[MATT] - From Cambodia, our Intrepid Tour took us on the Mekong River into Vietnam to a small town called Chau Doc.  Shaari and I were looking forward to traveling down the main river in Southeast Asia to see how people go about their daily lives.  My first impression of the river was its sheer size from bank to bank.  It is easily as big as the Mississippi and so much commerce floats both up and downstream.  Rice paddies and fish farms basically covered the shores from Phenom Penh to Chau Doc.  Every so often large canals with whole towns built on stilts would appear demonstrating just how important this river is to the lives of the people.

The boat that we were booked on held about 40 people and it was half full making the trip relatively comfortable.  After about three hours we arrived at the border.  First we had to get off on the Cambodian side to get stamped out, next we had to get off on the Vietnamese side.  We had a “helper” as crossing into Vietnam is notoriously difficult.  Once our bags were removed from the boat, they were supposed to be x-rayed, but the border guards were taking a nap.  They accepted a small “donation” and we were on our way without even seeing one immigration officer.

We arrived in Chau Doc about 1.5 hours later and were whisked to the hotel by cyclos, human powered bicycle taxis. 

[SHAARI]- One of our planned group activities in Chau Doc was a motorbike ride to Sam Mountain. Now I’m not crazy about motorbikes as they’re just dangerous, and nobody over here wears helmets so I was more than a tad nervous. I’ll never understand why things you would never even consider doing in the States are all of a sudden okay because you’re in another country.  However, it’s the only way to get there as it’s too far to walk, and everyone else in the group was going . . . and yes, if they all jumped off a bridge I would, too.  Given all the random things you find yourself doing when travelling, jumping off a bridge isn’t that unlikely of a situation.  Sorry, Mom. Anyway . . . the 10 of us piled onto the backs of our respective bikes and off we went.  The entire way there I was clinging to the metal bar on the back of the seat as tightly as I could.

It was mostly okay until we hit the mountain and then it was straight up and on a windy road.  I didn’t really love that part and considered walking back down but it would have taken a while so I sucked it up.  The view from the top was quite nice and while we couldn’t stay for sunset as we wouldn’t have made it back before dark, the sky still had some good color. After safely reaching the bottom the drivers took us off for a little tour of the city.  It ended up being a ton of fun.  You have to honk your horn in warning every time you pass someone but the drivers took it to the extreme, joking around with each other and honking like crazy.  It was almost like we were a motorcade announcing someone important was about to arrive. Each time we’d pass little kids on the street they’d get really excited and wave and say hello; a couple of times there were adults by themselves and they just looked totally baffled when they heard the uproar and saw the huge group. 

[MATT] – Karaoke is a national pastime in Vietnam.  It seems that there is a place to sing on almost every street corner.  After our dinner in Chau Doc we boarded cyclos driven by the same people who gave us the motorbike ride for a nighttime tour of the City.  The tour was OK and after it was over we pulled into Karaoke bar for a refreshment.  It seems like every person, male and female, sang pretty much the same song.  All were slow with similar beats.  The bar had an extensive English language section and a few of the girls got up and sang LOLA.  After looking over the song list for about 20 minutes and with plenty of badgering from Shaari I selected a song to sing.  While I am no Tommy P. singing “Livin’ On A Prayer”, I think that I can carry on a tune fairly decently.  John Denver and ”Country Road” proved me very wrong, but nobody but our little group knew any better and it wasn’t like I was going to see any of the audience any time soon.

After one night in Chau Doc, we were faced with yet another day of travel to Saigon.  At our lunch stop the sky opened up.  At one point I think we heard thunder before we saw the lightning and the servers were going out in the rain with metal umbrellas.  All of us looked around and were thinking the same thing, not a real good idea.  Fortunately, nobody was struck by lightning and we made it to Saigon fine.  Saigon is the largest city in Vietnam and probably has about half of the 100cc and under motorbikes in the world.  Everybody seems to have one. which make crossing the street an adventure.  Basically, you step out into traffic and walk slowly and evenly.  Somehow everybody manages to avoid you, but doing it several times on every trip out into the city is not for the faint of heart. 

