Meet Ah Tan, the Proprietor of Chai Kin Auto Services in the heart of Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur. He has been maintaining our 24 year-old Volvo for a very long time. He is quick, reliable, reasonably priced and honest!

Ah Tan is the best mechanic in Kuala Lumpur. You can contact him on 016-323-0937 or you can just drive into his garage (Mon thru Sat) at Jalan Rembia which is a small lane parallel to Jalan Alor and between Jalan Alor and Tengkat Ton Shin in Bukit Bintang.

Below is a map to his garage or click here for the original Google map.

Click the image below to see a larger map.

Once when a friend borrowed our car and then broke down on his way to Malacca, we called Ah Tan for help. He organised the towing back to his garage and had our car fixed and returned to us in 2 days.

Another time our car wouldn’t start he came to us, diagnosed the problem and returned with a new battery.

We went through two other cheating mechanics before we found Ah Tan. He’s been servicing our car and the cars of our friends for a very long time!

You’ll find Chai Kin on Whatsapp!

This post is for our friend RE. He has left Slice and Ice in charge of furnishing his new corporate flat in Kuala Lumpur.

Being the fiscally responsible type and a man who loves a bargain, Slice quickly located a massive seconds joint.

This isn’t just any seconds joint. They have three warehouses and as I write we are waiting for this monsoon…

to abate so that we make our way to their most GINORMOUS location which is housed in an underground car park. Three acres of seconds? I cannot imagine!

Our first priority is to locate some beds. Since Kedai Kaki Lelong gets a lot of their stock from hotels we felt sure we could find something suitable! We found heaps of mattresses!

And we picked this one out especially for Miss C …

With the money we save on beds we can fit this into the budget: a fabulous Jewish Baroque sofa set! We know RE will just love this! And it is so comfortable.

But now we need to replace a rather boring chandelier that hangs in the cathedral-like living area and we thought this marvelous piece would go nicely with the sofa! Just to put it in perspective, this chandelier is approximately 2 meters (6 feet) across. James, the Proprietor told us that this piece originally hung in a very prestigious government building used to entertain dignitaries and the original purchase price was $US360,000. So it’s a bargain at MYR70,000 ($US23,000).

Oh! Or maybe this one! We can’t decide. This came from Masjid Jamek.

Oh and wait until you see the dining set which will go perfectly with the chandelier and the sofa!

Now we’ll need some lamps…

And some crockery…

A beer jug…we’re really not crazy about this brand of beer but we love the logo!

And maybe some linen…

Finally…we’re thinking of running a bicycle rental business out of the new corporate flat. Look what we found! I counted over 30 of these brand new (and I mean still in the original wrapping) electric bikes.

The Kedai Kaki Lelong Shop. There are 4 locations. We did make it to the three acre warehouse. Unbelievable. Here are just a few of the 200 shots I took…

Oh Look! A brand new King size latex bed! I wonder if we can take the other mattress back?

All I wanted to do was get in there and organize the place!

What fun!

You can find the contact details and a map to Kedai Kaki Lelong shops at this website.

For an introduction to Sydney beaches here are photos from a recent visit to the harbourside beach known as Nielsen Park. You travel to the eastern suburb of Vaucluse to get to this beach. While the beach is small the park is quite large as you can see from this Google map and it offers visitors an easy walk back to Vaucluse Rd.

View Larger Map

These photos were taken on a crisp winter-is-almost-over-but-not-quite-spring morning.

First some beautiful fig trees that are so plentiful up and down the east coast of Australia…

A view of the western end of the beach…

…and the eastern end of the beach.

A sweeping view of the entire beach. As you can see this is a small beach. The house seen behind the trees in the distance contains a cafe. In summer this is a thriving hotspot of sun bathers.

Slice enjoying the Australian winter sun at Nielsen Park. Across the harbour in the distance is the famous seaside suburb of Manly.

Next up are photos of Clovelly!

Just a quick post…a simple gallery of the basic ways that poor Cambodians work hard to make a meager living. Don’t miss the short video at the end of some Cambodian women working by the roadside.

Every morning there was a parade of coconut vendors as they made their way in different directions to sell their wares.

The sign on the back of this Tuk Tuk says it all.

Another common site…roasting a calf…

Need a haircut? This Barberville was outside the back wall of the Temple. We walked past it many times as we made our way to the best coffee place (Cafe Fresco below the FCC) and each time someone tried to convince Slice he needed a hair cut!

Selling steamed….sometimes roasted corn.

This man is hauling a big pig…

A TV lounge…these were common right across the city.

These women were selling oranges (yes green oranges) and corn.

