30-03-2009

Singapore is an island, but it is very close to the mainland of Asia, close enough that the difference is spanned by a bridge. The bridge is over untroubled waters and it is over said bridge that my companions and I traversed into Malaysia. We left NTU at 9 pm, and a took a bus across the border. At 12:30 we got on a bus headed towards the capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur (KL).

A silly thing happened that I will describe. We got to the bus interchange in Johor Bahru at about 11:30 and bought four tickets to leave at 12:30. There were three of us but our friend Pavan was going to meet us there before we left. Pavan tends to be a little late so we didn't start to worry until about 12:20 when he still hadn't shown up. There are a dozen or so different bus companies from which one can choose, and we had no way of letting Pavan know which bus we had chosen. The bus was running a little late but at 12:40 we got on to be on our way. The bus started, and then stopped abruptly and the lights went on. Pavan got on the bus, asking us for money to pay his taxi driver. He had not known that we would be on the bus, and would have otherwise had no way to pay for the taxi. However we were on the bus and loaned him some money for the taxi and so we were on our way.

We arrived in KL at 4:30am. KL has two main attractions which a tourist is supposed to visit: the Patronus towers and the Batu caves. On Saturday we went to the Patronus towers. For a few years during the nineties they were the tallest in the world, and are still the tallest twin towers in the world. There is a skybridge (the tallest in the world) at the forty first floor which we waited two hours to see. It was WORTH IT because I SLEPT and THERE WAS A GOOD VIEW.


The steel monolith itself:

The second day we went to the Batu caves. The caves and the towers are very pleasant to visit and there is not much else to do in Kuala Lumpur so that is why we did these things. The caves were used as a foundation for a Hindu temple complex. There were many monkeys all over everywhere. Much more numerous than squirrels but less numerous than pigeons. The cave was fairly big and impressive. Here you see the stairs leading up to the cave temple:


Here you see a monkey giving me the stink-eye:


This essentially concluded our Malaysian excursion; we returned to Singapore Sunday night.

21-03-2009

Look at this:

This is a toilet related device, it is found all over southeast Asia, in male and female bathrooms alike. I do not understand its purpose, it does not seem practical for any application. I do not appreciate its presence as it takes up the space of almost two normal stalls.

Last night I went for a 24 km Singaporean bike ride. I went hoping to travel around the island, getting a good look from the ground up, but we ended up only biking along the east coast. It was still a good time, the ride was organized by the church Adam has been going to and there were about one hundred people there. We split into three groups and took a bike path down the coastline. It took place at night to avoid the daytime heat; we didn't get back until about three. Nothing very exciting/unexpected happened. This is a completely unrelated photo of something I saw awhile back in the mall:
Here is a bit of the campus where all of my lectures take place:



I've got myself a number of projects that are all due at the same time in about a week. I don't really know what quality/quantity/content of work is expected so I am hoping my local teammates will bail me out la. Stay tuned for more nicely planned and structured blog entries.

07-03-2009

The last day in Thailand I went with Tyler, Nick, and Steve for a tour of Bangkok. The trip was organized by the hostel; we drove around in a large van with six other tourists and did tourist style activities. The first stop was a war cemetery, SO INCREDIBLY EXCITING. In actuality this stop was the least interesting for me all day, but we were on our way in just a short span of time.

We were then taken to the Chao Phraya river for lunch. There was a small eatery built on a dock/raft on the river and we were given an all I could eat lunch as part of the trip cost. Immediately afterward we took a brief ride on a bamboo raft down the river; the river was moving relatively fast so we just took the current back to the van.

The next stop was an elephant ride. There were maybe ten elephants and each one had a small platform, large enough to seat two, strapped to its back. The "driver" sat on the elephants head, shamelessly whacking the elephant at random moments for no apparent reason; this slightly bothered me. It was a bumpy ride; an elephants back is not stationary, it rolls side to side like an exaggerated version of a horse.

Next we went to a water fall; it was pretty chill. I do not have any photos up to this point because I had already gone through the second pair of batteries I had brought along. There was enough juice to turn on the camera and take one or two pictures before it died, but I was saving it for the main event. I refer to the Tiger Temple.

The Tiger Temple is a Buddhist monastery in which tigers are kept and domesticated. It is a major tourist attraction because the tourists can have their photo taken with the tigers. Having your photo taken with a tiger is nice because most people are unable to do this and because tigers are generally great.

At the first point their was a long line waiting to be led through the dozen or so tigers lounging in the canyon. Two helpers would lead you through, one literally dragging you by the hand and the other taking pictures with the camera you better have brought with you. It was funny because I felt like a little kid; I am serious she was dragging me by the hand. The tigers were all chained to the ground; they are quite friendly but I guess they might accidentally hurt someone with their unknown strength. It seemed strange for the tigers to lay still in what appeared to be a staged pose. I am unsure if the tigers were forced into this or not. This is me with a tiger:

At the second point there were much fewer people and only one baby tiger. They let you go in without being dragged and one helper took photos. It was my dream to get a small tiger bite as a souvenir. I would make sure it scarred so if anyone asked about its origin I could say "tiger bite..." I felt this stage was my best chance because the tiger seemed playful and the helpers weren't being too controlling. I tried giving him a hug but he turned around and started trying to bite me; bingo. Sadly at this point the trainer rushed over and started hitting the tiger on the head; when he let go of my shirt they dragged me away, seeming sort of angry with me...

