My December – White Temple Day

Where I went:

How it felt:

Mostly blindingly bright. Partially embarrassing. Also involved some delicious food (as usual.)

Welcome to the White Temple

On our first full day in Chiang Rai, Gianpiero and I decided to go find the glittering white building we’d seen on the bus on the way into Chiang Rai. We found out from the friendly staff at Akha River House that it was called the “White Temple”.  I suddenly heard the voice of my coworker, Sakinah: “Grace. If you go to Chiang Rai, you must must see the White Temple.”

In the morning we met at the big table by the river for breakfasts of our choice (yogurt and muesli for GP, rice porridge for me.) It was so! cold! I had trouble sleeping the night before because it must have been less than 10°C  and I was pitifully unprepared for anything lower than 18°C. In the wee hours I had to get up and  jump  around in my room to warm up, put on every single article of clothing I had packed (a pair of thin cotton pants, three t-shirts, a thin cardigan, a sarong, and a blessed, blessed thick pair of hiking socks,) and then cocoon myself tightly in the blankets which I had folded in half to double them.

When I left my room to brush my teeth I could see my breath! This is Thailand!

Our planned early departure was delayed because we started talking to Nika who was also staying at the River House. Nika is a New Yorker who’s been living in Thailand for a while now, although it seems she’s been living pretty much everywhere else too (lucky!) She had been up the mountain to stay with the Akha tribe and couldn’t say enough great things about the place. Also she’s just wildly interesting. Seriously, the stories this woman tells!

By 10:30 we were streaking south down the highway, sun already high in the clear winter sky, my sarong whipping and snapping behind us, feeling secure above our full tank of gas.  Not only was the weather warming up, but I got to play navigatrix.  (I had three different maps and consulted them frequently with great difficultly due to the wind. I love being navigatrix.) Really, there aren’t many feelings nicer than riding on the back of a motorbike on a sunny Southeast Asian day.

Thirty minutes outside of Chiang Rai Gianpiero started asking me if I was sure we were on the right track. Yes, of course we are. There’s no way we could have made a wrong turn because there were no turns. Forty minutes outside of Chiang Rai he insisted we pull over and find out where we were. There were no signs, no towns, just a few buildings on either side of the highway, so I had to approach a man near his truck.

“<Sorry! Hello!>” I brandished the wind-crumpled map with my shiniest hapless tourist smile. “Uh…Wat Rong Khun?”
“Aaaaah!” his face broke into a huge smile. He pointed west with the universal sound/gesture that means undoubtably “really really really far away.”

I returned to Gianpiero sitting all cool and collected on the motorbike with low-hanging head. I had failed.  I was so embarrassed. Gianpiero sportingly teased me for the rest of our time in Thailand but was kind enough not to look too smug.

We have arrived!

An hour later, we pulled into a gravel lot across from the glittering Wat Rong Khun. It was even whiter and sparklier up close, mainly because the temple was surrounded by a shallow pond which not only reflected the temple, but reflected the sun onto the temple’s mirrored tiles. And it wasn’t only punishingly bright to look at; the grounds were covered in momento mori and graphic depictions of Buddhist hell.

Your head will be used as a planter!

This guy will take you out.

I'm not sure what's happening here, but it looks uncomfortable.

Everything was ceramic-white and/or painted with a pearly, opalescent paint and/or inlayed with mirrored tiles. The architecture itself is very Thai — delicate swooping roofs and ornate curlicues attached to everything.

Ornate.

If cigarette smoke looked like this ...

Two different roof silhouettes.

Monks walking into the koi pond building. This building was the pearliest of all.

The temple itself was really interesting. The interior was almost bereft of the usual fancy accoutrements of a temple, but the entire back wall was painted with the strangest mural I could imagine in a holy place.  The mural depicted a few demons of in huge dimensions overlaid by a post-apocalyptic landscape and everywhere in this flaming hellhole were popculture icons. Seriously. You can spot everyone from Doraemon to Superman to Darth Vader to Keanu Reeves of as Neo in The Matrix (although I approve of Keanu being in a place of worship.) Photography is not allowed inside the temple, so you’ll have to use your imaginations.

The temple won’t be completed for a few decades, but there are lots of things to see in the meantime.  The designer of the temple even hangs around and autographs pamphlets. He seems to be some sort of Thai celebrity. Some of his other works are displayed in another building and visitors can buy prints. His paintings are mostly pretty trippy in a new-age Thai kind of way. I’m sure they’re very popular with tourists.

The temple from behind.

The side of the temple.

It was a strange place to visit. On one hand, it’s a major tourist attraction equipped with a few restaurants, a cafe, and a few gift shops; on the other hand, it was a peaceful place of worship. On one hand, Westerners jabbering with delighted surprise at Keanu Reeves; on the other hand, an immensely old monk sitting deathly still in the centre of the temple. On one hand, entire clans of be(sun)spectacled, camera-slinging tourists frantically trying to organize group photos; on the other hand, the tourist clans bowing to pray.

It kind of reminded me of the Philippines where the precious town cathedral’s altar revered by all  also doubles as a stray dog rendezvous point. It’s something Alice and I talked about a lot in Korea; maybe Asians aren’t as picky about separating realms of their lives as Westerners. We noticed that Korean teachers were interacted with their students in ways that we sometimes found shockingly intimate.  I think especially North Americans tend to compartmentalize our lives. Thoughts?

I'm posting this extremely unflattering picture to illustrate the dichotomy of "heavenly" and "dirty backpacker".

After a quick lunch at one of the restaurants, we went back to Chiang Rai (I navigated perfectly this time.) We had planned to go up to the Akha Mountain House but turned out we didn’t have enough time because we were both going to Bangkok in two days.

I spent the afternoon wandering the wats of the city (many.) I encountered lots of other interesting things: a high school marching band with gorgeous brand new silver-plated instruments, parks filled with exercise clothing-clad ladies doing energetic dance aerobics, local people lined up to buy coats and sweaters. Turns out it was a freak cold front and I wasn’t the only one caught unprepared.

At night, I rejoined GP and we went back to the foodcourt and ordered the clay hotpot. Gianpiero was really excited about it.

Et voila!

NOM NOM NOM

We ate this!

We ate two servings of beef, a serving of chicken, and I think we tried a serving of pork. The beef was best. Both being huge food nerds, we created competition of who could make the most delicious soup using the raw ingredients we were given. Competition was fierce especially because I had to prove myself a competent person after the navigating fiasco of the morning. We each won once.

People. Chilling.

After dinner we wandered lazily around the night market, idly eyeing goods. It was getting cold again, so I bought a hideous $3 sweatshirt that says hilarious things about fruit in amazing Engrish that deserves its own post. We wanted sticky rice with mango, but none was to be found. Instead we found a lady selling dango with different toppings and I had the pleasure of initiating another friend into the mysterious world of rice cakes. Yummmmmm!

We went back to the hotel and I asked for two extra blankets. I slept cozy and warm in my socks, sweatshirt, and smothered in blankets.

My December – Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai

Where I went:

View Larger Map

How it felt:

***Yet again, all photos in this post are from Gianpiero. Thank you, Gianpiero!***

I had missed carefree travel so much. I didn’t fully realize how much I missed it until the morning of my third day in Chiang Mai.

I woke in my green bed. I stretched. I decided I was still full. I stretched again then I got dressed and went downstairs. A pyjama-clad Nine gave me a cup of coffee. The dog came over and sat beside my leg. I scratched his head and he wagged his tail.

I wandered into the city and realized that I was cold for the first time in a long time – over six months! I wrapped my shawl around me tighter and walked a little faster. I didn’t stop walking for 2 hours except once to buy some handmade mulberry paper for a certain mulberry paper-lover. It was 8:30 when I got back to the Green Tulip. The dog was chasing pigeons on the sidewalk.

