Shooting from the tip

Entering the dragon’s belly

2008-01-24T14:48:00.000+08:00

Can you, in your wildest dreams picture me strutting around like the late Bruce Lee, kicking up more than just a few storms with a trail of dead bodies behind me? For a while I thought I could. Growing up in the 70s, you cannot help but have Bruce Lee as your icon. Those days kung fu was actually the in thing. And the in thing was to walk with the swagger and gait of Bruce Lee. There was even a song which said everybody loves kung fu fighting. Think of kung fu or specifically think of Bruce Lee and the dragon comes to mind. After all he gave us The Way of the Dragon and Enter the Dragon.

But there must be something about the dragon that fascinates not just people of old but also modern men. While we can only make a wild guess about whether it ever existed, the closest one can ever come to dragons are dinosaurs. What is certain, however, is that if dragons had ever existed at all, it must have gone the way of T-Rex and company. And sadly not a single fossil were left for us to marvel at its size nor a shred of DNA so we may try and piece together at least one such being, if for nothing else then at least for posterity sake. Our own Jurassic Park or Dragon’s Lair, if you like. After all there would be many who would think nothing of posing for a photograph beside a dragon spewing fire from its mouth and nostrils provided it is on a leash with a handler beside it to keep a watchful eye.

Being born in the year of the Rooster, I am, say Chinese geomancy experts, would be most compatible with those born in the year of the Dragon. Yeah, right. I suppose I would love nothing better than to go home to a dragon lady every might. Suffice to say that me being the chicken and she being the dragon with fire flaring from her nostrils under most circumstances, there is every likelihood that I would be roasted or grilled daily. Of course, the other two compatible animals with me are the Snake and the Ox. But again I think this is not the column and place to discuss feng shui. So we would leave that to the experts of the earth, wind and fire and move to more familiar grounds, i.e. travel.

Just over a 100km to the north of Hat Yai is the province of Trang, where you find a cave called Tham Le Khao Kop, situated in Huai Yot County, about 7 km off the office building of the county administration. The cave has a stream running through it and the only way to get inside is by taking a boat so you can visit the cavern consisting of some fifteen caves. The caves differ from one another in shape and sizes and the highlight is Tham Lot or Thong Mangkon (the dragon's stomach). To explore this cave, you have to lie down on your back in the boat along the 100-metre waterway. Minimum of movement is required. You move your head up and your nose would get bruised by the many jutting rocks making up the dragon’s belly. It is not a journey for those who are claustrophobic because your mind tend to tell you that there is not enough oxygen. It is certainly one sure way to get your adrenaline flowing and you will automatically hold your breath when the boat passes sharp-pointed stalactites that are only a few inches away from your belly. A round trip takes about an hour. Being occasionally cheeky, I find that this is about the only time I can lie in a girl’s lap for 15 minutes without getting accused of sexual harassment. You have to try and visit when the tide is out because during the rainy season the cave expedition is not possible due to the high tide. It is about the only time when those with lots of fat seemed to be welcomed because the extra weight helps make the boat sink lower in the water, thereby giving more room in the dragon’s long belly. Opening hours is from 8am to 6pm.

The river that makes up Tham Le Khao Kop flows from the Banthat Mountain Range and is divided into three waterways upon reaching Khao Kop. Two go around the mountain while one flows through the cave under the mountain. In addition the cave itself looks like a high and steep cliff with layers of rocks and stalactites and stalagmites magnificently decorating the cave for a distance of approximately 4km. One of the caverns is called a bridal chamber. Presumably in the days of old it must be where virgins are sacrificed to the dragon lord. Currently, the Khao Kop Tambon Administration Organization provides rowboats to facilitate visitors explorations of the cave. In addition, eco-tourism and light-adventure activities are provided by the locals. The boat ride costs 200 bahts for 7 persons, or 30 baht per person.

Incidentally the reason Bruce Lee is associated with dragons is that he was born in the Year of the Dragon in San Francisco in 1940. His father was Chinese while his mother was half Chinese and half German. Considered the most consummate martial artist, he was responsible for popularising kung fu not just in the west but in most parts of Asia. Most people who knew him personally, me not included, said that had he taken up boxing competitively, he would have been a world champion a few times over. To illustrate a point, most of those who trained under him such as Chuck Norris and James Kelly went on to become world champions in martial arts.

To illustrate the point further, it is said that Lee's striking speed from three feet with his hands down by his side reached five hundredths of a second and he could spring a 235lb opponent 15 feet away with a one inch punch. His combat movements were at times too fast to be captured on film at 24 frames per second, so many scenes were shot in 32 frames per second to put Lee in slow motion. Normally martial arts films are sped up. In a speed demonstration, Lee could snatch a dime off a person's open palm before they could close it, and leave a penny behind.He could also perform push ups using only his thumbs and would hold an elevated v-sit position for 30 minutes or longer. Another demonstration of his speed was he could throw grains of rice up into the air and then catch them in mid-flight using chopsticks.

If those were not enough proof, Bruce Lee could perform one-hand push-ups using only the thumb and index finger as well as 50 one-arm chin-ups. From a standing position, he could hold a 125lb barbell straight out and break wooden boards six inches thick (not at the same time of course). He once performed a side kick while training with James Coburn and broke a 150-pound punching bag, and could cause a 300-lb bag to fly towards and thump the ceiling with a sidekick.In a move that has been dubbed "Dragon Flag", Lee could perform leg lifts with only his shoulder blades resting on the edge of a bench and suspend his legs and torso perfectly horizontal mid-air. He could thrust his fingers through unopened steel cans of soft drinks, back in the days when soft drink cans were made of harder aluminium metal. And Lee would use one finger to leave dramatic indentations on pine wood.

In the words of the master, "Be formless... shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle; it becomes the bottle. You put it into a teapot; it becomes the teapot. Water can flow, and it can crash. Be like water….”

I will try and remember that the next time I face a 300lb bully. And I hoped being like the water means more than just wetting my pants.

My Cuti-cuti Malaysia

2007-12-19T15:28:00.001+08:00

Being away from home for about two weeks every month means I have always looked forward to weekends when I could just laze in front of the TV set all day long. And when I laze in front of the TV set, most often than not it’s the TV that ends up watching me instead of the other way around.

Or if I am up to it, then I would probably take up the irresistible offer to go play golf and most often than not get thrashed soundly by one group of friends or other. It does not matter which group, I seem to always end up losing. I have this sneaky feeling that when they run out of grocery money they will call me to save the trouble of going to an ATM machine.

This September, however was a little different. I was away in Pattaya for two rounds of golf, all part of official duty, of course. And back home, it was more golf but mostly on TV, i.e. the FedEx Cup and the President’s Cup. Trying desperately to pick up pointers from the likes of Tiger Woods and his “merry men”. And with it being fasting month, all my Muslim friends were extra charitable and decided to give me a break.

So on a weekend towards the end of the month I decided to have a cuti-cuti in Malaysia instead, but one with a slight difference. It was a close friend’s birthday. Rather than organise it at home, in a club or a posh restaurant, she and her husband decided that it would be nice to go spend her birthday with some recovering and fully-recovered HIV patients instead. So we got into our cars and drove a few kilometres out of Kuala Lumpur to a place in Batu Arang.

The inmates of the home seemed glad to see us as they helped to carry the food for the birthday party into the kitchen of the house. A wooden house surrounded by vegetable plots and some fruit tree, it is home to some 28 inmates who are waiting to go home. Some have homes to go back to and for those who do not, this was now home. Some have gone to work as mechanics at a workshop nearby. They seemed glad to interact with those from the outside world and most are jovial and friendly to visitors. Everybody sang a birthday song and the food was served.

Most of those living in the home were unable to secure family support or have lost contact with their families. For them the home had devised a Positive Living Community Programme whereby small groups of sufficiently recovered patients are provided with a rented house equipped with basic facilities and an overseer to enable them to continue leading a healthy lifestyle.

They are given opportunities to engage in some productive work opportunities to acquire vocational and living skills through various forms of therapeutic activities. Currently there are two such homes with a total of 20 residents in Batu Arang.

In addition, residents with the necessary aptitudes and abilities were also selected to participate in peer educators training organised by the Malaysian AIDS Council and coaching camps by volunteer professionals. Once sufficiently trained, their services would be made available to other NGOs, schools, community groups and faith based groups to conduct awareness programmes in a creative and interactive way.

The objective in running the above programmes is to come up with models that can be duplicated by other NGOs or faith based groups and so on. The home welcomes any organisation to send people to be trained as caregivers or to live in and learn about its other programmes.

A few kilometres from the half-way house stands a bigger facility. Run by Project Co-ordinator, Mr Alex Arokiam, it survives on charity and donations from non-governmental organisations and individuals. It had been around since October 1997 as a community-based facility to cater for 15 patients but has since grown due to demands. It now houses up to 34 patients of all race and religion regardless of their ability to pay for their stay.

Most were referred by hospitals and drop-in centres managed by NGOs from various parts of the country. More than a hundred have been provided with palliative care and subsequently died. The home has been gazetted as a private drug rehabilitation centre with a sick bay for residents who have developed AIDS. While the home started merely as response to the cry for shelter for people living on the streets who had contracted AIDS, over the years it had continuously improved its knowledge and skills in providing appropriate holistic approach to caring that deals with the mind, body and soul of the person.

A total of 14 staff members comprising a project co-ordinator, office administrator, full-time nurse, caregivers, hospital liaison officer, driver, helpers and cook provide individualised care for up to 34 patients. Up to 12 of the patients suffer from various forms of permanent or temporary disabilities and are in need of nursing care.

The Welcome Community Home functions as an after care home for up to 30 residents at a time where they will be assisted to recover physically and psychologically. It has earned affiliation with the Malaysian AIDS Council and is confident of obtaining sufficient funds for the continued operation and improvement of its services as of January 2008.

At the same time the home fully realises the futility of its services in the current situation whereby the continued ignorance and attitude of families and society as a whole and the indifference of relevant government agencies will continue to produce more and more persons with HIV/AIDS who are homeless.

As a first time visitor to both homes, and much as I try to hide my earlier discomforts I could not help but be impressed by their new found courage. Some of them took the wrong route and ended up with a drug addiction. Unhygienic use of drug paraphernalia had resulted in them contracting HIV. But it sure took hell of a lot of courage for them to pull themselves out of the mess. For that I wish them all the luck.

They have also tried to make the shelter their call home as normal as possible. There is even a band and a drama company consisting of eight residents who had been trained by a theatre director from the UK. The company had even staged a play at the Actors Studio in Bangsar.

I have to admit that like most people I also suffer from a phobia, thinking that by being close or breathing the same air with the HIV sufferers I would be susceptible too. But after not only sharing the same air, but the same food and shaking hands with them, I have not succumbed to the disease. HIV and AIDS do not spread by touch. You are more likely to contract the disease through certain unprotected nocturnal activities. When I shook their hands before heading home I did so a little shamefacedly remembering my earlier prejudice.

But at least now I know where I would be spending my next birthday. The address is Welfare Community Homes, D-1224, Lorong SU 4, Off Jalan DPP, 48100 Batu Arang, Selangor. The date is May 25 which happens to be a Sunday. All are welcome. No RSVP necessary.

Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden

2007-11-22T21:30:00.000+08:00

Long before I took up the game, I read somewhere that if you play in all the golf courses in Thailand, you would have walked the same distance from Mae Sai at the northernmost tip of Thailand to Sungai Golok, the southernmost tip. Now presumably the distance would be even farther because more golf courses have been opened since then. That is quite a long walk by any standards even if you bear in mind that most golfers do not mind walking uphill and downhill on a golf course but moan and groan if they have to walk from their house to the sundry shop a hundred metres away. The bet is that more than 90 per cent would rather get in their cars and drive there although most could do with the exercise.

Long before I took up the game, I also read somewhere that the word golf actually came from the phrase Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden. Like most things in the old days, men seemed to make it a point of excluding the female of their species from the fun. They prefer instead to relegate the women folks to less strenuous pursuits like needlework, knitting, gardening and tending to the children. Such behaviour in Scotland of old, the original home of golf, and most other parts of the world, I am happy to say, has ended. So has discrimination against women in all kinds of other sports. And not a moment too soon, I might add. Otherwise we would be deprived of admiring the attributes and other talents of such marvellous female sports personalities like Michele Wie, Maria Sharapova and Anna Kournikova.

Where golf is concerned, I for one, am not going to belittle the ability of ladies. I was paired with one lady, all five foot of her, who among the Thai circle in Kuala Lumpur is known as The Pro. Well, at least I am one of those who call her that. One fine day she decided to play from the men’s tee instead of the ladies tee against me. Not only did she out-drive me, she was also sinking putts from more than 10 feet. Needless to say I was soundly trounced. If that was not insult enough, her two female companions (though both were playing from the ladies tee) also managed to beat me by more than 10 strokes. That is the last time I ever want to be paired up with them again. That was also the last time they invited me for a game. I think they must be playing rather well and no longer need to beat me to a pulp just to bolster their egos.

Although so far I have only limited my exploits to golf courses in Malaysia and Thailand since taking up the game more than five years ago, I must say I have played at some of the most beautiful and challenging courses in both countries. Actually most courses are challenging to me and the fact that no human, bird, other small animals or insects were killed during the course of any game would count as a good day for me. This fact had always touched a bit of raw nerve with me.

You could say the first time I played was a baptism of fire of sorts. It was with His Excellency the Thai Ambassador to Malaysia. We were nearing the end of the game when my ball landed in the bunker near the green. Golf instructors will tell you to take sand wedge or any other club of your preference provided you know how to use it well, and hit the sand just behind the ball. This would allow the ball to ride out of the bunker on the sand. Having hardly learned the rudiments of the game at that time as opposed to being a pro now, I took my sand wedge and gave it a solid whack. More than one way to skin a cat, they say. In fact it worked too well. The ball flew out of the bunker like a bullet and was heading straight for Mr Ambassador himself. Luckily both he and the lady caddie from Indonesia ducked in time. Otherwise either one of them could have landed in hospital if not worse.

My knees actually went soft because I thought Mr Ambassador was going to take his driver and whack me on the head with it or at least give me a ticking off. But to his credit he did no such thing. To this day I still shudder to think that I almost had to go before the Thai Foreign Ministry and explain how the Thai Government ended up being one ambassador short. Or explaining to the Indonesian Government that it was all an accident and that I did not mistake the caddie for a maid and had not abused one of her citizens. For a few months after that a number of friends had a great time poking fun at me every time I had a golf game. They would ask whether anybody got killed when they know I have just returned from a round of golf. Another friend would ask, “How many under today?” From the first time I played, it had always been about six or seven under. I am of course not talking about pars but I seemed to have this ability of hitting my ball into the water, under the trees, into the bushes, etc. Thus I would lose an average of six or seven balls a game.

Of course, there were some great moments as well, such as playing at the Blue Canyon Golf & Country Club in Phuket. In fact I have played there twice. This course was made famous by a certain Mr Woods, who still holds the amateur course record there when he won the Johnnie Walker Classic several years ago. Both times that I played there I actually came close to breaking his course record. I was just off by about 40 or 50 strokes, which was not too bad at all by my standards, considering he is Mr Woods and I always end up getting the wooden spoon at most tournaments.

At another time I was invited for a tournament in Johore. I had the distinction of coming in last again and winning a hair dryer for my effort. The organisers were very kind in recognising that somebody need to be in the last position. But I was quick to point out to my friends that in marketing this is what is called positioning. Either you come in first or come in last. That is the only way to be remembered. You are not worth a mention at all if you come in at 22 from a group of 72. Nobody remembers you. But come in at 72 out of a field of 72 and you get star-billing and is as famous as the champion.

While not belittling the golf courses in Malaysia, most people I think find golfing in Thailand more enjoyable for a number of reasons. I was told it is because of the more relaxed attitude of Thai golfers and the golf clubs in their approach to the game. In addition, you always get to stop for a drink after every three holes. Best of all you get your own caddie where as in Malaysia you tend to have to share your caddie. In Thailand you can even have three caddies, one to carry your golf clubs, one to carry your umbrella and one to hold your whiskey glass, should you so desire. Best of all most can actually read the greens very well. What more can one ask for? After all most of us are not trying to win the British Open. Beats going shopping with the wife during the weekends. Not that I ever had to do this either. But you know what I mean.

Holidays can be fun or disastrous

2007-10-29T11:26:00.000+08:00

It may seem like childish advice and stating the obvious. Said advice being not losing your essential documents and most especially when you are travelling abroad.

Anyway it must be one of the most distressing things you can ever feel when arriving at a foreign airport for an international flight and realising that you have lost your tickets. Well, make that the second most distressing thing since the most distressing would be to have lost your passports. To have lost both while travelling abroad would be absolutely disastrous.

Losing your travel documents can be downright troublesome even when one is not travelling abroad. Getting a replacement can be quite a hellish experience because whether or not you do get a new passport depended very much on the Immigration Department.

“Atas budi bicara Ketua Pengarah Jabatan Imigresen Malaysia.” Well, the poor Director-General always gets to shoulder the blame whether or not he is personally involved in the decision to give you a replacement passport or not. My guess is that somebody else decides beforehand whether you deserve a new travel document and if you do whether it has some form of restriction or other attached to it before the documents reached the DG’s desk for his signature.

Which is why it would help a whole lot if you look honest. I mean, try and paint a picture to the immigration officer handling your case that you do not have the kind of face which belongs to a person who is likely to sell his or her passport on the black market and then go apply for a new one, thereby doing a roaring business. This is in fact one of the reasons getting a replacement passport after you have lost one is hell. In case you did not know, Malaysian and Singaporean passports are said to be the most valuable and expensive travel documents in the world on the black market. I say this not through personal experience. What I am quoting is just hearsay as I have never actually lost my passport. Touch wood. But I was told the reason our passports are so expensive has something to do with our diverse ethnicity. As to why this is so, please go figure. Suffice to say that the Malaysian authorities do not take very kindly to your losing travel documents, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

But back to our lost ticket story. Thank goodness that these days most airlines have gone electronic. For those still not in the know, you can actually travel paperless these days. Just do your bookings and jot down your booking reference code. Even if you have forgotten your reference code, just handing in your passport at the check-in counter will suffice as the staff attending to you would be able to confirm your flight and issue you your boarding pass. Just try to remember your flying date, time and flight number. Easy as that.

This, however, works only if you are travelling on one sector. Should it involve different sectors, say flying to Bangkok then on to Tokyo then you still could not go paperless just yet. Which is when problems like losing your tickets sometimes arise. Imagine the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach on arriving at the airport and discovering that you have no tickets to travel with.

Some months ago I arrived at Suwarnabhumi International Airport, Bangkok’s spanking new terminal, and managed to catch the tail end of a verbal exchange between a couple. Well, it was actually one-sided. A couple had alighted from a taxi just a minute or so before I did when they realised that their air tickets were still in the taxi. And the taxi had already left the airport area.