The two things that Shaari and I were most looking forward to in Saigon was Pho and being alone again so we could plan where to eat, what to see etc.  After our cyclo tour of the City and our last supper we managed to leave the group without shedding any tears, (although I did see the most annoying person from our group the next day haggling with a lady in the market over 25 cents, very typical Dan).  We also managed to get our first bowl of Pho and it was very satisfying.

Saigon also managed to be the location for my second Asian haircut.  I have always had an image in my head of some old man cutting my hair on the side of the street with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.  While this did not happen, Shaari really enjoyed watching this haircut.  I decided to go short again during my first haircut in Asia to make things easier.  All I need to do is point to me head and say 2 on top and 1 on the sides.  This haircut started off well until the barber pulled out the straight razor and did a little eyebrow shaping and then offered to clean my ears.  I had no idea if I had any eyebrows left when I paid, about 1 dollar, but Shaari was nowhere to be seen.  Well, I found her outside all but rolling around on the ground laughing.  Apparently she left when the guy pulled out his massaging tool and started going at my head because she was laughing too much.  I am happy to report that most of my eyebrows survived.

The purpose of our trip to Phnom Penh was to visit the S-21 prison and the Killing Fields, two places were horrific events took place during the reign of the Khmer Rouge.  Our guide for the day was excellent and we learned more from him than we could have from a billion books.  It's amazing to me that a few times a week he spends hours walking through those places, remembering the things that he lived through as a young boy (like many people alive during that time he lost people to the Khmer Rouge). The prison was quite sobering and some of things you see and hear about you'd rather not.  There are tons of pictures of people who were held there and executed at the Killing Fields, as well as lots of pictures of the (child) soldiers.  There was also an excellent photography exhibit done by a foreigner where he took pictures of the pictures, capturing their reflections in the glass, with visitors in the shots, kind of "bringing them to life".  Hard to explain, but very cool, and it really does make you think about and feel the people that were lost.

After completing our visits we headed to lunch at a non-profit restaurant run by former street kids.  We've been to a few places like this during our stay and this one was by far the best, but either way it's nice to know that you're helping these kids just by having a meal. I have to admit that part of the appeal of the place was the Bushisms poster they had hanging in the bathroom – our esteemed leader doesn't have a very good image over here.  Hard to believe, I know. Anyway . . . the food was surprisingly good, with favorites including roasted eggplant dip, barbecued meatballs (I believe they were actually fried, amazing how good they are with the crunch on the outside) and an awesome mango slaw with sesame. As with most of the other restaurants we visited the quality of the ingredients was superb (white meat chicken in curries, better than what you'd get at a restaurant in the states) and even the Western dishes were well done.  The food is more expensive than other countries in southeast Asia as they have to import all the ingredients but it's still relatively cheap and at least you get your money's worth. 

Backing up . . . we FINALLY got out of Bangkok on May 28.  Having met our Intrepid tour leader and the rest of our group the night before, we headed off for the border bright and early in our bus.  As promised, the roads were basically fine until we left Thailand and hit the Cambodian road.  They call it the “dancing road” because you bounce up and down so much it’s like you’re dancing.  Amazingly, the road really was that bad but our driver was excellent at navigating so at least we made good time. 

The next two days we spent in Siem Reap, touring the temples and other sights.  Our favorite temple was the Jungle Temple, Ta Prohm.  It wasn’t as tall as some of the others but covered a great deal of land and was out in the woods, with huge trees growing out of its walls.  This is also where they filmed some of the scenes from Lara Croft Tomb Raider. We also saw a couple of other temples, along with the Elephant Terrace and the Terrace of the Leper King.  We drove past Angkor Wat on our way out but were told not to peek so as to save it for the next morning.  We were (painfully) out of the hotel at 4:15 AM and arrived before anyone else, at least giving as a good seat.  4 hours later (maybe 1 hour, but it felt like forever) we watched the giant temple appear as the sun came up. It’s a truly amazing structure, massive in both breadth and height.  The climb to the top, and back down, was a bit hair-raising but well worth the view. 