I met a man named Max on the stairs who I had talked to briefly the day before. He is a folk artist/geologist/mountaineer and has been … everywhere. It’s a surprisingly happy thing for me to meet someone who has been to your hometown while you’re travelling thousands of kilometres away from that hometown. Not only had he been to my humble London, Ontario, but he’d been to Labrador of all places, and the Yukon. Not to mention hiking the scariest peaks of South America alone to have conversations with the hardy and hospitable people of those mountains. He was in Chiang Mai getting dental implants. Lord. Max gets up early to follow the monks around on their pre-dawn city walk. He watches them watching the city.

I put all my belongings into my backpack and came downstairs again. Gianpiero was sitting at a table with coffee and a guide book. We had decided to travel to Chiang Rai together to see what there was to see. We said goodbye to Nine, Stella, the dog, and the boy who made the coffee and crawled into a truck taxi to go to the bus station.

Buses from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai run every hour or so through a number of bus companies and tickets cost a couple dollars. There are two bus terminals, and the company we chose was leaving through the newer one. We killed the 45 minutes before our bus by buying snacky foods for the 3 hour trip. I got fried dried banana chips; GP bought sesame snaps.

The bus was air conditioned,comfortable, and quiet. Across the aisle from us, a small boy of 5 or so grinned at me fearlessly from behind his sleeping mother. We began a game of peek-a-boo in earnest. He positively squealed with joy every time I hid or reappeared until his mother woke up and gave him a smack for being so noisy. He just giggled and hugged her and tried to engage her in the game too. What a sweet kid. I pretended to sleep so as not to get him in more trouble.

Bus

We had a pit stop halfway to Chiang Mai. The small boy from the bus saw me as I was waiting for a toilet stall and actually ran to me and pressed his face into my pant leg. Everyone in the washroom laughed, including his mother.

Just before we got into the city, we saw a glitteringly white building. “What is that?” we exclaimed. “We need to get to that!”

After a short while of indecision and hot wandering in the city, we finally got ourselves rooms at the Akha River House. It’s about a km north of the city centre (totally walkable) which means it’s also far from the (pretty disgusting) backpacker digs. Apparently there are some decent places to stay right in the city, but the ones that still had rooms were so gross that even my past super-cheap-Euro-trip incarnation would’ve passed up on them.

The River House, though, was lovely and had large grounds by the river. I got a double room with shared bathroom for 200B  a night and GP paid a little more for a private bathroom. Almost all the employees are Akha – a distinct ethnic group of Northern Thailand – and full of interesting conversation. They had a wide variety of breakfast food too including my favourite: rice porridge Thai-style with lots of garlic and vegetables. And coffee! At night, they built a fire by the river to stave off the terrible, terrible cold. It dropped to around 6°C in the nights, a temperature for which I was unprepared.

After settling in, GP and I rented a motorbike. After seeing that glitteringly white wat on the bus this conversation ensued:
“…Gianpiero?”
“Yes?”
“Can you drive a motorbike?”
“…Yes.”
“Great! Let’s rent a motorbike!”
“…Ok.”
Hooray for Gianpiero! I can’t really drive  a motorbike myself; at least, not with any degree of trust. I declared my role: navigatrix.

We scooted into town and parked near the nasty dorms we had seen earlier, ate a gross meal at one of the super-touristy restaurants along the road out of desperate hunger, and walked to Chiang Rai’s Wat Chet Yot.

Wat Chet Yao's guardian handrail dragon says: BLAAAAAARRRREEGHHHH!

There was a large white stupa behind the main temple where two sets of stairs lead to the top. I’d never been on top of a stupa before and rushed forward only to have my way blocked by a terrible sign: “NO WOMAN UPSTAIRS”

Curses!

Fortunately, GP is a dude, and he went up and took pictures of what he saw:

The lion-dragon has something against womankind maybe.

They want to keep lovely sunset views from the ladies?

We then went back to the bus station area where every night there is an extensive night market.We tried some “Chiang Rai coffee” (which turned out to be Chiang Mai coffee) at a guidebook-recommended coffee shop. Honestly the coffee at the Green Tulip is better – but I recognise that I’m laughably enamoured with the place and so am biased.

The night market seems to be divided: a part for tourists; and a part for locals. The goods are mostly for the tourists: “silver” jewelry, hill tribe headdresses, wooden carvings, etc. There’s also an ornate stage by some expensive tourist-directed restaurants where cover musicians playing Thai instruments sing nightly.

I got them mad Akha styyyylllllezzz

Far more interestingly, in my opinion, is the yellow-seated food court further east of the bus station. I think I ended up there all three nights of my Chiang Rai stay and each time it was abuzz and busy with mostly locals.  That first night, we sat down in front of the stage in the food court watching some cute young Thais dancing Thai dances.

The locals part of the night market selling yarn for knitting hats and scarves. (It was truly cold.)

Gianpiero noticed that many people around us were gathered around clay pots over coals and were busily stirring and adding food. He wanted a picture but didn’t want to bother any of the people. No problem! I grabbed his camera and approached the lady sitting alone with a clay pot directly in front of us.

I knew three phrases in Thai at this point: “thank you”, “sorry”, “hello.” I also knew that women generally end sentences with ka while men end sentences in khrap. I smiled at the lady in an apologetically friendly way and said in Thai:

“Hello ka. Sorry ka,” then brandishing Gianpiero’s camera, I mimed taking a picture and pointed at the clay pot steaming merrily over the coals. She nodded happily and smiled back at me with double my smile power (Thais really know how to smile.) I took a few pictures then used my third phrase, “Thank you ka!” and returned triumphantly to our table.

Behold! My spoils!

Five minutes later, three young women joined the lady who seemed to tell them what had just happened. They all laughed, then went and got two more bowls and insisted that we join them at their meal. Yes, please!

I was so so so delighted. The clay pot turned out to be hot pot and was filled with delicious spicy meat broth to which our new friends added some vegetables, and various types of meat. Using their limited English vocabularies, phone dictionaries, and charades, we were able to learn more about each other. The younger women were sisters, and the older woman was their neighbour — all are Chiang Rai natives. The youngest was the most enthusiastic about trying English and the two of us had a loud and merry game of “point to an object and say it in your language and then the other tries to imitate the word.”  We are now facebook friends (obvi.)

"Eat more, eat more!"

As the night wore on, and their bottle of whiskey emptied (those women drink!) the one who was introduced to me as “Elephant” fetched more food court dishes including a big plate of fried silkworm larva. Oh silkworms larvae, you bring me back to my Korean days and the deceptively nice-smelling stewed silkworms (번데기) they sold in ice cream cones along the street. I always liked the smell, but never had the guts to try them alone (Alice refused to touch them. Maybe it had something to do with a 번데기-auntie stewing them right under her window so that her entire apartment was often filled with silkworm-smell in the cold months.) These were fried though, and admittedly looked pretty tasty.

Eenie-meenie-minie mo...

I choose you, silkworm larva!

They were good! Kind of nutty-tasting (as well as oily...)

We left the ladies to their whiskey and insects. They refused any offers of monetary contribution to the meal which made me vow — in a moment of full bellied warm-fuzzies — to pass the favour on to tourists in my own city of residence (wherever that may be) someday.

 

BONUS PICTURE: sweet and crispy egg pancakes spread with sugary egg cream and topped with shredded egg yolk. “Would you like some egg on your egg and egg?”

Any extra egg?

 

My December – Wats in Chiang Mai

Where I went:

View Larger Map

How it felt:

One important detail on the Jaya that I failed to post: my brand new camera broke then miraculously came back to life after four days (the entire dive trip.) The only problem with its resurrection is that the LCD screen refused to work and my camera does not have a viewfinder. Also it only turned on 30% of the time. Also the flash suddenly wouldn’t work. And then sometimes it couldn’t turn off.

Essentially, it was the worst camera ever but I was so relieved that it had come back to life that I didn’t notice this for another few weeks.  I’m still reeling from the shock of it. (Cam update: got a new one.)

Because there was no way of telling if it was actually taking any pictures besides listening very, very carefully for a tiny shutter click, I was really excited to get home and go through what I hoped was a memory card full of blindly-taken photographs.