The man, about a hundred kilos of him and who must be in his late 40s or early 50s, sounded very Italian. The wife, a petite young thing who could not be more than 25, and carrying a baby who must be a few months old to boot, just stood pale-faced and defenceless against the verbal onslaughts of her husband. Although I have not met that many Italians in my life, I have met a few, which I must say is more than enough for me to form an opinion that Italian men by nature are very passionate and excitable people. A normal conversation can often sound like an argument. So you can imagine what can come out of his mouth when he is in such a state.

In that instance, his English may be peppered with Italian, but he certainly was making his feelings understood not just by his wife but everybody who was in the vicinity of the drop-off area at the airport. Indeed, the adjectives he used, and there were quite a few mind you, to describe his wife’s state of mind at that moment and thereby her overall intellect, were some of the most colourful I have heard. If anybody had had their doubts before that, after his tirade it was clear he never married her for her brains. Nuclear physicist, she was certainly not. In the bedroom and in the heat of passion you may be excused for using some of the words but certainly it was in very poor taste when uttered for complete strangers to hear in a very public place.

Much as I would like to step in and help, I have lived a long and relatively peaceful life. And one of the things I have learned if you want to continue living a long and relatively peaceful life is not step in between an irate Italian and his Thai wife. In fact one should never step in between any man and his wife when they are in the middle of a heated exchange, even if they are your closest friends. Worst still if they are not. You may just end up with a black eye for your effort instead of words of gratitude from either party. While the Italian and his wife were still at it, I decided to let them figure out for themselves what they were supposed to do and went to check in for my flight back to Kuala Lumpur.

In fact if he had not been in such a state, he would have realised that should you ever lose your tickets all you need to do is go pay for new tickets and upon returning home file a claim for lost tickets with your insurance agent. Which is why it is essential that when you travel you first buy travel insurance. If you did not then there is nothing that can be done except bear the losses and be more careful with your travel documents and flight tickets the next time you go for a trip.

It is the difference between a completely beautiful holiday and a disastrous one.

Sick away from home

2007-09-21T17:13:00.000+08:00

In April I had a chosen an unusually wet morning to call a taxi and head for the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. For a while I was wondering if I would make it in time for my flight. The rain was pouring relentlessly along the KL-Seremban Highway and you can only just make out the rear ends of the vehicles in front. Credit to the taxi driver though, a veteran of more than 20 years on roads and routes in the Klang Valley, who drove at a reasonable speed considering the circumstances and got me to the airport ahead of time.

My clothes were slightly damp and it was cold all the way during the flight from KL to Bangkok. But out of the cool confines of Suwarnabhumi International Airport, Thailand’s latest state-of-the-art airport, reputed to be the most modern in Asia, it had to be the hottest day recorded in Bangkok so far this year at 40 degrees Celsius. April may be known as the hottest month in Thailand and it was after the Songkran or water festival and all that. But even by Bangkok standards it was stinging hot and I mean that in the most literal way. My skin was feeling a bit prickly during the taxi ride to the hotel. Such extreme change in the weather and temperatures, coupled with a lack of sleep on the previous night ensured that by evening I was down with a fever and I had to spend most of the day in my hotel room sleeping.

The room overlooked the swimming pool and from four floors up I was entertained by a bevy of several nationalities showing off their prowess in a variety of swimming styles. Of particular interest were two girls who were demonstrating more than just the usual camaraderie among travelling companions. This was a bit more than your usual female bonding to trade gossips about the latest fashion. Even to the casual observer, and I consider myself to be that, they were showing just a little too much interest in each other’s anatomy for my comfort. Their swimming style was of course the breast stroke and one of them was a good swimmer at that while the other rode piggy back.

Tsk! Tsk! Forgive me for being a prude. But I come from the state of Kelantan, where men and women do not share the same trishaws or pay for goods in the supermarket at the same check out counters. Come to think of it the two ladies would have had no problems at all if they were in Kelantan. They would have had fit in nicely so long as they shed their bikinis for shorts and t-shirts before entering the hotel swimming pool. After all in Kelantan these days same sex dancing is now not just the in thing but is widely encouraged. I am not all that familiar with the subject of psychology, but I can bet Freud would have said this is encouraging a split personality among the girls. Anyway I suppose what the two ladies were doing was as close as it can ever get to synchronised swimming in a hotel pool.

If these were not problems enough I had to be up early the next morning to catch another flight, this time to Hanoi. By that time my fever was threatening to get out of control. But nothing some self medication could not take care of, so I just stepped into the first pharmacy I saw at the airport. It was another two hours flight or so from Bangkok to Vietnam’s capital city. If Bangkok was scorching hot then Hanoi was about 18 degrees Celsius, which again was cold by my standards and absolutely dreadful when you are down with a fever.

Even the pretty nice looking immigration officer waiting to assist people at the airport failed to interest me. I was told things had improved tremendously of late and you no longer have to stand for hours waiting for your passport to be stamped. Vietnam after all had come of age and is marching furiously into the future embracing all kinds of technology – from the latest mobile phones from China to the most up-to-date computers. Technology can only do so much of course. The way their civil servants do things say a lot about their attitude. For example I am still trying to make sense of the fact that after my boarding card had been issued at the airport why would an immigration officer want to see my return ticket. Or the fact that you had to fill up the arrival and departure cards. The arrival card was taken when you arrive but the departure was just for me to take as a souvenir back to Kuala Lumpur.

Immigration aside, one thing you do not ever want to do is fall sick while on a trip to a place you have never been to before. Kind of put a damper on your sight seeing plans. After lunch and a shot of antibiotics and cough syrup I just decided to sleep it off and declined the offer to go for a tour of the city. Thereby I lost my chance to visit a local market and see skinned dog meat on display. The shock could have either cured me instantly or make me sicker.

The sleep refreshed me somewhat and I woke up at about 2am feeling a whole lot better. I may have opted out of the tour earlier in the day but had no intention of missing dinner. But miss it I already did. I looked out the window of the hotel room and the streets were practically empty. The city also seemed to have grown darker as houses and buildings have switched off their lights. Shops had closed for the night and there was nothing much I can do about the gnawing hunger. I had a dislike for room service because it reminded me of hospital rooms. How I suddenly miss having a 24-hour mamak stall around the corner and popping over for some coffee and roti canai.

Luckily there was an electric kettle in the hotel room to boil water and make coffee. Complimentary from the hotel. In the fridge were also some chocolates. Chargeable of course. There was this small bar of chocolate which is quite popular in Malaysian shops which you can pick up for about RM1.50 or so. Much as I also dislike consuming food from hotel mini-bars I was left with very little choice. I had a little snack hoping to avoid dying of starvation before the breakfast buffet opens in the morning. Three days later when I was checking out of the hotel I was slapped with a bill of some US$5 for the bar of chocolate. That was the most expensive packet of Kit Kat I ever paid for and is likely ever to pay for.

Hot dog, anyone?

2007-08-29T10:40:00.000+08:00

Vietnamese women are built very much like their houses. Tall and slim with just a touch of French flavour. Well, this is the case in Hanoi (or Hanot as the locals pronounce the capital city) at least.

The buildings are built that way because land in Hanoi is scarce and the population is over four million. So there is a need to have as small a base as possible with the houses rising up a minimum of three storeys. The land mostly belongs to the government which gives them out to individuals to build their houses. I must add here that land in Vietnam is non-hereditary except if it is ancestral land. The women got that way presumably because of the bicycling they used to do. Not anymore, though, because everybody seemed to be moving around on motorbikes which have become the new preferred form of transport. The more affluent in fact whiz around in Japanese-made cars. Therefore the women must have remained slim because of the several flights of stairs they have to climb daily in their homes.

Another reason could be because the Vietnamese, I was told, were not great eaters. They just eat the three main meals and do not snack in between. And they love to exercise and keep fit. Looking out of my hotel room window eight floors up I could spot a man in white shorts and t-shirt exercising furiously in front our hotel in the wee hours of the morning. But upon closer inspection, I realised that it was not a Vietnamese man I was looking at. It was one of my bosses from Bangkok. He is a health freak whose daily regiment includes a run a few times round the block in whatever city he may be followed by lots of raw vegetables and fruits for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He is one step ahead of the Vietnamese, I must say, in the art of keeping healthy.

Anyway I keep digressing. A friend actually pointed out that Vietnamese women looked slimmer than their Asian counterparts because of optical illusion which he attributed to the dress most of them wear. Called au yai, it consists of a mid-calf (or what in the 1970s we used to call midis as opposed to minis) or maxis (ankle-length) cheongsam with slits on both sides running up to the waist. These are made from either silk or cotton. Of course they still wore long pants under the skirts. Otherwise it would have become totally x-rated instead of being a most elegant and beautiful national costume. The au yai without the pants would have caused terrible accidents on the roads all over Vietnam and reduced the number of males further. As it is out of the 80 million people or so, more than 50 per cent are women.

Coupled with that, the motorbikes also travel at speeds that make you stand rooted for a long time by the side of the road before crossing. The first time I tried crossing a road I must have stood there for five minutes before mustering up enough courage to make an attempt. I was waiting for the number of bikes to lessen. No such luck, so as calmly as possible I walk across with a few motorbikes coming at me at breakneck speed. Wonder of all wonders without even slowing down one bit they somehow managed to avoid running me over. If you think that is bad enough, try doing it on a road where the traffic comes at you from both sides with a couple of horns blaring at the same time. The pace used to be much slower when bicycles ruled the roads, I was told. Now the bikes have taken over and all other vehicles, from cars to lorries must give way to them. I can understand that in the days of bicycles this must have been an act of deference to the proletariat class or something like that. But now I think the drivers of other vehicles are just afraid the Hanoi Mat Rempet will team up and beat them senseless in the event one of their brethren is run over. It did not matter whether it was night or day. The number of motorbikes did not seem to decrease very much, at least up until midnight or so.

Which actually mean you need nerves of steel and should not let your mind wonder too much when crossing roads. Worse of all do not let your eyes wander at all to the girls clad in au yai standing across the road. I must say that in the four days I was there, several times I was moved considerably to consider ending my bachelorhood if not for one tiny fact. I was rather afraid for my neighbour’s dogs. Call me picky but I would still rather have beef in my hotdog. To be fair Vietnamese do not eat dog meat all the time. Only during the second half of the month. They consider eating dog meat during the first 15 days to be bad luck. I would say the first half of the month is good luck for the dogs, which are reared specially for food. In one part of Hanoi, I was told, there are 60 restaurants all selling dog meat cuisine. I took their word for it and turned down the offer to go for an inspection.

In fact if I had wanted to have a look I need not have gone that far. Some of my colleagues went for a walk at the wet market beside the hotel we were staying and saw freshly slaughtered and skinned dogs on display. So they whipped out their cameras and started clicking away. This had offended the dog meat seller, but when they gave her a two-dollar tip, out came the heads as well. And this time she even smiled broadly for the cameras.

I think most people find the idea of eating dog meat rather unsettling, revolting in fact, because we were brought up with the notion that dogs are a man’s best friend, in some parts of the world at least. And the idea of slaughtering and eating dogs upset both Muslim and non-Muslim friends of mine alike.

By the way, guess what is more expensive than dog meat? That’s right, cat meat. And not even Persian or Siamese cats, mind you. Our guide was quick to try and absolve this with an excuse that the Vietnamese had been through a 30-year war. And scarcity of food then had meant that any animal that can be slaughtered and eaten would be. Well good enough an excuse.

Somehow I also find it ironic that we would get on our high horse and try to impose our opinion about this when most of us do not blink an eye at the idea of cattle or chicken being killed for food. And I must say I do feel a little kind of guilty for taking a dig at the Vietnamese for their dog eating habits.

Something that I find in common with quite a number of Vietnamese was Manchester United. They love MU in this part of the world. I managed to catch a game on big screen TV at the airport between MU and Everton while waiting for my flight to Bangkok. And wonder of all wonders, there was nobody who wanted to watch Akademi Fantasia to fight with. A few days after returning to KL, MU was again playing but I ended up having to watch Astro’s premier entertainment programme instead. It was a segment where a student of the academy was voted off the show. And for the briefest of moments I could not decide which was the more cruel. SMS voting to judge a participant’s talent or killing dogs for food.

Was that Singa or Singgah?

2007-07-27T20:21:00.000+08:00

I have flown there. I have driven there. I have ridden there on a bike. I have taken a train there. So it was about time I take a bus there. And that was how I happened to end up at the second link immigration checkpoint taking me into Singapore. The bus ride was truly great as the brochure advertised. Enough food, coffee and fruits were handed out by the pretty hostess on the bus to make it a comfortable enough five-hour journey.

Just before handing over my passport to the Singapore Immigration Officer, it was a lucky thing that I chanced upon a sign saying no more than an opened packet of cigarette may be taken by Malaysians into the republic. They have changed the rule while I was not looking, obviously. After all I only go there once every three years to attend our regional meeting. Good thing too that I headed straight for the Customs Office to declare my five packets of cigarette. Sitting inside the Customs Office were a couple from Indonesia who had the same brand of cigarette I did. Having failed to declare two unopened packets they had walked through the scanner and were found out real quick by the ever diligent officer on duty. Now they were awaiting a hefty fine being worked out in addition to confiscation of the said contraband items. In the meantime their bus had left without them. Singapore punctuality and all that, you know.

I, on the other hand, having judiciously declared my cigarettes were more respectfully treated. Of course I was handed a bill amounting to more than S$70 which worked out to nearly RM150. For four packets? Dear me, that was a whole lot of money going up in smoke. Those were the most expensive 80 sticks of cigarettes I have ever smoked or likely ever to smoke ever. But it is our civic duty when visiting the island republic to help pay for its upkeep. So I dutifully handed over my credit card because that was the preferred mode of payment, said the Customs Officer. They do not like handling cash, only plastic money. And luckily I never leave home without it. I don’t have that much paper money but lots of plastic money. So what the hell, eh? There was no way I was going to ditch my cigarettes either. Just like quite a number of people I know could never ever ditch their spouses even though they were causing them quite a bit of breathing discomfort and misery.

Naturally I was given a lot of stick by my boss and Marketing Manager about it. And silly me too, because the brand of cigarette I smoke can be found in Singapore. But then I am one of those who carry Indonesian cigarettes while visiting Indonesia just so that I would not run out. Still it was a lot of money just to satisfy a craving. Serves me right, said my non-smoking friends. Poor you, said those who themselves could not last an hour without lighting up.

It would be quite a while before I visit the Lion City again and certainly not with that many cigarettes on me. Lion City, eh? How did they get the name anyway? Fable had it that one Sang Nila Utama who discovered the island of Temasik saw a lion and that was how the name came about? Now really, are Singaporeans that gullible? They, our much learned and sophisticated cousins across the Causeway believe that there were lions on the island several millinium ago? And yet there are so many Oxbridge scholars among their kin?

As far as my limited knowledge of the animal kingdom is concerned, lions are only found in Africa. Well, okay, in the zoo in Singapore as well, but that was at a very much later stage of history. I stand corrected, of course, but to me it was very unlikely that a lion was ever sighted. The name Singapura never came from the word singa or lion. More likely it was from the word singgah (visit or stop for a while). And since it was a city even in days of old and sort of a half-way house for the merchants plying the China-India trade route, the two words singgah and pura (city) got combined. From Singgahpura it became Singapura and the Anglicised Singapore.

Of course the Singapore authorities were more than happy to let the charade continue. After all if Malaysia want to have a tiger as its national symbol, Singapore must go one up and have the king of the animal kingdom, the lion, as the national symbol. But as I say, I stand corrected. For all you know there could be a well-preserved carcass of a pre-historic lion lying in some underground vault in the republic. But then again you also have to understand that the founder of Singapore, Sang Nila Utama himself, was no ordinary being, having come forth from the saliva of a holy cow. So a lion could very well have travelled from the Savanah, through Africa, much of Central Asia to Southeast Asia. Finding itself in Tanjong Pelepas, it decided to give cross-strait swimming a try and while drying its lustrous fur on the sandy beach of Jurong was sighted by Sang Nila Utama and his band of merry men.

Well, enough of history lesson for the moment. Still I must say if there is one thing I love about Singapore, it is their bookshops. They seemed to be better stocked than those in Kuala Lumpur. Even the second hand bookshops. My favourite used to be located on the second floor of Bukit Timah Shopping Complex and I used to make regular trips there while living in Johor Bahru. One day while making my way to the second hand bookshop I was accosted at the top of the escalator by a salesgirl who wanted to sell me a new brand of face cream. I do not even use the old brand of face cream, so what would I do with a new brand and told her so.

“No wonder you’re so ugly,” she retorted. I thought I noticed another salesgirl cringe after hearing her co-worker’s sales pitch.

Well, I was certainly quite bewildered. That was in fact a first for me. I have been called many names before and most are often not terribly complimentary. But UGLY? That was the first time. Several weeks after that incident I was again in Bukit Timah, this time riding pillion on a friend’s motorbike. On our way back to Johore Baru via Woodlands, we were almost sandwiched between a lorry and a car. Just when I thought my mother would have been deprived of her only child this Mat Rempet (oh, yes we also had them in the good old days, they just go by another name) friend of mine managed to avoid going under the lorry by swerving in front of the car at breakneck speed. I never rode a bike in Singapore again after that, pillion or otherwise. I could hear my friend commenting that that was what you deserve for insulting Sang Nila Utama and the spirit of Singapore’s mythical lion.

The bold, the beautiful & the deadly

2007-06-28T11:16:00.000+08:00

One of the many myths propagated by Hollywood and which most people have come to believe must be that pythons are the most docile of reptiles. Away from Tinsel Town, the backstreets of some of Asian major cities or funfairs seemed to reinforce this. Chances are you would see pythons being handled quite easily although a bit heavily, adding more credence to the myth. In fact the more adventurous ones have been known to keep them as pets in their homes just to scare the hell out of unsuspecting friends. They are after all harmless creatures, according to the owners.

In the wild, pythons will lie coiled on the branches of trees and after selecting and successfully snaring their victims will grab them with their mouths and coil themselves around the targets. Using their tails for better leverage by holding on to the branches, they slowly pull the victims towards the tree and ever so slowly crushing the wind and life out of their prey, be they man or beast. It does not really matter that the pythons do not thoroughly messed up and meshed up your insides before devouring you because by that time you would be past caring whether your heads or rear ends enter first. By this stage victims would have already stopped breathing for quite a while from asphyxiation.

And what most people are quite unaware of is that pythons come in several versions for want of a better term. The Burmese version (Python molurus bivittatus) and the many other versions we shall merely refer to as the others. And the docile and seemingly harmless, albeit, gigantic snake that is handled quite easily is the Burmese version. The non-Burmese version, which I have had the pleasure of watching once, didn’t just slither around aimlessly but was quite ferocious. It had this ability to open its mouth to almost 180 degrees before randomly taking aim at parts of your anatomy worth taking shots at. Coupled with that are two rows of razor sharp teeth shaped very much like saws. Should the python be lucky with its target practice, then it could tear out chunks of flesh leaving certain parts of your esteemed self very much disfigured. And if anybody ever tells you pythons don’t have teeth, that person is talking rubbish and obviously had not really looked close enough. The snakes that don’t have teeth are boas. But then boas also give birth to their young instead of laying eggs like other snakes.

