Dali, Yunnan, China 11/2008

About Dali

Dali is one of the ancient cities in China that has been well preserved and is now a big tourist draw. It is a very pretty city surrounded by the old city wall and filled with many pedistrian streets, shops, restaurants, bars, and, of course, tourists. To the west of the city is a small mountain (hill?) range and to the east is a huge lake. Dali is a small city, and while it is obviously a tourist town, it doesn't have that bad feel that a lot of tourist towns have. That is, it doesn't have people running up to you every 10 feet to buy their crap or eat in their restaurant. It feels very relaxed. It also does not feel totally polished and plastic. It does, however, have a ton of middle-aged women who will ask you if you want to smoke ganja (at least, if you are a single guy walking down the foreigner ghetto streets.) On the plus side, no one offered me sex the whole time I was there, and I did not get the ubiquitous calls for "massage" on my hotel phone.

I saw several westerners here, but very few in comparison to the number of Chinese tourists. Still, it was more than I have seen in other places in China.

I was in Dali twice--before and after my trek through Tiger Leaping Gorge.

Things to See

The city wall is quite nice, if incomplete. The gate houses are quite impressive and well restored. You can go up the south gate and walk about a quarter of the way around the city perimeter, which I did and enjoyed. I ran into a couple in wedding attire taking pictures. I seem to run into that a lot in Asia.

There is a pretty little stream (aritificial?) that is very pleasant and soothing. The third hotel I stayed at in Dali was right on the stream.

There is a little market area near the south gate of the wall and another further in. Not being a shopper, I didn't bother to do more than acknowledge that they were there.

The Three Pagodas are abig attractionc just outside of town. I rode past them on a bike one day and decided that they just looked like other pagodas and I wasn't going to bother to spend US$20 just to see a few pagodas. Someone later told me that they were indeed quite impressive.

There is a temple on the hills that I wanted to go to but never got around to. A chairlift takes you up and there are miles of hiking trails. I was going to do this my second time in town, but crappy, misty weather and preoccupation with travel planning prevented it.

The big lake is also an attraction. I biked along the west side one day.

Mainly, the thing to do is just walk around town and absorb the ambiance. And buy stuff if that is your thing.

The Road to Dali

I took a 5 hour bus ride from Kunming, Yunnan, China to Dali. My information from the token English speaking worker at the bus station the previous day was not quite correct so I ended up waiting a better part of an hour for the next bus. It was a pleasant enough ride in spite of the large Chinese guy sitting next to me who spilled over into my seat. There was a bit of scenery as we headed into the hills. There was, unfortunately, entertainment on this trip. Fortunately, it was not blasting at full volume and was in Chinese, meaning I could ignore it if I tried. It was some Jackie Chan movie followed by "Kung Fu Hustle", which is a movie that I like a lot.

We stopped for a bathroom break at a place with a bunch of other buses stopped for the same reason. I did not see another white person there. I was also the only person wearing a short sleeved shirt and no jacket. It actually felt great--my first dose of warm sunshine in a long time.

Unfortunately, there are 2 placed called Dali--Xiaguan (Dali City) and Dali old town. I wanted to go to Dali old town, but knew that the bus was going to Xiaguan. I also knew that there were two local buses going from one to the other. Unfortunately, the direction to the stop for one of these buses was less than specific. I ended up wandering around for probably 40 minutes before finding a bus stop for one of these buses. Half an hour later I was in Dali (old town).

Arrival

Dali has a city wall around it. Most of the stuff of interest is within the walls. Once the bus got within the city walls, I got off the bus along with a bunch of other people.

As soon as I got off the bus, I started to put on my backpacks. While doing so, a bunch of middle-school aged boys walked by, saying "Hello!". I helloed them back and one of them said "Welcome to Dali!" and another said "Welcome to China." A pretty warm welcome. A moment later, one of them came up to me and offered me a bit of street food--a thin flat bread filled with some finely chopped veggies and sauce. I was a bit suspicious, but accepted. They giggled as I started eating. I checked inside to make sure that there was nothing there that shouldn't be. If anything, they might have put a little extra hot sauce in it, but that was lost on me. I thanked them and went on.

I had probably only walked about 10 feet before I was about to pass a couple walking the same way. The guy said "Hello" and we started a little conversation. He was from Nepal and was studying in Xiaguan. His girlfriend was Chinese, and they were visiting Dali for the day. We chatted (while I was eating the snack in one hand, had my guidebook in the other, my rucksack on my back, and my daypack on my front) until we reached a signpost and I had to figure out where I was. They tried to help me get where I was going, and the girl asked a local for information, but in the end, I had the map and the compass, so I figured it out myself. They were heading the opposite direction, so we parted ways there.

That was one of the most friendly introductions to a city that I have ever had and probably had a lot to do with me liking Dali.

Walking toward the hotel area, I saw another white guy carrying a backpack with a an older local woman next to him, animatedly trying to talk to him in Chinese, with him good-naturedly saying "No, thank you, I don't need help." I know that situation. She was a tout trying to get him to hotels. He saw me and saw me smiling at his plight and said to her, "He's looking for a hotel--go help him."

I laughed and said, "Thanks, a lot."

She seemed to think we were together and tried to show us both to the hotels on her brochure--which happened to be two of the places I was going to look at anyway. I kept walking, with her alongside, and the other guy ditched. She figured that I was the horse to bet on and stayed with me.

I let her "guide" me to the first hotel (I knew exactly where it was) but wanted to check out another before going to the other hotel on her list. I could not explain this to her and she asked a local schoolgirl to interpret. The girl asked what the problem was and I told her that there was no problem and explained the situation. She was very helpful and the woman stopped following me--not that I minded her tagging along.

I checked out several hotels (it was low season--plenty of people were watching for people with backpacks to whom they could show their hotels) and eventually decided on MCA Hostel just outside the wall.

The Bike Ride

I was walking through town when the guy working at Dali Cycling asked, in perfect English, if I needed anything. I've had a hard time in China finding people who understood exactly what I was asking, so I took the opportunity to ask him some questions I had about going to Tiger Leaping Gorge. In the end, I decided it would be nice to rent a bike from him and go by the lake.

My plan was to ride the high road (closer to the mountains and less traffic) for an hour after which I would have two hours to ride back before it got dark. I must have been going a lot faster than I thought because I got very far before the hour was up.