Lo: FEAST YOUR EYES ON THESE MIRACLES! Among the many pictures of my face looking concernedly into the lens and horrendously tilted and artlessly off-centre shots, some of them actually turned out! A few even turned out the way I imagined they would. Another skill I will add to my MANTA QUEEN resume. They’ll want me for sure now.

When the Jaya returned to Khao Lak, I was reluctant to leave my new friends. Anneke ended up inviting me to stay in her posh rented bungalow at Phu Khao Lak. I was especially happy to accept her kind offer considering my body seemed to have swapped my usual (and suspiciously absent) seasickness for a new and terrible landsickness. The world was spinning wildly and I didn’t relish the thought of a 15 minute walk to my dingy, empty dorm room at Tiffany’s Cafe. Phu Khao Lak is very nice. It built bungalow-rooms on an old palm plantation and even has a pretty little pool.

The stage. You can just make out a be-tututed child behind the sea salt smudge on my lens.

The town was celebrating the beginning of the high season and had set up a party of tents consisting of food stalls and stages along the main stretch. We saw some bizarre performances, particularly, four-year-old girls dressed in fishnets and tutus dancing inappropriately to Thai pop, and a man and woman singing in Thai so convincingly that everyone was very surprised when we found that two tall, alabaster-skinned farang of Nordic origin were the singers. The local high school even had a tent where teens were carving watermelons into floral bouquets and entreating passers-by to “Please, enter tent. Welcome very much!” in adorable, giggling English.

I booked myself a flight to Chiang Mai for the next day, feeling very fancy-free indeed on my first unplanned trip then Maria, Kathryn, George, Anneke and I walked away from the noise and bustle to eat at Maria’s friend’s restaurant.  My favourite was the massaman curry and the gorgeous, melt-in-mouth roast fish. Kathryn successfully identified it (I forget…) We talked about how it’s kind of a turn-off to eat whole roast fish after having spent five days swimming around with its cousins.  Similarly, I feel guilty about eating octopus and squid because they are so amazing. I tend not to eat cuttlefish — it’s like when I was faced with the opportunity to try dog in Bohol and Korea and I couldn’t do it because I felt like other dogs might somehow know and be upset. (Rationally, I know that this is bananas.)

The next day Kathryn, George and I saw Anneke off which was sad and I spent my last day in the south wandering the beach and drinking coconut water. Also: I saw a grasshopper larger than I could have ever imagined.

Khao Lak Beach

It was too high up for me to put in my hand as a size comparison, but trust me when I say that it could probably have torn my thumb off. It was easily as long as a tube of toothpaste.

In the late afternoon, I returned to Wicked Divers where a taxi was picking me up to bring me to the Phuket Airport. I was happy to see Colin who was leaving that evening for the next Jaya tour and Kathryn and George even passed by before I left.

The taxi driver was around my age and we had a warm conversation about why Thais look so young — because they smile all the time because they aren’t burdened with problems because they share all their problems with their friends. He said that farang (non-Thais) don’t share their problems because they don’t like opening up. I disagreed with him: this particular farang won’t often share problems with her friends because she doesn’t want  to burden them unnecessarily. Taxi Driver said that if he kept problems from his friends, they would ask, “Why not? Don’t you love me anymore?” We spent a good 5 minutes in silence, each thinking our friend-thoughts but he was full of interesting talk and we ended up talking the entire hour drive.

CHIANG MAI DAY ONE

The plane landed in Chiang Mai at around 10pm. I asked my flat-rate taxi driver to take me to Green Tulip House to find one of the managers, Nine, waiting up for me. I chose Green Tulip because it had a super high rating on Trip Advisor and it did not disappoint. I cannot recommend it strongly enough. If you go to Chiang Mai, stay at Green Tulip House. My room was just a simple fan room, but it was quiet and immaculately clean, as were the shared bathrooms. On the top floor there is a sun deck and an adorable stone garden with reclining chairs and a nice view of Chaing Mai city. Fruit and toast breakfast is included, and best of all, the staff is wonderful in all sorts of ways. Also, there’s a dog.

I'm a messy person; I don't apologise for any aesthetic displeasure caused by viewing my unmade bed strew with travel debris. The lime green sheets solidified my love of Green Tulip. Also: they were CLEAN!

The next morning, when I came down for breakfast at around 8 the seating area was still empty.  Nine was up though and fussed over me until I was settled in an appropriate seat with an appropriate amount of Chaing Mai travel books to look through. Breakfast  was a plate of fruit and coffee. They also brought me bonus toast and orange juice for unknown reasons and I took it to be a good omen. Good vibes abound in Chiang Mai; I don’t know if it’s the cool mountain weather, or the inordinate number of temples in the city but everyone I’ve ever talked to about Thailand has raved about Chiang Mai.

My good times started immediately. I struck up a conversation with a girl who turned out to be my new role model. Stephanie from Australia went on an 8-week trip to Europe a few years ago, got to Turkey, realized it was just starting to get really interesting, and then phoned home to tell them not to wait up for her. She spent the next EIGHTEEN MONTHS travelling down into the Middle East, hitting up such amazing places as Syria, Afghanistan, and Iran. Her stories! Are! Unbelievable!

Stephanie was in Chiang Mai finishing up some papers for uni before her beach vacay in Bali. While we were talking, Nine came over and said in her forward way, “Tomorrow, you do cooking class.”
Stephanie replied, “Right! Sure!”
Nine turned to me, “You too.”
“A cooking class?”
“Yes, Thai cooking class. You do it tomorrow. Whole day. I give you discount.
“Ok!”

And suddenly, my tomorrow was filled with food and good company! Chiang Mai, ahoy!

WAAAAAAAAAAT!!!!

Before we continue, I want it to be known (especially by Nada) that the pun in the title of this post was unintentional.

I left Stephanie to her work, and headed out to explore the ubiquitous Thai wats that I had yet to see.  On my way out, I bumped into another traveller who had come in on the same Phuket flight as myself and whom I’d met the night before. We were both headed to do some wat-seeing and very organically became travel buddies.

Enter Gianpiero.

Gianpiero and I ended up travelling together for over a week and if I could recommend people as travel partners in the same way I can recommend guest houses, I would do so with many a superlative and hyperbole. He had just finished a PhD in microbiology in Utrecht and was on a 2 month Asian adventure. Ah! I hear you say, but “Gianpiero” is not really a Dutch name. And you’re right, he grew up in Sicilian village, population 300. He remembers when they installed hot running water into his house. He used to work the fields with his father. And he ended up in Utrecht with a PhD in microbiology. And he thought his stories weren’t very interesting!

We spent the entire day wandering the streets of old Chiang Mai. The walled city is full to bursting with temples and stupas. You’d have a hard time finding a place to stand that isn’t within sight of one. We couldn’t travel from one guidebook-recommended wat to another without finding three or four or five smaller temples along the way. It’s nuts. In a great way.

(Some of the following photos are GP’s, and are marked as such. Thanks, Gianpiero!)

I would like to remind you at this point that all these photos were taken blind. I expect you to be duly impressed.

Stop number one was Wat Phra Singh, a previous home of the famous “Emerald Buddha” and the most famous of Chiang Mai’s wats just a 5 minute walk from the Green Tulip. It was a nice introduction to wat-seeing. Wat Phra Singh is a wonderland of sloped roofs covered in gold filigree and painted mirror tiles and Estruscan-smiling figures and fantastic beasts (like naga!) all set upon a backdrop of a deep burgundy paint.

A copy of the Emerald Buddha in a building separate from the largest temple.

A detail on the ...plinth(?) of the copy of the Emerald Buddha.

The prayerful.

The buildings of the wat are surrounded by lovely treed pathways punctuated by large stone urns housing lotus plants and occaissionally, a bit of advice.

A meditation park-garden in the grounds. You can see a man tutoring a little boy in Buddhist teachings at the stone table. There are sayings on all the trees. My favourite one said, "Today is better than two tomorrows."