While in Siem Reap we also visited a floating village, which was an entire village - houses, school, even a Catholic Church - floating on the river. At the end of the dry season the river was extremely low and pretty gross; it would have been interesting to see it after the rains come. We also went to the Land Mine Musuem, run by Aki Ra, an ex-child soldier, who now spends his time searching out and disabling/destroying the millions of mines still left in the country.  He estimates he’s cleared out about 10,000 so far, using not much more than his hands, feet and simple tools.  He also runs an orphanage for children disabled by land mines and he and the orphanage get by on the proceeds from the museum (free admission, donation only).  

One of the best experiences from the trip was the night we went to dinner at someone’s house in a village outside of Siem Reap. We piled into tuk-tuks for the ride out, and Matt and I and the 2 Belgians sharing our tuk-tuk had a good laugh when the one in front of us got stuck in the deep sand.  Payback is a you-know-what, though, and on our way home our guy totally wiped out on his motorbike and did some damage to the connection between the bike and the carriage.  Fortunately he pieced things back together and we made it home okay. Upon arrival at the village, we were greet by a bunch of little kids who couldn’t be happier to see us.  Cambodian children are truly the most beautiful little kids you’ll ever see. Those of you up on your celeb gossip know that Angelina Jolie has an adopted son from Cambodia and I’ve read that when she visited the orphanage she picked him up and just fell in love, and I can really see why. We kicked things off with a good game of what’s best described as pairs duck duck goose – everyone holds hands in a circle and two people tap on a set of hands, then the pairs race each other in opposite directions around the circle and whoever’s left on the outside is then IT.  It was tons of fun, as those paired with the littlest kids would often just pick them up and run and the grown ups would get downright vicious. After the games we enjoyed a massive feast of a dinner – vegetable curry, fried noodles, stir-fried pork, fish stew – and finished it off with ice-cold dragon fruit.  The final bit of entertainment was the dancing that followed dinner – adults and kids jamming to Cambodian music – lots of laughs.

Most of you probably do not know that I spent the summer between my junior and senior year in Bangkok working for a company called ARA, Automotive Resources Asia, so returning to Bangkok was a sort of homecoming for me.  I wanted to show Shaari my apartment, where I worked and where I spent a lot of my free time, so I was pretty excited about to go back.  We had booked a hotel before leaving Kanchanaburi around the center of town, Siam Square.  The place ended up being perfect.  It was the right price, size, very clean (which is unusual in Southeast Asia) and in a convenient part of town.  We arrived, rested, and then headed out on the SkyTrain (Bangkok’s own very modern elevated railway) to RadioCity, a music venue I spent a fair amount of spare time at in the past.  RadioCity is not your ordinary place, Thailand’s very own Tom Jones and Elvis Presley appear there regularly.  I have to say that Tom has aged quite considerably since the last time I was there.  I did manage to get a picture with him, although he was not that interested in hearing my story about how many times I saw him 6 years ago as he was working on a lady friend.  Elvis ended up being the headline of the show.  We will have some pictures up on snapfish sometime in the near future.

The following day we took a boat up one of the canals to see some Wats (Buddhist Temples) and the National Museum.  The Wat we went to was most likely the highest natural point in Bangkok and provided a good view.  Most of the National Museum was not all that interesting and told a lot about the History of Thailand, which is very repetitive.  Before we went to the museum, we were confronted by a friendly individual who told us some sites to see, however mentioned that the National Museum was closed, which it clearly was not.  We had read about this scam in the Lonely Planet and the guy could not have scripted it any better.  After mentioning that the place we wanted to go was closed, he offered some alternative sites and a price for a Tuk Tuk ride around to them.  We clearly were not buying it so he lowered the price and when we walked away he seemed hurt.  However, what really happens is that these friendly people end up taking you to both the sites and stores that they get kickbacks from and you end up wasting of money if not time.  We saw this happening to multiple people.

One of the other drinking establishments that I wanted to show Shaari was a place called Delaney’s.  Yes, I know that going to an Irish Bar in Bangkok is not that sexy, but face it Irish Bars are everywhere and expats always seem to hang out there.  After leaving Thailand I kept in tough with a few people, but that gradually faded and I was not sure if I would ran into any people that I might know.  Well, we arrived at the bar, Friday evening happy hour, and it had changed names, but it still looked the same.  Right when we walked in I saw somebody that I recognized and I thought that it would be nice to say hello.  Actually, I was pretty excited because I had played golf with this guy several times, worked with his girlfriend of the time and we had downed a few dozen pints.  When I approached him and asked, “Is your name Keith?”  He looked at my as if he had never seen me, and when I explained who I was he still had not idea and, frankly, did not really even care.  His friend offered me another drink, but I sat down dejected.  The burger that Shaari and I split (we have some sort of a budget that we are trying to stay in and a burger costs about the same amount as 6 bowls of noodles) made me feel a little better.