Of course, this is not to say that the non-Burmese python could not be handled. In the hands of experts they can, just as the case is with any type of snakes. Still I feel that there are easier ways to make a living than being a snake handler, although accountancy which pay hell of a lot more, may not be as exhilarating. Some people must be addicted to the adrenalin rush that comes with walking on the wild side daily just like others seemed to get a thrill out of riding their motorbikes on one wheel at traffic lights.

But make no mistake about it. Encountering a snake, the venomous ones that is (not counting pythons, boas and anacondas which are in a class of their own), can be as dangerous in the wild as it is at a funfair. No such thing as a cobra or king cobra with their venom glands (located just behind their eyes) being removed thereby rendering them harmless either. For without their venom such snakes would die as they are no longer able to feed and digest their food. What is probably done is that the handlers would extract the venom just before the show, thereby making them less fatal for at least a brief period of time.

I was told by a particular snake handler somewhere in Northeast Thailand that as part of his show he used to put the head of the king cobra in his mouth and grip it with his teeth. He had been doing that with the same snake for years so both were quite familiar with the trick. But one fine day that particular king cobra must have taken a sudden dislike for his breath and proceeded to sink its fangs into the man’s tongue. The man ended up in intensive care for a few weeks. The snake was returned to its cage without being harmed. It is taboo to kill a snake for the people of Ban Khok Sanga in Khon Kaen Province. The king cobras are always treated as friends. And with friends like that you certainly don’t need enemies, ever.

Meanwhile Chachoengsao Province, just to the north of Bangkok, is home to another type of creature, which some may find just as squeamish as snakes. These are the giant fruit bats or what some people call flying fox. They do indeed look like foxes with wings and are the size of chickens, the adults weighing at least more than a kilogram. The Thais call bats khang khao, roughly translated as the ones with the extremely smelly (in a fishy sort of way) chin. It is supposed to be an exotic cuisine in some kitchens. But I was told that when preparing a dish of bat curry or whatever, care must be taken never to break the saliva glands, otherwise the meat is useless because it is too smelly to eat. Thus the name khang khao. Some people have said their flesh tastes better than chicken and I fear I have to just take their word for it. But then again those who like to eat the meat of exotic animals always say that, be they dogs or frogs. Every meat on earth seemed to taste better than chicken meat, yet every body seemed to be eating chicken with such relish. All I can say is go eat a komodo dragon, then come back and tell me the meat tastes better than chicken meat.

There seemed to be nothing remarkable about these particular group of fruit bats if not for the fact that they seemed to be extraordinarily smart. They have chosen to make their homes on trees at the Wat Pho Bang Rak, thereby ensuring that there is almost zero chance of any of them ever finding itself as the main dish at some exotic dinner. They leave the temple compound before night fall to feed at the nearby forests which make up the Khao Yai National Park and return just before dawn to sleep hanging upside down. There must be thousands of them perched on the branches from batman and batgirl to bat mama, bat papa and bat kids. Being blind as a bat during the day, the bats allow you to get up close and photograph them. It couldn’t just have been survival instinct that told them a temple is a safe haven. It must be extra sensory perception. To kill any of these creatures, while they are in the temple compounds would have been a cardinal sin.

Another creature had also found temples to be safe havens. These equally clever species of catfish are found in rivers situated near temples. Unlike the bats, the fish are, however, more commonly seen. As they make their home in the temple area, again no one is allowed to catch these fish. They have become rather pampered, though, relying on kind tourists for their daily food of bread and fish pellets. Most have grown to a few kilos and would have fetched quite a price at the market. But unlike some of their distant cousins in Malaysia, they never venture beyond the temple areas. Somebody once pointed out to me that in Malaysia they are called ikan jelawat. In Thailand, they are more popularly known as the smart catfish.

Live by the sword, die by the sword

2007-06-07T19:00:00.000+08:00

“A cobra can strike twice the distance its head is raised while a king cobra three times,” the Director of the Wildlife Department pointed out to me.

What this means basically is that if the cobra raised its head two feet above the ground it can lunge a distance of four feet, while for a king cobra the distance would be six feet. But not to worry, after a cobra or king cobra had struck once and missed, they need some time to regain their energy before delivering the second strike. Their heads would be raised, hooded and all menacing, but basically harmless for 10 seconds at least. If you are Carl Lewis, you would be a hundred metres away by the time the snake is ready to deliver the second strike. If you could not quite match Mr Lewis in speed or need a calculator to work out the snake’s deadly range then the next best thing to do is add an extra five metres to whatever answer you derive from your calculations. A 10 metre head start does not guarantee you would automatically outrun the king cobra should it decide to seriously give chase. But at least nobody can accuse you of being an idiot for standing too close to the reptile. And please bear in mind also that an adult king cobra can raise itself to about five feet and look you straight in the eye. Not a comforting thought, eh?

This conversation I was having with the Director of Wildlife Department was during a snake show at a village call Ban Khok Sa-nga in Khon Kaen Province, Northeast Thailand. I was acting as chaperone to a group of snake handlers from the Perlis Snake Farm who had been invited to perform at the said village, located 49km out of Khon Kaen town. Villagers in Ban Khok Sa-nga seemed to have very little fear of king cobras, which are kept as pets in most households.

Meanwhile up on stage a Thai snake handler was having a “boxing match” with a king cobra, slapping the snake’s cheek and darting out of the way every time it struck accompanied by a roar from the crowd. He was the village champion, a man just in his early 20s. Frustrated and certainly irritated, the snake at last gave up, unhooded its head and glided away looking for a dark corner to hide. That is what most snakes like doing, slither into a dark damp corner. Not very different from a few reptiles posing as mammals that I have encountered.

That particular snake secure at last in a box, out came a bigger one. A different snake handler this time pitted his agility against the new opponent. Again man proved to be too fast for the snake although he did not exactly stay the required distance my friend from the Wildlife Department had told me was the safe distance. But then they are all professionals and I on the other hand have this irrational fear of snakes, especially the venomous ones. Came from encountering cobras too many times as a child growing up on the outskirts of Kota Bharu in the 1960s. One day while home alone I also saw a pair of cobras slither under the house. We live in a house on stilts in those days. A cobra also killed one of my mother’s cat. It was soon put to rest, the snake that is, by a group of neighbours armed with bamboo stakes. In a terribly Hollywod or Bollywood manner, the cat actually waited for my mother to come home from work before taking its final breath.

According to those in the know, you can only kill a cobra with bamboo stakes though I reckon a baseball bat or golf club would also do the job if one is at hand. Only thing is that with a bamboo stake you can stand 10 feet away and have a go at it, while with a golf club or baseball bat you would have to get up very close and personal to do the job. Shy a creature as it may be a cobra cornered is definitely going to be in no mood to let you have a go at it without puuting up some sort of defence. And if you do not have the agility of a mongoose then you may end up ith a few love bites on your ankles. I was told that for some reason or other to keep snakes out of your compound sprinkle sulphur around your house. But personally I have found that kafir lime seemed to work better because sulphur tends to get washed away very quickly when it rains.

It was also pointed out to me that it is wrong to say that snakes or cobras in particular are poisonous. It is not, which explains why some people find their meat a delicacy. Others say drinking cobra’s blood is also supposed to cleanse your own blood. This accounted for the number of shops willing to slaughter cobras just so that you can clean your bad blood. Silly me, since all this while I thought drinking eight pints of plain water is good enough to get your kidneys to do the job of cleansing your blood. It seemed that some people had discovered a easier although somewhat less humane way to do the job. Personally I find going to the fridge for water a lot less distressing than going to the forests and trying to bag a cobra.

All snakes, however, are venomous, especially the ones whose heads are more or less triangular in shape. A baby king cobra, just hatched, already come equipped with enough venom to kill an animal a few times its size. A drop of venom from a king cobra or cobra is enough to kill 40 human adults or a horse. That should give you a good idea of how potent and dangerous their bite could be. Regardless of whether it is a fully grown adult or just a cute little baby. Certainly a case of the bite being more lethal than the bark. Strangely enough, the Thai name for a cobra is ngu hao (translated as barking snake). I did not find out whether cobras do indeed bark. I did not hear any barking from 10 feet away and have no desire to get any closer or give it a tight slap just to see if it emulate a dog. As a word of caution, no matter how much you desire to do so (especially the women out there) kindly refrain from giving a baby king cobra a cuddle even if your maternal instincts were deeply aroused.

Now we come to the who wants to be a millionaire questions:

After being bitten by a cobra or king cobra, how much time would you have left? The answer is cobra – 40 minutes, king cobra – 20 minutes (more or less). Next question, is it safe to suck the venom out with your mouth? Just in case you have no suction pump at hand. In theory, yes, provided you do not have a cavity. If not, the venom is now entering your blood stream through two channels. Good luck. Third question, why are the venom glands (located just behind its eyes) not removed for cobras used in shows? Removing the glands would kill the snake because it needs the venom to kill its prey and digest the food. Fourth question, why is it called a king cobra? Because it eats other snakes (including common cobras).

And the most important question of all, why the headline above? Well, our local Khon Kaen hero, the village champion had his last show a few weeks after I saw him performing. He made two mistakes that fateful day. First was not getting out of the way fast enough. The snake’s fangs went through his jeans and puncture the skin in his knee. Second mistake was thinking that since he had been bitten before he would have more resistance to the venom, so he continued with the show instead of seeking immediate medical treatment. It proved to be a fatal miscalculation on his part.

Getting Laid Back in Laos

2007-05-18T12:10:00.000+08:00

The first thing that strikes you when you first enter Laos is that the urinals seemed to be placed rather low, about knee height. A fact which one of my travelling companions rather amusingly observed must be attributed the fact that Laotian men have short legs or they have great aim. Or as he smilingly pointed out they must have assets most South East Asian men would kill for. The Laotians we encountered during our four day visit proved to be of normal South East Asian height, so we are left wondering about the accuracy of their aim and other endowments.

Having sufficiently relieved ourselves for the long journey ahead, we got into our Thai-registered van after having our passports stamped at the Friendship Bridge Immigration checkpoint, one of the main entry points by road into Laos from the Thai town of Nong Khai in north east Thailand. It took a bit of getting used to for as we got out of the immigration complex, the van veered to the right and we made our way to the capital city of Vientiane. Laos, being a former French colony, is right hand drive which did not seem like much of a problem for our Thai driver. Left hand drive, right hand drive, one hand drive with the other on the phone all made no difference to him. He is an expert behind the wheels.

Our first day was to be a very long journey which is going to take up much of the day, about 10 hours. It was to be a journey through rugged country and mountain roads to the old capital of Luang Phabang. We had checked out of our hotel and left the Thai border town of Nong Khai at 7.00am. Our Laotian guide spoke excellent English as opposed to very little French. He explained that knowledge of English now is more of an asset than French, which was once the foreign language of choice in this land-locked nation of 6.3 million people. Those days are long gone. Now it is more fashionable to speak English. The fact that I speak Laotian pretty well even though it was only the second time I set foot in the country did not stop him from conversing in English with me almost the entire time I was there. Of course if you already speak Thai then speaking Laos comes easy enough. About 85 per cent of the words are the same. The divide used to be greater but most Laotians seemed to prefer watching Thai soap operas which are easily received through satellite dish, than their own government controlled development and entertainment programmes. As a result, the Laotians or Lao as they much prefer to be called, and the Thais now speak an almost identical language. The writing, however, differ but comes with similar pronunciations. But if you can figure out the squiggles that make up the Thai alphabet, then reading Lao text comes easy enough.

The journey from Vientiane to Luang Phabang was long and scenic enough with its mountains, valleys and rice fields. And there were just so much Laotian words I was capable of deciphering in a day. If for nothing else it was just to prove to myself that I was still young enough to learn a fourth language. Before long the eyes got weary and it was time for a snooze, but no sooner had all of us got comfortable enough when the van pulled into Vang Vieng, a small town of about 25,000 people. It was lunch time and the restaurant fronted what used to be an airfield for American planes flying sorties into neighbouring Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Now it just looked like a big highway leading to no where.

The town was nothing to shout about but on our return journey from Luang Phabang three days later, we spent the night at a scenic resort called the Elephant Crossing. It is a four-storey resort run by a Laotian man and his Australian wife. We were to find out why this place had grown in popularity especially among Caucasian backpackers. It offers quite a number of water activities like kayaking, rafting and tubing. Costing less than RM15 or so, inclusive of a trip to the launching point 3km away, tubing is actually a favourite pastime of tourists who like to laze around on the slow flowing waters of the Nam Song River on inflated tractor tyres. We were told that in July and August the waters of the Nam Song are actually very swift flowing and tubing can be quite hazardous to health but it was safe enough when we were visiting. Another favourite activity of the tourists is to swing from a platform about five metres high holding on to a piece of elastic rope and trapeze a quarter of the way out to the river. Then at the height of the third swing or so let go of the rope and free fall into the water. Seemed like fun thing to do. Certainly quite fun to watch especially when it was somebody in a skimpy bikini at the end of the rope. Makes for good action photographs too if you can get the speed and aperture right.

The town also consists of many B&B accommodation from below RM40 and a walk in town at night offers a few choices of things to do. This would include shopping for souvenir items, dancing the night away at a disco, having a massage or visit the equivalent of the local mamak restaurant complete with roti canai and teh tarik. You can imagine the happiness on my Malaysian travel companions’ faces when told they would be treated to the Malaysian favourite meal. By some coincidence, enough Malaysians must have visited the restaurant that teh tarik was not an alien name to the proprietor, who hailed from India, but have travelled through Singapore and Malaysia. The restaurant even has a branch in Luang Phabang by the same name. Or was it the head office, we never quite ascertained. American sitcoms are also the in thing, especially with the backpacking community and the folks of Vang Vieng had taken this to new heights. Quite a number of eating places offer the comfort of lying on mattresses with a headrest arranged in a row for you to sit and watch re-runs of Friends. The shops must be sharing the same tapes since several shops would be showing Friends but different episodes at the same time. So you can choose the ones you have not watched and for the price of a coffee or tea sit watching for hours on end.

Another thing not to be missed in Vang Vieng is Tham Chang or Elephant Cave. With an entrance fee of about RM3, you get the privilege of crossing a hanging bridge before climbing a set of steps to a large cavern. From the main cave chamber, you will see one of the most scenic views of the Vang Vieng countryside. Most amazing of all was the fact that there were two rock openings, one shaped like the map of Borneo and the other, a shoe. It was a good thing that we stopped here only on our way back. Otherwise we may have decided to give Luang Phabang, some 300km away, a miss and while away our time in Vang Vieng instead. As it was those were about the only things we got to experience in the town, since we had less than a day there.

Luang Phabang, which used to be the capital of Laos, is now home to only about 25,000. Quite a sizeable number have migrated after the communist takeover in 1975. Now, after being declared a Unesco heritage site, it had turned into a town relying more on tourism than agriculture. Most of the old buildings have remained, some turned into guesthouses either to meet or in expectance of a tourist influx. Those who would not like to endure a van or car ride on Route 13 which connects Vientiane and Luang Phabang can either fly from the Lao capital or from Chiang Mai in north Thailand. But domestic air fares in Laos is quite pricy.

By the time we arrived and checked into our hotel it was way after sundown. A part of the town which had come alive, however, was the night market. A Lao pasar malam selling things from t-shirts and pants to Buddha images and other handicraft items. On both sides of the street are restaurants serving both local and Western food, which seemed to be quite a big thing, whether for dinner, lunch or breakfast. Breakfast at the hotel usually consists of two eggs, coffee and baguette. At least at dinner and lunch we got to sample Lao food, which is not altogether different from Thai food, only with fewer spices and other seasonings.

On our second morning in Laos we visited a village called Ban Lao Lao, just outside of Luang Phabang. The spelling may be the same but the meaning differs. The first Lao means whiskey and the second is of course the country. The village is reputed to produce the best Lao moonshine, containing some 50 per cent alcohol. By some coincidence the village is located on the banks of the Mekong River allowing those who need to cool off after a few shots of the extremely potent stuff to go for a dip. Incidentally the temperature in Luang Phrabang is quite cool in November, so lao Lao was a great way for the people to keep warm.

Here is also located a jetty for you to take a 20-minute boat ride upstream to Wat Tham Xieng Maen, where Buddha images of various types are kept. These images were from temples which have been torched during earlier wars between Laos and its neighbours or from temples which had fallen into disuse. A staircase leads up to another cave where more Buddha images are kept. Here you need a torchlight to find your way around and see the images.

After lunch we headed for Wat Xieng Thong, which is Luang Phabang’s most magnificent temple. Built in 1560, its stupas house Buddha images from some 500 years ago. The walls of the chapel also has beautiful mosaic murals telling stories of the Buddha’s previous life before he attained enlightenment. Then we were off to Kuangsi Waterfall situated in a public park 32km out of town. This several tier waterfall is breathtaking in its beauty and there is even a pool for those who want to go for a swim at the lower level of the falls.

On our final morning in Luang Phabang we were up at 5am in order to go give alms to Buddhist monks. Some 80 over monks from the temples in town walk through the main streets which were lined with tourists and locals alike. Following the communist takeover of Laos in 1975 the practice of giving alms to monks were banned by the government, which felt that monks should go to work like everybody else. But the practice came back a year later after a huge outcry from the public, who felt that a religious practice ingrained in their lives for centuries should not simply be banned at the whims of the government whatever its political beliefs were. Now the practice of alms giving to monks in the early hours of the morning has become both a merit-making exercise and tourist attraction at the same time.

One final place we had to visit before leaving Luang Phabang was the Royal Palace Museum which was built more than 100 years ago. A blend of both Lao and French architecture, the palace was turned into a museum after the last Lao king, Savang Vattana and his family were banished to a remote area in northern Laos near the border with Vietnam in 1977. It was announced by the government that the king and his family were attending a re-education camp. But we were told that they were in fact banished to the cave prisons of Hua Phan close to the border with Vietnam. The king and his family passed away four years later from malnutrition and lack of medical attention.

The Royal Palace Museum is also where the Phabang Buddha image is kept. The Phabang or Phrabang is to the Laotians what the Emerald Buddha is to the Thais in terms of significance. In fact the Phabang image used to be in Thailand after King Rama I carted it back as the spoils of war in the 1700s. But what his great grandfather brought back to Bangkok, King Chulalongkorn or Rama V returned to Laos in the early 1900s. This was about the time when King Rama V also gave up Laos to the French and the northern states of Kelantan, Kedah, Perlis and Terengganu to the British.

Retracing our journey we found ourselves on the final and fourth day in the Lao capital of Vientiene. With a population of over 200,000, it is the exact opposite of Luang Phabang. Here the streets are full of cars and motorcycles as opposed to bicycles. Here is also located the Pathat Luang, the most important national monument of Laos. This symbol of both the Buddhist religion and Lao sovereignty was built in the mid-1500s by King Setthathirat, whose statue sits majestically in front of the magnificent golden structure.