Behind the main temple is a great white stupa. When I was there, there were people cranking a wheel which pulleyed up a small cylindrical vessel to the dome of the stupa. When it hit the stupa, it broke open and spilled water onto it. When it did, people cheered. I still don’t know what it meant: can anyone shed some light on this?

A couple about to crank the water up onto the stupa. (GP)

A place for prayer outside the stupa. The wheel for the water-breaking is on the far end.

Background music of Wat Phra Singh: bells.

I think I mentioned in a post about Cambodia that I was fairly obsessed with Thai aesthetics when I was a kid because of King and I. I felt the same feeling of dream-fulfillment looking at the Lanna architecture and painting that I did from watching Cambodian dance.

I remember looking at this gorgeous painting on the inside of a window shutter and having one of those, "OMG I'm in THAILAND!" moments.

One of the more serious characters in Wat Phra Singh.

The walls of one building are covered in unbelievably detailed painted murals. They were done sometime in the 19th century by an ethnic Chinese painter (or so I read … somewhere…) and depict the daily life of people in Lanna. The faces and gestures of the little figures were endlessly fascinating to me. I spent a long time nose-to-wall, frequently taking out my poor camera and forcing it to take pictures of my favourite bits.

Now be a good human, and do as you're told.

They're totally just having a regular conversation. Awesome.

FORBIDDEN ROMANCE! I just know it.

Look at all the different faces. They all have their individual lives going on. Whole little worlds.

Shirtless chores. The best kind of chores. I think they're collecting flowers to make tea.

These men are wearing different outfits than the Lanna people and they have very distinct facial hair. Where could they be from?

From Wat Phra Singh, we turned down Ratchadamnoen - one of the main avenues in the walled cities – and had a look at every wat along the way. It’s all one golden blur to me now, and even that day I couldn’t keep track of which temples we visited and where they were and what they looked like. Here’s a smattering of images from the ones in which my camera would turn on.

A very Hindu-looking blue deity.

A temple.

A particularly lovely buddha. (GP)

I don't know what it means, but it's pretty. (GP)

I took special joy looking at the guardians of the different temples. I like the beasts that seem to be a mixture of a few animals or the beasts that aren’t native to Thailand so the artists’ renditions of them are skewed. It’s like looking at medieval European depictions of lions and elephants: close, but so very far.

The guardian lion-dragons have bum holes! Some of them are also daintily seated on little stools. Maybe the idea is they're supposed to be scary on from the front, and if you make it past their fearsome faces you ... get ... to see ... nevermind.

A particularly ornate handrail dragon. They're not supposed to be handrails. It's just how I think of them.

A shiny gold handrail dragon. Now pay attention to his "body" ... (GP)

... it's not its body at all! It's A SECOND DRAGON REGURGITATING THE FIRST LEAVING VISITORS IN DOUBT AS TO WHETHER THE FIRST WILL ALSO START VOMITING OTHER SHINY GOLD DRAGONS! (GP)

An unintentionally adorable lion-dragon-teddy bear. (GP)

A scary many-headed naga at Chedi Luang.

Some notable temples were Chedi Luang, a crumbling and moss-covered monolith; and my favourite (so far), Wat Phan Tao. Wat Phan Tao is just north of Chedi Luang and is made of dark finished teak wood and isn’t as covered in gold and mirrors as the other temples. It reminded me of the unpainted Korean Buddhist temple in Jisan that I loved so much.  Inside the main prayer temple were hundreds of round pots for donations, and a little corridor of banners hanging from the ceiling behind the big buddha. Tiny bells were tied to the tassels of the banners so that it sounded gorgeous too. A special place.

Chedi Luang. It's a good thing I haven't been to Angkor Wat yet, because looking at this was enough to awaken my inner Indiana. (GP)

Inside Wat Phan Tao. (GP)

Offering bowls (?) in Wat Phan Tao. Look at that dark wood! (GP)

The banners of the North Thai Zodiac in Wat Phan Tao. The zodiac is the same as the Chinese one but the year of the pig is replaced with an elephant, and the new year starts in the fifth lunar month.

It wasn’t until later in the afternoon that my new travel buddy and I started feeling hungry, and at that point I was delighted to find out that foremost among his many excellent travel buddy qualities is his love of food and eating. Hooray! We found a little noodle place before we went to find something marked on our map as “Sunday Walking Market”.

Delicious! (GP)

We couldn’t find the market, so we walked along the east canal of the old city, finding a wet market and an archaeological dig of part of the old wall along the way. Eventually we found our way back to Ratchadamnoen Road and sat down for a coffee. An hour later, we looked up and realized that the walking market had materialized around us as we chatted. It stretched the entire distance of Ratchadamnoen Road and spilled over into neighbouring streets too.

Stalls and Thai flag at Tha Pae gate.

There were stalls for everything: from the ambiguously “ethnic” gifts (coconut purses, anything gecko-shaped, bone earrings, sarongs), to Thai art of all price ranges, to Thai pop culture items, to handmade Indie goods made by the university students, and everything inbetween. And let us not forget the food stalls! Heaven!

Early on in the market. As the evening wore on, suddenly the streets became flooded with tourists from Bangkok who were in Chiang Mai because of a long weekend. It was so crowded that we were often in gridlock for minutes at a time. On foot!

We braved the street one last time for dinner just as the crowds were the thickest and managed to find a tiny table in a very noisy, busy, chaotic restaurant (good sign.) We ordered whatever caught our fancy: fried dried pork, Chinese cabbage with soy sauce and garlic, morning glory made Thai-style with lots of chili, and the most delicious tom yam soup I’d ever tasted.

Mmmmmmmm

When we finally returned to our guest house, I wanted to ask Nine if Gianpiero could also do the cooking class, but she found him first and invited/told him to join too.

That was a really monster post, but to be fair, it was something of a monster day too. What a day. Wat a day. (I’m sorry!)

Happy Deepavali

I remember dragging myself out of bed way back in June and braving the MRT to explore Little India when the last thing I felt like doing was exploring anything. And then! The teeming masses of Indian men, nowhere to stand, nowhere to stop, just thousands of Indian men walking and walking and talking and looking. Oh Little India, you own a special place in my heart.

LIGHTS! (camera, action)

Guess what? October 26 was the Deepavali/Diwali civic holiday in Singapore, so the roomies and I bussed down to Lil’ India to take in the sights and smells. The streets were all lit up with light displays overarching the roads, and buildings were glowing with little fairy lights. The temple (above) was looking particularly whimsical, IMHO.

Starting on this squeeze-tube of a street.

My favourite part of the evening was going through a covered street-cum-market alleyway that was packed with revellers. Everyone seemed to be going somewhere, talking on their phones, fingering shiny goods sold at the stalls, lighting firecrackers, yelling, laughing.  At one point, for a good 7 minutes, no one could move because it was so packed. I had a blast in that packed alleyway. Maybe I got groped — I don’t know! Possibly I trod upon dozens of feet — no way of telling!  Sometimes freedom can be found in the riotous anonymity of a suffocating crowd of people.

Wares

Rachel: GRACE SOMEONE IS TOUCHING MY TUSHY!

The alleyway was filled with stalls selling shiny and smelly goods. There were a few oil lamp stalls and a few firecracker stalls.  The firecracker stalls all had displays of their wares on the ground between the feet of the packed-in crowds, which was a major fire hazard as well as just being really, really dangerous (but so pretty). The roomies were attracted to colourful mobiles of tiny elephants and I bought a print of some mysterious-looking seated characters.

I'm in the middle of saying something like, "Should I pose, or is it better to fake a candid snap?" You can see the elephant mobiles behind me.

More wares, this time Diwali-themed: oil lamps.

We had another exciting time back on the main street upon seeing large amounts of smoke. I thought maybe a restaurant was burning down (someone told me this is a common occurrence in Little India) and we went to go find out. What we ended up seeing was this:

WOOOOOO!

PARTTTYYYYYY

The street was filled with firecracker smoke from a double row of men waving sparklers around and generally having a good time. Pyrotechnic-related fun is superior to regular fun, wouldn’t you say?