The rest of the pre-illness Bangkok time we spent somewhat productively.  We went to Wat Pho and viewed the 45 meter long gold reclining Buddha, which is quite a site to behold.  We went on one of our epic walks around half of the City and ate Indian food.  One night, we went to one of Bangkok’s massive malls, Siam Paragon, and watched the Da Vinci Code in a 1200 person movie theatre.  The theatre, much like the mall, was absolutely massive and impressive at the same time.  When watching a movie in Thailand, always remember to stand when they show pictures of the King, because all Thai’s have immense respect for the royal family.  It is even against the law to speak against them, this despite the fact that Thailand has the most free media in all of Southeast Asia.  Watching the Da Vinci Code was a little difficult because the Thai subtitles covered all the French to English translations, and there were quite a few of them in the movie.

We were supposed to leave Bangkok on Tuesday morning, the 23rd, to join our tour group for our trip to Cambodia.  However, shortly after awaking, I succumbed to a violent shivering fit.  I decided to go outside and grab some orange juice and despite the fact that it was around 90 outside I could not stop shivering.  This turned into our second trip to the hospital, the first being a check on my ears that were still messed up from what I thought was SCUBA, but in reality might have been a little over aggressive ear cleaning, as the doctor used the words “ear trauma.”  Basically, I spent the next five hours in the hospital with a fever, shivers, incredible fatigue and the doctor saying that it was not a good idea to travel in Cambodia.  This took the wind out of our sails as we were really excited aboout the trip and the prospect of traveling with some other people.  I won’t get into all the details about our next few days, but here are some highlights:

1.  The first two days Shaari took me out for a few walks.  It was a lot of fun.

2.  We were able to book another tour with the same group departing Saturday.  Our travel insurance company is going to hate us when we get back.

3.  By Friday, I convinced Shaari that I was well enough to venture a little further from the hotel.  We went to Lumpini Park, in the center of the City for a walk and to watch hordes of Thai people of all shapes, sizes and ages doing aerobics outside in the setting sun.  It is a little hard to describe, but if your travels ever take you to Bangkok it is a must see. 

4.  On Friday night we went for Mexican food, or at least that is what they called it.

All in all, Bangkok lasted too long.  I really have no idea how I managed to live there for over 2 months.

We boned up on our WWII/Death Railway history at the Death Railway museum, which was surprisingly well done and informative.  It was quite sobering to read about the horrific conditions and brutal work that those men endured. The next day we went on an organized trip to see the railway and famed bridge. The tour started at the Erawan Falls, a 7 level waterfall about an hour outside of the city.  We arrived at the top and prepared to go for a swim when Matt discovered his hat had gone missing.  He hiked back to search for it while I waited and that’s when the bee went in for its attack.  There were lots bugs, mostly flies, up there so when I felt something on my hand I casually reached to swat it off . . . and saw the biggest bee I’ve ever seen planted an inch from the crook between my thumb and finger.  Swatting it away I found the stinger, a good centimeter long, still stuck there and quickly removed it.  The nice Aussie swimming with her son gave me some bee sting spray and when it didn’t swell very much I had hope that the allergic reactions I’d had as a child (I once did a cartwheel on a bee and got stung less than an inch from the current sting and my entire hand swelled up) were no longer a problem.

Matt came back and we soon relocated as there were a LOT of bees around.  Who’d have expected bees at the top of a waterfall in Thailand?  I sure didn’t.  We stopped at one of the lower levels on our way down and went for a swim.  The water was cool and clean but filled with fish, and the fish liked to nibble! Some were quite large – a good couple of feet long – but the little ones seemed to pay the most attention to humans.  After a quick lunch we were off to see the Death Railway itself, as well as the nearby cave that served as a bomb shelter.  We finished with a quick trip on the train (which was unfortunately just the same damn train we had spent 20 hours on in the last 2 weeks, just going over this historical set of tracks) and then walked across the “Bridge On the River Kwai”.