Nick ended up getting getting a bite which resulted in a hole in his shirt and a small scratch on his side. I was incredibly jealous; if he picks the scab enough it would probably scar. Great fun regardless, now I want a pet tiger. This completed the organized trip for us, and by the time we got back it was time for a late dinner. Later that night I rounded off the vacation with an hour-long Thai foot massage.

At the McDonalds in Bangkok where we regularly went for ice cream:

05-03-2009

Monday morning we took a train from Bangkok to the Cambodian border. We were up late Sunday night and we had to leave for the train at 4:30 am so I didn't bother going to sleep. It was an old-school train which was stellar; it had big open windows and I could have hopped off the back if I wanted to. The whole ride was quite enjoyable; it was about six hours which I slept most of, but while I was awake it was great to see the Thailand countryside as we rolled past. We played some card games which I was later told is illegal in Thailand. Here are my fellows boarding the train:

We had some trouble at the border: we had to take tuk tuks to get from the train station to the border, but they dropped us off at a little sketchy outpost where they wanted us to buy our visas. Some people had started to fill out the applications when someone else pointed out that this was likely a scam, so we had to persuade the drivers to take us to the actual border. Then we had to wait a long time and fill out forms for the visa and give them our passports and money; the whole thing WAS A HASSLE. Finally we had a three hour taxi ride through Cambodia to get to the guest house; I SLEPT through most of the ride. By the time we worked out our accommodations it was late so we just ate some dinner and went to sleep. On Tuesday and Wednesday we indulged in the Angkor Wat temple complex.

Tuesday I woke up at 4:15 am and ate the continental breakfast so we could leave by five. The owner of the house, Eric, has a detailed route/plan for visiting Angkor Wat that looked very thorough and enjoyable. The idea is to bike to the complex and hike up to one of the less visited temples in time to watch the sunrise, but due to delays ( the girls in the group kept going back to their room for only God knows what) we didn't leave until almost 5:30. We ended up missing the sunrise but it was incredibly overcast anyway so I'm not sure if we really missed out.

We spent the rest of the day biking around, generally following Eric's guide to Angkor Wat: one of the eighth wonders of the world.

Tuesday morning we woke again at 4:15 in an effort to see the legendary Angkor Wat sunrise; this time we took tuk tuks so we made it in time. We hired a tour guide who followed us around for the whole day, speaking with a strong accent that prevented me from benefiting too much from his wisdom. He mostly just narrated the Hindu stories that accompanied the temples which is not so much what I am interested in. I would rather hear about THE STRUCTURES THEMSELVES, which were very impressive. It was on this excursion that we witnessed Angkor Wat itself, the feature temple of the complex.

We spent a lot of time in tuk tuks, travelling from one temple to another and to a small mountain. I found the tuk tuks very conducive to sleeping so I indulged in this behavior. We hiked up a 1.4 km trail to a temple on what must have been the only mountain in Cambodia; Cambodia is VERY FLAT. The hike was fine and there were some very nice views. We past a tour group of senior citizens; I was astonished at the ease with which they ascended this treacherous height. One old Chinese man had a foot long clump of hair, one centimeter in diameter, coming off the left hand side of his chin.

02-03-2009

There is an extremely large quantity of markets in Bangkok; it seems like I spent HALF OF MY TIME there going through markets. Thursday night, Friday, and Sunday were mostly spent at markets. There were even markets that we did not go to. It was at these markets that I made my first purchase since coming to Singapore, and also what I hope to be my last; I do not like buying things. Here is a street market:


There was the Night Bizarre which was two blocks of conjoined shops; I estimate one hundred different shops, each privately owned. It was only open at night, 10:30 to 12, thus the name. It was at this market that I purchased my green silk boxers with elephants. We left the Night Bizarre in a tuk tuk.

I will now talk about the tuk tuks. Bangkok is full of taxis, and it is full of tuk tuks. A tuk tuk is basically the front of a motorcycle attached to a two wheeled cart, it looks like this:


A tuk tuk can seat three comfortably, but we loaded on five. For shorter distances tuk tuks are cheaper than taxis, but get more expensive as the distance increases because they are relatively very slow. One of our taxi drivers went up to 140 km/h; I believe the tuk tuk maxes out at about 30 mph, note the variety of units.

Saturday we went to the temples. To get to the temples we took a fun long-tail boat ride down the Chao Phraya River. There are many temples in Bangkok, MOSTLY BUDDHIST. Some of these temples were incredibly impressive in detail, while others were only impressive. Locals got in for free while every one else HAD TO PAY. There was a recurring theme throughout the trip of only foreigners being required to pay for things. I don't quite understand why they need so many temples, I would just make one nice large one and have done with it. Here is the inside of a temple, featuring the very prosperous Buddha:


Here is the outside of a Buddhist temple:


Some of the temples had "sacred relics" of long dead Buddhist saints. These relics appeared to be little rocks and gems encased in fancy jewelry boxes, but were supposedly actual remnants of the Saints' bodies.

Besides the silk boxers I also purchased a cool pair of lightweight pants which I wore to the temples because shorts were not allowed.