Another attraction not to be missed in town is the Patuxai or Victory Monument. Built in the 1960s, it was patterned after the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, which is exactly what Patuxai means in Laos. It is the most popular park in Vientiene with both the tourists and locals. Standing in front of the Patuxai with wide streets surrounding it, one could not help but whistle a French tune or other. It suddenly felt like a beautiful evening in Paris. Not too far away is the Vientiene Morning Market which contrary to its name stays open well into the late evening. It is a place to catch up on some souvenir buying for the friends back home before we were off to the Friendship Bridge Imigration checkpoint.

While waiting for our passports to be processed, we hopped into the many duty-free shops available. French wine were in abundance. I remembered the first time I was there several years ago. The girl in the duty-free shop had tried to pester me into buying some chocolates. We both had a good laugh when I told her the chocolates were made in Malaysia, where I came from. I just wanted Laotian t-shirts but she had none. She was selling Thai t-shirts instead and I could get a better selection at the Chatuchak Weekend Market in Bangkok.

All the official things over with we hopped into our van which switched back to the left side of the road for the journey into Thailand. One of the most amazing thing was that in the four days we were in Laos, not once did we see a policeman or soldier. But I supposed they must have been lurking inconspicuously somewhere waiting to pounce when you walk out of line. We just could not accept the fact that things can run smoothly even without the people in uniform around to make sure all rules and regulations were followed. After all the people in the Laotian uniforms in the mid-70s did create quite a bit of havoc with their purges and what not. But sure enough as if to make us feel more at home, right after crossing over to Nong Khai we ran smack into a police road block. Civilization at last, you might say.

Sri Vijaya revisited

2007-04-20T18:26:00.000+08:00

Historians have hardly reached a consensus about it when in 1924 somebody discovered that there was indeed a kingdom called Sri Vijaya in this part of the world. The point of argument being where was in fact its capital. Whether it was Jambi, Palembang or even Chaiya? The first two locations are in south Sumatra while one is in South Thailand. Now it is generally accepted that the earlier two are almost certainly more correct. Two of the three capitals, at least.

Sri Vijaya at the height of its glory stretched from parts of Indochina down to what is now Indonesia and west to the shores of Africa and along the way encompassing present day Sri Lanka. If Palembang can lay claim to being the seat of power for a number of years, it cannot, however, claim to be the original capital. A stone inscription of Kedudukan Bukit (dated AD 683) proved that one Hyung Dapunta Jayanaga from Minanga captured Mukha Upang (Palembang). Minanga, located farther south on the east coast of Sumatra was referred to by I-tsing, a Chinese scholar as Shih-Li-Fo-Shih.

I-tsing stopped by there for four months to do his matriculation in Sanskrit under the tutelage of Buddhist monks before proceeding to Moloyu and on to Nalanda (India) for further studies. On his return after graduation, he again stayed in Shih-Li-Fo-Shih. He was to return there several times. Shih-Li-Fo-Shih at that time had very close relations with China. To confuse things further, Minanga subsequently disappeared completely from the face of southern Sumatra (sounds like it was the first case of tsunami to me). This first phase of Sri Vijaya lasted less than 100 years.

In came Sri Vijaya number two started by the Sailendras of Central Jawa, the first king being Balaputra Dewa. His capital city, however, was Swarnabhumi or golden land, referred to in Chinese chronicles as San-Fo-Tsi. This dynasty was to last from 860 to 1156. It was later defeated by Jawa and the old capital was relegated in status to old port. It was referred to by another Chinese scholar, Ma Huan as Chiu Chiang (old port). He put on record that Chiu Chiang or San-Fo-Tsi was also called Po-Lin-Fong. During this second period, San-Fo-Tsi also constructed a pagoda in Ligor (present day Nakhon Sri Thammarat in South Thailand).

Sri Vijaya III or San-Fo-Tsi II came into being from 1156 to 1373 under its first king Pangeran Suryanarana with its capital in Jambi north of Po-Lin-Fong. There were 15 states under the kingdom. Again according to Chinese chronicles (what would we do without them) among the states apart from Po-Lin-Fong were Pong Fong (Pahang), Tong Ya Nong (Terengganu), Ling Ya Si Kia (Langkasuka), Si-Lan (Ceylon) and Kui-Lan-Tan (Kelantan). Following that Sri Vijaya broke up into three kingdoms – Palembang, Minangkabau and Melayu.

At least while it lasted Sri Vijaya was huge by any standards, a commonwealth of sorts, rivalled by only China at that time and Alexander the Great’s territories at one time. Co-incidentally some of the Indonesian kings had claimed to be from Alexander’s lineage. His Indonesian name of course was Iskandar Zulkarnain. Others would claim to be descendents of Vishnu like Balaputra Dewa, who founded Sri Vijaya II.

It is little wonder that Chaiya (now most well-known for its salted eggs) in the province of Suratthani in South Thailand had also been put forward belatedly as one of the possibilities as its capital. But if it was, then one could certainly assume that its commerce would be a little more diverse than salted eggs.

Still there is no denying that Sri Vijaya have had quite a bit of influence in the region with statues and ruins from that period found littered all over Thailand and Indochina. The Thais have a name for that old kingdom – Sri Vichai (pronounced Sivichai). This would probably explain why traditional women dressing in Suratthani and Nakhon Sri Thammarat, for example, do not differ very much from those of the Indonesians. In addition, the name Vichai or Vichaya in Thai is actually Vijay on the Indian sub-continent and of course Vijaya in Indonesia. And Chaiya of course is Sri Vijaya with the Sri and Vi omitted over time and probably the best claim that it was indeed one of Sri Vijaya’s former capital city.

But Palembang, even if it could not claim to be the only capital of old Sri Vijaya, at least can now claim to be Indonesia’s fifth largest city. The name Palembang came about because of the fact that the place was water-logged and full of swamps. It still is a bit water-logged but now full of houses of different shapes, sizes and makes.

Seen from the air as the plane descended to touch down at Sultan Badaruddin II International Airport during my visit there, it seemed to me that the city of Palembang looked like a whole lot of water surrounded by patches of land. It certainly gave the impression that if the captain got his calculations terribly wrong and we were to miss the airport, we would eventually found use for a life jacket and whistle to attract attention.

The airport was impressive enough, not in the way KLIA or Suwanabhumi International Airport in Thailand are, of course. Getting out of the airport to the hotel in the city I was more impressed by the bottleneck jam. And that was just the queue to pay the parking fees. After that, it seemed like a breeze as every driver seemed to have their own idea about what constituted good driving and speed limits, so before long we were already at our hotel. I was to be more impressed by the fact that mini-buses seem to breeze around the city with the conductor’s door open and the conductors (no more than 15 or 16 year-olds) hanging three quarters of the way out soliciting passengers. How they manage to keep themselves from falling off or the doors from slamming into other vehicles or pedestrians is certainly a source of wonder especially at the speed most were going.

After the hotel, it was off for some nasi padang and a tour of the town’s hero’s mausoleum cum memorial. Sadly it did not seem well-kept and about the only name I could relate to was Parameswara’s brother, who was buried there. And in various corners of the park, courting couples court and cavort for there were a lot of grounds and hillocks to court and cavort in. One certainly wonders whether they were discussing the day’s homework or preparing for the next day’s biology test.

Then we were off again to see a stone inscription kept in a glass cage at the Sri Vijaya Historical Park. The stone bears the inscription in old Malay and was in fact the one referred to earlier as Kedudukan Bukit. Left unguarded a thief could have made off with it very easily, but he would have to be quite strong to achieve the feat. The old Malay language, according to a staff at the Palembang Museum we visited the next day, is now understood by only seven people in Indonesia. One in every 31.7 million Indonesians? Not bad.

The city of Palembang is divided by the Musi River, the somewhat impressive body of water seen from the air. One and the same river Parameswara, that naughty fellow who tried to usurp the Temasik throne by killing his host, set sail hurriedly (for the Majapahit troops were coming) for fame, fortune and adventure before settling in Melaka in the 1400s.

Across the Musi River is a bridge, known as Ampera. (I have just found out that this is actually short for Amanat Penderitaan Rakyat). There is a restaurant in Bandung with the same name. (See Bandung story in this blog). It as built in the 1960s, a gift from the Japanese government. Initially the centre part of the bridge could go up and down to allow ships to pass. It is no longer working. The mechanism had not been repaired presumably because they no longer want big ships to come in. We hired a speedboat to take us from the town to a small island a few kilometres upriver. Here is located a shrine dedicated to the memory of a Chinese prince, Tan Boon Ann, the love of his life Siti Fatimah, and her maid.

Local folklore has it that the Chinese prince after arriving in Sri Vijaya, had met and fallen in love with a Sri Vijayan princess. Her father the king, had demanded nine pots (tempayan) of gold as a marriage gift. The Chinese prince of course agreed. Nothing was too big for the hands of his love in marriage. Either that or gold could not have cost very much back in the good old days. After all going by the usual standards of a Chinese tempayan, one can assume that there were quite a few kilograms of gold in each of them.

However, the prince’s family decided that it would be safer to hide the gold among pickled vegetables in the container, just in case the ship were to encounter pirates at sea. All these, without first informing the prince about it. Goes to show the importance of being hands-on in whatever we do in life, especially such an important thing as preparation for a wedding.

When the ship arrived and the King demanded to see the gold, the who’s who of the Sri Vijayan high society trooped on board the ship. Imagine what thoughts must have gone through the prince’s mind when he discovered that the containers were just full of pickled vegetables, albeit, quite more than enough to serve with the porridge at his wedding ceremony. He was beside himself with anger and shame and furiously proceeded to throw the containers overboard. Goes to show again that if you are not hands-on, then make sure you double-check your facts before jumping to wild conclusions.

Strong as he might be. Angry as he might be, only so much can rage fuel outrageous strength. Those after all must have been pretty huge tempayans. After being fairly successful with the first eight containers, the prince didn’t quite muster enough strength with the last container. It missed the intended target and fell on board instead. The container broke into several pieces and out spilled its contents. Lo and behold for there nestled among the kiamchai were the gold for his dowry payment. Rage turned to despair for without the other eight containers he saw his marriage prospects sinking to the bottom of the river fast. He did what most sophisticated, unthinking men would do and jumped in after them.

An unsophisticated, thinking man would have just told the King, that was it, the marriage was off, and proceeded to set up a goldsmith shop with the last pot of gold and marry the chieftain’s daughter instead. But that would just not do and would have been a step down somewhat and His Highness Tan Boon Ann wasn’t prepared for that. So, into the Musi River it was. Well the Musi River is quite huge and deep that even now such a feat should not be attempted without a wet suit and full oxygen tank at least. But the prince did what he felt he had to do to redeem his family name even without the necessary martial arts training in extended underwater survival.

The love of his life, Siti Fatimah, who up until that point was only playing a peripheral role in the love story, decided to immortalise herself in local folklore by dramatically jumping in after him. But being Miss Sri Vijaya after all, she couldn’t go anywhere without her faithful maid. So together they jumped in after the prince before first declaring that should a piece of land rose from the waters that would be their tomb. True enough the piece of land emerged from the waters in the middle of Musi River, which the locals call Pulau Kemarao or Draught Island. Locals say that it never rain on this island. Ever. On the island are three mounds of earth, believed by the locals to be the tomb of Their Highnesses Tan Boon Ann and Siti Fatimah, and her loyal maid. There is a festival held annually to commemorate the occasion, attended not just by those of Chinese ancestry but by all and sundry in Palembang. A friend pointed out to me that there was even a song recorded by a Chinese singer some years ago immortalising this love story.

As I boarded the plane home, I could not help feeling a little disappointed at not finding more remnants of one of the most illustrious period in Indonesian history. If not for a tragic love story of a Chinese prince and a Sri Vijayan princess, I would have come home totally disappointed. Sucker as I might be for a great love story, it certainly wasn’t the way I had wanted to remember Sri Vijaya.

Only Muthu knows a Manikam

2007-03-28T11:25:00.000+08:00

They say all that glitters is not gold. Sometimes it’s just a reflection of the sun on the water or the dazzling reflection of a temple’s roof in the afternoon sun. And before you let those things blind your eyes and cloud your judgement about gold and jewellery, it’s best to go find out a bit more about them. Most especially if you are a muthu who could not tell a manikam from a meenachi.

Some may adhere to the saying, mother knows best. I will not argue with that although I must say that mother only knows best about certain things. While some mothers can be down right experts in the field of jewellery purchasing, I must also add that there have been numerous occasions when mothers have made their way to my office to lodge complaints that they have been cheated by unscrupulous jewellers in Thailand.

Since I am no expert on jewellery either, having bought only one ring in all of nearly 50 years, it is certainly not my intention to teach shoppers how to buy such items. Of course, I am not counting the rings bought from sellers of trinkets on the roadside.

And having over the last 10 years had to help solve problems of people who felt they were getting a bad bargain after having bought such items, especially from jewellery shops in Bangkok, I certainly feel I should say something about it.

The advice summarised below are taken from the Jewel Fest Club’s written guide on how to buy gems in Thailand. The Jewel Fest Club was set up several years ago following numerous complaints from the public, especially foreign tourists to Thailand, that they have been cheated when buying jewellery. Members of the Jewel Fest Club are those who felt that not all jewellers should be branded as cheats and that members of the club are honest in their dealings. Or at least if customers should later find their purchases to be unsatisfactory, they can easily return them and get a refund. How much refund would of course depend on the length between the period the complaints were lodged and the purchases were made.

However, the best advice that I can give you is not to rely on other people’s advice solely, all the more so if you are not an expert on gemstones and jewellery. Always be on the side of caution. It could save a whole lot heartache later on, not just for you but for the person who has to entertain to your complaints.

As I said this is by no means a complete guide to gem buying, but it is hoped that it would give you a better understanding of jewellery before you go splash your year-end bonus or three-month’s pay cheque.

To start with, be aware of the weight and percentage of gold in jewellery, meaning the heavier and more percentage, the more expensive. In other words, take into account the weight, size, amount and quality of gems. Here the principle of the 4Cs should be applied. The 4Cs should not be confused with the term used in Singapore, which is CONDO, CASH, CREDIT CARD and CAR as a sign of a man’s eligibility as a husband. Anyway, buyers of jewellery should consider the weight of each gemstone because a single, large gemstone is more expensive than several small ones.

As mentioned earlier there are four criteria to judge gems known as the 4Cs. Firstly COLOUR. For diamond, the clearer and whiter, the more expensive. But for other gemstones, it is more difficult to evaluate. There are many kinds of gemstones and there has never been a single standard to judge them, unlike diamond.

Sapphire, for example, is a kind of blue gemstone. The most valuable kind of sapphire possesses a blue velvet colour while sapphires with much lighter or darker shades are relatively cheaper.

Ruby is normally red but the standard colour is vermilion. Paler or darker shades are slightly cheaper.

Emerald is a green velvet stone and the cheapest kind is the one that is light green, approaching yellow. And although they look almost the same green to the untrained eye, emerald should not be confused with jade. Put a piece of jade to your cheek and if it is cold, then it’s jade. Or so I was told. Another criteria is that jade are usually set in rounded forms while emerald can be cut into different shapes such small as squares.

To buy gemstones with their colours as the main criterion, customers should look for those with medium shades, not too light and not too dark. They can also seek an expert’s advice before making a decision. (The experts should not include university students you meet on the road or finely-dressed gentlemen in temples, or worse still, people masquerading as temple caretakers, for example).

Second of the C is CLARITY, which actually concerns the level of contamination inside a gemstone. The less contamination and fewer defects a gem has, the more expensive it is. Sounds easy enough, right?

Thirdly is the CUT, which basically is the shape and balance of the gem facets. A quality cut creates a glittering reflection inside a gem.

Fourth, of course, is the CARAT WEIGHT. Quality gems are priced by their carat weights while inferior ones are priced by unit tagged with a fixed price. One carat weighs 200 milligrams.

Then we come to the craftsmanship and designs. These should be self-explanatory. As they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some may prefer say an uncluttered small piece of ring like a wedding band while others may like to have something which resembles a deadly weapon.

Last but not least is buyer’s satisfaction. As jewellery is an art, there is no standard of pricing. Buying depends on the taste and satisfaction of individual buyers. Which is why as a word of caution, buyers should try and go to a standard jewellery shop and after making a purchase to request for receipts that clearly describe the details of the products, the dates of purchase, and the names of sellers, as well as for a warranty in order to prevent problems later on.

For more information, you can also visit the following websites:- http://www.jewelfest.com/ or http://www.thaigemjewelry.com/.

Coming to terms with your own greed

2007-03-02T16:41:00.000+08:00

Imagine this. You’re walking with your husband or wife on a street in Bangkok. You’re taking a holiday after saving up for a few months. Tightening the belt every now and then just so that you can live it up a bit during your vacation. It is also a chance to spend a bit of quality time together and rekindle some romance. Nobody is getting on anybody’s nerve. He decides to overlook your buying all the things you do not need. She decides to overlook the fact that you are ogling the salesgirl. Nobody is coming home late from work. And nobody has to get dinner on the table after a full day’s work in the office. All is well in your neat little world and things can’t get any better.

But it can, according to a youth dressed in university attire (black pants and white shirt). Just around the corner is a temple housing a special Buddha image. The temple is open to the public only once a year, and only for a week. As your luck would have it this happens to be that particular week. Lighting incense sticks and prostrating before the image would bring you an eternity of good luck, says the youth, who was kind enough to direct you towards the temple.

As you enter the temple, there is a finely-dressed gentleman in office attire who had just finished his three prostrations before the said Buddha image. He smiled at you like the president of some exclusive club welcoming a new member. He is even prepared to advice you on what to do and how to pay your respects to the image of the noble one. You are grateful for the opportunity to usher in your good luck and do as you are told.

Then the gentleman discreetly tells you that during this period the government is having a jewellery promotion. In conjunction with the King’s birthday all the jewellery shops in Thailand are giving a 50 per cent discount on all items. But today is the last day of the promotion. A man sitting in a corner, who looks like the temple caretaker, suddenly chips in with his two bahts worth by confirming the gentleman’s statement. Well, if two people say it, then it must be the truth, you think. The man looks at his watch and tells you to hurry if you want to get something. There is a jewellery shop not too far from the temple. Again you cannot believe how lucky you have suddenly become. Prostrating before the Buddha image is already working wonders. Thanking him profusely you make your way out of the temple and there is a tuk-tuk and a driver on hand. The kind gentleman reappeared at your side to convince you that the tuk-tuk will get you to the jewellery shop in double time. To further prove his kindness he even gives the instruction in Thai to the driver to take you to the nearest jewellery shop. You marvel at the kindness of this gentleman who asks nothing in return. Seeing the joy on your face after coming into such good luck is payment enough for him. What an amazing chap and what an amzing stroke of luck on your part.

The two of you got into the tuk-tuk and in your heart you curse the Bangkok traffic jams for your delay in getting you to your destination. But not to worry, for a few traffic lights later the tuk-tuk stops in front of this impressive looking establishment. As if that is not enough, from the shop emerges another finely-clad gentleman, beaming from ear to ear. He can hardly wait for you to pay the tuk-tuk fare before ushering you into the shop. A lady steps up with a tray bearing drinks to quench your thirst.