I rode past the Three Pagodas and through some uninteresting villages. Then I decided to cross to the low road (nearer the lake and with more traffic) to go back to town. I went down to the lake shore where the only other people were--yep, a couple in wedding attire and a photographer.

Back on the main road, I saw the entrance to a village that had a temple marked on the map, so I took a detour. I was glad that I did--not for the temple, but for the village. I ended up going down narrow dirt roads squeezed between buildings and through a small crowd of old people and kids. I definitey felt like an oddity. I went past a small local market which was quite colorful.

And Along Came a Spider

I was trying to find my through the labrynthian streets of the village back to the main road, when I saw right in my path this huge spider hanging in the air. (Ok, it was only a couple of inches long, but to an arachnaphobe, that is huge.) I tried to swerve out of the way and looked back to see if the spider was still hanging in the air. It was nowhere to be seen. I panicked and started slapping at my leg which was where it would have hit, trying to see it. Unfortunately, that meant that my eyes were not on the road. I side-swiped a parked bike and knocked it over. I just bumped it with my leg, and I'm sure it was fine, but I felt really bad knowing that that bike probably represented a major investment to its owner. I got off my bike, picked up the other bike, and apologized profusely (well, as profusely as I could knowing only one phrase of apology in Chinese) to the owner who was sitting just inside the door with a couple of friends. They just smiled and dismissed my apologies. I rode off feeling like an idiot. They surely must have been wondering how this foreigner could possibly have run into a parked bicycle.

The Ride Back

The ride back was kind of a bitch. The sun was going down, so it got cold and windy. It was much harder riding back than riding out, and I was getting a bit tired. The scenery was very nice though--fields just off the road with mountains and lake in the background.

I passed several other people on bikes making their way back to town, all Chinese. We kept passing each other to the point that we began to recognize each other and wave as we passed.

By the time I finally got back to town, I was so ready to get rid of the bike.

The Food

There are some interesting foods to try in Dali. The Bai cuisine tends to be a bit on the sour side, but not bad. The Napalese food is interesting too--I had few yak dishes.

Departure

After a few days in Dali, I figured I had better get going since I had only a week left on my Chinese visa. I got a bus ticket to Tiger Leaping Gorge and was on my way.

Cameron Highlands, Malaysia 07/16/08-07/18/08

The Cameron Highlands are hilly areas in the higher elevations of central Malaysia. There are many hiking trails there, as well as tea plantations, and strawberry farms, many of which offer tours. On the ride to Tanah Rata, the main town and the place where I stayed, I passed by a tea field. It was very pretty, but having already gone through tea fields in more scenic parts of India, I wasn't really interested in exploring them any further here.

Tanah Rata had good Indian food, but as far as hiking trails and water falls, I was sorely disappointed. Before going hiking I went to the information booth in town to get the latest information on the trails and see which would be the best to take. This was pointless because, although the information booth was open, it was deserted. I went there again after my day of hiking and there was still no one there.

Stuck in Kuala Lumpur

When traveling by bus from Melaka to Tanah Rata, I had to change buses in Kuala Lumpur. Since I could not be sure when the first bus would arrive, I could not reserve a seat on the second bus.

When I got to the Pudaraya bus terminal in KL at 12:30, I immediately tried to book a ticket to Tanah Rata. The next bus was scheduled to leave at 1:00pm. That would have been perfect, except the bus was full. I had to wait for the 3:30 bus. Crap.

I checked my bag at the bus station and wandered across Chinatown, hopped on a train, and went to Kuala Lumpur City Center (the mall attached to the Petronus towers) for lunch. I had bad Indian food and a crepe. I took my time and headed back to the bus station.

I hopped on the bus, which was 25 minutes late leaving.

Arrival

When I got to Tanah Rata, I checked into my hotel--KRS Pines. I had hoped for quiet. It was quiet except that every sound both inside and outside were transmitted directly into my room--exactly what I was trying to avoid. Oh, well. It wasn't that bad. Other than that, the place was fine.

After checking in, I went out to eat. It was already 8:30, but there were several places open. This is definitely a area that caters to tourists. I ate at an Indian place which was pretty good. I ate a lot of Indian food in Tanah Rata.

Hiking

The next day I got up and left to go hiking at 10:30. After failing to get any information at the tourist information office, I decided to take trail #9 to Robinson Falls. It was was just OK--a bit disappointing. It would have been better if you could actually see the falls through the trees and brush.

I continued on #9 to trail #8. This trail basically started straight up, rough and slippery. The whole trail was very steep with no views to compensate for it. Up and up and up and down and down and down and up and up and up and down and down and up and up. I was getting worried about how long it would take to get back. (I had food, water, a cell phone, and an emergency blanket.) I did not want to turn around because the trail I came up was not one I would want to go down again.

I ran into a young British guy coming the other direction and he said it was about two hours back. Crap. I had already been hiking two hours and I wanted out. Nonetheless, I felt much better for having seen him. It made me feel more secure to see someone coming from where I was going and getting a sense of how bad it would be.

A few minutes later, at the peak, I ran into an older traveler. He seemed to know the area. I asked him which was the best way down, and he told me to take trail #3 to trail #6, which I eventually did. It was good that I ran into him--the maps did not show #6 (or rather, they did show it, but they showed the old #6 which was miles away.) The guy stopped for lunch there and I stopped and ate a muffin and chatted a bit. He was originally from America but seems to have been on the road for years.

It was still a long trek back with much up and down, but not as much as trail #8. I saw Parit falls on the way back to town. It was a joke. A brown drop that was nothing to look at.

With the exception of one spot in the boggy bottom of a valley near the end of my hiking, the trails were easy to follow.

All and all, a very disappointing day of hiking. I decided that I would leave for Penang the next day.

I went back to the information desk when I got back to town. It was still empty.

An Even Worse Walk

After lunch, I went back to my hotel and rested a bit. I saw the young woman who works there and asked her about suggested hikes. The one she pointed out was to another mountain. I did not want another one of those hikes. I decided that I would just walk down the road to a scenic viewpoint shown on the map in Lonely Planet.

