Trip Update #8 - a little late

For those of you who have been counting on my updates as your Monday morning coffee break/sanity check, my apologies for this being a little tardy. But as my mother says, "it's better to be delayed than the late" (sounds much better with a thick Indian accent). Essentially, we had no Internet access from 7/5 till 7/11. In the interest of keeping this relatively short, and allowing me to get to sleep sometime soon, I'll limit this to just a weekly update (till Sunday, 7/7). I'll type up the update in a few days to completely catch up. So here's what happened... Monday, July 1st A little diddy kept playing in my head all day long. It went something like "This is my birthday song, it isn't very long" (lyrics courtesy Aruna, visual imagery courtesy Saravanan). So how did I spend my 28th birthday? Why by visiting temples of course! What else would I do? Something a tad bit unholier? Never. The morning started off with a trip to Borobudur, a very massive Buddhist temple that was constructed around a hill, such that there is no real interior to the temple - just the shell around a hill. This place is deemed by the folks who spend their lives deeming stuff to be one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. This clearly begs the question, how often is it that one of the ancient wonders of the world (Borobudur) and one of the modern wonders of the world (me) are united? Truly a special occasion for everyone involved. This afternoon, we went to Prambanan, which is a massive Hindu temple complex that was built about the same time that Borobudur was. To me, it was equally spectacular. So why isn't it an ancient wonder of the world too? I guess because they only had one spot and they had to flip a coin. That would be the only fair way to do it. Brian and Rayman were rock stars all day. Everyone wanted to take their picture with the white guy and the brown guy with blond hair. No love for the brown guy who's keeping it real. On his birthday nonetheless. Tuesday, July 2nd After about 3 hours of sleep, Rayman and I got up to go to Mt. Merapi - an active volcano just north of Yogyakarta. It was really cool because we got to see some hot liquid magma (spoken Dr. Evil style) spill from the top of the mountain and roll down the mountainside. This sight can't be seen during the day – too much steam and smoke and whatnot. Late this evening, we boarded a overnight train to Jakarta. This train was actually quite comfortable - the seats were rather wide, reclined pretty far, and they gave us decent size pillows and blankets. Better than air travel in the US by far. Except that we didn't get any peanuts, not that it's such a big bag. Wednesday, July 3rd Got into Jakarta. We quickly realized why the tour books tell people to avoid this place. There's nothing to do here. Apparently, one of the previous dictators (Soekarno) saw it fit to spend valuable country resources in constructing useless and tasteless monuments around the city. There's one in the central square of the city called Monas (or National Monument) that kind of looks like the Washington Monument with a wider bulge of an observation deck at the top. The Indonesians love it so much that they call it Soekarno's Last Erection. I guess it was the last monument the he commissioned in the city - that would explain the nickname. We spent the morning trying to figure out how to get to the harbour, since this harbour was supposed to be one of the more interesting places in Jakarta. Along the way, we ate breakfast at an A&W's. I've never eaten at an A&W's in my life, so I guess Indonesia is as good a place as any to start. But they did have unlimited ketchup. I suggested to the counter lady that they use this as a major advertising ploy. She couldn't see the light. So after a lot of trouble, we finally make it to the harbour. It was pretty lame. A bunch of people unloading lumber off of schooners. That's about it. In the afternoon, we hopped a flight to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Before I forget, during our entire stay in this city, a favorite joke between me and Brian was "Lumpur, I don't even know her". Thank you, thank you. Next show in half an hour. Immediately upon reaching Malaysia, we noticed a distinct difference. This place seemed clean and modern and orderly and all those other adjectives that are generally associated with Western nations. Apparently, Prime Minister Mahathir has a Year 2020 Goal to get Malaysia unlisted as a third-world country. They're on the right track. We stayed in Chinatown where all the backpackers go, and immediately started looking around for a place. I was convinced that we could find somewhere that didn't have all the bells and whistles and met our basic needs for cheap. And I persuaded Rayman and Brian to agree with me. So, we found a pretty good place, checked out the room and everything seemed fine. Suddenly, I see Rayman point to the bed, mouth agape trying to find words to express himself. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the object of his attention. The upper bunk was already inhabited! Let me describe this being as in a matrimonial ad: two inches, hard brown exoskeleton, six legs, carries many many diseases. Before you could say Jehosephat, I was outta there. Fortunately we stumbled upon a very nice hotel a few blocks away - it was at least twice as much as the Roach Motel, but this was no time to be a cheapskate. Rayman and Brian were thoroughly enjoying this, having finally found my weakness to not accepting meager accommodations. Thursday, July 4th I felt so fat and lazy this morning that I decided that I would look around for somewhere to run. It didn't work. I ended up jogging on streets, and having to pause to navigate through traffic to cross the streets. But it felt nice to get some blood pumping. Kuala Lumpur (also known as KL) was crazy hot and humid. So what better a thing to get for breakfast than some spicy Indian food! We're idiots. First stop on