Look carefully into the heart of the sparkler-flame, son. Therein lies a world of pyrojoy.

We took pictures from across the street (while other men took pictures of us taking pictures…) until I got bored and walked up to the man-crowd to ask what was going on. Before I could open my mouth, someone thrust a sparkler into my hands. Immediately distracted, I stood there silent and happy, and waved it around for a bit with the other silent and happy revelers until it went out.

Like a baby with a particularly interesting rattle

I turned back to my sparkler patrons and opened my mouth to ask if I could pay or buy some more for my roommates when someone took my eye contact to mean, “I would like more now, please,” and handed me three lit sparklers. Surprised, I said, “Whoa. ALL of these?!” And he took that to mean, “I want ALL of the sparklers, please,” and responded by mutely handing me about 10 more and miming for me to touch them to the lit ones.  He was grinning the grin of a boy who has mastered fire. Here is the result as viewed through Rachel’s camera.

Here, have ALL of them.

Suddenly igniting.

Overjoyed.

I thanked everyone, then went back to ask if we could buy some for the roomies, but instead I had this conversation:

G: What is all of this for?
Man in business-wear: We’re a lawyer’s office for migrant workers. We’re having a party for our clients.
G: Wow! That’s great!
Man: Yes. This is Singapore’s poor.
G: *feeling bad for having fun with the workers’ sparklers*
Man: Where are you from?
G: Canada.
Man: Are you bankers?
G: No, we’re all teachers.
Man: With the international schools?
G: No. We teach in Singaporean schools. *proud*
Man: Oh! I am a lawyer.
G: Ah … that’s great. I’m glad to hear someone is working to help the workers.
Man: Here is my card if you get in trouble.
G: Thanks. Thanks for the sparklers. Bye

I returned to the roomies and gave them his card (because, you know, they’re trouble.) We moved on, feeling a little guilty about the firecrackers-of-the-Singaporean-poor (mostly me.) We went off in search of an available henna artist for Rebecca’s henna craving then continued to stroll, ogling lights and eating Indian sweets (no monkeys to steal them this time!^^)

…then we went home and slept in on a Wednesday — HAPPY DIWALI!

Deepavali!

Note: all photos in this post were either taken by Rachel the roomie or Rebecca the roomie. Thank you, roomies!

Enormous Kuala Lumpur Episode Six (Final Episode Finally)

EPISODE SIX: MENARA

On Sunday, I woke up obscenely early again determined to make the most of my 6 remaining hours in KL. I took my time eating breakfast, however, because nothing was open yet. I wanted to visit the Kuala Lumpur Tower (Menara KL) and I wanted to walk there, maybe check out Little India, then walk back to the hostel in time for my 1:00 bus.

I shared my obscenely early morning with Francisco, a Chilean business traveler who had arrived in the wee hours straight off his day-long flight and who was determined to see everything in KL in a day. And to walk the entire thing. Because Chot was still asleep, I helped him find a map, circle the cool destinations, and recommend a walking route. (Me = pro.) He left immediately, a steely glint in his eye that I recognized as a manic brand of wanderlust also found in Alice.

I left around 8:30, figuring it would take me 30 minutes to amble my way up to the tower so I would arrive right at opening time. If I’m going to pay money to ascend a tower and  look at a city, it’s going to be a shiny, morning-bright city. The other two days had been typical rainy season: overcast + sporadic torrential showers; but today was looking gorgeous. I love the tropical blue skies we get in this part of the world.

To the Menara!

I found my way to the park, Bukit Nanas, that surrounds the Menara, and with the help of friendly cops on motorcycles, found the entrance to the little hiking trails. Chot had told me that although most of the forests surrounding KL are secondary (meaning that they are replanted forests, mostly of one tree species,) Bukit Nanas is still a primary growth forest. Interesting sidenote: bukit nanas means “Pineapple Hill”, (which sounds like a Beatles song title. Right?)

The trail I took which was right behind the Forestry Information building (empty except for an adorable, tiny cleaning woman who I accidentally scared when I appeared silently behind her and asked her where the trail started.) The first part was paved with little stairs, and later it was just a wide, easy dirt path. Nothing too jungle-y. After about 5 minutes, I emerged below the Menara. BEHOLD:

Menara!

Groovy-Man Crossing? I encountered this CLASSIC sign in the shadow of the Menara.

The base of the Menara is surrounded by a little fortress of attractions including pony rides, a small petting zoo (home to a small two-headed turtle,) and a little garden. When I arrived at the ticket desk, there were only 2 other people in line. One happened to be Francisco! We decided to join forces for the morning and I was happy to have someone to chat with while looking at KL from above.

View from above. Even in the daytime those Petronas Towers are shiny. Arrestingly so.

KL certainly was morning-bright that day, and we enjoyed looking at all the differently shaped buildings: mosques (I could see the National Mosque and Masjid Jamek), the shiny, shiny Petronas towers, the multitude of modern skyscrapers (some had swimming pools on top where we could just make out a swimmer or two enjoying the mild morning sun,) and older low colonial buildings. From the Menara you can also see various parks, Lake Titwangsa (yup), and even the Batu Caves! I could really appreciate the low mountains around KL: nothing at all like out West in Canada, or like Seoul, but a lot taller than anything in Singapore. Breath. Of. Fresh. Air.

Our tickets came with a complimentary: a) pony ride (although the poor horses didn’t look as if they could take a hefty Western frame  b) entrance into the petting zoo  or c) a discount off of some picture you can take with the Petronas Towers in the background. Fortunately, Francisco didn’t have any interest in any of these options either, and we climbed back down Bukit Nanas to make our way to Masjid Jamek.

I had warned Francisco that we wouldn’t be able to enter the mosque, but when we arrived, a friendly man proved me wrong by waving us in and dressing us up in mosque-wear. It wasn’t the institutionalized purple and purple of the National Mosque, but some white and off-white robes and a colourful assortment of headscarves for me. We weren’t allowed to enter the actual buildings, but were free to stroll the grounds and snap photos of the lovely architecture to our hearts content. There was more of the elaborate arches and reflective marble surfaces. If anything, the low ceilings made the old mosque seem even airier

The airy interior of the Old Mosque.

More gorgeous arches. Islamic architecture: A+.

From Masjid Jamek, I led Francisco to the National Flagpole but we agreed that it was missable and continued on to Little India, which he really wanted to see. Things we did:

1. Shopped for bangles
2. Looked at more fake designer goods (many cheaper than Chinatown)
3. Drank coconut water after convincing the seller not to fill half the cup with syrup
4. We ate. DID we eat! We found a likely-looking street food stall and had a good time just pointing at different dishes for the man to spoon onto some rice. I got sunflower seed – chili pate (so good!), awesome mushy eggplant/brinjal (so so good!), a boiled egg (always so good!), and a piece of fried fish (just barely good!) Malay food in Little India: feast your eyes on THAT!

Street food with brinjaaaaaaaaaaal!

Finally it was time for me to catch my bus, so after walking with Francisco to Central Market and setting his course to the Natoinal Mosque (I gushed about it,) peaced and tried to walk back to the hostel. I got lost and was running out of time (FAIL), so I took a taxi with a very friendly Taxi Uncle who took lots of alleyway shortcuts. I popped back into Equator Hostel, thanked awesome Hady, grabbed some snacks for the bus, and settled back into a comfortable DELUXE MASSAGE BUS seat with the added bonus of my seat being the back seat on the 2nd floor of the bus. Double decker FTW!

The trip home was uneventful except for buying some putu mayam at a gas station:

Putu mayam, which I was surprised to discover is not "puto maya" which is not "puto" which is what I was actually expecting.

Puto maya: a gingery, not-really-sweet, glutinous rice desert from the Philippines.

Puto: Filipino steamed sweet rice cakes usually with a weird cheese on top.

It was still pretty good. Seems that “putu”/”puto” is always a good bet dessert name-wise. I crammed a lot into that long weekend. Another is coming up this weekend (also Rebecca the Roomie’s birthday) and we have our beady eyes fixed on Malaysia … OR BANGKOK. (Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat??!)