Still a common site in Cambodia…the Rickshaw driver.

Selling snacks…

This woman is buying sugar cane so I’m guessing she has a stand where she’ll offer the sugar cane in one form or another … juice or pieces.

Salt any one? This was just one of many in a row of side-by-side salt shops.

My favourite…the broom man. These simple handmade brooms are works of art.

On one of our many walks around the back streets of Phnom Penh we happened on a gentleman roasting coffee. In the background is the rusty tumbler. And the rust-covered box contains the coals. The tumbler fits into the box and is then rotated over the coals to roast the coffee.

Voila! Roasted coffee. This was just outside the doors of a cafe where the coffee was to be used.

This photo was taken at a local market…these lotus flowers are commonly purchased for temple offerings.

More snacks for sale…

Rice…like the salt shops….this is one of many in a row of side-by-side rice shops.

A Delivery Man!

Selling bread…French baguettes actually…a legacy of French colonization.

This little boy was sitting among items for sale on a street that had many arts and crafts for sale.

On the bus trip back from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh we stopped for a few minutes because of road construction. This gave me the opportunity to film these Cambodian women working by the roadside. They were cooking their wares which they sold to the construction crew. They are roasting corn and to the right is a basket of eggs and the young girl who eventually stands up in the video has bags of peanuts to sell.

It is very short but reveals what may be a hard life and these women are possibly the lucky ones because they are making some sort of living.

Now that we are inside Angkor Wat we are heading towards the central stucture with the five towers. (See an aerial view on Wikipedia.)

Next is not a great photo but I’ve included to give you an idea of where this tour of photos starts…we entered this temple structure in the left corner…

(see previous post)

By this time we…our tour group..have already spent 45 minutes to an hour in the temple grounds.

This is the outside of the first of four long walls of incredible bas reliefs…each approx 150 meters or 450 feet.

We saw 2 or 3 of 4 walls. One wall was definitely closed to restoration work but I can’t remember now how many walls we actually saw. I just followed, listened and took lots of photos!

In this photo I set the camera on the floor in the hope of getting a better view of the length of the relief that is on the right.

And a closer view of part of the relief…

And the view as we’re moving way from the wall…I really loved the perspective of these magnificent long balconies!

Now we are moving towards the center of the temple structure…

If you haven’t noticed…in this post…I haven’t shown you much of the detail of the carvings. That’s because at the end of this post is a 10-minute video with lots of detail.

But here is a photo of some of the Apsaras. The Apsaras are one of my favourite religious icons.

A few more photos of the majestic temple structure…

And here we go up into that part of the temple where no one but the King entered. (Well there were others allowed but only at the invitation of the King and I think the guide said holy people.)

So here I leave you with a complete slide show of this part of our Angkor Wat tour. It includes many shots of the carvings. It’s all in sequence and includes a tour of the King’s sanctuary found at the top of those stairs.

Note! To the left is a closeup of the video control that you will find in the lower right hand corner of the video. If you click on the square indicated by the red arrow (but down in the video control) you will get a full screen of detail!

And this time I’ve included music which is Sunda Gamelan music from Indonesia.
I hope you enjoy it.

Angkor Wat was built in the early 12th century and was first dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu. It is Hindu in its architecture but is now dedicated to Buddha.

You cross a moat to get to the main entrance of the temple…

The moat to the left of the temple…

The entrance itself…

‘

And we don’t get very far before being overwhelmed by the extent of carving. Every threshold, every cornice, every wall is carved.

Here is a collection of bas reliefs…you can click on each thumbnail to see a larger version.

You will see in some of the reliefs above and in the next photo the image of an Apsara…a common female image found throughout Asia where cultures are steeped in Hindu and Buddhist traditions. A mythical creature the Aspara is a “beautiful supernatural woman proficient in the art of dancing”.

Next is a unique rendition of Buddha an Aspara. According to our guide this is the only image of Buddha an Aspara in over 1000 temples in the Angkor Archeaological Park that is showing a toothful smile!

These next two photos show the detail of an outer wall of the main entrance…this is to the left of the Buddha Apsara with teeth.

So we’ve barely begun. We’ve just walked through the main entrance…

…and now we are making our way deeper into the temple grounds….

And we’ll keep going until we get to the King’s tower…in the center of the temple compound.

More of Angkor Wat tomorrow.

I took over 350 photos at Angkor Wat. So while I am wading through the possibilities and editing with ruthlessness for the next post…I have a couple of Angkor Wat teasers to keep you occupied.

