern in the same time.

Hong Kong Harbour

The harbour, for example. It was the busiest in the World for some time, and it is definitely the busiest I’ve ever seen. It’s immense. It also constitutes the ‘introduction to HK’ as one kind of has to go through when coming from the airport to go downtown. And the view in the background of the forest of skyscrapers is almost surreal. Wowowiwow.

The view from my dorm...

Talking about skyscrapers, I could also go on with the superlatives, but I won’t, because it’s getting boring. Just look at the view I have from the roof of my student residence at City University. Luckily we are situated in one of the most expansive neighborhood in HK, so I pay 500 US$ rent for an entire semester instead of billions per month. Good. On the picture above, in the very center, you can see some fierce light. That’s Mongkok, the busiest area in the world (I have personally compared every square inches). On the right of the center the Bank of China building can be seen, and even more on the right is the tallest building in HK, still in construction, the ICC tower (International Commerce Center, for the ignorant ones). Sweet stuff.

A

And then that’s what I do on Friday evenings: floor dinner party (7th floor, hall 9), with KFC buckets and Pizza Hut delicatessen.

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.