Enormous Kuala Lumpur Post Episode Five

EPISODE FIVE: I AM A BOYSCOUT AND THE BATU CAVES

OR: MONKEYS ARE SUPER TERRIBLE

I slept hard and woke early on day 2 of my Kuala Lumpur Adventure, showered, ate food, and was raring to go at 7:00. Unfortunately, everyone else was still fast asleep, including the night hostel man, Chot.  I sat outside with a dirty kitten and a KL guide, unsure if I should wait or head out alone. Soon though, Chot woke up and told me he was going to pick up a bigger car in the late morning and we’d leave at around noon so to kill time, I went for a walk in the area. I was searching for a market I heard was good for breakfast (because, like Singapore, most places aren’t open until 10,) but instead I found residential neighbourhoods and Chinese tourists in Chinese restaurants and decaying houses nestled between enormous office complexes. I wandered to Jalan Alor, known for its food (although … meh. I liked the markets better,) and bought myself a thick coffee and another breakfast – nasi lemak this time.  It was only 10 by the time I had finished all this, so I strolled aimlessly, following whatever caught my fancy and ended up  in the “Arab Street” area in some park decorated with coffeepot sculptures and more Arabic calligraphy, just totally loving Kuala Lumpur.

I love this city.

I returned to the hostel at lunchtime, and the four of us set off on our little roadtrip. Turns out Chot is a nature guide. Out of the goodness of his heart he wanted to show us around. Nice people: find them everywhere.

Only about 15 minutes out of KL, he pulled over and showed us this little hotspring where locals were bathing and picnicking. I stuck my hand in the water, and retracted it immediately with a yell of surprise: the water is around 70 degrees Celsius! A tubby uncle yelled across to Chot in Malay, and then actually dove into the water in order to amuse us. We started laughing and snapping pictures. The very gratified uncle emerged on our side of the pool, and then pretended to pick us up and throw us in. Now the locals started laughing and snapping pictures.

HOT springs

Crazy old uncle. You know how when you get into a hot tub and it's so hot that you need to ease your way in real slow all muttering and blowing and puffing? Yeah, this stuff was hotter.

We drove another 20 minutes to the waterfall park, and gave our ticket money to a man at the gates. His friend had a baby gibbon wearing a diaper wrapped around his torso. My jaw dropped, “Is that a gibbon!?” I love gibbons. I think they’re the best of the primates, for sure. And let me take this opportunity emphasize that gibbons are not monkeys. I wouldn’t say I hate monkeys, but if hate is a 10/10 on the dislike scale, monkeys and I weigh in on a firm mutual 9.5. They’re maliciously mischievous and dirty with feces. They steal things, throw their excrement, fight with their nasty monkey teeth and nasty monkey claws. Monkeys are just all around terrible; gibbons, on the other hand, mostly just swing around the tops of trees with their awesome biaxial wrists, and their awesome super-long arms, puffing out their throat sacs, eating fruit and making AWESOME GIBBON SOUNDS!

Gaaaaaaaaaaaah! Muuuuuffffffiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin!

I leapt out of the car and went to meet him. He was so adorable with his enormous, shiny, black eyes and his shy, little old-man-face. I asked if I could touch him, and the man answered by coming close to me so the little gibbon could look at me and decide for himself. Then, in one fluid dream-come-true movement, Little Gibbon reached out one long, feathery arm, clutched my shoulder, and swung himself onto me. Then he HUGGED ME! (read: used my body to keep himself upright.) I’m pretty sure if anyone had taken a photo of that moment, in place of my eyes would be rainbow sparkles.

Turns out his owner has a permit from the Malaysian government to care for him while he’s still a baby. He’s only a year old, and although curious, was shy and when his owner came back went to him and hid up his shirt. Awesome. Gibbons! Right?

WE ARE BEST FRIENDS!

Bonus shot: his adorable old-man face, his diaper, ... and my boob.

I realized just while writing this post that Little Adorable here is probably a baby siamang gibbon. I didn’t realize siamangs were gibbons, but they are my favourite animal at the Singapore zoo. I think they must be my second-favourite animal period (right after the noble cuttlefish.) Adorable and I said our sorrowful farewells and our little group made our way up the mountain.

There are seven levels of the waterfall and at each level were people with food, swimming, laughing and generally chilling in the good weather. It was nice to see and there were smiles all around. We almost immediately came across a troupe of monkeys spying on a group of Malaysians making merry by the waterfalls but thankfully my gibbon-glow protected me from monkey-induced gloom. Effing monkeys. Seriously.

Damn monkeys biding their time, waiting for the perfect moment to ruin these peoples' days. Monkeys are terrible!

"Oh, you know, we just be chillin' by a seven-level waterfall a 40 minute drive from KL. Yeah, yeah that's right. KL and I are on initial-name basis now." "Oh, haaaiii, GH." "Yo, KL. What up?" "Just going to chill by the seven-level waterfall, you know." "I know."

When we reached the 6th level, Chot stopped and said we’d only go this far because soon it would rain and we didn’t want the paths to get too slippery. We all took off our shoes, the others changed into their bathing suits (I didn’t pack mine!!) and we spent a perfect hour in the water.  Max and Leia ended up perched on a rock emerging from the waterfall, just completely blissed out. Chot built a little dam. Things I did:

1. Successfully stalked and caught an enormous water strider half the length of my palm. It was the first time I’d ever touched one, and wasn’t prepared for its spider-like qualities. I yelped and dropped it. Chot laughed at me and told me that they were spiders. I really doubted it, but my mild (read: rampant) arachnophobia was exactly equal to my  natural urge to re-catch it and look at it and hold it and be in direct physical contact with it and force it to be friends with me. Also, my dad pretty much educated me on every insect and which ones had mouthparts that can actually pierce human skin, and I couldn’t remember whether enormous tropical water striders made the list or not. (Mistake: they are neither spiders, nor able to bite.) I watched them skim along with great frustration.
2. Found a cute, yellow tree frog. I touched it with a stick, afraid of poisonous skin, and it leapt into the water and swam adorably to a dead log and pretended to be a leaf. Poor frog. I described it to Chot later and he said I did well not to touch it. YES! GRACE IN THE JUNGLE (this was not really a jungle. It was secondary forest but I cannot WAIT until I do a jungle trek. I’m thinking 3 days of hard trekking. yuuuuusssssssss.)
3. Found little blue crayfish with enormous claws and made a lame squeak when it pinched me.
4. Got completely soaking wet despite my best efforts not to.

Lesson learned: never, EVER go anywhere without a bathing suit.

After an hour, the thunder that had been grumbling on for about three hours became a little more serious about itself and Chot told us we should go back down. As we were putting our shoes back on, Max and Leia said to me, “You’re like a boyscout! You go around poking things with sticks and touching insects. You are always yelling, “Look guys! Look!” and it’s something alive,” which I consider one of the greatest compliments I’ve ever received and I was very proud.

Before I could thank them, I noticed a very big ant scuttling under a leaf and yelled, “Look! Look at that huuuuge ant!” Max and Leia laughed heartily at me while lifted the leaf off the shiny, mahogany-coloured beauty with a flourish. Then they saw the ant, went “WOW!” and dropped to the forest floor to take macro shots of it.

Boyscout skills: ENGAGE!

Bonus lifesaving ant fact: if you are ever in the Amazon and find yourself bleeding heavily, giant ants like these can be used to pinch the wound close, thus saving your life. Ants, right?

On the way down we encountered more monkeys, and in the parking lot witnessed five on a car, ripping the rubber strip out from between the car body and the door. They are such jerks. We also saw a 5-foot long snake cross the path (I have a video upon request.) We made it to the car just as it started to rain big, fat raindrops.

Chot said he’d take us to the Batu Caves, which are a major tourist destination as well as a Hindu religious site. They have an interesting history and I encourage you to read up on them, but what is essential for you to understand about them is that they’re really big, and really beautiful. The stalactites are very strangely-shaped, and because in the very top of the highest cavern there are nostril-shaped hopes in the ceiling, I can’t help but describe them in my head as “mucus-y”. But, you know, beautiful and awe-inspiring mucus. You know.

