Beautiful Brunei

At Rowan's suggestion, we next went off on a 20-minute plane ride from Kota Kinabalu, in eastern Malaysia, on Royal Brunei Airlines, to the Sultanate of Brunei, and it was a wonderful trip!  Rowan and Shirl were each in charge of a three seat section of the exit row, at the request of the flight attendants.  What a difference from the West, where people fight over exit rows.  They *asked* us to serve!

The big kahuna in the town of Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, where we stayed, is the Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque, here shown in the daylight before we visited, with its Ceremonial Ship

and then seen from the Kampong Ayer (River Village) by Rowan, walking without handrails!

and then seen from the nearby shopping mall, reflecting old and new

Here are Rowan and Shirl, appropriately dressed for a mosque visit

Rowan and Razik, security at the mosque, who welcomed us with open arms, as did all who saw us waiting to enter!

Shirl in front of the Ceremonial Ship after the mosque visit

and the mosque lit up at night. 

And now for the new tradition, here are snippets from the paper in Brunei:

1.  Things are the same all over the world:  from the Brunei Times, December 5, 2011, Headline on page 1:  "Minister's call to private sector:  Give more benefits to women staff . . . She [called for] reviewing compassionate leave to enhance work-life balance. . . .  She said as half of Brunei's population constitute women, it is pertinent they are employed or it will be a 'big loss to Brunei.'"

And 2.  And a unique Brunei perspective:  From the Borneo Bulletin, December 1, 2011:  "His Majesty the Sultan . . . again showcased his commitment to ensuring . . . excellent  . . . education by taking the time to pay a visit to a few schools . . . .  Echoing his many recent statements over the last couple of months about the importance of energy conservation . . . [he pointed] out the questionable use of air conditioning units inside the school's gymnasium and whether that is actually required . . . ." 

[The temperature in Brunei is about 90 degrees, and the humidity is about 95%.]

Yikes, we have been in nine different places since we left Bali! Here is where we have been just since November 16:

So, we returned for Singapore for 6 days for all the modern conveniences, like:

a beautiful hotel in Little India (there are more images in one of Shirl's galleries) that has a pot for hot water and a refrigerator and side tables with lights for reading things like the guide book on Malaysia, our next destination, all things one could take for granted, but not on the road

and the Affordable Art Fair, which had lots of wonderful pieces, including these:

and fabulous desserts, here being consumed by Shirl, who has, as usual, a diet soft drink too:

and Bel (our great friend in Singapore, who is in advertising, is never far away from her phone/email device, and works her ass off - who does that remind you of?), who had a much smaller dessert  :)

 

After Singapore, we proceeded to what they used to call Borneo, land of head hunters and world heritage sites and many animals, wild (darn, those orangutans did not show up at the preseve for us to take pictures of them while they ate!) and not:

This is Rowan in the Kuching (City of Cats) Cat Museum.  For those of you who know, this large cat looks a lot like our baby Chakra, being taken care of next door in Twin Peaks by Auntie Jenny-fur.  Both of us became quite misty-eyed as we looked at thousands of images of cats and missed our Macha and Chakra. 

Now we are in Kota Kinabalu, just arrived last night.  Strangely enough, we had to pass through immigration on the way from Kuching, a city in the state of Sarawak in Malaysia on the island of Borneo, and Kota Kinabalu, a city in the state of Sabah in Malaysia on the island of Borneo, where we are now.  The immigration officer compared the two states to North Korea and South Korea (!)  They are not separate countries, but whatever the immigration authorities tell you, it is *the truth.*  :)

So far, what we have learned, among other things, from yesterday's Sabah Times is that:

1)  Kota Kinabalu received three awards during the recent National Clean Toilet Award Competition, presented in Melaka, Malaysia on November 23, 2011, at the World Toilet Day Celebration ("the importance of having a clean and functioning toilet in all the premises as toilet is the first impression for visitors.")

and

2.  November 25, 2011 was World Children's Day and the first In Vitro Fertilizaion (IVF) Baby day at the Likas Women and Children's Hospital in Kota Kinabalu, where officials celebrated the government's first IVF centre, which is reportedly already starting to show results to address Sabah's dropping fertility rate.  Oh, how much fun it is to read local newspapers, both for how different the challenges are in Southeast Asian countries and to see how they regard the powers of the word, such as the United States. 