I started walking to the viewpoint that was supposedly a mile out of town. I walked and walked along the highway and never found it. I don't know if I went the wrong direction or if it was just not what I expected to be and I missed it. I did not see the tea fields that I expected. When I turned around it started raining. I was drenched and my right shoe developed a hole in the bottom. A metal bar was sticking out and clicking on the asphalt as I walked. The shoe was acting like a pump--every step pumped water into my shoe. I felt like a fool walking along that highway.

When I got to the hotel, I was soaked.

Departure

The bus ride out of the highlands from Tanah Rata to Penang was not as scenic as the ride coming from KL. Ugly buildings or stripped ground spoiled the scenery in a lot of places. I don't see the big attraction of the Cameron Highlands. While sitting on the bus, I lamented that Malaysia had been kind of disappointing so far.

Melaka, Malaysia 07/14/08-07/16/08

I left Kuala Lumpur and headed to Melaka. Several Malaysians that I met in KL indicated that that was a place to go. The guidebooks seemed to agree. After going there, I don't see the attraction. Yes, the city is historically significant, but if you are not a Malaysian history buff, I wouldn't bother going. Don't get me wrong, it is a pleasant city. It just isn't that interesting to me. Since I visited, the city was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site along with Penang, Malaysia. Having seen its colonial neighborhoods, I was a bit surprised by this.

Arrival

In Kuala Lumpur, I got up packed, did a little shopping before checking out, grabbed a McDonald's burger (sad, isn't it?) and then went to the Pudaraya bus station a few blocks from my hotel in Chinatown. This bus station is pretty large and busy building. The teaming masses make it seem a little chaotic, but it is fairly organized--definitely not like the total chaos of many Central American bus stations.

I got on the bus, no problem, but almost got off a half hour early. Of the 20 or 30 people on the bus, I was the only one taking it all the way to Melaka city, which really surprised. Fortunately, the bus driver, who did not speak English, got my attention and said, "Melaka Sentral?" to which I said, "Yes", and he waved me back on the bus (which I had just stepped off while following everyone else. I saw no sign at the station, so I assumed it was Melaka. I never did find out what station that was.

When I got to Melaka, I took local bus 17 as described in Lonely Planet and got off within a couple of blocks of the hotels I wanted to look at. Traveler's Lodge was full. Uh oh. I didn't think things would be busy. I grabbed the last room available at Samudra Inn. It was a double with air con, but shared bath. Oh, well, only RM 40 (about US$12.50). I was worried it would be too noisy--there is TV down the hall--but no noise penetrated my room except for traffic, which was not even that bad. My room had a balcony overlooking the street. When I had the guesthouse do my laundry, it was dried on a line on the balcony from which I could pluck it when it was dry.

After getting in the hotel, I walked around town, hoping to find a late (4:30) lunch, but everything seemed closed or deserted. I ended up eating a curry puff from a place in a mall.

My aimless walk around town left me very disappointed. I did see the town square, surrounded by historical buildings. The theme is definitely red.

Seeing the Sights

The next day, I decided to take another walk around town a little less aimlessly. With guidebook in hand, I hit the points of interest. After yesterday, I was not expecting much, but it turned out to be OK. The weather was overcast and threatening to rain, which was actually very nice because I did not have sun in my face and sweat pouring off of me like yesterday.

I had lunch at the Newton hawker center--a big open air food court. The place was practically deserted.

I went to the ruins of the fort and the church. They were fine, but nothing extraordinary. I walked through the old street in Chinatown which Lonely Planet said had well-preserved buildings. I would not have noted anything about it if I had walked down it accidentally.

I walked quite a way around the city, and eventually made it to the old Chinese cemetery, which is on a big hill. That was actually one of the nicer things that I saw today. There were nice view from the top. (Tomb with a view?) Unfortunately, I got turned around when I left the cemetery. I was headed the opposite way that I wanted to be going and ended up going all the way around the cemetery--a few kilometers.

I decided to go to the waterfront. It is amazing how they treat the ocean like it isn't there. It isn't mentioned in tourism information, there is nothing looking out on the water, no waterfront restaurants, nothing except for the mosque, which I will talk about later. They seem to make a big deal about the "river" (which seems more like a drainage canal) but not the ocean.

Mysterious Island

I decided to take the causeway to the island just offshore. There is a big mosque there. When I got to the entry of the causeway, I saw a fence across the road. There were two lanes each direction on the causeway, but the fence was only open for one lane. There was a sign that said "Danger", but a few cars were going in. I saw a few people on the side of the causeway. I went in.

Just past the fence, there was some marshy land to the right. As I looked over, something hopped about in the water. My first thought was that they were big frogs. When I saw them, I realized that they were actually fish. They hopped around quickly on their fins and poked their eyes above water. Their dorsal fins were drooping down to one side. Weird.

A bit later, a tour bus stopped on the causeway and disgorged a bunch of Asian tourists with cameras, some of whom proceeded to snap pictures of the not-particularly-attractive seascape. I figured since there was a tour bus, it must be OK to go on.

I walked on, only occasionally seeing a car or motorbike go by. There were maybe two or three people on the shore of the island beyond the causeway. As I went on, I saw blocks of these big yellow apartment buildings. There must have been scores of them. They were all deserted. It was creepy. I saw a few people sweeping and doing some construction work on the road. At one point, I got a glimpse into a courtyard among the buildings and saw what looked like police doing practice for riot control. Other than that, it looked like a ghost town until I got to the mosque. I can only assume that the buildings were still under construction, although they looked complete except for garage doors and an occasional unterminated wire. It looked like some of the paint was old.

I had seen the mosque from the causeway, and it looked very nice. It was bright and colorful, looking very new. As I got closer, it looked even more impressive. It was set right on the sea. There was a fence around it. Everything within the fence was very manicured and beautiful. Everything outside the fence was very desolate and deserted. I stopped to take a picture when the late afternoon singing came from the minaret. This made the already creepy area seem even more haunted. I decided to take a short video to try to capture the feel of it.

I walked close to the mosque, onto the grounds, and took some photos. I did not feel comfortable actually going to the mosque. Being a tourist in a religious place--be it Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or whatever--always feels odd to me. There were only a few people at the mosque. I could see through the mosque to the sea beyond.

While walking back over the causeway as I left the island, there were 4 people doing a photo shoot on the side closed to traffic. There was a woman who appeared to be in very modern-style wedding dress, a man in a formal jacket and jeans, a woman fussing over the woman in the wedding dress, and the cameraman. It was very odd.