The two of you feel like royalty as the salesman takes you from the diamond showcase to the ruby showcase. Then it’s off to the emerald showcase before finally stopping at the sapphire showcase. It is true, the salesman tells you. The jewellery shop is having a 50 per cent discount. Any item you buy today you can sell in your country for twice the amount. You make a few mental calculations and decide that selective purchases of a few items are not only worthwhile but may even pay for the whole vacation. Since the shop is treating you like royalty, it is beneath your dignity not to act like one. So you whip out not one but two gold cards from your wallet and hand them over to the kind salesman who promptly hand them over to the cashier. All payments duly made you gather your diamond necklace, ruby earrings, sapphire ring, emerald brooch and the receipt before heading out the door. You still cannot believe your stroke of good luck. Your ever efficient tuk-tuk driver is still lingering in front of the shop. So you hop in and tells him the name of your hotel. He is so kind his fare is also reasonable enough.

Upon returning home you decide to take the jewellery for an appraisal. The shop assistant tells you they are only worth about one-third of what you pay for them. That cannot be true. The stupid shop is making a mistake. So you go to another shop for a second opinion. The verdict is still the same. Suddenly there is a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. You pick up your phone and call the credit card company, trying desperately to stop payment. The lady who answers the phone tells you that that simply cannot be done. Payment has been made. Take up your case with the shop.

Suddenly a light bulb flash in your head. The light bulb that not once glimmered when you meet the university student, the finely dressed gentleman, the supposed temple caretaker, the tuk-tuk driver and the shop assistant. You decide to pay a visit to your local Tourism Authority of Thailand office. After all they are the ones who are going on and on about Thailand being the Land of Smiles, full of friendly people, where the food is great and the shopping stupendous. To be fair their promotions have never selectively state that only those with IQs above 220 are welcome in Thailand.

The receptionist you told your problem to points you towards the library, excused herself to go in search of the Public Relations person who is supposed to take care of such problems. He appears a few minutes later and introduces himself. Another Thai, you thought. By that time you no longer feel very warm towards all Thais and all things Thai. You swear you will never visit Thailand again, ever. You begin narrating your story but before you even get to the part about the men at the temple, he picks up the story and begins telling it at least up to the point where you arrive at the jewellery shop. You begin to get the feeling that this is not the first time he is hearing the story. You also cannot help feeling that he is less than sympathetic to your plight. He asks you to lodge a written complaint, which would then be forwarded to the head office and on to the appropriate people for further action.

You want to know if you can get back your money. Well about 85 per cent of it, he says, pointing to the fine print on the receipt that says all goods returned in good order within one month of purchase entitles you to only that amount of refund. You wonder how you missed that. He is non-committal when you ask how soon you can expect your money back. In fact you may even feel that he is not very helpful. So you ask why the government has not gone after these jewellery shops and close them down. The truth is for every shop closed down a few more will spring up with a different name and a different owner. How do you distinguish between the good ones and the bad ones? A group of people may have conspired to con you but until you put your signature on the credit card slip no transaction has taken place. They say you can lead a donkey to river but you can’t force the ass to drink. Horse, donkey or ass? Let us not debate too much about their biological differences, eh?

And if you are a muthu who doesn’t quite know which side of the manikam to look at, then before you whip out your gold cards next time, picture this. It is June in Malaysia. It is the Yang DiPertuan Agong’s Birthday. Do you ever remember the jewellery shops in KL or PJ or Penang having 50 discounts on their items to mark the occasion? If you are very sure that you cannot, then why in the world do you think jewellers in Thailand would act in such an unselfish fashion? What is using the name of the King in such a disrespectful manner if even the Buddha is desecrated by these people in such a fashion?

As an after thought, Prince Siddharta who went in search of the truth and finally found enlightenment and Buddhahood over 2500 years ago never ask that you prostrate yourself before his statue to reap good luck. His advice was to use your brain and power of intellect and learn to think for yourself. That is the way to change your luck. And of course, learning to let go. Letting go of greed and stupidity would surely be very high on that list. Prostrating yourself three times in front of any Buddha image is all fine and well. It is a mark of respect to a great man, to his teachings and to the sangha or body of monks who are keeping his teachings alive. Don't do it just to reap good luck as though that is your divine right. The Buddha passed away a long time ago. He no longer exists. He is powerless to change your luck. But his teachings can help pull you out of that mire of stupidity which is very often mistook for affluence.

Next time I’ll look out for the owl

2007-02-07T14:54:00.000+08:00

While the idea of going off in a blaze of glory may be appealing, heroic even, the reality is that when the time almost comes, it isn’t all that much fun as you see in the movies. I read somewhere that dying is like falling off a cliff in slow motion. Certainly quite romantically put. Still I was glad that although I almost fell off a cliff and it was almost in slow motion, the final thud did not arrive.

But first things first. Just across from the state of Perlis on the Thai side of the border is located Satun. A province of caves, islands and hills. Lots of them. At the said time I was with a group of journalists and travel agents visiting a cave situated some way up a hill called Tham Phu Pha Phet.

We arrived at about 11am at the base of the hill and were supposed to climb some 350 metres or so to where the cave was located. A piece of cake. After all, I usually walk farther than that playing a round of golf. This shouldn’t pose too much of a problem for one such as I. What I forgot was that golf is played on a relatively flat surface area with the occasional gentle slopes thrown in for good measure. However, this was going to be a walk that was more of a non-stop climb. It would have been little problem had I been 30 years younger. But for someone in his late 40s with just the extra few kilograms around the waist and a few other places, it can be quite an effort. A case of the spirit being willing while the flesh being most reluctant to go the same direction. Any climber would tell you that at least you should have put your body through some form of exercise to increase your fitness level before making such expeditions. Playing golf once every two months coupled with smoking two packets of cigarette a day was just not it.

There is a theory propounded by a smoker, naturally, that those who smoke are better able to climb than those who don’t. This is because smokers are used to not getting enough oxygen, and as you get higher the air gets thinner meaning there is less oxygen going around. I was about to debunk the theory in a big way. A height of 300 metres up is not going to change the level of oxygen very much. Lungs coated with 20 years of nicotine, however, was going to affect such efforts a great deal.

An acquaintance who just had a quadruple by-pass later told me that you need to set a rhythm in order to climb effortlessly. Kind of a breathe, climb, climb, breathe, climb, climb. He had a lot of practice climbing one flight of stairs that way after his heart operation. Without the benefit of this wisdom, I was sort of doing something like stop breathing, climb, climb, climb, breathe, climb, climb, stop breathing, climb, climb again. To my credit, even with the erratic rhythm I was able to make it up about 50 metres or so before things began to go wrong. And when they go wrong, they tend to go wrong very fast. The knees kind of got soft and the oxygen intake could not quite keep up with the sudden change in heartbeat and abnormal lung functions.

With the benefit of hindsight, I would have to agree that it was a most foolhardy thing for an out of shape 47-year-old to do. Both in attempting to climb and later in my choice of resting place. Any amateur climber would have told you that you should pick a safe place for a rest. Well I thought leaning on a rocky wall was safe enough. Taking a stance with my feet firmly on the ground about a foot away from the base of the rocky wall, I leaned back and closed my eyes. That was my second biggest mistake of the day. I promptly passed out. And honest to goodness, I was actually hearing this beautiful piece of music before I came to. And no, it wasn’t coming from a harp. Before you read too much into it, it was probably just the part of my brain in charge of music, finding itself with some idle time and deciding to churn out those beautiful tunes. I must say it wasn’t altogether unpleasant, so I was certainly irritated when I heard somebody calling my name and trying to take me away from that pleasant drifting sensation. I forced myself to open my eyes. It was one of the travel agents who was walking some way behind. Good thing it wasn’t an owl calling my name. (There’s an old Eskimo belief that when you hear an owl calling your name, then you know your time is up).

Good thing the travel agent arrived when he did too. I was told that only the whites of my eyes were visible and my mouth was foaming. I was bent over 90 degrees in the direction of the cliff. Good thing too that I was doing it in slow motion. Either I was not getting enough oxygen, the sugar level had dropped sharply or I was having withdrawal symptoms from lack of nicotine.

Anyway it wasn’t really a sharp drop off the cliff had I really fallen forward. There were several big trees and rocks to break the fall, but I certainly don’t think it would have been a very comfortable place to end up or down as the case would have been. I just ask for a drink of water and told him to go on without me. That was as far as I wanted to go that day. After a few minutes rest and a cigarette, I made my way downhill. Incidentally the word sampoerna (in Indonesian), sempurna (in Malay) and somboon (in Thai) actually come from the same Sanskrit root, meaning perfection. Now that’s food for thought.

It would certainly be a while before I decide to climb another hill again. In fact later in the day when the rest of the group went white water rafting, I didn’t feel quite up to it and decided to give this new task a miss. The upside was that there was this very pleasant lady who taught me how to peel a mangoesteen with grace and perfection. I know how to do it the crude way of course. Since then I had been able to impress quite a few people with the newly acquired skill. And the lady certainly didn’t seem as life-threatening as the cliff and the rapids. So I was more than happy to be her student.

But climbing a hill again or just strolling on the golf course, if I ever hear that tune again you can be sure I’ll looking out for the owl. This time if it is calling my name, I would hate to miss it.

From Bangsar to Pattaya

2007-01-26T17:18:00.000+08:00

One night I was having coffee with a few friends at a 24-hour fast food outlet in Bangsar when an argument broke out at the table behind us. While it was not an intense argument, the subject of the conversation between a Chinese girl and her Caucasian companion was enough to get our attention and had us straining our ears to pick up some choice titbits. They were actually trying to determine when was the most appropriate time for a boy and girl to go to bed together. The boy obviously thought it would be a perfect enough ending to the first date while the girl save for repeated “NOs” did not put a time frame on when she was going to prove her love to him. A good guess would be that if he was patient enough, it would have to come after the “Ama, yum cha” and just before the “Honey, can you take out the garbage” .

I am in no way trying to discourage any Caucasian reading this from having a go at it on the first date while in KL or any other parts of Malaysia for that matter. By all means, go ahead. You have taken our rubber and tin. What’s a few more pounds of flesh? It was a good thing you didn’t know about our oil then, isn’t it? Otherwise, we may still be part of the good old British Empire singing God Save the Queen instead of Negara Ku.

At the risk of being branded a male chauvinist and much as I didn’t want to take any side, I would have to say in the above incident the man had every right to think the she was fair game. You have no business being out with a man at three in the morning if you are not about to put out. Maybe she was just trying to determine how sensitive a man he was. Yeah, right! At least now she knows. What made her think men, whether they are blond or otherwise, differ all that much from continent to continent and country to country especially at that hour of the morning? Tie a yellow sari round any old oak tree and whether we are white or black or brown, chances are we would chase it depending on the state of our hormones that day. It is in our nature, you may say. You have to forgive us just like you forgive dogs that chase cars. Hopefully the man have met with some success since then and if not had moved on to bigger conquests. If he had not, then he just isn’t looking hard enough or maybe just looking in the wrong watering holes. There are many damsels waiting for him to come over on a white horse (or some modern carriage equivalent) to rescue them from a less than satisfactory life. And for those in similar situations and need help urgently go get a hold of a book call Sarong Party Girls that give you quite an insight into the nature of the sarong, the party and the girls, albeit in Singapore. Just kind of imagine the Singapore in the book is Bangsar or Pattaya. The Thai seaside resort on the east coast of Thailand is one place where the worst of the east seems to find its equal from the west.

After landing in Bangkok not too long ago, I had to pay baht 2,000 for the airport limousine to take me to the seaside resort to the east of the Thai capital. I was supposed to meet up with a group and supervise the shooting of a documentary there. Checked into a hotel that was situated right in the heart of mini-skirt land. That certainly ensured that I was going to get free music way into the wee hours for the two nights in a row.

After meeting up with the group on the first night and shooting a dinner scene followed by a stroll down the walking street where all kinds of goods were sold, I made my way back to the hotel on foot. Much as I would have liked to hang around longer in order to pick up some new dance moves, my stomach was giving me first day blues and I had to rush back to my room in double time. Having found relief at last I could then head for my window and look out over the street below. The night was still young and angels who had lost their Charlies were trying to hawk a dream or a fantasy to the next lonely man who had travelled here in search of some form of adventure. And if you are white, you may be in for an extraordinary time. You are after all the ticket to a better life and future for the purveyor of the dreams themselves.

For the ultimate, and sometimes elusive, dream is to hook some Caucasian visiting the seaside resort and get out of the rat race. The shorter their miniskirts the better is their passport to a new life. In the process, you must forgive them if they have become more Caucasian than the white men they are chasing. The only thing Thai that remains is their love for somtam or papaya salad.

But the trouble with such romantic dreams is that you have to wake up sometime. Although they can always hope, most bargirl’s story do not have a fairy tale ending. Reality tends to hit you like a ferocious kick to the stomach. Most often, that uneasy feeling in the belly the morning after is the result of a fertilised egg. They can try to dream the newborn would someday go on to find fame and success as actors or singers if they look good enough. However, more often than not they just remain as illegitimate testimony to a dream unfulfilled. Some may go on to inherit their mothers’ profession, thereby ensuring the vicious cycle continues. The odd one may even get to live out their mother’s dream. A prince charming to take them away from their pitiful existence. What does it matter if he is three times your mother’s age? What if it is just an old white man trying to rekindle some of his lost youth?

It is a story played out in most of the major tourist spots of South East Asia – Pattaya, Phuket, Koh Samui, Bali, Penang or even Bangsar. The actors playing the part may change, but the stories seldom differ.

Monkey Business in Lopburi

2006-11-27T16:21:00.000+08:00

Picking up where we left off the last time about tigers, the strangest thing I have ever seen by far happened to be in Lopburi province, located about 150 north of Bangkok. If you are ever in Lopburi town try visiting the army zoo.

Go to the tiger cage and you may be surprised to see two grown tigers sharing the same enclosure with two dogs. The two local dogs seemed to be easy meat for the tigers should daily rations be reduced. But this has never happened because of an incident several years ago. A tigress at the zoo had given birth to two cubs but had refused to feed them. The superintendent of the zoo had no choice but to take the cubs home. His dog had given birth at about the same time. So the cubs were fed dog’s milk. In time, the dog adopted the tigers as her own. All the more so when the tigress continued rejecting her babies. The cubs grew up accepting the dog as their mother and the other dogs as their siblings. Now all share the same cage in the zoo. And when the tigers get a little playful, a sharp bark from the dog and they would run timidly for cover. It may have been a case of her bark being fiercer than her bite, but even tigers know that you do not cross your mother even if you outweigh her by 200kgs.

Some may argue that more impressive are the tigers who walk with the monks at a temple in Kanchanaburi. However, I have only seen this on TV and have not had a chance to pay a visit there yet.

While some people may miss seeing the tigers living with the dogs, if you are in Lopburi town, there is very little chance that you would miss another animal that had brought fame to Lopburi. They are the monkeys, which are seen walking around town by the hundreds. Every year a special feast is held for them. Unlike the tigers and the dogs which people find rather cute, the monkeys can be very mischievous and sometimes even downright intimidating, especially the big males. And the way they look at women sometimes make you wonder what exactly is going through their minds. Probably did not differ much from what was going through my mind then. They say the wise think alike and fools seldom differ after all.

There was once a case where a car had knocked down one of their brethren and a group of monkeys had actually taken matters into their own hands and attacked the car with stones and sticks. The driver was smart enough to lock his car and not come out to face their wrath and instead drove off before much damage was done to his vehicle.

Visitors to the area are warn before hand not to do anything that would harm the monkeys, which can be found in large numbers at the Phra Prang Sam Yot (Three Pagoda) ruins and the San Phra Kan Temple about 200 metres away. There is usually a group of children hanging around as vigilantes armed with their catapults ready to offer their assistance when help is needed. I actually witnessed a Caucasian man took out his camera and was about to insert a new roll of film when a monkey managed to snatch it away and made off with it to the top of the ruins. The children came with their catapults but before the monkey threw the film down, it actually managed to pull out the whole roll of film and expose it. Shortly after the incident, I was standing innocently snapping photographs when I felt my pants being tugged. Before you know it there was a monkey sitting on my head, peering down at my face. It would have been comical even to me had it not been for the fact that it was trying to take away my sunglasses. Without trying to appear as though I was picking a fight with him, I managed to hang on to the sunglasses with one hand and my camera with the other. After failing to get my Ray Ban the monkey decided to vent its frustrations on my moustache. I can assure you that having your moustache plucked by a frustrated monkey was not the most pleasant of sensations. Luckily before more of my facial hairs were removed the vigilantes appeared with their catapults and off went the monkey in double time. That seemed to be about the only language they understand. Boys plus catapults equal bad news for monkeys.

The locals have gotten quite used to these monkeys and had learned to live side by side with them. However, precautions are always taken like fixing grill on your windows and doors and fixing your TV antennas in inverted dishes to prevent the monkeys from getting to them. Still local folklore had it that the monkeys would sometimes do things which are so very human. One of them being travelling the modern way. The trains from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, of which there are seven daily, pass right through the heart of monkey town. A few monkeys had been known to hitch a ride on top of the trains to visit distant cousins in Chiang Mai and returning to Lopburi a few days later, presumably with a few tales to tell the folks back home. Why walk to Chiang Mai when there is a perfectly reliable train service available? Makes perfect sense.

Man and monkey did not always exist so harmoniously side by side in Lopburi town. There was a time when the monkeys were quite a handful and making quite a nuisance of themselves at the local wet market. One day a vegetable seller decided she had had enough of their nonsense and decided to get her own back at them. She presented them with a special gift, her Trojan horse, so to speak. This comes in the form of prawn paste or belacan. For those not quite familiar with the Malay proverb, macam kera kena belacan, let me say that for some reason or other prawn paste brings on an allergic reaction of volcanic proportions in primates. The itching epidemic of such magnitude afflicting the monkey population of Lopburi town had never been seen again since. Following that the council of elders governing the monkey world must have sat down and passed an edict that all monkeys may only roam freely within certain demarcated areas that include the ruins, temples and train station. Take a train to Chiang Mai if you must, but venture not into the wet market. The humans there take no prisoners. The food is not up to scratch anyway.

Ghosts only thrive in the tropics

2006-10-18T17:45:00.000+08:00

These things only seemed so rampant in Asia. Or South East Asia to be more exact. Have you, for example, heard from friends coming back from Amsterdam (and this despite its close relationship with Indonesia), Stockholm or Hamburg saying their hotel room was haunted, or that some particular area in the Bavarian forest has a powerful spirit guarding it. The last time anyone mentioned anything about a ghost sighted in the Scandinavian area was the sighting of a one in Denmark some centuries ago. It was the ghost of Hamlet’s father who came to tell him that his death was a result of some foul play and not from natural causes as was first suspected. This had affected Hamlet so much that soon he became a loner. As is with most loners they tend to start talking to themselves. However, for Hamlet, his moments of solitude at least resulted in questions for us to ponder. As to whether it is to be or not to be, or whether one should suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or take arms against a sea of troubles. We certainly now know what the choice was for Zinedine Zidane when it boiled down to whether to head butt or not to head butt. Most certainly in both Hamlet’s and Zidane’s case there were method in their madness although we may not necessarily agree with them.