Unfortunately by this time, my hand was starting to swell and about half of it was puffed up.  By the next morning the swelling had spread across my whole hand so we tracked down some antihistamines.  As if the bee sting wasn’t enough, I had also gotten two mosquito bites overnight . . . on that same hand! After walking around town for a little while the swelling had spread about 1/3 of the way down my arm so we figured some medical attention might be in order.  Of course, the doctor at the hospital barely looked at it and sent me off with antibiotics (for a bee sting???).  A search on WebMD assured us that I was okay as long as it didn’t swell past my elbow.  By the end of the day it was halfway to my elbow but didn’t go much past that (we tracked its progress with pen marks).

(This posting was started about a week ago so I’m going to stop babbling on about the bee sting now and sum things up).  4 days later my hand was more or less back to normal, thankfully.  Not much else notable to say about Kanchanaburi – our usual schedule of walking around, meals (great cheap food right around the corner), market browsing, etc.  The one moment that really stands out for me was the night we trekked through the pouring rain to the closest restaurant, settled in (me with my somewhat swollen hand) and heard the familiar notes of SportsCenter.  It was a truly wonderful moment, a blast of Western culture that I had been sorely missing.  And, they were doing the Cavs/Pistons highlights which of course allowed for an amusing discussion about who we should hope won since we have two good friends who are fans of each team, and both cities are kind of sad when it comes to other sports.  But the Pistons have won the championship somewhat recently so that meant we should cheer for the Cavs.  I don’t remember who won that game, but of course that doesn’t matter now.  For either team.  Sorry guys ;>)

After our wet taxi ride (see posting “It Can Always Be Worse”), we settled into our nice beachfront hut in Thong Nai Pan Noi on the east side of Ko Phangan. Those of you familiar with Ko Phangan know that it’s claim to fame is the Full Moon Party that takes place there every month, as well as it’s role in the movie The Beach (although it was actually filmed on Ko Phi Phi on the other side of Thailand).  We were of course there just in time for the festival, but agreed that it wasn’t really our scene so we opted out.  Fortuntately the number of people on our beach wasn’t impacted too greatly by the festival (people sometimes stay around the island and then just go to Haat Rin for the day for the party). 

Our beach was quite nice; the water wasn’t as clear as in Malaysia due to the frequent heavy rain but the sand was great and the weather quite comfortable.  We decided to go ahead with our scuba certification – we had hoped to do it before starting the trip but didn’t have time, and it was dirt cheap to do in Thailand or Malaysia.  Our instructor was an Englishman named Dan who had been on the island for 4 years.  Such a long time for such a small place!  It’s kind of freaky when you first start – even though you’re just at the bottom of the pool it’s easy to get a little panicked – but when we went out our second day to dive at the Marine Park it came pretty naturally.  The diving there was good but the next day, at Sail Rock, was incredible.  Visibility was great and there were tons of fish and gorgeous coral. Matt had to go slowly due to his terrible sinuses and a lingering ear infection but we both made it out in one piece and we’re planning to go again in Vietnam and maybe Croatia.

Nights on the island were pretty low key but a lot more fun than the weird night we spent in Pulau Perhentian (Malaysia).  The crowd was a little older as the resorts on our beach were more mid-range as opposed to budget/hostel and we spent quite a bit of time at the Flip Flop, the bar next to the dive shop.  We wandered off the beach one night and enjoyed a beer while listening to the entire Fleetwood Mac Rumors album (random) and had burgers at Mr. Handsome, a sandwich stand along the road.  Not a bad burger! Much better than the pizza we had hiked to the next beach for a day beforehand – Lean Cuisine-type crust and fake cheese.  Perhaps the strangest thing that happened that week was we were walking into “town” to get some water and passed a group of little kids, maybe 4-5 years old, and one of them kicked Matt in the shins! Normally little kids like him, but just the other day in Bangkok one hit him!  So odd . . . One of my favorite things about our stay there was I got to play volleyball for a couple of hours on our last afternoon.  People had been playing all week but after scuba we were always tired or hungry so I hadn’t had a chance.  I was a little rusty as it’s been a few years but the group was almost all pretty decent players without being ridiculously good so it worked out fine.  One of the guys from scuba was playing and he introduced himself as “Bean”.  I looked at him and said, “Bean?”  “Bean, like in Beanjamin” I explained to him that we say BENjamin, not BEANjamin.  Not sure where he was from, maybe New Zealand?  Never heard the name pronounced that way before.