I walked back off the island, grabbed a Slurpee at 7-11, and went home.

Fun Food

After using the net, I went to Capital Satay, which was highly recommended by Lonely Planet. I was worried that it might be closed, since it was almost 9pm. It was full. I walked around the block and came back to find that there was a table free. It was fun. I went to the bar and got skewers of various meats, tofu, stuffed veggies, little boiled eggs, etc. and put them in the pot of boiling satay sauce in the middle of the table. I ended up going back to the bar two more times. It was 70 sen per skewer and my bill was RM 23 (about $7.25), so I guess I ate about 35 skewers. (Granted, many of them did not have a whole lot on them.)

Departure

The next morning, I packed, caught the local bus to the bus station, and bought a ticket to Kuala Lumpur on the bus leaving half an hour later. The Melaka bus station is easily navigable and not at all chaotic. I booked a room in Tanah Rata, my final destination, over the phone while waiting for the bus.

The ride to KL was nothing exciting. I used the time to read more in my guide book for trip planning in Thailand and Cambodia.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 07/03/08-07/14/08

Overall Impressions of Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia

From the moment I landed in Kuala Lumpur, I could feel the difference. It was much less hassle and seemed much more developed. This feeling would continue to grow as I saw more of the city. Compared to most of southeast Asia (Singapore excluded), Malaysia seemed more developed. Kuala Lumpur was a very easy city to get around as a visitor. It has a good, modern transit system making it easy to get from place to place. (I was told by one person that it is good for tourists but not so good for people who live there.) Another convenience for me was that it seemed that everyone spoke English. Not just in Kuala Lumpur but wherever I went in Malaysia.

Malaysia seemed like a very pleasant place but didn't seem too exciting to me. I should add that I did not go to the east coast of Malaysia which is supposedly where it is really shines. Kuala Lumpur has plenty of nightlife, but it did not seem like the kind I tend to enjoy. It seemed a bit pretentious. (When I later told someone in Penang that Kuala Lumpur seemed a little pretentious, his response was, "Aren't all big cities?")

Kuala Lumpur seemed nice and orderly and civilized, but not so much so that you couldn't find markets and street food. I would liken it to Singapore but without the stick shoved quite so far up its butt.

I met several people in Kuala Lumpur, and all of them were nice enough, but none seemed to stick. When comparing Kuala Lumpur with Jakarta, I would say that Kuala Lumpur is a much nicer city, but I had a whole lot more fun in Jakarta. It was easy to make friends in Jakarta and Bangkok, and while it was easy to meet people in Kuala Lumpur, it was not so easy to make friends. Some would say that it's a lot like San Francisco that way.

Arrival

I flew from Jakarta to Kuala Lumpur on Air Asia--a discount airline. As such, I landed in the Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) instead of the usual international airport. It was the most hassle-free airport arrival experience that I have ever had in Asia. I zipped through immigration and got waved through customs. I didn't even have to fill out a landing card or customs form. When I got through customs, there was no one. No hordes of touts trying to get me to go to their hotels. No taxi drivers trying to get me into their scam cabs! I could not believe it. Not a single person came up to me. I asked the information desk where I could get a SIM card for my phone, got cash at an ATM, got my SIM card (a couple of dollars), got a taxi voucher into town (US$15-20), and was out of the airport in a few minutes. I could get used to that.

Even the taxi ride into town was pleasant. I had nice chat with the driver who used to work for an airline doing the KL-Tokyo-LA route, so he knew California.

While I was waiting at the baggage carousel in the airport, someone came up to me and asked if my name was Steve. I said, no, but it was close. (People often remember my name as Steve or Scott or some other name that begins with S.) I told him my name, and he recalled it. He said that we had met at Red Dragon (a club in Jakarta) twice. "Ian?" I asked. It was him. He was an acquaintance of Pavis's. He was on the same plane as me, visiting a friend in KL. We chit chatted briefly before he headed to customs. Small world.

The Neighborhoods

Kuala Lumpur has several notable neighborhoods. My logding for the first few days was in Little India. I stayed in the Coliseum hotel. It was an old building with a great facade, but as a logding, it was pretty dumpy. Definitely budget digs--shared bath, no A/C, constant traffic noise. The room was open at the top of the wall for ventilation, meaning every sound in the hall was transmitted into the room. What do you expect for less than US$10? My room did have some interesting old furnishings and a private wash basin. In spite of its shortcomings, I felt pretty happy there.

After I checked-in to the hotel, I went out in search of dinner. It was pretty cool to turn a corner and see the Petronus towers glowing in the distance or the the Kuala Lumpur tower lit up around another corner.

Little India was a pleasant enough neighborhood, if a bit noisy. Some tasty Indian food. It took me a while to find an internet cafe and a carton of milk, though. I never did find a place to have my laundry done.

A few days later, I moved to Chinatown. Chinatown was much more busy and crowded and rough around the edges. There is a street that becomes a night market when the sun goes down. My hotel, Chinatown Inn, was in the middle of that street. It took a while to get in and out of the hotel because I had to wade through the market to get anywhere.

One of the other neighborhoods of note is Bukit Bintang. This is an area of nice restaurants, clubs, and megamalls full of posh designer stores. I ended up going to a couple of clubs here. Not my cup of tea. I can't say that I enjoyed going out in Kuala Lumpur. Granted, I only went to a couple of places. One problem with going to a bar in Malaysia is that the sin tax makes liquor very expensive. Expect something like $9 for a cocktail. I was a bit pissed that the first place I went (Blue Boy--not a posh place at all) charged prices like that and then watered down my drink so much that it was essentially water. You can either charge outrageous prices or water down the drinks, but not both.

The Sights

I met up with someone and went to the Kuala Lumpur City Center (KLCC) which has a huge, expensive mall and is also where the twin towers are located. There is a pleasant park setting outside with fountains and a small pool for kids. The Petronus towers (referred to as "the twin towers" in KL) are pretty impressive. It doesn't seem like one of the tallest buildings in the world when you are next to it.