Also, you should know that Hindu iconography is colourful and cluttered. When I look at the roofs of temples or at shrines, the statues almost seem like they’re moving, because there is so much going on. Obviously, I love them.

Say "kimchi"!

To get into the Caves, you have to climb 272 steps past a looming golden statue of Murugan. I was posing for a picture with him when a group of Korean ajusshis walked past and called out, “Say kimchi!” (which explains the strange expression on my face in the picture above.) I hollered back at them in Korean, “<Are you Korean?>”
“Omo! <Why do you speak Korean?>”
“<I – Korea … Seoul …> oh damn <2 years … forget…> gaah! why can’t I? …<There was an English teacher in Seoul.>”
“Ah. <You speak Korean well.>”
“<You lie but thank you.>”
“Pangapsumnida.”
“<Have a good trip.>”

Max and Leia looked at me in awe, “Well, that was pretty damn awesome.” I thought of Alice and our self-congratulatory ways as we scaled the steps with our already-shaking legs.

I'm sorry for befouling your retinas again with vile images of monkeys, but the key focal point here is the rooster behind them. How ...?

I had bought a few Indian sweets to replenish my energy and was accosted no fewer than 5 times by effing monkeys.

1. Circa step 15: vile, dirty monkey launches itself off a railing, making a wild grab for my bag of sweets. I yank them out of reach instantly, yelling obscenities and baring my teeth at it while…
2. Another vile, dirty monkey reached out from the railing behind me to try to pull my arm carrying the sweets towards it. Eugh! I actually snarled at it and hastily started climbing again. I effing HATE (9.5/10) monkeys.
3. Circa step 100: A great dirty monkey with enormous testicles lounging on the stairs makes half-hearted swipe at my ankles. One can only assume he was trying to trip me in order to make me fall to my death so that he could feast upon my Indian sweets and then defecate on my still-warm body. Because monkeys are like that.
4. Circa step 156: An even bigger, dirtier monkey charges me from 10 steps above and tries to climb me. I kick at it furiously, and yell at it, “BAD MONKEY! THESE ARE MY SWEETS! I WILL NEVER SHARE WITH YOU, YOU DIRTY LITTLE THIEF.” Leia laughs again.
5. Circa step 260: Almost home free. My guard is down. A small monkey leaps off a railing near me while I’m turned to glare at one of its larger brethren which was cleaning its nasty monkey teeth suggestively and leering at my bag of sweets. The small monkey actually managed to grab a disgusting monkey handful of sweets. It landed, stuffed the handful immediately into its filthy monkey mouth and looked at me with its terrible blank monkey eyes. I admit I may have waved the bag of sweets just out of its reach, wafting the smell towards it before climbing the last 12 steps and in full view of its repulsive monkey eyes, disposed of them in the monkey-proof trash bins.

Appalling. I know.

The entrance caves are spectacular enough to have driven all thoughts of monkeys from my mind within seconds. I really wasn’t expecting such a huge cave system. It’s palatial. And there are colourful shrines and effigies tucked into all sorts of nooks. They glimmer and shine in the damp dark.

A very very cool sacred place, but not one I would necessarily want to hang out in regularly mainly because of the monkeys.

At the mouth of the cave is a shop selling souvenirs and things to leave by the shrines with your prayers. There were some really trippy flashing-light pictures of gods. They were playing really rocking ragas and we took videos of the display, imagining to make a video mashup later. Who knows, maybe I will.

There weren’t many tourists, maybe because the weather was pretty poopy. Not only was it raining, but there was a strong haze from the Indonesian slash-and-burn farmers + strong Northern wind.

The vastness of the cave vs. tiny holy woman sitting perfectly still holding her one huge dreadlock in her lap.

The cave opens up to a little cave-courtyard like the one I saw in Kep, Cambodia. There were more steps *pant* but it was so gorgeous that I didn't mind too much.

In the courtyard is another shrine. Instead of monkeys, it was lined with very clean-looking pigeons. The big shiny male pigeons were doing their awesome dance for the female pigeons, just like nasty stump-legged Toronto pigeons. Ah pigeons.

(Sidenote: if you haven’t seen City Face by Tom Siddell, today is your lucky day. I think City Face talks exactly the way a pigeon would talk.)

After we climbed back down to the protest of our quadriceps, we devoured a mediocre lunch at a restaurant in the shadow of Lord Murugan and then drove back into KL. Max and Leia took a nap in preparation for a night out, but having only a few days to enjoy KL, I forayed into the dusk with aims to get some Malay food in the Malay quarter and then maybe wander around some more.

I found my way to Kampung Baru via the monorail and followed Hady’s directions to a street crammed with Malay restaurants of all kind. I felt kind of shy passing and staring, and I really wanted to try to eat at one enormous and packed place near the end of the street, but it was so packed and I was so shy-feeling (where did that come from?) that I opted for a different delicious-smelling place. It specialized in nasi lemak and I ordered this mouth-watering combination:

Nasi lemak: pandan-coconut rice with chili, boiled egg, some cucumbers, and then I added spicy mussels and dried, fried anchovies. And lemon tea.

On my way back to the train, verrrrrrrrrry full, I saw the Petronas Towers all lit up. I wasn’t going to visit because the sky bridge is closed for renovations, but they were so shiny, I actually started walking towards them without even really noticing.

The only halfway decent photo I took of the Petronas Towers. Trust me: they are impressively shiny. Def a must-see if you are either into buildings or shiny things (Alice.)

I made it to the super-posh mall beneath them before I got bored and cold inside and walked all the way back to my hostel. It took about 40 minutes. Max and Leia were in the common room looking refreshed and drinking beers. They tried to convince me to go out with them but I could hardly keep my eyes open. T-ired. I crawled up to my bunk (I always choose the top bunk, even in an empty dorm) and accidentally woke my new Swedish roommate who sat up suddenly and asked me if she knew me, then whether the door was locked, then if I had fed the cat, then fully woke up and apologized for being sleep-addled. I was gone the moment my head touched pillow. What a day!

Enormous Kuala Lumpur Post Episode Two and Three

EPISODE TWO: EN ROUTE

I decided very last-minute to take advantage of my day off and head for the hills. I booked bus tickets Thursday night, ran, packed, slept badly for a couple of hours, woke at 5:00 AM, finished packing, downloaded Feist’s new album, and made my early morning way to Golden Mile Complex where a lot of bus companies have headquarters. To celebrate another episode of “Grace travels alone to new places” , I wandered to a hawker centre and ordered thick, milky coffee and drank it out of a bag.

My bus left at 8:00 with me cozily curled, toes tucked under legs, in the front seat of a “DELUXE MASSAGE BUS”, bumping Feist’s Metals (as a friend would say.) $30 each way will buy you loads of air conditioned leg room, and apparently, a vibrating chair. Even better, my seat was on the single seat side of the bus, so no drooling seat buddies this time! MASSAGE BUS FTW!

Along the way, I was entertained unwillingly by “Miss Congeniality” and “Evan Almighty”.  (And, oh lord, there were English subtitles that were awesomely bad. At one point, a character says, “Gesundheit!” and the subtitles offered, “I’m a dog.”) At 1:30PM, we pulled up to Berjaya Times Square.

Berjaya Times Square is this HULKING obesity of a mall. It also happens to be the FIFTH LARGEST BUILDING IN THE WORLD.

Disturbingly, it’s not even close to being the largest mall in the world, or even in Asia. Fellow humans, I think we have a shopping problem. Seriously, it’s time for an intervention.

I wandered for the better part of an hour, trying hard not to look like a tourist, asking for directions here and there, and fully enjoying the feeling of being in a place I’d never been before with little to no idea of where I was going. I found myself in a dirty alley complete with rotting garbage floating down a narrow canal along one side and populated by stray dogs loping around hopefully. Ah, I thought, here is Asia. And I felt happy.