our walking tour today was Merdeka Square, where Malaysia declared its independence from the Brits sometime in the 40s, I think. Now the square is home of SE Asia's tallest flagpole. Whoopty frickin doo. Since it had been two whole countries ago since we had visited a tower (last one was in Sydney), we walked a few kilometers to the KL Tower and purchased tickets for the observation deck to get a good view of the entire city. We also got an audio tour free with the observation deck ticket, which meant that we got to wear headphones and listen to some lady tell us about KL. At Station #9, this lady also explained to us that Satay originated in Malaysia and not in Thailand. She followed this proclamation by purring a convincingly sexy "mmmmm". Rayman and Brian were fascinated by this (or turned on - I wasn't about to look), and replayed Station #9 over and over. I had to peel them away. Such children. Sheesh. Chinatown's Night Market was particularly interesting. They had DVDs on sale for Spiderman, Men In Black II, Minority Report, Blade II, Star Wars - Episode II, and other movies that hadn't even made it to theatres yet. Felt like Spaceballs all over again. Friday, July 5th Checked out of our comfortable luxurious hotel in Chinatown and took a shuttle bus north to Taman Negara National Park – the oldest rainforest in the world (apparently, it survived the last ice age). After a three hour shuttle bus ride, which included a brief stop for breakfast at an Indian place where an omelette was the equivalent of a quarter and a dosa cost 50 cents. Mmmmmm.... dosa (if you don't know what this is, ask your friendly neighborhood brown person). Anyway, after this bus ride, we hopped on a riverbus for a 3-hour journey to the park. Well, they call it a riverbus. I liked to think of it as an overgrown canoe with a roof and an outboard motor. Nevertheless, the 3-hour journey was very peaceful and relaxing, though our butts were glad when it was over. We had decided not to stay at the resort and village and instead stay at Nusa Camp 15 minutes upstream so that we could be more in touch with nature. Well, we succeeded in that – we were bombarded with mosquitoes at every waking moment, and our shared bathroom played host to all sorts of creatures, including a bunch of 1.5 inch ants - I kid you not. Saturday, July 6th This morning was a nightmare. We had run out of money and needed to change some US dollars, but Nusa Camp didn't know the exchange rate and wouldn't do it for us. We also still needed to pay for permits to be able to hike around the national park. To do both of these things, we needed to get back to the village, but the first boat back was at 11:15. By the time everything was said and done, it was 1pm before we could get started. So at 1pm we were ready to start our journey, and who did we bump into? Alfin and Christine - the Canadian couple who I hiked with at 3am to see the sunrise over Mt. Bromo in Indonesia. Go figure. So we all spent the afternoon together. The highlight of the afternoon was the 421 meter canopy walkway, which is a series of rope bridges going from treetop to treetop. Felt kinda like that scene from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, except with a rope bridge and no hottie martial arts expert trying to kick my butt. The afternoon was crazy hot and humid - we were perspiring like we had spent all day "Sweatin to the Oldies" with Richard Simmons (hey, at least it wasn't a Deal a Meal reference – How do I remember this crap?). So, we spent an hour tubing down the river to cool off. Niiiiiiice. Sunday, July 7th Caught the 9am riverbus to get out of the park. We were in a bit of a rush to get 300 km away to Kuala Besut, where we planned to catch the last ferry to the Perhentian Islands. We had arranged for a taxi to pick us up for this purpose. Our taxi was a hoot - it was a late 70s model Mercedes with an old Chinese guy for a driver, who didn't like to go above 60 kmh. After I complained that we'd never get there in time, he switched us over halfway to another taxi. This was much better - an early 70's model Mercedes with no air conditioning and an old Malaysian guy who didn't speak a lick of English driving. But he passed cars like nobody's business. We got to Kuala Besut a few minutes before the last ferry - just in luck. Aiming to learn from our Taman Negara mistake, we decided to stay on Long Beach at the Perhentian Islands, which was the most popular area. By the time we got there, it was nightfall and most places were booked. Finally, when we got to the last place on the beach, we found a suitable room. All in all, it was a bit of a nerve-wracking day. Since we all had that no-so-fresh feeling, we took turns showering and then had a bite to eat. The Perhentian Islands are primarily two major islands, with some teeny-tiny surrounding islands. The Malaysians were very selective when they named these two major islands: they called them Perhentian Kecil and Perhentian Besar, where Kecil means "small" and besar means "big". That must have been tough. But the islands are beautiful, the water is crystal-clear, and the beaches are real nice. It's not overdeveloped, so you get a nice cozy feel. Finished two more books - The Jesus Man by Christos Tsiolkas and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling. I'm a reading machine. Till 60 hours from now, when I write the next update, -Paraag Tidbits 1. No Bill, there is no city called BooBoo-akarta. 2. Quite possibly the best feeling in the world is a cool shower after a day in hot sticky weather. This might be a close second to the sensation of taking your ski boots off after a long day of skiing (what my brother calls "the best part of skiing"). 3. The first American television I've watched in two months happened at Nusa Camp in Taman Negara, of all places - a very funny episode of Dilbert. There's probably some learning in here about how I probably watch more TV than necessary and all that, but I refuse to accept this theorem.