After lunch at KLCC, we headed to the KL tower--a communications tower a few blocks from the twin towers. We took the elevator to the observation deck for a bird's-eye view of Kuala Lumpur. It also offered great views of the twin towers. I have heard that the view is better here than in the twin towers, and I believe it. For one, you can see the twin towers. For another, the observation bridge on the twin towers is nowhere near the top. It is also kind of hard to get tickets to the twin towers--they are first come first served and go quickly in the morning. I never did get up the twin towers.

I spent a day walking around Kuala Lumpur's colonial sections. I walked from my hotel in Chinatown past the cool old train station with tons of spires. It looked more like a mosque than a train station. I walked past the Masjid Negara (National Mosque), but could not go in because I was not muslim. I walked past the independence square--a large open space surrounded by well-preserved colonial buildings. Then I went over to the Masjid Jamek near where I stayed in Little India. I could have gone in, but I think it might have required some extra clothes.

An Exodus of Sisters

Near Masjid Jamek, I took a picture of the big fountain statue of what looked like pitcher plants. While taking photos, a guy asked if I wanted him to take my picture with the fountain. I declined, since it wasn't all that interesting. I ran into him again a few moments later as we waited for the street crossing light. He started talking to me. He asked where I was from and told me that he was from Indonesia near Ubud. He said his sister was going to Florida for her final year of college. He asked me stuff about costs in the US and the like. Then he asked if I could spend some time talking with his sister and his grandmother--to give them more information and calm his grandmother's concerns. I was suspicious. Not only am I suspicious when a stranger on the street asks me to come to his home, it sounded eerily like the story that a guy in Bangkok gave me which seemed to be totally a scam. I told the guy that I had stuff to do that day and in the end came clean that I was not comfortable with going home with someone I just met in the street. He did not push it and I went on. He seemed honest enough, but then, if it was a scam, it wouldn't work very well if he seemed suspicious.

But wait, there's more. On my way into KLCC the next day, a woman stopped me and complimented me on my earring. This seemed like a contrived reason to talk to me. Then she asked where I was from. When I told her, she asked if it was near Santa Clara. I said yes. She said her sister was moving there very soon. This was sounding familiar. She was with a couple of other women and they seemed to have just been shopping. She asked if I could spend some time with her sister today. I said I was kind of busy today. She asked about tomorrow. I came clean with her and told her that I just didn't feel comfortable going with people that come up to me in the street. She said something to the effect that not all Malaysians are scum. I told her that I would give her my number, and I would be happy to give any information that I can over the phone. Needless to say, I never got a phone call.

I am really curious to know what the deal is. In each case, I was in tourist-heavy areas. Each person seemed to start talking with me by intent, rather than by chance. Unlike most scammers, they did not set off the "Watch out for this person" alarm. (Well, neither of the ones in KL--the guy in Bangkok a few years ago totally did.) I find it hard to imagine that as soon as someone (always a sister) finds out that they are going to America, their siblings scour the streets for American tourists to get more information. I mentioned these incidents to Malaysians that I was hanging out with and they were very surprised.

Holy Hindus, Batman! (No, wait, that would be the "bat cave".)

I took a bus trip a little way outside of KL to visit the Batu Caves. These are a series of caverns containing Hindu temples. Not as impressive as the Buddhist temples in the Marble Mountains in Vietnam, but still pretty cool.

Switch to Liquid Detergent!

I was having trouble finding a good place to get my laundry done. I ended up taking it to a nearyby hostel (the Red Dragon Backpacker's Hostel) to be cleaned so I would have clothes for the weekend. It came back covered with streaks of undissolved laundry detergent. Surely, the person folding the clothes had to see it. I took it back. The young Malay guy at the desk did exactly what he should have: apologized, sympathized, and offered to rewash the clothes. Then his manager came in and got all Indian on me. He decided it was more important to start an argument and deny responsibility than to resolve the situation. The situation that had already been resolved by his underling got unresolved, and he ended up giving me my money back. If he hadn't insisted on being difficult, he would have kept the money and just rewashed half a load of laundry. I really wish self-service laundries were popular in Asia. It would be so much simpler to just spend a couple of hours doing it myself than dropping it off and waiting a day.

I Guess You Can't Be a Backpacker Without a Scruffy Beard

I went to trim my beard and fried my beard trimmer because I forgot to use the voltage converter. I looked in a lot of places and asked around, but there don't seem to be beard trimmers anywhere in Malaysia. (I might think that this was related to the whole Muslim facial hair thing, but there were plenty of razors and electric shavers.) If I had been looking for a pair of Bruno Mali shoes, a Prada bag, or some Fendi sunglasses, I could have found them in 5 minutes. Useful things are much harder.

Travel Hints from Helois

I did add one useful item to my travel arsenal: a small squeegee. One thing that has always annoyed me about Asia is the idea that bathrooms are expected to be puddles of water. The bathroom is the shower stall. Anytime you set foot in the bathroom, you come out with wet feet. By squeegeeing the bathroom floor after showering, I mostly eliminated this peeve.

Back to Jakarta, 06/27/08-07/03/08

After posting my blog for Kuta, Bali, I realized that I forgot to use my "I got bombed in Bali" joke--a joke as tasteful as Kuta itself. Oh, well. There is probably someone there selling T-shirts with that written on it.

I flew from Bali back to Jakarta. I just planned to hang out there with friends for a few days, maybe see a few sites that I did not see the first time. That's pretty much what I did. I managed to get on TV, much to my embarrassment. At least, I assume that it made it onto TV. I was fortunate enough not to see it. Hopefully, no one who knew me saw it either.

Hotels

Before I arrived in Jakarta I decided that I would book a decent hotel before arriving instead of staying in a flophouse. The Ibis hotel was nice enough, but it was inconveniently located (in a neighborhood called Slipi) and required a taxi to do anything. Not worth the extra money (a little over US$35 a night after discounts). I ended up leaving it for a crappier but better situated and somewhat cheaper (but still overpriced--around US$30 a night) hotel a few days later. For lodging, Jakarta seems to be really bad value compared to other Asian cities.

I Wish I Could Sleep That Soundly

One night I was at my hotel (the more expensive one) and I told my friend that I needed to get some bottled water (since you cannot drink tap water). We went outside the hotel gate to a little portable shop on the sidewalk just outside. (Think of a newspaper stand.) The guy was sleeping in front of his shop. My friend talked to him to try to wake him up. No response. Louder talking. No response. A light touch. No response. A light shake. No response. A firm shake. There we go. He finally woke up. My friend and I were both laughing at this point at how hard this guy was to wake up. It seems like a little thing, but as it was happening, I was thinking, "This is the stuff that makes travel interesting."