Between now and Deember 13, we will be here and then in Brunei and Singapore again.  On the note of being in 9 different places in the last 43 days, we are now in the process of planning a long, near-30 day stay in one place after Singapore over the holidays - destination soon to be announced.  And rest, it is soon to come for us!

Moving Faster Than a Monsoon

The rain came down while the children played.We left Manila last week but not without getting slammed by some serious rain. Yes, the monsoons, they are a coming! And when it rains it pours in Manila. Here, the street kids get themselves a bath in the fountain to the left of our hotel. They romped and frolicked to their heart's content while the city got flooded, although not by Bangkok standards, mind you.
Indonesian Traffic: The same day or night but not as crazy as Bali.Then we were off to Jakarta, on the island of Java, also part of Indonesia. So many islands, so little time! Now Jakarta is a place that could use some rain because the canal system that weaves around the city is basically an open sewer system that stinks to high heaven. You can see the water flowing into one of the canals here that we crossed trying to find a good breakfast at the Four Seasons Hotel, which has a spectacular view of this slow-moving sludge. What's missing from the picture is the smell. That part is really hard to recreate.
Art amidst the devastation.Yes, this is a super quick catch-up entry because right now we're in Yogyakarta, where last year a volcano erupted sending another form of sludge down the mountainside. We walked up hoping to see some aspect of its glory but mostly there's just a massive amount of devastation. This house with the picture of the boy turned away from the viewer says it all: What happened?
Tomorrow we're heading back to Singapore because that's the hub of our universe here. We get to stay in a hotel in Little India so that's it. Our flight departs at 7:30 because it's the only direct nonstop from here to Singapore so it's up at 4 AM for more plane rides. Yeah!