But back to our ghost story. Of course, some east European countries or the Irish countryside may have their fair share of fairies and Dracula, but those seemed to be more folklore to regale your friends at campfires rather than recent occurrences. Which is why the more likely stories you would hear when friends returned from that part of the world were close encounters of the second kind rather than the third. The European continent which over the years had seen a remarkable number of killings and ethnic cleansing should rightly be teeming with restless souls making their appearance or at least their presence felt to the unsuspecting Malaysian visitor to those countries. It would seem that this is certainly not the case.

However, go to any Southeast Asian country and you would come back with some supernatural tales or other to relate to an audience quite ready to gobble up such stories with gusto. This makes one wonder whether ghosts and such beings only reside in the tropics because of the year round warm weather. The only other places where you seem to get many tales from the dark side are certain parts of Africa, Central America and the Caribbean. Notice that again these countries are very near the equator and the tropics. Maybe beings like toyol, for example would find running around in the snow not very much to their liking. One acquaintance was kind enough to send me pictures of the said toyol through the internet recently, purportedly caught somewhere in Pahang or Indonesia. I must say the hairy little creature securely tied with a piece of string seemed scarier of its captors than scary itself. Well, I would too if I am about to be put in a bottle and buried alive. Maybe that was why its big red eyes were looking at the camera with so much sadness. The wonders of modern technology, eh? Just when you thought science had made nonsense of such superstitious beliefs, some genius had used his cell phone or digital camera to prove that technology is now going where man had not gone before. Capturing pictures of supernatural beings ghost buster-style.

Anyway China seemed to be the one notable exception to ghosts liking the tropics. However, the ghosts in China normally have a greenish hue and their favourite mode of travel is hopping from place to place rather than the effortless flying one would associate with their kind. At least that is what Hong Kong movie directors would like to have us believe is the way Chinese ghosts behave. And, one certainly wonders if only ghosts out to seek revenge act in this way just to scare the people who have wronged them a little bit more before delivering the coup de grace or whether all other ghosts, even when they were not out for blood would also act in a similar fashion as well.

Not having come up close and personal with any of these unnatural phenomena, I have never been able to support or disprove the stories and theories on these spiritual beings. Still I have always believed that the smarter thing is just to keep one’s mouth shut about things one is not particularly sure about. There is a Chinese proverb, which says that you should never speak bad of people in the day and never speak of ghosts at night. Wise saying if you ask me. The Thais and the Malays have added a bit more to this, which is not speaking about tigers when you are in the jungle or speak of crocodiles when in water infested with the reptile. Only the very brave or the utterly foolish would go so far as to say should either of the animals pop into view within the next few minutes, then one would like to break off their teeth to make key chains or necklaces and other trinkets with them. While admittedly such objects would make interesting conversation pieces, one should strive to be around and be an active member of the conversation rather than being the sorrowful subject of the discussion at such clan gatherings.

Since I do travel quite a bit in my line of work, many good Samaritans had felt very free to offer their advice on how to avoid being haunted in hotel rooms. It is unbelievable that these advices have come from the most unlikely of people. Most are highly educated and well travelled. Certainly not the kind you would normally associate with such superstitious beliefs. The warnings have included not putting your shoes together side by side or to throw your underwear all over an unused bed and so on. The advices have come by the dozens especially after the tsunami hit our part of the world two years ago.

I have had to travel quite a number of times to Phuket and the surroundings, where there were quite a number of casualties, especially Patong beach and Khaolak in neighbouring Phangnga Province. While some people were just offering advice on how to keep myself from being haunted, others were more curious as to whether the stories of visitors being haunted and such were true. Well, honestly I do not know. As I stated before, I have not had any first hand experience. I had stayed in a number of hotels by the beach and was even there when they had a remembrance night by lighting thousands of candles on Patong beach. I even took part in the candle lighting ceremony. But to this day, all I have ever heard were hearsay. A cousin of somebody’s sister’s friend who was a neighbour of somebody’s son-in-law’s office mate was supposed to have been haunted by ghosts of people who died in the tsunami. Like most stories which came through word of mouth, such tales tend to get embellished with more details with each telling. Maybe I am just one of those lucky people whose extra sensory perception is next to nil, thereby ensuring I would never be troubled by things that go passing in the night.

Still I have always taken heed of my late great grandmother’s advice (she should know living for 108 years). If you hear a strange noise, investigate the source first before determining whether you should start running. For all you know, it could just be a monitor lizard, which is probably more scared of you anyway. Experience had shown that the faster you try to run or outrun such creatures, the worse things were going to get. And should it be a tiger, what is the whole point of running anyway? You either stand your ground or slip behind the nearest big tree, wet your pants thoroughly and pray like there is no more tomorrow, for you at least. That seemed like a much better choice than running.

The lure of weekend markets & night bazaars

2006-10-04T11:04:00.000+08:00

In the Chatuchak area of Bangkok, every Saturday and Sunday there is a weekend market, thus the now somewhat famous Chatuchak Weekend Market. Sometimes it is spelt as Jatujak. But, however it is spelt or mispronounced, Chatuchak is a market selling any and every kind of things you might ever want and even some you do not necessarily want but still ended up buying. Chatuchak is also a source of headache of monumental proportions. The heat, the sweat and a host of other bodily discomforts would see to it that you would return to your hotel room a few kilograms lighter with a heavy throbbing at the temples to boot.

What used to be a place where the masses shop has turned into a place where you go to rub shoulders with the rich and famous of Bangkok if not the whole of Thailand. Sort of a Thai St Tropez but minus the sand, sea and women clad in scanty bikinis. But my bet is the rich and famous just come to Chatuchak to be seen. To show they are cool and no different from the rest of us mortals. A way of saying we are still one of you and that we have not forgotten our roots and humble beginnings although we could certainly shop in trendier places now.

Still the rich and famous come to Chatuchak for the PR mileage. Walk around and looking interested in cheap t-shirts, sometimes posing for photographs with some eager fans, sign a few autographs, then walk off in search of something before eventually leaving much lighter then when they had first come. After a few more smiles and returning a few more obligatory wais (the Thai greeting) off they troop to the much trendier and cooler climates of the Paragon (at last count still the biggest shopping complex in Southeast Asia when it opened last year) for some English tea and crumpets. And to catch up on the latest gossips.

Still nothing like Chatuchak as a place to hang out and work up a sweat to lose that extra flab around the middle. No amount of preparation, short of wearing an air-conditioned suit will keep you from losing body fluid by the gallon. Now that sure beats going to the gym if you ask me. You can work up a sweat at no cost at all, except probably the few bahts you pay the tuk-tuk driver to take you there in the first place. Still if you do not experience the heat, the sweat and every other creature discomforts that come with it, including your tummy acting up just as soon as you step into the vicinity, then it would not be Chatuchak. It would be Suan Lum Night Bazaar, the sanitised and orderly night market with its more upmarket restaurants and bazaars. In contrast to Chatuchak, Suan Lum is the place for cool evening walks where you could pop into a fancy restaurant for a bite or a cup of latte after a pleasant evening stroll.

If you desire a jaunting which is a cross between Chatuchak and Suan Lum, then Khaosan Road is the place to go. A hippie haven in the 1970s, the place had certainly undergone a transformation. It is the place to be now. The old hotels and buildings are still there. Only now they have had facelifts and tummy tucks and fresh coats of paints to keep up with the modernisation of the new century, complete with internet cafes, better restaurants and drinking haunts. Drop by after the sun goes down and soon enough you would find yourself blending in with the crowd. The short stretch of road retains its 70s attitude but embraces all the trappings of a new era. You would still find a few old hippies who may have forgotten to go home or had come back to re-live some old experiences, dressed pretty much the same way as they did 30 years ago, albeit with more money in their pockets, even after factoring in the inflation and especially after factoring in the exchange rate which is very much in their favour.

Thailand is full of such walking streets and night bazaars. You find them in most major cities. In the north the most popular is the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar. Here you could find just about any handicraft item that could be fashioned out of any local product. Anything that could be sewn, moulded, carved, bent and scientifically or unscientifically turned into something saleable would be on display. Where else but in Chiang Mai would you find elephant droppings being packed in clear plastic bags and sold off as souvenirs to tourists. And mind you, there are people willing to dish out a few bahts for the honour of owning a bag of dried elephant faeces, presumably to be given away as a birthday present to the favourite mother-in-law.

Similar things could be found if you walk down the Walking Street in Pattaya. Everything else except the elephant by-product most certainly. Chiang Mai chose to retain exclusive rights on the subject of elephant post dietary movements of any sort. Just as well, because everything in Pattaya is double or treble the price of the same things found anywhere else. And if nothing else, elephant droppings should at least be a price-controlled item. Otherwise it would be the end of civilisation as we know it.

It is essential that you learn how to bargain in Pattaya. Even one who is extremely poor in that department as I, had occasionally been moved to enter into a verbal gymnastic with the sellers because of the way these petty traders and not so petty traders in Pattaya chose to price their goods. The prices naturally could be knocked down by half although they tend to turn their noses up at you just to make you feel like a cheapskate. Kind of reminds me of just such a place somewhere off Puduraya in Kuala Lumpur. No prizes for guessing the correct answer. They must have all gone to the same trade school.

Still what is life without the occasional bargains and bargain huntings? But then things in Pattaya, whether at its walking street or malls, have been known to be pricier than any other city in Thailand. This is a legacy of the Vietnam War. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, it was the place where American soldiers on a tour of duty in Vietnam come to rest and recuperate. It is debatable whether they in fact got more rest in Pattaya or in Saigon as Ho Chi Minh City was known then.

Pattaya may have changed to keep up with the rest of the world. But even minus the American soldiers on R & R, it is still very much a city catering to the whims and fancies of Caucasians, with its beer bars (which they call bar beer) and fancy hostesses. The drinks may cost more or go by a new name now. But the atmosphere is still lively and skirts still as short. Any shorter than that and you have to call them headbands.

Fatherhood should be this easy

2006-10-03T10:55:00.000+08:00

During the first few years I joined Rotary, I used to remember our club presidents asking for volunteers to take in exchange students for anything from a few months to a year. Being a bachelor and not having a “proper home” as such, I have always managed not to get too involved. Even much later, when I became president of the club, I continued to shy away from such a responsibility. What do I know about being a host to children or young adults? These are responsibilities better left to married members in the club, whose wives are better equipped to make sure the exchange students are fed and looked after properly.

But that was to change through no “fault” of Rotary whatsoever. In fact any relation to Rotary they had was that one of them was the daughter of a Rotarian in Nakhon Sri Thammarat (about 200km to the north of Hat Yai) and the other had an elder brother sent to the United States on an exchange programme for one year by a Rotary club in Phuket.

I was asked to be a “father” for three months to two 20-year-old graduating students from the University of Walailak, South Thailand, while they were undergoing practical training at our office. Reluctantly I had to accept the responsibility. If this had anything to do with tourism and travel, it was only the fact that both of them were pursuing degrees in tourism management.

One Sunday morning in September, I had to cancel my usual late wake up time and pick them up. I was actually trying to discourage them from staying with me. But no such luck. One of the girls’ father in fact accompanied them all the way from Thailand to make sure they were delivered into safe hands in Kuala Lumpur.

I must say the experience of being a father to somebody else’s children was not altogether unpleasant. It had its moments. Of course, there were times when the antics of two 20-year-old girls can get on your nerves. But fortunately those moments were far and few in between. I suppose without those moments, it would have meant I did not really mature as a father.

One day, several months after that, I was in the company of one of the girl’s parents in Phuket and was being introduced to some of their friends at a dinner function. I did feel a bit uncomfortable being introduced by the girl’s father as “my daughter’s daddy from Malaysia.” Now, it would have really been interesting to see the peoples’ reaction had her mother been the one doing the introduction.
But that was a very Thai way of doing things. A male guardian takes on the role of a father and is accorded the same respect that one shows to one’s own father. So naturally they had to call me daddy.

One day when returning home from the office they took the wrong bus and had to walk almost a kilometre home. Two men on a motorcycle decided to get to know them a little better (all in the spirit of ASEAN, naturally) and actually followed them just to find out where they lived presumably.

When I later asked one of the girls, a martial arts exponent why she did not give the bikers a flying kick, she replied, “Cannot-lah daddy. Skirt too tight.”

Another amusing incident happened on one Sunday towards the end of their stay in Kuala Lumpur. One of the girls decided to make me a drink. There was a knock on my door, and when I came out, there she was with a broad smile and a steaming mug. I asked her what was inside the mug, and she told me it was tea.

“I know you like coffee but we have run out, so I decided to make the tea the same colour,” she said.

Exactly how was by boiling two tea bags for a couple of minutes. Had I finished the mug of tea, I would have had trouble going to the toilet for a week.

This same tea maker would have made Chef Wan blush. On that same day she decided to cook lunch. Her cooked rice would have been perfect if it was meant to be eaten with satay. I must say she had a weird sense of logic for a student whose average grade was in the top five per cent in her university. (She in fact ended up the top student).

Anyone familiar with rice cooking knows that to get rice to cook correctly, the water you put into the pot should be about one inch above the rice level at the start of cooking. She decided that since she was cooking double the usual amount, the water level should be two inches above the rice, the result of which would have made the satay makers in Kajang very proud. I suppose she was using a bit of Maths logic here. Probably you would remember the question we used to be asked in primary schools. You are washing five handkerchiefs of equal size. If it takes half an hour for one handkerchief to dry, how long would it take five to dry?

Anyway I digress. Just that the point I am trying to make is being a father to an exchange student or students can be quite an invaluable experience. But at least I did not have to change their diapers or force-feed them those gooey-looking stuff that children hate. Of course, there was also the downside. I lost part of the freedom that goes with bachelorhood.

Still at times I do fancy getting another irritating phone call in the middle of a golf game, asking me to pick them up later from Ampang Park because they did not have the taxi fares to get home. So I did what any father would do when I picked them up. Gave them a sound ticking off for not being more careful with their money.

Worst of all, after three months, I had actually grown terribly fond of them. And for at least a week after they left when I returned home every night to a lonely house, there was always a feeling as though someone had kicked me in the stomach as I walked through the door. I suppose I would have been heart-broken had they been eight or nine year olds. The nerve they had, coming into my life and messing up my fine-planned bachelorhood.

And I would like to think that in some lonely corners of the world, another old bachelor would be listening to the same words of Simon & Garfunkel before they went their separate ways.

I am a rock
I am an island
A rock feels no pain
And an island never cries

Songkran, my grandmother and her maid

2006-10-02T16:39:00.000+08:00

The Songkran (Thai water festival) held annually as part of the celebrations to mark the Thai New Year is now going to be adopted by Malaysia, says Culture and Heritage Minister Dato’ Rais Yatim. That would certainly garner a lot of support from most Malaysians, I gather. Should that happen, then Malaysia will join not only Thailand but also Myanmar, Laos and Kampuchea in celebrating the event. The Thai community of Malaysia, of which there are close to 50,000 approximately, are muted (as they are on most issues) on the move by the government to declare the festival a local event. Hopefully, the water festival will come complete with a public holiday or two (or three as the case is in Thailand) to enable Malaysians from all races and walks of life to go splash water on each other.

After all, some Malaysians are now even going to the extent of taking leave and popping across the border to Hat Yai to get themselves and others drenched in the process from the midnight of April 12 until April 15. Hat Yai, by the way, is the only place in Thailand where the water festival starts at midnight. Malaysians actually played a major role in getting the Thai authorities in this southern Thai city to begin Songkran at such an ungodly hour. It was found after Hat Yai began to gain popularity as a weekend getaway that Malaysians just did not know when to stop. They were still splashing water well after the sun had gone down and most of the Thais had gone indoors. Since they love splashing water so much, the starting time for the water festival was officially changed to one night earlier in Hat Yai as compared to other parts of Thailand.

Apart from the fact that it is a good time to get wet and cool down, April being one of the hottest month and all that, most probably are quite unaware of the actual meaning of Songkran and its significance to Thai society. The word actually has a Sanskrit origin, which means the beginning of a new Solar Year. But nowadays, just like anywhere else in the world new year is Jan 1, but just like in Malaysia, where the Muslim New Year is also observed, the Thais choose to have a long holiday to celebrate the Solar New Year.

During the afternoon of the 13th, Buddha images are bathed as part of the ceremony. Then young people pour scented water on the hands of parents and other elders as a mark of respect and to seek their blessings. One day, while passing through the province of Chachoengsao just north of Bangkok, I was to witness such an event celebrated rather grandly in a public park. All the old people of the village were seated in a row and after prayers were performed by the Buddhist monks, the villagers all took turns washing the hands of all the elders of the village.

In Malaysia, or at least in Kelantan where I came from, we still do this. Not necessarily on April 13 but the full moon night of April which could be any time from the 11th to the 20th. In Thailand April 13th was designated a Songkran Day for convenience and tourism sake. In Kelantan (I am not too familiar with the way it is celebrated in Perak, Kedah or Perlis where there are a large number of Malaysian Thais as well) the event is not celebrated on such a grand scale as the ones in Thailand, but in a decidedly more modest and subdued way. No splashing water on each other and all that. In fact we normally go no further than washing the hands and feet of our elders or even of those older than us. This is in fact a very noble gesture, a way of saying thank you and also to ask for forgiveness from them. It is assumed that they, being older than us would have at some point or other in the past carried us. I don’t know about you, but as far as I am concerned, those who carried me were fair game. They would have been given a nice drenching so that they will always fondly remember me. I must say computer era babies are denied one of their sources of fun with the advent of disposable and self-absorbent diapers. You no longer get those squeals of laughter from young mothers or female guardians that usually come with the warm and wet realisation that their laps have just been soiled. And those were just for the distant relatives mind you, because for the chosen ones, the ones we were terribly fond of, we bring out the heavy artillery. Not too different from the way cats and dogs mark their favourite territory, I must say.

Another reason this year’s Songkran was a bit subdued for me was that my grandmother on my father’s side passed away last year at the age of 94. No splashing of water if any were ever intended but just to the temples for the usual prayers held for the departed, that is held during the Thai New Year annually. Now the only torch bearer of the family left are her 97-year-old brother and another of her former sister-in-law who is 102. (The grandmother on my mother’s side passed away in her 30s long before I was born).

Although both of us were living in Kuala Lumpur, my grandmother and I did not see much of each other. In fact, we had never been very close. I was closer to my other grandmother’s younger sister who actually had a hand in bringing me up. A fierce old lady, she always kept a cane handy to make sure I recite my multiplication tables nightly and take my bath on time. She did not speak or understand much English but somehow could instinctively pick out my mistakes. There was never any need for me to be sent for special tuition in mental arithmetic. When you run out of fingers and toes, a cane is always quite handy in bringing out the best that you can be. I shudder to think that had she had a few more canes lying around I would probably have given Einstein a run for his money. Her only wish towards the later part of her life was to see me become a Buddhist monk, even if it was only for a day and of course to marry. Otherwise, she insisted that she could not die happy. We had a compromise of sorts. I agreed to become a monk but there was no way I would get married. True to her word, six months after I was ordained as a Buddhist monk, her mission on earth at last accomplished, she passed away after a short bout with cancer.