Before we even got to Angkor Wat I thought no way am I going to be able to match the quality of some of the exquisite photos that have been published of Angkor Wat. We had a brilliant sunny morning at Ta Prohm but by the time we got to Angkor Wat there was a thick cover of cloud. So I was even more discouraged about the possibility of getting really good photos.

But! While a little dark…I did get a very interesting photo…quite by accident. I was concentrating on standing in the right place so that all 5 towers would be visible so I didn’t even notice the reflection that appears in this photo.

There used to be 9 towers but 4 have collapse over time.

This next photo is inside the temple…this is just one of several long walls of bas-reliefs
(approx 150 meters [450 feet]). These walls tell the Hindu stories of Ramayana and Mahabharata.

If you look closely you can just see the carving in the wall. The whole length of the wall is carved.

And here’s just one closeup…

More Angkor Wat photos tomorrow.

Yesterday we toured two temples in the Angkor Archaeological Park. We were supposed to see 5 temples but we abandoned the tour at 2:00 in the afternoon after seeing Ta Prohm and Angkor Wat because our time in the area is limited. We wanted to spend some time walking around Siem Reap and we’re quite sure we’ll be back!

We were collected by a mini van at 8:00 am and by the time we stopped at the first temple there were 10 of us…1 Khmer, 3 Germans, 2 Americans, 3 Brits, 1 Mexican plus our Khmer guide…who’s name I consciously repeated 10 times and still cannot recall it! He was very fluent in English and extremely knowledgeable about the temples and the warring history of Cambodia.

Angkor Wat is the most famous of the 1000 temple ruins in this area…and while it is certainly an astounding and magnificent structure to behold…if I had to choose between the two…I enjoyed Ta Prohm more because of the way nature has taken over.

Restoration of Ta Prohm began in earnest in 2010 and the guide said that they are afraid to remove the trees because the tourists love them…as you will see in some of the following photos.

These Strangle Figs are called Sprung in Khmer…

The roots seem larger than the trees themselves.

Is this a root or just part of the tree? I don’t know.

Clamouring to be photographed with the Strangler Fig…

Now for some details. I took 350 photos at this temple ground. Here are 10 of the best…

I leave you today with this image of Buddha framed by the roots of a Strangler Fig…I never would have seen this if it weren’t for one of the guides who noticed that I was interested in the details. When I took a photo of the dinosaur (two photos up) he said Did you see the Buddha framed by the roots? and we retraced a path back through the temple grounds. He said few people ever notice this.

Ta Prohm in it’s original form was a Mahayana Buddhist monastery and university built by King Jayavarman VII in the late 12th century.

Tomorrow I will post photos from Angkor Wat, a Hindu temple built in the early 12th century and said to be the largest religious structure in the world.

Before I get into the trip to Siem Reap…I thought I should include a photo of the temple where the Monks hang out in Phnom Penh when they aren’t at the University.

Today Buddha blessed us with a bright sunny day as we made our way by bus from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap.

The bus fare per person is $US11.00 for a luxury bus. Luxury is a relative concept. I did not think to take a photo of the bus!

In the end there were two buses and we noticed a segregation of passengers! Amusingly, the Chinese tourists were herded onto the luxurious bus while all the gwailo’s were placed on the…shall I say…perfectly comfortable but certainly not luxurious bus.

I’ve created a slide show (below) of today’s best because it is the fastest way to publish a heap of photos.

But before the slide show here is one photo I want to highlight…an 800 year old stone bridge! Don’t strain your eyes because following this photo is a cropped version where you can see much more detail.

The cropped version…

For a taste of the real Cambodia…here’s a series of photos showing the countryside between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap.

And tomorrow we’re off to Angkor Wat to see the famous and very very old temples.

Slice was thrilled to find this little bicycle shop on a back street just a few blocks from the hotel.

He bought parts for our Giant brand bicycles…parts he couldn’t find in KL!

Across from the bicycle shop…a beautiful apartment building with Chinese noodle restaurant at the street level…

And just a few doors down from the hotel…you have your choice of coffins…

Or an altar to make daily offerings to Buddha…

One of the many Monks seen traipsing back and forth between a very large local Temple and the Buddhist University…

Finishing off with two artful carvings depicting one of the many religious dances that tell stories like the Ramayana or the Mahabharata. The first is the outside wall of an office bulding that we walked past yesterday.

And this little one is hanging in the lobby of our hotel…

Tomorrow we are traveling to Siem Reap to spend a couple of days touring Angkor Wat and one or two other temples. There are at least a dozen that I counted in the Lonely Planet.

A 6:00AM call. Yikes! I hope we have sunny weather for the photo shoot.