Stop Over in Manila, Thankfully

It's a little hard to describe Manila, capital of the Philippines. So I won't for the moment. Instead, allow me to celebrate our "one quarter of the way through our trip" as of today (assuming we last until the end of 2012, or don't stay away longer…either could happen). But, yes, 25% done marking 140 days of travel without being jailed, hospitalized or robbed. At times it's gone agonizingly slow; and now, it seems to have whizzed by. We've met an amazing number of people and when we say we're traveling for a year and a half, there's typically a reaction of amazement or disbelief. Yet when we think of a quarter already being completed, it doesn't seem so long after all. I wish I could just stay on this topic because that would mean not having to write about Manila. Umm, so maybe I'll procrastinate a little longer with the events of the day.
We left the Lazy Dog with the now-well-fed cats and figured we better not be late in getting to the airport given the various modes of travel required to get there on time. We took the "slow boat" (see photo) back instead of the "fast boat" and discovered the slower one is much faster, more interesting, and cheaper. One Well-Fed Cat(As I write this, it just occurred to me we never paid for the boat at all; not sure why. I thought they were going to collect fares once on-board but then nobody did.) But we got to the airport so early that we decided to sit in a room dedicated for guests of the very high-end Shangri-La Hotel and Spa, who paid ten times what we paid per night (reminder: we paid $55/night). With no one there it seemed like a no-brainer. Oh, but then people did start to arrive and we're like, "Hey, you made it!" Also, we figured if we're kicked out it was nice while it lasted (the place had couches, current newspapers and television, unlike the main waiting area that had, well, none of that). The rainy season has really kicked in and this resulted in planes not arriving so when the Shangri-La Dedicated Fix-It Guy suggested to us that we'd be happier on an earlier plane and could he "help you transfer luggage to a more convenient flight?" We said, "Sheesh, this hotel is finally coming through for us!" Which we meant quite literally. So, getting to Manila all the way from the speck of dust known as Boracay was easy. Getting to the hotel where I'm writing this was an agonizing foray into rush-hour traffic with a taxi driver who was as clueless as we'd ever seen.
Of course, they always tell you they know where they're going but we've since learned many of these cabbies just don't know their own city. Even something as simple as asking directions is a Herculean task fraught with symbolic gestures and nervous laughter, then followed with more assurances the hotel is nearby but the traffic, which moves more slowly than free hotel wi-fi, is the problem. After two hours we finally found the hotel because one of the people the driver asked actually knew where it was and Shirl jumped out and said, "Take me to it now!" (I learned later it was more like, "Take me to the hotel's bathroom now!"). So we finally checked-in after meeting Scott at the door who's been here, at this hotel, on this street, for the past two weeks, never having been out of the US before, to meet his fiancée for the first time in person before he returns to Tennessee to begin the "K-1 process" to import said female. (In telling the taxi story, I omitted facts like: The contact phone number provided for the hotel was never answered. The phone number for the taxi company was answered by someone who was even more clueless than our driver. The meter was running right up until we demanded it be shut off. The driver went in circles even driving through a pedestrian-only vending area. All for a two-hour trip that is supposed to be about half an hour.)
Views from our 2nd-story window.But we arrived at The Golden City Hotel on the corner of Chinatown and Depressionville. (OK, that last place isn't so much an area as a state-of-mind: see photo.) We're only here two nights then we're back to Indonesia again. I guess that's good. Maybe in the morning, when we walk over to Seattle's Best Coffee (because Scott, who's become an expert on every aspect of the neighborhood, informed us there are no western breakfasts to be had nearby) and we'll see about welcoming in the new quarter of our worldly jaunt then.

Update on Tue, November 15, 2011 at 6:41 AM by The Untethered Folks

I mentioned the happy couple so I grabbed a photo of Scott and Arah before leaving Manila. Scott was about to leave the next morning, flat broke, heading back to Tennessee. Hey Scott, did you ever make it back? Have you heard from Arah? How's it going buddy? When's the wedding?

Scott and Arah in front of Golden City Hotel, Manila

Boracay: Barely a Speck of Sand

Click on image to view large map. Use ARROW KEYS to move map on small displays.You know those animations where the first image starts with something huge, then it zooms in further and further, like the Scale of the Universe or the Powers of Ten? That's Boracay, where we are now. It's the atomic counterpart to all those large, nebulous islands (or nebulas of islands) you see on the map in the Pacific, and wonder, "I wonder if any of those little specks are populated?" Umm, yeah, they're exploding with determined tourists wanting to find their own little ray of touristitude. OK, we have no idea if the other ten thousand islands are inhabited with their own Koi Pond of hungry, hungry tourists but Boracay certainly does.
Arriving on the ten square mile (26 square km) island is only possible by taking a prop plane (photo 1) from Cebu City to Panay Island, a motorized trike to the nearby port, a boat to Boracay, then another trike (photo 2) to the hotel. It was so much more difficult to get here than having a hired driver bring us down to Moalboal on Cebu Island (which had virtually no resources except for diving and snorkeling) that we figured we'd be in for another quiet, unpopulated outpost. We knew there were a lot of hotels and when there's a Shakey's Pizza and Starbucks you've got to figure there's something going on.
What's going on is this place is the Philippines' answer to Bali, only without the swarm of motorbikes and intestinal bugs. This is where people who are willing to put in a little extra effort get rewarded with beautiful beaches, wide range of restaurants, and well, whatever else you can imagine.
Once we finally got to the Lazy Dog Bed & Breakfast, we felt like we'd hit the jackpot for US$55/night because our place (photos 3-5) is designed to just relax, hang-out and optionally do stuff.