The bond that I shared with her never existed with my actual grandmother. So, when the latter passed away I regretted that we had never made any attempt to be close. In our own special way, I supposed we had a certain amount of affection and even love for each other but both of us just had trouble showing it. I too regretted that I did not heed my father’s advice to go see her and wash her hands and feet during the Songkran month last year. I was too busy travelling all over the place. I was destined, instead, to bathe her body before she was cremated.

About the time she died I was somewhere in Petaling Jaya having coffee with a friend. Nobody could get me until about 2am because my mobile phone ran out of battery. Still I was glad she did not die alone but with her loved ones around her – my aunt, her husband and their two children. And her maid, a girl name Puji. As it turned out only Puji knew what to do. She took out her Surah Yassin and recited the Quranic verses to my grandmother during her final moments. It was to me the kindest and most unselfish act of all. The most precious gift one human being can give to another. In an environment that is slowly becoming more polarised and intolerant, an uneducated Indonesian maid from a remote province in Java did what very few religious leaders armed with their rhetoric could ever do. In one simple act of kindness she portrayed the most beautiful part of the Muslims and Islam to somebody from outside her faith. From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU, PUJI. You will always be a credit to your name.

A Case of “Bird Flew”

2006-09-26T12:21:00.000+08:00

“Did you say bird flu? Where?” My friend’s voice came over the mobile phone.

“No, I said bird flew. F-L-E-W. Flew. The bird flew into the jet turbine just as we were about to take off.”

“Oh, then what happened?”

“Well, the pilot aborted takeoff and we’re back at the terminal building awaiting further notice.”

My friend seemed disappointed that there was not much drama in it. The English language or to be more exact, the English pronunciation, can be a bit of a bitch when you are trying to make yourself understood on a mobile phone. Well, even when you are a natural English speaker, making a call from inside an airport terminal is hardly the place when absolute clarity is of the utmost importance. And I, on the other hand, am an unnatural English speaker. So FLU and FLEW can sound quite the same, what with a whole lot of static in the background and all that. So my friend cannot be totally blamed for getting it all mixed up the first time around. After all it had just been announced that avian flu had hit the Thai province of Kanchanaburi (west of Bangkok) the previous day and although I was at that time in Chiang Mai (far to the north of Bangkok), and Chiang Mai is quite a distance away from Kanchanaburi, my friend was not going to let a little bit of geography get in the way of all the confusion.

But with all that sorted out, I can now make more phone calls to elicit some sympathies from friends in both Malaysia and Thailand. Not many sympathies were forthcoming. Those friends think I travel too much anyway and that I am always having a holiday at the office’s expense. I had always protested that my travels, which average about twice a month, were all for work. Regardless, they still feel I have always got the better part of the deal. Well, maybe I do. But not always, though. This time for instance.

I was returning to Kuala Lumpur after being on AirAsia’s inaugural direct flight from Kuala Lumpur to Chiang Mai. I had stayed back another two days after all the reporters had left for a meeting with some travel agents in the northern Thai city.

It was a morning that began like any other Sunday morning in Chiang Mai. The weather had not gotten quite cold yet. That would come in about a month’s time when winter arrives in late November or early December.

Flight AK897 was scheduled to take off at 11am Thai time and the girl at the check in counter assured us that the flight was very much on time. We boarded the plane which was mostly made up of Malaysians taking advantage of AirAsia’s promotional fare. But my romance with the Lanna Kingdom was not about to come to an end that fast. Lanna Kingdom is the old name for the areas comprising Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Lampang, Lampun, Mae Hong Son, Nan, Phayao and Phrae in the north of Thailand. These provinces were integrated into the Thai Kingdom or Siam as it was known then in 1876. By that time, the Lanna Kingdom of course, was past its glory days and had fought a series of war with Myanmar or Burma. But this had in no way diminished the beauty of the land which the northerners still call Lanna (translated as a million rice fields).

But Chiang Mai and the north are not just rice fields, especially modern day Chiang Mai. The second largest city in Thailand after Bangkok, one has to see it from the Doi Suthep Temple, located on a mountain overlooking the city to appreciate how big the city is. And taking a stroll along most of the streets in downtown Chiang Mai you tend to be fascinated by the array of wares and northern handicrafts on sale. Not to mention the beautiful girls selling them. But I here I am a bit biased, I must admit. I tend to fall in love with every third girl I meet in Chiang Mai. So most things Chiang Mai tend to be extremely attractive to me. My women friends may think otherwise, but I would like to dare the men to contradict me on this after a visit to Chiang Mai.

My love story with Chiang Mai actually began years ago. At the farthest end of the city is located the city gates. Visitors are normally warned that as you leave the city, you are never to look back. If you do, be forewarned, you will never be free of the city. You are destined to return again and again and again. And like Lot’s son, who was told not to look back at the city of Sodom and Gomorrah, I did look back at the city of Chiang Mai. It must be plain curiosity or just to disprove the belief. I am not sure whether it really worked, but on the average I had been back there at least twice a year ever since. So much for old wives’ tale, eh? The upside at least is that I did not turn into stone. Otherwise Chiang Mai’s City Hall would have had to contend itself with one unwanted statue.

But what is the story with flight AK897, you may ask. Well, I had settled down in my seat with a good book all ready to while away the flight time, which is close to three hours. The plane taxied off to the runway then slowly picked up speed. But seconds before lifting off there was a loud series of sound quite similar to a 100 passengers gargling simultaneously at the highest pitch their vocal chords could muster. This was followed by a screeching of brakes and in as little time as it would have taken us to be airborne, we instead came to a complete halt. It turned out that the captain, in his cockpit, had seen a big bird flying into his left engine. And to think that I, who was actually sitting at the wings of the airplane had missed the whole thing completely. It was a good thing that the captain had been observant. Otherwise we may have had more than one dead bird and a broken turbine on our hands. The plane taxied back to the terminal building and after ascertaining what had happened, we were deposited on the tarmac and took a slow bus ride back to where we had originally came from just minutes earlier.

But whatever efficiency had been demonstrated by the captain and his in-flight crew was slowly and surely undone by AirAsia’s ground staff at the Chiang Mai International Airport. One actually wonders how they would have coped had it been a bigger emergency. It certainly laid bare the fact that whatever training had been given to them, crisis management was not one of them. Still one wonders how much training or arithmetic were actually needed to figure out that if you have, say 100 passengers, and you decide to serve them food, you actually need 100 packets or more. I believe a cursory glance at the passenger manifest would have helped them to work out the number of people on the plane. In this instance, it was a piece of pizza which came in a neat triangular box. Some had water to go with the pizza. Others had a big glass of Pepsi. All not served at the same time of course. This naturally led to some confusion when another batch of food arrived 15 minutes or so later because one ground staff did not know what the other was doing.

If you think scenes of people clamouring for food in post earthquake Kashmir was bad, then you should have seen what went on in the airport lounge. One would have thought that people who had just spent thousands going on a holiday would conduct themselves a little better than people who had gone without food for days. This was after all the early stages of the wait. Shame on you Malaysians. An elderly Caucasian gentleman did not seem to have the heart to join in the madness, just gave up and went looking for food at the restaurant outside. I could not quite figure out which was more irritating – the fact that Malaysians still do not know how to queue or AirAsia’s Chiang Mai staff not knowing how to count.

The fact that the departure time kept getting moved from 5pm to 8.30pm to 10.30pm did not help much. Still people were willing to put up with it. But I think not many people could tolerate the inept handling of the situation which was a cross between idiocy and lunacy. And I say this not because I have a platform to say it. It is not even because of the feeling of pride I normally feel when I read of Malaysian companies doing well abroad. I say it because it is in my interest that AirAsia do well and turn in better results next year. I would like to see the company’s shares going up a few percentage points so that I could get my dividends at the end of the financial year. Sad to say, I do not think AirAsia’s ground staff in Chiang Mai are exactly turning me into another Warren Buffet any time soon.

Luckily somebody came up with the bright idea that the stranded passengers should be allowed to venture beyond the waiting lounge after depositing their passports with the airline staff. Most just went out in search of food to supplement the piece of pizza. No one seemed particularly interested when a similar menu was to be served for dinner and that night the Thai Airways International restaurant were full of AirAsia’s stranded passengers. Some even went back into town to catch up on some last minute shopping or just to finish off whatever bahts they have left. That at least help to calm a few frayed nerves apart from helping to further stimulate the Thai economy.

We were told that AirAsia would be flying another plane to Chiang Mai to take us home. The damage to the engine was worse than expected. I must say that it was one tough eagle which landed at the wrong place at the wrong time. Going boldly where few other eagles were brave enough to have gone before. It is certainly sad that it took the death of one short-sighted eagle and a perfectly good engine to tell AirAsia that a crash course in crisis management is urgently needed for its ground staff, in Chiang Mai at least. And Chiang Mai, after all, happened to be the hometown of the airline’s biggest shareholder in AirAsia Thailand (at that time at least).

We finally left Chiang Mai at about 11pm and touched down in KLIA at 2.45am. I, for one, actually held my breath when the plane was taking off this time around, hoping that no other eagle decided to avenge its mate’s death and take out another engine. Quite a journey and quite a day, I must say. Still I could not help wondering what would have happened had the plane already taken off when the eagle flew into the turbine. For example, what would have happened if the plane was about 10 feet off the ground? How long would it take the pilot to bring the plane down again or how much thrust would be needed to keep it airborne or whether it would be airborne at all? All questions which are beyond my limited mental capacity. And not being that great at maths, I think I will just save the question for the next time I am in Chiang Mai. The Einsteins in red miniskirts masquerading as AirAsia’s ground staff shouldn’t have too much trouble figuring that piece of maths out for me. Q.E.D.

Balikpapan beckons

2006-09-25T18:32:00.000+08:00

We wrongly assumed that only the three of us were crazy enough to wake up at 3.00 in the morning, grab a cold shower and rush to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport to catch a three-hour flight to Balikpapan. And before you say Balikpapan where, allow me to give you a bit of geography lesson. Just imagine that you are in Sabah. Picture where Kota Kinabalu is, then mentally run your finger along the coast, going clockwise. When you reach a location about southeast of Kalimantan, somewhere due south of Tawau, you would be able to locate the city of about 300,000 population.

We were among the last to board the flight which meant we found ourselves occupying the last few rows at the back of the plane. It also meant we got three seats each. Quite a bargain actually, since we only paid RM8.88 (before tax and other incidentals, of course). No sooner had the flight taken off had people started curling up and going to sleep. Sleeping babies look cute. Slumbering adults just give the impression they are in a state of disrepair. One lady decided to turn the last row into her first class sleeping quarters, presenting her rear end for those still awake to admire. While I must admit beautiful rear ends can sometimes inspire equally beautiful works of art, one that was pointing towards me at that hour of the morning could only fill me with fear. You never know when it may decide to honour us with a 21-bum salute or something.

Prince Siddharta some 2500 years ago must have woken up and walked in on just such a sight of unprotected rear ends and drooling salivas. A sight disturbing enough, among others, to push the noble one to renounce all princely comforts and go seek answers to the nature of suffering. This rear end did not push me any nearer to seeking enlightenment. That station, I am afraid, belonged to another rear end, which no sooner had it convinced me of its lack of interest in my non-spiritual attributes, had plonked itself in the lap of one more deserving of her attentions. But that is another story. A love story, actually, that I do not care to go into detail here. Miss Rear End finally awoke after dawn broke and helped herself to a bowl of hot noodles, thereby ensuring her posterior portion could continue to get the necessary nutrients to torment those sitting at the back of the plane.

Flying at such an hour of the morning meant that the plane’s air-conditioning system seemed to be working extra hard. One of my travelling companions actually had the gall to ask a flight attendant whether he could have a blanket. He must have thought he was flying first class on another airline. Lucky for him it stopped at that. If he had also asked for red wine, friend or no friend, I would have reached over and given him a smack for being a nuisance at such an hour. He did not hear the last of that for another few weeks after we returned to KL. The flight attendant was suitably offended as she had every right to be. But credit to her for taking time off from her intellectual intercourse with a middle-aged Caucasian gentleman, to politely tell him blankets were not options provided by low cost carriers. She then turned back to continue her discussion with the Caucasian gentleman, presumably about how the oil prices rise disproportionately with airlines wages. Incidentally, Balikpapan, which happened to be an oil town, has quite a sizeable expatriate population. There is even a website for the expatriates’ wives club, a cross between a Rotary Club and a Joyluck Club minus the mahjong sessions.

We finally landed without much fanfare at this beautiful airport called Sepinggan Balikpapan. After going through immigration and customs we popped into the nearest coffee shop for breakfast. Then we took a taxi into town and went in search of suitable accommodation. Finally we settled on an establishment called Hotel Bintang, a two-star lodge charging four-star rates and providing three-star entertainment. Not all the entertainment were provided by the hotel, though. But they were within easy reach. A right turn takes us to a discotheque on stilts. One wonders whether dancers in graceful movements that can only come with intoxication ever danced themselves into the sea below. That would certainly have woken them up somewhat for the wet journey home. Turn left after emerging from the hotel and there is a health centre waiting to cure various forms of sickness that the flesh is heir to and to the front is a karaoke joint. What more can a lonely tourist ask for in a city such as this?

Then it was time to go look for some lunch, which consisted of nasi padang. Getting ourselves understood seemed a bit harder than the time I was in Bandung. It also took a while before my two millionaire companions actually got the hang of the rupiah-ringgit conversion. Balikpapan was not what we had expected at all. It has very modern facilities and wide roads, attributed to the fact that the city of some 300,000 owed its existence to oil. After lunch, we took the local transport known as angkut into town. Cost of transport to most part of town was 7000 rupiah. We were dropped off in front of the biggest shopping complex in town where we ran smack into a demonstration by Muslim students against the publication of Playboy magazine in Indonesia. While I shall keep my opinions on the Playboy magazine to myself, I thought they should have a re-think about their protests against condom vending machines. Just because the Muslim students were presumably practising celibacy, it is probably wise to reconsider their stand. Only moralists seem to think that the easy access to condoms would lead to more extra-marital sex. They forget that people have been doing it without condoms for centuries even in Victorian England. They seemed to think that just because condoms are easily available, innocent Muslim girls would throw off their headscarves and automatically lift their sarongs for the next man who comes along. I suppose people tend to equate condoms more with free sex than with safe sex.

The hotel was not the only place charging us exorbitant prices. The restaurants and taxis were also doing the same thing. We were told later by one kind lady that there are three prices in Balikpapan – one for locals of Kalimantan, one for Indonesians from other islands and another for foreigners. No prizes for guessing who gets fleeced. Take the time we decided to go visit Samarinda, a town some 100 over kilometres to the west of Balikpapan. We paid 408,000 rupiah for the baby-faced driver to drive us there and back. Anything babyish about the driver stopped at his looks. Once he got behind the wheels he was a maniac taking us to our destination in two hours. This was made possible by driving at about 120kph on roads where lesser mortals would only dare drive at 40kph. I tried to close my eyes and block out the speed but this only made it worse. It just meant that I get thrown about a whole lot more even with the safety belt on. Resigned to the fact that there was no way our very own Michael Schumacher, who hailed from Semarang in Central Java, was going to slow down, I did the next best thing and went to sleep. I figured if I die in my sleep it would be painless.

Samarinda, on the bank of the Mahakan River, had this bright yellow bridge connecting it to the east side. I suppose only a native of Samarinda could ever speak in glowing terms about such an apparition known as Jambatan Mahakan. It is the more of an eyesore as on the other side of the river stands a beautiful, soon to be completed, state of the art Islamic Centre. To think that they would latter stand side-by-side is simply blasphemous and an insult to the new and beautiful piece of Islamic architecture. After a brief tour of the town, we dropped by one of the international hotels to use its restroom facilities before going in search of nasi padang. By the time I came home, I still do not know how good local Kalimantan food is since nasi padang is found in abundance. By the time we left Samarinda for Balikpapan, I had more or less gotten used to being driven around at breakneck speed on small trunk roads that I stopped being bothered by it anymore. Our driver even had the audacity to tailgate a police petrol car. Now that took guts.

We came back to the hotel for a deserved rest after a tour of the petroleum facilities in Balikpapan. The tour is actually just a drive past the huge complex by the sea. I could still not get over the fact that I have had to pay 300,000 rupiah (about RM120) a night for my room, which faced a rubbish dump. Anywhere else it would have only cost half as much and at the price I was paying one would expect the shower to have hot water and for the door to close properly. It failed miserably on both counts. Only consolation was the double locks on the door. While double locks may keep intruders out, they do nothing for the soundproofing needs of the guests.

I woke up at 4am to the sound of the couple in the opposite room professing their undying love for each other, in a mixture of standard Bahasa Indonesia and English, no less. Being a romantic at heart, I was deeply moved by such outpouring of love between two people. It was two weeks before Valentine’s Day, so who am I to argue with cupid. I could not quite keep up with their wedding plans. After a while the discussion became unintelligible followed by a deafening silence. Good, I thought. Now I could get back to sleep since I had to catch a morning flight back to Kuala Lumpur the next day.

Fat chance. The enchanted lovers decided to fast forward from wedding plans to early honeymoon, and in the process waking up the entire floor. The old boy must have done all right because about the only thing she did not shout out was the speed limit in Balikpapan. (By the way I was told the speed limit is 68kph. Once you reach 69 you have to turn the other way around). After that I had a hard time myself trying to get back to sleep again. So it was a cold shower and getting ready for the airport.

The flight home was only half full and I chose a seat at the wings. As usual, the flight crew would come and request your assistance in opening the emergency door in case of an emergency. That was all fine and well but I am one of those who need at least one or two trial runs before I can get anything right. After all when my services are badly needed at such times, I would only have once chance of getting it right. What if the door would not open? They should at least let me play with the emergency door a bit so that I may be able to perform my task automatically when and if there was ever a need.

As the plane taxied away before take off, I noticed some egrets feeding in the field adjacent to the runway. I could not help praying very hard that the egrets in Balikpapan were not as suicidal as the eagles of Chiang Mai.

A touch of romance

2006-09-25T18:12:00.000+08:00

There is nothing like a riverboat ride to start a new romance or rekindle ambers of waning passion that is threatening to snuff out a relationship. I have been on such boats on numerous occasions, especially in Bangkok, but never for either of those reasons. Just for work actually. The first time was a little over 10 years ago when I took the Oriental Queen, which could take more than a hundred passengers from Bangkok to head upstream for the old city of Ayutthaya. I had a group of journalists with me.

Such journeys are quite remarkable, conjuring memories of younger years. I grew up in the 1970s watching black & white shows of riverboats sailing up and down the Mississippi. The whole idea of people boarding the riverboat, travelling up and down the mighty river was something to look forward to as a child. Something I had hoped to do a little later in life. Well, the Chao Phraya River, which separates Bangkok from Thonburi, is not quite the Mississippi. But it was great to go upriver in one of those big boats, nevertheless, most especially if it is your first time.