The Jakarta Fair, the Shore, and Colonial Jakarta

On this visit to Jakarta I went with my friend Angga to the Jakarta Fair, which was just some big shopping expo in the convention center. Nothing too exciting. The next day we went to the shore on the north side of town. It is OK, with bunches of people and food shops and kind of a carnival atmosphere. Then we went to the colonial part of town which was close by. It was nice, but nothing overly exciting. We had lunch on the square there at Batavia Cafe--a grand old restaurant. We sat at a window on the second floor and looked out over the square where there was some function involving speakers and the like. Plenty of people in different regional garb.

Taman Mini Park and My 15 Minutes of Fame

The next day, Angga and I went to Taman Mini Park, which was kind of cool. It is a huge park filled with buildings built in the styles of each of the states of Indonesia. It also has an Imax theater in a giant gold snail shell where we watched a movie about sardines. It was in Bahasa Indonesia, so I didn't understand a word of it.

To get to the park, we took the busway, which seemed to take forever and was extremely hot. The last part of the trip was in this little minivan that acts as sort of a cross between a public bus and a shuttle. We decided that we would take a taxi when we left.

We walked around the buildings in the park, and in front of one, there were a young man and woman in front of a small camera crew. On TV in southeast Asia, I have seen several shows where there are these energetic MTV-like personalities going around to places of interest talking to people. It looked like that kind of thing. Angga was several steps ahead of me and walked past behind them. As I walked past, I saw one of the crew point back at me. Crap. I knew I was in trouble then. I kept walking, hoping nothing would happen. Angga looked back and saw the "Oh, no!" expression on my face. Then as I walked up the steps to the next building the crew came running up to me. The two people in front of the camera stood on either side of me.

"Do you speak Bahasa Indonesia?" the young man asked.

"No," I said, surely looking a bit aprehensive, but smiling.

They each introduced themselves (I forgot their names even as they said them) but did not ask me my name.

"Where are you from?" the man asked.

"San Francisco, California, America," I said.

"America!" he exclaimed. "Do you like xxxxx music?" he asked. I do not remember what kind of music he said.

"I have never heard of it," I replied.

"Ok," he said. "You have to choose one of these two song. 'Xxxxxxx' or 'Sylvia'." "Xxxxxx" was some Indonesian sounding name. I chose it.

"Aaaaaahhhh! You choose 'Xxxxxx'!" he exclaimed.

"Yes," I said.

He started swivelling his hips and said, "Can you do this?"

I said, "No, I draw the line there," smiling through all of this, but probably not seeming that into it.

Then he said, "Ok. Can you say, 'XXxxxxxx xxxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx' for our audience?"

I asked him to repeat it, tried to say it, and before I got to the end, I needed more help.

Then he and the woman said some phrase while sweeping their arms from left to right. The guy asked, "Can you do this with us?"

They repeated it, and I did it with them, repeating the phrase as well (although I may have messed up a syllable or two.)

Then they thanked me, we shook hands, I said it was nice to meet them, and I walked to Angga who was a safe distance away.

"That was SO weird!" I said to him. Then he asked if I had a TV in my room and started talking about wanting to see me on TV. I told him that I hoped we didn't. And even more so, I hoped that no one I knew saw me either. Of course, this had to happen on laundry day when I was walking around in the worst clothes that I own. (I have this blue pair of pants that makes me look like a gas station attendant and a synthetic T-shirt that is a little worse for wear.)

And the Rest

I didn't reconnect with everyone in Jakarta. In my previous Jakarta blog entry, I forgot to mention a brother and sister that I met a couple of times named Punch and Judy. They did not understand why I found it amusing that there are a brother and a sister with those names.

While in Jakarta, I also spent time with Jojo, sampling food and doing more karaoke. I didn't see Pavis--the guy with whom I went clubbing the last time I was in Jakarta--but he did give me a call. He told me that someone was chatting with him online who, upon finding out that Pavis lived in America, asked Pavis if he knew me. My total time in Jakarta has only been a few days, and I managed to come up in conversation between strangers chatting online. Very weird. For a city with almost 9 million people, it seems to be a very small world.

Ubud, Bali, Indonesia 06/25/08-06/27/08

In many ways, Ubud, Bali is the opposite of Kuta, Bali. Instead of stall after stall of crappy souvenirs and obscene T-shirts, you have art galleries. Instead of people wandering the streets selling drugs or women, people wandering the streets are selling paintings. Instead of Hard Rock Cafe and drunken night clubs, there are quiet restaurants and moss covered temples. Sandy beaches are replaced with rice fields and green hills. Although there are plenty of tourists, there are no hordes. Raucous is replaced with relaxed.

Ubud might be too low-key for some, but I liked it. The town was pleasant enough, and walking through the greenery beyond was better. The moisture seemed to make everything green. All of the concrete had at least some tinge of green to it from moss and the like. So many of the buildings looked ancient, with courtyards and gated walls and shrines instead of just being concrete boxes. Even my US$7 a night hotel struck me as impressive. (The room, not so much.)

The one thing that did get old were the constant calls of "Transport?" from all of the people with motorbikes on the roadside.

From Kuta, Bali I took the Perama shuttle to Ubud. It was supposed to take and hour but ended up taking two becuase, due to a mistake, once we got through town, we had to go back again to pick more people up. You can imagine that some people were not too happy about that.

After settling in to my hotel, I walked around Ubud and had lunch. I walked out of town to the ridge walk, which was very pleasant. The trail started at a Hindu temple along a stream and went up from there. There were several young couples there pitching woo.

After the ridge trail, I tried to find the trail along the river. I walked along roads, some tiny, up stairs guarded by statues of gods and lions, and on tiny dirt footpaths through rice fields. It was all very cool.

I got to another major road and was clearly lost. Someone offered directions and I inadvertantly acquired a guide. I don't generally like having guides, so this was more irritating than helpful. It was the wrong trail anyway. I would have enjoyed it much better without him. The river view was fine, with the terraced rice fields. I got a bit muddy.