After almost a week in Ko Phangan we relocated to the nearby island of Ko Samui for a couple of days.  It was MUCH hotter there so we got lots of good sun.  Yes, moms, we wore our sunscreen and hats and even Matt didn’t get burned.  I finally had my som tom (spicy papaya salad) prepared fresh on the beach that Matt has been talking about for years. The beach and crowd was much larger than Ko Phangan and we had a good time.  Our first day there, though, we attempted to go find a proper bar to have a drink in (it had been quite some time since we’d been to a proper bar) but it was Buddha Day, which apparently happens once a year on the 15th day of the 6th moon or something like that so of course we managed to be in Thailand for it.  The problem with Buddha Day is the bars were either closed or not serving alcohol, so disappointed, we resigned ourself to one of the restaurants on the beach and had an early night.

Our stay in Ko Samui was shorter than we would have liked but we had to book our train ticket early due to the Full Moon Festival and our desire not to get stuck in 3rd class again.  We had a few good days of sun, some decent food – surprisingly good pizza one night from a place with a real pizza oven, awesome crust – and finally had our drink at a proper bar.

I really did not know what to expect or how many people we would meet over the coming few days, but it turned out to be more people than are on both sides of my family and I had a few problems with names.  We arrived at the house and the meet/eat-o-thon began.  For the first two days we were there I don’t think 15 minutes went by without us meeting somebody new or being offered/brought food.  We ate several types of fish, a lot of fried chicken, fruit and copious amounts of rice.  Everything is served with rice.  During the last couple days of our week stay I came up with a theme, “NO MORE NASI”  I think that Shaari has something like 30 first cousins just just on one side of her family (we came to find out that there was a whole other side of the family that we did not meet because it would be a few too many people for us to handle) .  Her uncle has 9 sons and all of their names begin with the letter A.  I had to refer to them by their number to Shaari because there was absolutely no way that I would have been able to remember 9 people with names that kind of sound the same and I had a hard enough time remembering the number half the time.  Anyway, the family just kept getting larger because some of the sons have children, the aunts have children who have children etc.  The one thing that was the same with everybody was that they were extremely excited to meet us and truly enjoyed showing us around.

We ended up spending a week with her family.  Playing with little kids, eating at several of their houses and eating at the family restaurant, Hafiz Curry House, that happens to be on land owned by Shaari’s father, which I thought was pretty cool.  It was a great experience for me and I can’t wait to return.  However, next time one of us needs to learn some Malay so we can communicate a little better with the masses.  There are several highlights below and I will probably add some more at a later date.

Some Highlights Include:

Azman, the first son, took me to play snooker with one of his friends at an illegal snooker hall on the top of one of the malls.  Kelantan is the most Islamic region of Malaysia and the local authorities frown upon gambling and hence snooker.  I think that I had played snooker once before, but the game is impossible.  A huge table, lots of very small balls and pockets that were barely bigger than the balls.  After losing both games the clock struck twelve and we left only to roll to a burger joint.  Yes, I had a beefburger in the middle of the night in Malaysia.  I also drank tea with no sugar or milk that flabbergasted everybody that I ordered it from every time because Malaysian people like sweet things a lot.  

Shaari’s uncle ran a driver education center and we went there a couple of time.  I thought that getting a license was difficult in the US, but it is harder and much more expensive to get one in Malaysia.  The process takes several days and costs about $250, which is a whole bunch of money over there.  The facility was huge with a motorcycle track and car track that resembled the Autotopia Ride at Disneyland.  I found it interesting.

Our second wedding took place two days after our arrival.  I know that Shaari wrote about this, but it was both thoroughly entertaining and exhausting at the same time.  There must be about 3000 pictures of it in circulation within her family as everybody had cameras clicking away pretty much the whole time.  We will try to post some pictures of it soon.