The fare inclusive of meals is 1,400 bahts. You have a choice between the air-conditioned lower deck and the warm open-air upper deck. Of course, this is after you have had your fill of the buffet breakfast, served just after your boat leaves the pier at eight or so. Nothing like tucking with gusto into your first meal of the day, as the Temple of Dawn and the Grand Palace seem to float pass you at a leisurely pace. In between mouthfuls, you even have time to take out your camera and fire away a few shots to show the folks back home.

As noon approaches, when the upper deck gets a bit too hot, there’s always enough room down below to enjoy the sights without raising too much of a sweat. There will be the hardened souls, who would insist on staying out in the noonday sun, sipping their assortment of beverages. Since they were not Englishmen, one has to assume they are mad dogs.

By 2.00pm or so, the boat would, like those of merchants of old coming to ply their trade, approach Ayutthaya. The second capital of the kingdom may have lost much of its splendour, but retains most of its majesty. It was after all the setting of quite a few memorable battles between the armies of old Siam and old Burma, both trying to fight for supremacy over that region of South East Asia. One can only guess at the beauty of this ancient city during its hey days. However, telling the story of this city in a few paragraphs would not do justice to its illustrious history and better left for another time. Suffice to say that without Ayutthaya, Siam would not have evolved into what Thailand is today. It was here that Siam began opening up to both the west and the east. Small wonder that at some point or other, it had had the prime minister equivalent of today whose nationalities were Japanese, Greek and Persian. Not all at the same time, of course. It had also had influential and high ranking court officials who were Chinese. Of course, the Greek, by the name of Phaulkon, managed to get his head chopped off for being too overzealous in trying to convert the King to Catholicism. But, as I said these stories are better left for another time.

Anyway, on with our riverboat story. There are quite a number of interesting things to see even if you decide to opt for the dinner cruise instead of the trip upriver to Ayutthaya. The dinner cruise costs about as much as a morning trip to Ayutthaya, except that this time it comes with meals and entertainment. If I had not seen how he looked, I would have thought Kenny G himself was the entertainer. Alas, it was not the world renown saxophonist but a more than able Thai blower doing the job. Before you know it, you would be humming along to the music from the 60s and 70s. Two hours would have passed just like that before you realise it, and before long you are back at the pier again. As you get ready to jump off the boat and rejoin the real world once more, or of Bangkok, at least, with its traffic jams, exhaust fumes and street vendors you cannot help feeling a slight tugging at the pit of your stomach as you look longingly towards the Filipino singer in miniskirt. Her face has taken on a blank look and she had lost the plastic smile she had on while entertaining us earlier. She just seemed too busy staring into her cup of tea. Probably there are coded messages about her future hidden among the tea leaves. Her job over for the night, she picked up her string of pearls and sequined handbag before nonchalantly walking off the boat and into the night. Well, the tugging at the base of your stomach could have been unfulfilled fantasy or it could very well have been the result of being too liberal with the cili padi and fish sauce an hour or so earlier.

To say the scenes you will see on the banks of the river are breath-taking would be a gross understatement. It is something you have to experience yourself and quite certainly not one you would too soon forget.

Recently I have had the privilege of taking another riverboat, but this time instead of on the Chao Phraya River, it was the Mae Ping River in Chiang Mai. Its namesake, the Mae Ping Hotel had its 15 minutes of fame several years ago when Taiwan songstress, Teresa Teng passed away while staying there. On the only occasion I stayed at the hotel, I had wondered what I would have done had I been woken up by the melodious strains of Teresa’s voice telling me her love shines as bright as a million stars or something like that.

Anyway, a riverboat trip cum dinner on the Mae Ping is not quite as eventful as those on the Chao Phraya River. The boat could take only about 50 people without the risk of one getting into another’s hair, unless of course that was one’s original intention. It is more peaceful and the darkness does provide some comfort and is less of a strain on the eyes. The boat is romantically lit, the light from the numerous candles, placed at strategic locations on the boat creating a fairytale-like ambience. But it did not seem to do much in enhancing the beauty of the food. In the twilight of my life, failing eyesight tend to make me want to be sure what I put in my mouth. It was not too much fun just relying on your sense of smell and taste alone.

But I must say if I was there with somebody special instead of a film crew shooting a travel documentary, this would have counted as a romantic night. Imagine being there with the love of your life (or the one who must be obeyed, which ever the case might be). Dinner was just over. Dessert had just arrived. Coffee for me, at least, since I am not much of a dessert person. This being a special night and all that I would even suppress the desire to light up for an after dinner smoke. She will smile a contented smile. No need for words. There is soft music playing in the background. For a brief moment all seems well again with the world. It is the perfect setting to pop the question. So after letting the meal settle down for a bit, you take her hands in yours and look at her lovingly, knowing and convincing yourself that you are not good enough for her. You will probably see love or your unborn children in her eyes. Then gather up enough courage to pop the question…

“Shall we break up? I don’t think there’s any future in this relationship. Moreover, I’ve met this extremely nice girl in Chiang Mai… ”

As you jump over the side of the boat, turn around and tell her to take care of the bill. After all, you have been picking up the tabs for all the lunches and dinners ever since you have been with her over the last few years. Then swim as hard as possible for the opposite bank. And please make sure you know how to swim before attempting this because even if you do not jump into the river, she will definitely throw you overboard. Try not to go beyond the Mae Ping. Even in your wildest dream, forget about swimming across the Chao Phraya River unless you have a ship waiting in the Gulf of Siam or you won the gold medal at the last SEA Games for the 1500m swimming event.

As a coup de grace make sure you send her an SMS, reminding her to leave at least a 100 baht tip for the lovely waitress who had been flirting openly with you all throughout dinner, oblivious to the dagger looks your dinner companion was giving her.

Well, we can always dream on, can’t we?

Ole-ole Bandung

2006-09-21T16:25:00.000+08:00

Anybody growing up in the 1960s would probably remember a song called Ole-ole Bandung (Souvenirs from Bandung). The lyrics had something to do with a short blouse being cut into a sarong or something like that. The reason for this song or rather the lyrics, I was to find out, is that the traditional costume for Sundanese women (who you find in large numbers in Bandung) is a sarong worn just half way down the calf with a kebaya (also known in Kelantan as baju Bandung) on top.

I was in for another surprise where the Sundanese were concerned. It happened when we walked into a restaurant for lunch on the way to Tangkuban Parahu, a mountain range housing six dormant volcanoes, about 20kms out of Bandung town. The girl who greeted us put up her hands in a wai position. Being Thai and being terribly polite especially with sweet-looking young things, I instinctively put up my own hands and replied “Sawatdi khrap” before realising that I was not in Thailand. (Wai is the Thai greeting and involved putting the palms together at about chin level).

It turned out that the Sundanese greeting happened to be a version of the wai, although they do not call it a wai. In fact they do not call it anything except a Sundanese greeting. And who better to demonstrate this than a Sundanese girl in traditional costume. She did it with such beauty and grace. How I wish we were 30 years younger.

Our age did not stop the driver from taking the trouble to extol the virtues of women from the various areas of Java, though. Sunda, Cirebon, Jakarta, Semarang, Surabaya, Yogyakarta and so on. My friend, whose ancestry can be traced to both the royalty of Cirebon and the pirates of Sulawesi was all ears. Our driver, being Javanese himself, was naturally trying to convince us that the best candidates for wives were Javanese. Moreover, he said, getting married in Indonesia would only cost us in the range of two million rupiah or so. Now, that is food for thought, especially for two poor, old bachelors.

Anyway let us just leave the wives part out of it for the moment. Too many damsels and all of them managed to have a distress story of some sort to tell. We seemed spoiled for choice and somehow it looked much easier to remain bachelors, especially at meal times.

Meals in Bandung usually consist of a fish dish. Of course there is also sapi (bull) meat. Not lembu, mind you. The sapi meat is usually served as miniature satays. A word of advice. If you are wearing dentures stay as far away from it as possible. The sapi must have had their fair share of skirmishes with quite a few local matadors judging from the tougness of their meat.

But hardly had we set foot on Indonesian soil and my friend was already talking about pacel lele. It is actually deep fried catfish eaten with vegetables and sambal. In the interest of gastronomic science, he was trying to determine if there was any difference in tastes between the pacel lele served at Indonesian restaurants in Kuala Lumpur and those found in Bandung. Much like he once went to Hat Yai, Bangkok and Chiang Mai to see if the tomyams there and those in Kuala Lumpur taste the same.

On our second night in Bandung, after hopping into a taxi, we politely requested him to take us in double time to the nearest restaurant selling pacel lele. The taxi driver must have misunderstood our Sundanese dialect because he deposited us near Jalan Sudirman where we found lots of shops and stalls selling bakmee but not pacel lele. We hopped into another taxi and asked the driver to take us to the nearest Muslim restaurant, instead.

This time there was no room for mistake and the waitress in tudung kind of convinced us we were in the right type of restaurant at last. Called Ampera, it is located in Jalan Kebun Kawung, somewhere between the Bandung Governor’s Residence and the Railway Station.

The deep fried chicken drumstick served here more than compensated for the missing catfish. Having found Sundanese food rather bland over the previous two days, my friend and I tucked into the sambal with gusto. Only this time it was not so bland. Being Thai I pride myself in my ability to stomach hot food. But this was something else altogether. It was like a few mini explosions had just gone on inside my mouth. I must say the numbing sensation moved us to tears and we were sweating in places that had no right to sweat at that hour of the night. But it was nothing that two tall glasses of freshly-squeezed orange juice (locally known as jeruk) could not take care of. Naturally there was no sirap Bandung. Sirap Bandung is a fallacy propagated by the back street vendors in Malaysia. Just like there is no nasi goreng Pattaya in the Thai seaside resort. Now I actually begin to wonder whether what my late grandmother called baju Bandung actually originated in Bandung at all.

But Bandung, being close to 800 metres above sea level has a rather cool temperature. It seemed to rain most of the four days we were there. I suppose if the temperature dropped lower than normal, the people of Bandung can always visit Ampera. The sambal would certainly warm them up somewhat. We did manage to find our pacel lele the very next day. Wonder of all wonders it was at a restaurant located 20 metres from our hotel.

Of course, pacel lele was not the only thing my friend was fond of. The other is fighting with taxi drivers. He seemed to have taken the fight from the streets of KL to back streets of Bandung over their reluctance to use the meter after midnight. Still they were a whole lot friendlier than their counterparts in KL. None argued or protested when we paid them half of what they asked. They were smiling broadly because probably they were still making a hefty profit.

I was just smiling because the taxi drivers did not take us to some dark alley and relieve us of all our worldly and unworldly possessions. After all, picking a fight with taxi drivers at three in the morning, whether in KL, Bangkok or Bandung is not very clever. But try telling that to my friend, the gaped crusader, who felt that justice must prevail and “broken meters” should be repaired.

We did encounter some very pleasant taxi drivers as well in Bandung. And my friend was not averse to giving a big tip to the honest drivers. If only they knew how much more they could have made from the tips if they had just used the meters in the first place.

The first thing I did after arriving back in Kuala Lumpur was to go check the next available cheap flight (translated as RM0.00) to Bandung. We were not quite finished with the pacel lele, the sambal in Ampera and the Bandung taxi drivers just yet. And, I had to come back to KL to find out that a replica of the Java Man is actually exhibited in the Bandung Museum. Now that us something I would like to have a look at. Of course, there is still the two million rupiah question to be answered. Tsk, tsk the things we do in the name of journalism.

From the Mouth of a Volcano

2006-09-21T16:10:00.001+08:00

I cannot help feeling smug. It is not always that I can say I am a millionaire. There I was, crossing the 50 metres or so of tarmac from the plane to the Immigration check point at Hussein Sasteranegara International Airport in Bandung with a few million rupiah on me. Malaysia had just beaten Indonesia for the gold medal in badminton at the Manila SEA Games.

While walking around smugly is one thing, gloating is quite another. It would be a fatal error, I think, to gloat at Indonesians, especially about Malaysia beating them at badminton. I could very easily end up at the bottom of Kawah Ratu, a dormant but the biggest of six volcanic craters on the outskirts of Bandung. I really have no desire to test how hot the temperature can get at the bottom of a volcano, even a dormant one.

For Indonesia, losing to Malaysia in badminton must rank somewhere between the tsunami and running out of clove cigarettes. But then neither do Malaysia like losing to Indonesia in badminton even back when we were losing to every other nation of some badminton repute in the world.

A few days later Malaysia beat Indonesia for the soccer bronze medal. However, by then I was past my gloating stage. Just as well to let it pass since our host and guide was kind enough to show us several variations of lap dancing. All to the accompaniment of music from Michael Learns to Rock, fast tempo and in dangdut version, naturally.

While still humming the non-dangdut version of 25 Minutes Too Late, we took the winding road up to the mountain in a Kijang (which is actually the Indonesian national vehicle minus the AP controversy naturally). The locals just call it puncak (summit), the mountain that is, not the locally-assembled four-wheel drive. The temperature dropped quite fast and we had the air-conditioning switched off and wound down the windows to have a better look at the swiftly changing vegetation and pollute our lungs a bit more.

Then the inside of the four-wheel drive began to take on a slightly unpleasant odour as if all of us were having indigestion and were playing childhood pranks on one another all at the same time. Nothing of that sort was happening, of course. The sulphuric smell was coming from the six volcanoes in the area.

Dormant they may be, but they were definitely emitting strong fumes and smoke that you can smell from quite a distance away. The fact that it had been years since the volcanoes were last active was scant consolation when we stood staring down at the smoky bowels of Kawah Ratu, the biggest of the six craters. We did not make it to the other five for lack of time. To the left of Kawah Ratu and making a wonderful background to the setting of an Indonesian myth was the Tangkuban Parahu mountain range.

As is always the case with any tourist attraction, there would be the usual souvenir peddlers whose vocabulary did not include comprehending the word NO. It was small consolation that some of them were kind enough to take us through the folklore associated with the area. You can tell they have been telling this story countless times to anyone patient enough to lend an ear. But nothing’s ever for free and the price for the story telling was being haggled no end by the story teller and his comrade in charms to buy their wares.

One cheeky fellow wanted to sell me a horn shaped volcanic stone with Quranic inscriptions. When I managed to convince him that I was not a Muslim, he was stumped for a few seconds and quickly put away the holy inscriptions. And that was that, I thought, when suddenly he turned around and there were strings of beads, necklaces and bracelets in his hands. His friends chipped in with some bamboo pens and postcards just for good measure. All were trying to outdo each other with their salesmanship. They were as amazing as the myth connected with the area.

It happened that once upon a time, many tectonic movements and tsunamis ago, in heaven lived a young god. One day he committed a sin with a beautiful goddess (must have been heaven’s version of playing doctor) and they were condemned and banished by the highest God of Sunda Pantheon to live on earth as animals. The goddess turned into a female wild boar, while the god turned into a black dog.The black dog was called Si Tumang. One day a Sunda King, who was hunting in the forest got lost and had the urge to urinate, so he did it in a dry coconut shell. The boar, which was thirsty, accidentally drank the King's urine that was mixed with his sperm. After several months, the boar got pregnant, but instead of giving birth to baby boar, she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl.

The boar then took her baby to the King's hunting log. The King and his men were surprised to find a beautiful baby in the forest. The King considered the baby as a gift from the gods and took her as his own daughter. The baby grew up to be a beautiful princess. The princess is loved by everyone in the kingdom, but she turned out to be a spoiled girl.

The princess was very skilful at cloth weaving. One day her weaving tool drop from the weaving pavilion. Too lazy to pick it up, she vowed that if there was a male that would pick up her weaving tool, she would make him her husband, but if a female were to pick it up, she would make her a sworn sister (this is Sunda after all, so no same sex marriage just yet).

However, it was Si Tumang who took her weaving tool and gave it back to her. Because of her vow, Princess Dayang Sumbi must marry Tumang, the black dog. Ashamed of his daughter’s mistake, the King banished Dayang Sumbi to the forest, living with Tumang, her dog husband (and these days we call that incest and bestiality). During the night, Si Tumang would turn into a handsome god and make love to Dayang Sumbi. Soon Dayang Sumbi gave birth to a baby boy named Sangkuriang. However, Sangkuriang did not know that his beloved and loyal pet, Si Tumang, was his own father. One day Dayang Sumbi had a craving to eat fried deer liver and asked her teenage son to go hunting. Sangkuriang took his dog, Si Tumang to hunt, but strangely, there was not a single animal in sight. Then Sangkuriang spotted a fat boar so he shot an arrow at it. The boar was the goddess incarnation, mother of Dayang Sumbi, Sangkuriang’s grandmother and Si Tumang’s amorous accomplice in Sunda heaven. Si Tumang knew this and he tried to stop Sangkuriang from killing the divine boar. Angered by his pet’s attitude, Sangkuriang accidentally shot an arrow at Tumang, and killed the dog. Confused and depressed, Sangkuriang then cut out Si Tumang’s liver and took it home. Dayang Sumbi cooked Tumang’s liver and ate it. Sangkuriang remained silent and did not want to eat the cooked liver. When Dayang Sumbi asked Sangkuriang where Tumang is, Sangkuriang told her the truth. The shocked Dayang Sumbi ran amok and hit Sangkuriang on the head with a ladle. Sangkuriang’s head was cut wide open and bled, and he suffered from amnesia.

Sangkuriang ran into the forest. Dayang Sumbi, who regretted her actions went looking for Sangkuriang but in vain. Dayang Sumbi then began a life as a hermit, eating only raw vegetables. Thanks to her diet and divine blood, she was able to remain young forever. Sangkuriang grew into a strong and handsome young man and was reunited with Dayang Sumbi and they later became lovers (a touch of Oedipus there, what?). Finally, Dayang Sumbi recognised the scar on Sangkuriang's head while combing her lover's hair and realised that her lover was actually her own son, so she knew she could not marry him.

However, she did not wish to disappoint him by cancelling the wedding. But she would only do so on condition that he provided her with a lake and a boat with which they could sail away on the dawn of their wedding day. Sangkuriang accepted this condition and built a lake by damming the Citarum River. With dawn just moments away and the boat almost complete, Dayang Sumbi realised that Sangkuriang would fulfil the conditions she had set. With a wave of her shawl, she lit up the eastern horizon with flashes of light. Deceived by the false dawn, the cock crowed and farmers rose for the new day.

With his work not yet complete, Sangkuriang realised that his endeavours were lost. In uncontrollable rage, he kicked the boat that he had built. The boat overturned and became the mountain range known as Tangkuban Parahu (in Sundanese tangkuban means upturned and parahu means boat). With the dam broken, the water drained from the lake, turning into a wide plain that now became the city of Bandung (from the word bendung, which means dam). DH Lawrence couldn’t have written a better story.

After our fair share of Oedipal folklore and persistent souvenir peddlers, we made our way to the hot spring or air panas at the base of the mountain. A welcome change from the rather low temperatures of the puncak.