The next day, I decided where my next destination would be. Surprisingly, it was back to Jakarta and then to Malaysia. I was going to skip the rest of Indonesia. I know that I had only scratched the surface of Indonesia, but it felt like it was time to go. I cannot see everything everywhere, and I need to guard against burnout. At that moment, I needed a city. A place where I was anonymous and not a tourist to be focused on. I wanted to be in a place where if tourism dried up, the town would not blow away.

I had lunch at Warung Ibu Oka which is famous for its babi guleng (roasted pig). In fact, that seemed to be pretty much all that they served. The babi guleng was very greasy but very tasty. It even had something on it that seemed an awful lot like crumbled blood sausage, which I haven't had for decades.

After lunch, I walked to the Monkey Forest. There were certainly tons of monkeys. The park managers did not seem to disuade people from feeding the monkeys. It was a nice forest. There was a temple up top, and lower, by the stream, there were some lizard statues, a stone bridge, and a few other structures. The trees overhead had vines hanging down from them.

While going down the stairs to the stream, there was a woman whose hand was being held by a monkey. He would not let her go. When she tried to slowly pull away, he bit at her, even breaking the skin a little. She had no food to give him. Eventually, he let her go. It made me even more wary of them than I was. There were a lot of people in that park that seemed to forget that these were wild animals.

The next morning, I took a shuttle to the airport and flew back to Jakarta. On the flight, I saw Gunung Bromo and surroundings from the plane. It was really cool. There was a break in the clouds just so that I could see that. Then the clouds closed in again.

Kuta, Bali, Indonesia 06/21/08-06/25/08

Is your motto "Party 'til you puke"? Do you think Hard Rock Cafe is just the coolest thing? Have I got the place for you--Kuta, Bali. For the most part, the only locals you will see are the ones serving you or trying to sell you things.

Did you ever find yourself on a jungle beach thinking, "If only there were somewhere I could buy a T-shirt that was both obscene and insulting. Or maybe a penis carved out of wood." Well, you will never find yourself lacking those things here. Crap stalls o'plenty. As with most beach destinations you can find your T-shirts, souvenirs, sunglasses and beachwear, and being a developing country, you also have your bootleg CDs and DVDs. Massage is popular here. Presumably, some of it is legit. I expect that the women who ride around on motorbikes after midnight asking if you want a massage are not.

Here is a transcript of a typical walk down the street for me in Kuta: "Massage?", "No", "Massage?", "No", "Massage?", "No", "Taxi?", "No", "Massage?", "No", "Drugs?", "No", "Women?", "No", "'Shrooms?", "No". I left out the "Mistuuuuuuh" that often preceded the questions.

Oh, yeah. 'Shrooms. The area is known for magic mushrooms.

The heart of Kuta is, of course, the beach. Along the beach is a tree-lined walkway, then a road, and on the other side of the road is commerce. Fast food, hotels, bars, hawker centers, food carts, convenience stores, etc. Beyond this is a warren of alleys lined with kiosks and shops, massage places, hotels, bars, restaurants, travel agencies, internet cafes, etc. Beyond that is the next major street which is the club and bar zone. A bit to the side of that is the fru-fru shopping zone.

When I arrived at the bus station in Denpasar at 10pm, I shared a taxi with a young Finnish couple that were on the bus with me. I had to haggle a bit. (Funny, I seem to be better at that when there are other people involved.) We also went to check out a hotel together. It was down a long, winding alley between the beach and the party zone. Although I was not impressed by Kuta, I do like the hotel selection there. The place I stayed was a nice big brick building with a great pool area, a lush courtyard, an open dining area leading to the open lobby, and even a Hindu shrine. My room was immaculate and modern with air-con, cable TV, a good balcony, and cost about US$20. It was far enough from the mayhem to be very quiet.

Having been on the bus all day, I was starving. It was after midnight, so I asked the friendly hotel clerk if he could suggest a place to go that would still be open and was not American fast food. He pointed me in the direction of the club zone. This little foray would be my introduction to Kuta.

I made my way down the alleys to the club street. From the first glimpse, I saw that Kuta was everything that I feared it would be but hoped it wouldn't be. The street was packed with drunken white people stumbling in and out of clubs and bars. If you took a picture of that street, you would not be able to tell it from any other party strip in the world. While walking down the street looking for a restuarant, I was offered pot, mushrooms, and hookers. That first few minutes there set the town for the rest of my visit.

I was having a pizza craving, so eventually, I settled in an open air restaurant with pizza on the menu. I was the only person there. Before I even ordered, this guy sat at my table without so much as looking at me and started looking at a menu. There were 20 empty tables in the restaurant. The waitress came back and he ordered, still not acknowledging that I was there. I was really curious to see what this guy was up to. This was not normal behavior. Eventually, he started talking. I was polite, but not warm, waiting for the sales pitch or the angle. We just ended up talking. The conversation was fine, if a bit odd. He told me that he was originally from Nigeria. His family fled to LA several years ago and he is now living in Jakarta. He has a girlfriend in LA who was visiting. She was asleep back at the hotel. He decided to go out and do some clubbing while she was asleep. We talked through the whole meal--politics, relationships--but it never felt quite natural. I was still waiting for the surprise. None came. We paid our bills parted company.

The next day, I took a walk along the beach. It was OK--very long, very wide. It had a lot of families as well as 20-somethings. There were definitely a lot of young, attractive people. It wasn't great for swimming though--the waves were better for surfing than swimming. Even though the beach looked just fine, for some reason I found it all depressing. Maybe it was just because I knew what was on the other side of the street from the beach. Thankfully, that stuff did not encroach on the beach--no bars blasting music or any of that stuff. A few drinks sellers and surf-board renters and not much else.

In the evening, I met my friend James. James was the reason I planned to be in Kuta at that time. He was nearby with his coworkers on some kind of "team building" trip. James and I met in 2002 in California when he was doing an internship in San Jose. The last time I had seen him was in 2003 when I visited him at his place in Victoria, Canada. Since then, he has moved back to Taiwan, which is where I had been planning to meet him before he told me about his Bali trip.