All in all, the week we spent in KB was exactly what I’d hoped for.  We got to meet so many members of my family and they were so welcoming and excited to have us there. They also seemed to really like Matt and enjoyed his wacky humor.  That was really nice for me to see.  My biggest regret is that we couldn’t speak Malay and therefore couldn’t converse very well with so many of them, especially my eldest auntie and my uncle’s first wife.  We promised them that the next time we visited we would be able to speak Malay and that’s a promise I intend to keep.

If I had to sum up in one word what we did that week, it’d have to be “eat”.  Our Lonely Planet comments that eating is like a national pasttime for Malays, and they weren’t kidding.  LP also likes to list all the local specialties you’ll find in places, and we managed to eat almost every single one of them while we were there, with the exception of the blue rice.  My family was full of excellent hosts who constantly took us out to eat or cooked for us.  The first day alone we had 3 different meals/snacks before we even got to dinner and we had arrived there at 2 PM! I kept a list of everything we ate there so I could remember and relay it all to my dad.  Maybe I’ll publish that at some point, but for now, some highlights:

• curry laksa – MUCH better than Penang laksa!
• satay – for breakfast, for dinner, doesn’t matter.  Had excellent version at dinner the night of our wedding
• corn on the cob grilled on the roadside – eaten with my little cousin in the back of the car (we have a great pic)
• chestnuts wok-fried with coffee beans – so good
• sticky rice stuffed with sambal dagang (“meat floss”) steamed in banana leaf
• Indian food from my uncle’s restaurant (Hafiz Curry House, my grandfather was from Bombay and my uncle is working on getting 2 chefs from there)
• grilled fresh fish – pick the meat off the bones and dip into sauce (tamarind, lime juice, chiles)
• LOTS of curried fried chicken and nasi (rice), some of it excellent, so many different preparations of rice – by the end of the week Matt had taken up a protest of “No More Nasi!” My family thinks he’s hilarious.

Moving on for now . . . we spent a lot of time just visiting but also saw some sights.  We went to the Kelantan Museum, the Islam Museum and the WWII Museum. I have to admit that my knowledge of the impact of WWII on Malaysia was horrificly poor so I learned quite a bit.  My dad would have been quite young when the Japanese came through.  Even after the war ended things were still unsettled as Malaysia didn’t gain its independence from Britain until 1957, one year after my father graduated from high school.  I’d like to learn more about my dad’s life during this time.

Along with the museums, my cousin made sure we visited the various markets and we were gifted with lots of batik. We also spent a good amount of time just relaxing at the house, which was a nice balance of quiet in the morning and crazy later in the day when the kids returned from school.  Matt played a few games of football (soccer) with the 10th son, who of course beat him, and we played with the babies (8 & 9 months) who were crawling all over the place.  They also had this amazing swing thing in the middle of the living room – a hook in the ceiling with bungee cord, then a huge spring and then a hanger holding a sarong so that it was kind of a bouncy hammock.  The younger kids and babies fell right asleep in them and for the older ones (3 yr. or so) they could drape themselves over it, hanging from the armpits, and go swinging around the room.  It was like an amusement park ride.

The best part for me was to be in a room with so many people I was related to.  It’s not something I’ve experienced before, and I hope that those of you with big families don’t take them for granted.  Like all families, there are the odd ducks and the people that kind of drive you crazy, but they’re family.  It would have been fun to grow up with all those cousins.  Son #5 (Azrul) is our age and he and Matt had a good time together.  Matt got his head shaved while we were there (no more spikes for now) so they had a similar sort of haircut and he told Matt that his hairline was the “Motorola” one (it does kind of look like that M!) On our last day there we went to A&W with him and his wife (beautiful girl, SO quiet,though!) and had our 2ND root beer float of the day! I’d never been to an A&W in my life but Matt got the craving that morning so we went, and then of course we couldn’t admit to that later! I do enjoy a root beer float, I have to admit ;>)

It was also fun to see so many familiar features and traits.  My cousin Rubiah has all this curly dark hair like my sister’s, especially when they were both little.  Son #10 (Azam) reminded me of my brother.  The 2 sisters (my 2nd cousins) reminded me of my sister and me when we were younger, with their hair and facial features.  My uncle thought I looked just like son #9 (I think – so many sons, hard to keep them straight!)