Equator Hostel: officially recommended.

Soon enough, I found the Equator Hostel just behind Berjaya Times Square and met the friendly and knowledgable Hady who just as soon had me settled in a dorm room and out the door with a city map with lots of circles and directions written on it.

EPISODE THREE: ISLAMIC KL 

First stop: the Old Mosque, a.k.a. Masjid Jamek. It’s really beautiful, but the pictures are in a later episode, as I wasn’t allowed in when I arrived because it was prayer time.

It was just pissing down rain but still I pressed on, walking to the National … Flagpole. I’m only half kidding. Back in the British Colonial days, a large portion of the Brit governing body worked out of the Sultan Abdul Samad Building. Obviously, the Brits decided to build a cricket pitch across from the building, and when Malaysia became an independent state on August 31, 1957, that’s where their (rather fetching) flag was first raised.  Since then, they’ve installed a very tall flagpole on one end of the pitch (now called Independence Square/Dataran Merdeka). 

BEHOLD: The National Flagpole!

On a park on the other side of the Square, is a fountain of metal pitcher plants. There’s got to be some sort of symbolic symmetry here that I’m missing.

The Sultan Abdul Samad Building is actually quite beautiful. It’s a lovely pink-yellow colour with domes and gorgeous staircase windows and open corridors. I looked it up, and the architect tried to incorporate Moorish themes into his building, inspired by his time in Muslim Africa. I don’t know anything about Moorish art so I can’t say how successful he was, but I was really impressed by the arched windows and I’m rarely impressed by buildings.

The Sultan Abdul Samad Building

Very possibly the only staircase that has stopped me in my tracks. The windows! They're so pretty the way they follow the staircase's shape. A.C. Norman: A+. Excellent work.

From Dataran Merdeka, I walked to the National Mosque (Masjid Negara). When I mentioned to Alice that I was going to KL, she gushed, “OMG, you HAVE to see the National Mosque. I’ve read that it’s really beautiful.” And how! Instead of the usual mosque dome, they designed the prayer area to look like an open umbrella  – a particularly Malay symbol, because Malay leaders have been shaded by sun parasols for hundreds of years — and the minaret is designed to look like a closed umbrella! I love it! Meaning!

Thanks Arabic calligraphy, for giving all other writing systems inferiority complexes by being impossibly, illegibly, beautiful.

Behind the closed-umbrella minaret was a gorgeous lapiz-blue-tiled reflecting pool.

The nice auntie at the entrance gave me a purple robe and hijab (tudung in this part of the world), and sent me in saying I could stay during prayer time if I wanted.

I am now decent.

The interior of the mosque is so beautiful. Really. It’s all open-walled, and breezy with smooth, reflective marble floors (that you actually get to enjoy in your bare feet). People were just sitting around after the last prayer time. A few men had fallen asleep on the floors, totally sprawled and trusting.  A couple of other purple-clad tourists wandered with their enormous touristy cameras, while volunteers told them about the building and Islam in general. It was so lovely just to hang out there, even alone.

As far as sacred buildings go, this mosque rates high on my "would like to chill here regularly" scale.

The other contender for the coveted title of “Sacred Building Where Grace Would Most Like to Chill Regularly” is Hwaeomsa (화엄사) the Buddhist temple nestled in a valley in Jirisan, South Korea. Definitely my favourite temple in Korea (so far.) There’s also a secret temple just south of Seoul that people can only visit on Buddha’s birthday.

The prayer area is vast and open like other mosques, but it has chandeliers and intricately-carved marble walls.

The praying area.

You really should click this picture for a more detailed look at this work. People gasp out loud when they see this stuff. Doooooo it.

From the Mosque, I walked up a hill to find the strongly recommended Islamic Arts Museum in which I found the most beautiful Islamic art I’d ever seen in my life by far. Seriously: I was floored. We’re talking four full stories of opulence and intricacy here. My favourite when I was younger definitely would have been the jewelry exhibit: bridal headdresses from Central Asia that weigh more than 15 lbs, Mughal turban decorations that look 95% gem and 5% delicate golden chain, rings royalty wore 600 years ago, just a lot more shiny objects than a person can take in at once. But my favourite actually turned out to be the manuscripts, and the exhibit of the tiny, tiny tools the scribes used. There must have been some sort of mad law: empty space on parchment any larger than 2 square mm must be embellished with tiny golden flowers. And I just find Arabic calligarphy in general really confusingly beautiful.

Persian lady and examples of the jewelry she might have worn while rocking a PLUNGING neckline. DAMN, Persian lady! Bringing all the boys to the courtyard.

Ignore the breath-fog where I pressed my face against the glass. Instead, zoom in on this baby and check out the gold detailing EVERYWHERE: tiny, tiny 1mm long gold paisleys and whirls and flowers.

Ceci n'est pas un shockingly blinged-out pipe. Before the goblet was the pipe. Sultans knew how to party.

Singapore Flyer

It's really just a big ferris wheel.

After the first week or so, my soon-to-be roommates and I decided to visit the Singapore Flyer. It’s like the London Eye, but … tropical. I arrived first and explored the enormous hawker food court on the first floor of the building. It’s really affordable food despite being at a major tourist trap. Bless you, hawkers, bless you.

I ate laksa: a curry-coconut-spicy noodle fish broth sort of dish. Apparently the original laksa store still exists somewhere in Singapore; or rather an entire street of stores claiming to be the original laksa store exists. Maybe one weekend I’ll just walk up and down the street stuffing myself with laksa.

…I’d probably die of an MSG OD. (Wowowow! All those acronyms! I’m turning native!)

Laksa. The national dish?? (This was not good laksa.)

Soon Rebecca and Rachel arrived and we bought tickets and were led through the maze of “how this giant ferris wheel was built” exhibits complete with recycled item sculpture and light-based interactive portions. The tactile interactiveness was pretty cool, but you definitely get the feeling that visitors are just being polite.  They want the giant ferris wheel ride; the giant $30 ferris wheel ride.

Finally we reached the end of the seeming kilometres of neon-lit, corridors lined with little shelf niches (a paltry few held little awards granted by various Singapore groups.) We were greeted with the loading platform. The Flyer stops for no one, so you have to board on the move.  Before and after our pod were two dinner pods complete with fully set tables. No people though.

A pod from inside another pod.

Our pod held a few Singaporeans as well as a Korean family with three very young children. The kids were mostly interested in a dead bug. Every time mom said, “Look at that building,” the little girl would interrupt her with, “Bug! Bug! Bug!” The parents seemed pretty tired, brave souls. There were two benches in the centre of the pod, but most people walked around and snapped photos. We came in the late afternoon for the interesting light, but I would definitely recommend going at night. Hopefully when Alice and her brother visit, we’ll go at night. I’d definitely pay to see the city all lit up. I recently went to a National Day Parade Rehearsal with my Primary 5′s (which I will blog about HARD,) and got to see downtown at night for the first time. It’s dazzling. I usually don’t appreciate cityscapes, but Singapore definitely has some stunning architecture.

The Esplanade area. To the left is a lotus-inspired Art and Science Museum. In the foreground is the Helix Bridge, and the left side is the floating platform for the National Day Parade (which is going to be amazing.)

Go nuts!

Looking out on the harbour. You can't see them, but there were dozens of kites being flown from those cockroach-shaped buildings. (That's what I see in them ...)

A better picture of the floating stadium. I ended up sitting in the light green section in the very last row.

A dinner pod and a golf course. Ah! To be filthy rich in Singapore!

At the midline of the Flyer. The infographics in the museum told us how the axle was put in place. (I forget.)

I'm cheating now: this photo was taken from inside the Ministry of Manpower in Clarke Quay, but it shows one of the most iconic buildings in Singapore: Marina Bay. It's a hotel cum tourist trap. I've been told there's an infinity pool right on the top. And it's shaped like a boat! You can also see the Flyer. Also, interestingly is one of the remaining British colonial buildings to the left of Marina Bay.

They light it up at night and it's beautiful. Go at night.