James and I went to a couple of bars in Seminyak--a town neighboring Kuta. Seminyak does not seem nearly as crass as Kuta, but unfortunately, is quite a bit more expensive in terms of lodging. We talked all night. There was no awkwardness at not having seen each other for over 5 years. At one point I was vehemently accused of being anal retentive because I don't do drugs or one-night stands. We had a really good time, even though it was a Sunday night and there were very few people out and about. We ended up looking for a karaoke bar, but instead got directed to a place that had the little private karaoke rooms. Oh, well. We did karaoke for an hour until the place closed at 3am.

The next night, we repeated it all over again, except the night ended a bit earlier with a woodfired pizza in a relaxed restaurant rather than in a karaoke lounge. We parted with the plan that I would visit him in Taiwan within the next few months. He flew back to Taipei the next day.

I spent the next day relaxing and preparing for my departure from Kuta the following day.

Gunung Bromo, Indonesia 06/19/08-06/21/08

From Yogyakarta, I took a shuttle bus to Cemoro Lewang near the volcano Gunung Bromo. It was a pleasant enough ride with some nice scenery, but by the time we got to Cemoro Lewang, it was already dark. It was a cold night and there was a sulfur fog all around town. I was worried that all of my clothes would end up being permeated with that smell, but that was not a problem. By morning, the fog was gone.

When I arrived, the guy with the shuttle company tried to convince me to go on the jeep ride to the lookout point for the sunrise volcano viewing. Apparently, that is what most people do. I had no interest in getting up at 3am for that. I asked if there were jeeps going up to the viewpoint at any other time of day, but was told that I basically would need to hire a whole jeep just for me.

The next morning, I hiked to the volcano. The town of Cemoro Lewang is built on the edge of the crater. Walk to the end of town and you go down into the crater. In the crater, you see a huge expanse of parched earth with the crater wall around it. In the center is the smoking stump of Gunung Bromo and next to it the inactive mound of Batok. Near the two is a big Hindu temple, which looks a little eerie in the midsts of all of that desolation.

Walking down towards the crater floor and across the crater to the volcano, several men on horseback asked me if I wanted to hire a horse. I didn't.

There are 253 steps up the side of Bromo. At the top, I could look over the edge into the smoking heart of the volcano. How much I could see depended on the wind. When the wind died down, the smoke built up and you could not see much inside other than smoke. I took a few photos with my phone intending to send them to people with some message to instill jealousy, but was unable to send multimedia messages due to the lack of 3G technology there.

I went back to my hotel and had lunch. Cemoro Lewang is tiny--a few hotels and their restaurants, a few shops, and not much else.

I asked the girl at the hotel if there were any more hiking trails around with good viewpoints. She pointed me to one that went up the side of one of the mountains on the edge of the crater. I went there after lunch.

To get to the start of the hiking trail, I walked along a little blacktop road out of town. Along this road were little fields of onions and cabbages among other things. There were tiny, rustic, but fairly well-kept houses and buildings. It was not the rundown cobbled-together tin-roofed landscape of the towns and cities. All this with the mountains in the background was really beautiful. I was so happy that I was taking this hike, and I hadn't even reached the trail yet.

A few locals waved and chatted on the road to the trail. One woman in a field full of workers struck up a short conversation. When she went to go back to the field, I asked if I could take a picture of her and the others in the field. She seemed a little dubious and was shaking her head. Then said, "Ok, 5,000 rupiah" which is about 50 cents US. I think she may have been joking because she seemed a bit shocked when I said "OK". Given that these people probably only make a few bucks a day, it was, in retrospect, a bit overpriced. FYI, it is not uncommon for locals near tourist areas to ask for money for photos. This is the first time that I ever actually paid such a fee. (Of course, I usually don't take pictures of people.)

I went on a little further and ran into three toothless old women in colorful garb carrying bundles of sticks on there backs down the road. We all said "Hello" (seems everyone knows that word). They stopped and one of them started talking to me, but not in English. I did not understand a word she said, and she did not understand a word I said. They seemed to be quite amused, though, and cackled with laughter at a few points.

I was really enjoying this walk. The road ended and I got to the trail. I went up the side of the hill--quite steep at some points, not always the most well-marked. The whole time I was out on the trail I did not see anyone else except for a pair of young Indonesians out hunting. We exchanged the few English words that they knew.

The views from the trail were stunning. I could see across the caldera--a much wider view than I got from town or from inside. I could see down the sheer wall of the caldera and the mountainside, which sort of run together. I could see over the fields and the town. Parts of the path were surrounded by little white wildflowers.

It was clear that this path did not see that many visitors. It was a little overgrown in spots. (I ended up stopping my climb because it was becoming a bit too overgrown.) I eventually had to walk while waving a stick in front of me to knock down strands of spider web before I ran into them.

The whole time I was walking, I kept thinking, "People take a jeep ride to some lookout point in the middle of the night and miss all of this." What a crying shame.

The fog was rolling in by the time I started heading back down. It got pretty thick pretty fast. It was cool to watch it boiling over the top of the mountain and down the slope of the side. I stopped to take a short video with my camera.

I wanted to use the internet when I got back down, but there is no internet in Cemoro Lewang.

The next day I left Cemoro Lewang to head to Bali. This involved taking a shuttle to the town of Probolingo and catching a long-distance bus to Denpasar, Bali. It was a 9am shuttle--the guy pushing it said it left at that time because the bus to Denpasar came at 11am. He had also said that all of the companies in town used the same bus to Denpasar, and hence they all left Cemoro Lewang at the same time. I believe they all use the same bus to Denpasar. I do not know if they all leave Cemoro Lewang at the same time. I ended up sitting in Probolinggo for 2 1/2 hours before the bus to Denpasar came. I was not alone. When I got to where everyone else was waiting, there were several other people. Lo and behold, one of them was my "girlfriend" from Yogyakarta--the Dutch girl with whom I had looked for hotels and gone to the market.

The bus ride to Denpasar involved driving across the easternmost part of the island of Java, getting off the bus on the ferry across to the island of Bali, getting back on the bus before leaving the ferry, and then driving to Denpasar.

A few times while traveling, service people will ask, "Do you have any coins from your country?" It is generally presented as coin collecting. I suspect that it is usually converted back into the local currency. My shuttle driver in the morning asked that question after everyone else was gone. I was reminded of it when I got on the ferry and a guy was trying to find someone willing to give rupia in exchange for euros.

It was around 10pm when the bus finally reached Denpasar--much later than anticipated and still not at my final destination.