Well, I’m sure that I’ve rambled but hopefully I’ll manage to reread and edit this later. And hopefully Matt will add his own two cents soon!  Send him an email and bug him to do a posting, I know you want to hear from him, too!

Our first real stop in Thailand is Ko Phangan. To get here, you take a ferry from Surat Thani on the mainland, and then to get to our beach we took a 40-minute taxi ride.  Taxis in Thailand seem to come in 2 varieties – motorcycle, which isn't really suitable for long rides with heavy bags (and not something I'd care to do regardless) and pickup trucks with bench seating in the bed.  Sometimes there's a roof above for your bags (kind of nerve-wracking, as visions of your bags falling off and spewing their contents down the highway run rampant in your head) and sometimes the bags just sit in front of you.  When we arrived on the island, we got set up in roofless taxi, picked up a few more people and then headed on our way.

The sky had been darkening since we landed so we put our rainguards on our bags and hoped for the best.  Unfortuantely, we got the worst.  No more than 5 minutes into our trip the rain started coming down.  Lightly at first, not too cold (as the English couple next to us joked, the warmest shower they'd had in months), but then harder.  And harder, and harder.  Then it thundered a little, and then a little lightening.  The entire way there we were face down, freezing and soaking wet, and on dirt roads that quickly became rivers and puddles of mud.  Of course, it let up when we were a few minutes from our destination, which I suppose is better than it keeping on raining, but still absurd timing.

From now on, for the rest of our trip and maybe even longer, we'll have a reference point for just how bad it can get.

It can always be worse . . . we could be in the back of a taxi . . . in Thailand . . . in the pouring rain.

The first costumes were okay – the traditional songket (heavy, embroidered silk) on both of us, with the full hat, sarong thing (sorry dad, I don’t know all the terminology yet) and his favorite, a dagger.   We were lead out into the group and seated (in the blazing sun) to watch the silat performance.  It was pretty cool, it’s a form of self-defense so there was a lot of posing and staged fighting.  Family members fanned us as we sat there ;>)  Then we moved inside where we seated up on stage on our chair-throne thing (the slash and question mark key is broken) and a blessing was given.  Then people took turns coming up and feeding us rice – I guess in a real wedding EVERYONE does it, which I couldn’t imagine as that’d be hundreds of people – but only 15 or so did here. 

After that we ate for real – grilled fish, beef rendang, curried fried chicken – and then moved back in for pictures.  Hundreds of pictures.  That’s not an exaggeration, either, as there is all the family and they all have cameras and you have to do all the dozens of combinations.  Very tiring.  By the time the photographer made me pose with my feet up lounging on the couch thing I just lost it.  I couldn’t stop laughing, and every time I did the cousin who was sitting on the stage just died so it was a horrible cycle.  I’m not sure if I was delirious from the heat or the hairspray.

Then came costume number 2, where Matt was in a nice lightweight white tunic and pants and I was in a heavy red lacy top and skirt that kind of made me look Mexican or Spanish with my tan skin (although the makeup makes you look rather white).  Then lots more pictures, then the final costume change for me, which was the traditional Kelantan warrior princess outfit.  Kelantan is the state where Kota Bharu is located.  I can’t imagine the outfit looking good on anyone and there were of course more embarrassing poses . . .  All in all, though, it was a fun day and my relatives really seemed to enjoy it.  We went back to rest for a while and spent a good hour trying to rinse my hair out.  I’m pretty sure there’s still hairspray in it now, a week later.

That night my uncle had a dinner and celebration for us and for his employees as the yearly Labor Day holiday was the next day.  More good food and an awesome performance of tiki barra (I’m sure my spelling is way off), which is a group of 20-50 men, some of whom play instruments and the rest who clap the beat and kind of arm dance.  Hard to explain but we do have some video.  The singers were really good and the old guy who played the reed instrument was awesome.  Everyone got all geared up for the female singer so after she finished he started performing kind of like her and it was hilarious.  The cousin and his friend who had brought flowers to the girl even brought some to him.