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Published: August 23rd 2005
Four countries in 2 weeks make a lot of material for this update. On April 14th, after 51 days of rice, I finally left Asia for Egypt, but not before relaxing for 4 days in the South of Thailand and making my way via Malaysia to Singapore.
Watch my
Thailand/Malaysia/Singapore VideoBlog !
A FEW DAYS OF ISLAND R&R I chose Koh Lanta, a relatively little known island just across from Kho Phi Phi where "The Beach" was filmed. Its mostly deserted beaches have "Chunks Ahoy" rocks baked into cookie coloured sand. The water temperature was a spa-like 34 degrees C - soothing if not refreshing. I did a bit of swimming, some reading and quite a lot of pacing up and down the beach.
What you rent here is called a bungalow but that can mean anything from a hollow haystack on stilts to one of many identical imitation pagodas (very tacky). I chose neither, opting to pitch my tent at the end of the beach next to the "Hippy Bar". The owner of this unusual establishment welcomed me enthusiastically and it was free! This was the first time since leaving Canada that I slept more than two consecutive
nights in the same location, and after 4 days I was ready to move on.
CANADIAN HELPS CONTROL KUALA LUMPUR'S RODENT POPULATION Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - In an act of heroic clumsiness, a Canadian (who wishes to remain anonymous) has been credited with the destruction of one of the city's least desirable pests. At 3AM on April 12th, only minutes after arriving in K.L., this visitor was already patrolling the streets of the Chinatown district, armed only with a heavy weight strapped to his back. His cover: pretending to consult a guidebook and look for a place to sleep. He was ready to pounce when his prey darted out from a shadow, pinning it to the ground with his left foot without even breaking stride. Then, just as the animal broke free, he landed a second crushing blow with his right foot, stumbling only slightly. Although the squealing rat hobbled to cover, it is thought to have been seriously injured. With typical Canadian modesty, the visitor asked "Did I just step on a live rat?" Two eye witnesses confirmed in unison "Twice!" The rat notwithstanding, my impression of Kuala Lumpur is that of a clean, modern city
Koh Lanta, Thailand
My free beachfront homewith lush green and flowered parks and shiny skyscrapers (photos). The famous twin towers are especially impressive.
Thailand was noticeably richer than the previous countries I had visited and Malaysia continued this progression with more tall buildings and shopping malls. It's interesting to notice the signs of increasing affluence that I would otherwise have taken for granted. Starbucks started appearing in Malaysia and it struck me that these are a symptom of excess wealth, or perhaps a pressure relief that makes us feel slightly better after letting off $5 on a coffee.
THE SEEDY SIDE OF SINGAPORE: HARDER TO FIND THAN IT IS TO SAY Singapore takes the progression of prosperity to the extreme and I doubt I will ever see a cleaner city. If a piece of garbage hits the ground, an alarm must go off somewhere. In fact, there are apparently automatic detectors in certain places to prevent public urination, an offence that is severely punished (someone on this mailing list is an expert on this). It is illegal not to flush and there is a snitch line where you can rat on your negligent (former) friends and family, just in case big brother blinked. The
Koh Lanta
Chunks Ahoy metro is of course perfectly spotless with no messy chewing gum on the seats - it's an illegal substance in Singapore, and no messy suicides - automatic glass doors prevent access until it's safe.
This is by far the most westernized city I've visited in Asia and, in some respects, I think the pupil has surpassed the master. English speaking Asians serve Dutch beer in American style British pubs, as though this was always meant to be. Beyond cleanliness, Singapore is a pretty city with wide streets, plenty of parks and a mix of modern and perfectly restored colonial British architecture. It's almost perfect!
Singaporeans' affliction of affluence goes well beyond a Starbucks remedy - they have moved on to designer clothes, expensive jewelry and European luxury cars. Their average income far exceeds ours in Canada, is 10 times higher than in Thailand and almost 100 times that of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
Of course perfection and prosperity have their price: $10 beers, $15 cocktails, state censorship and repressive laws, to name a few. You may recall the American teen flogged in Singapore a few years ago for painting graffiti and throwing eggs. For the more hard-core
criminals, possession of 500g of pot with get a mandatory sentence of death by hanging. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of their many annual executions are for drug offences. But I'll bet the recidivism rate is low!
THE CONTINENTAL SHUFFLE Watch my
Egypt VideoBlog !
I dreaded my marathon trip from Singapore to Cairo with its nonsensical routing through Paris so I was not at all surprised to learn that my Air France flight to Paris was overbooked. But when they offered me a Singapore Airlines flight to Cairo via Dubai, arriving a full 12 hours earlier, I thought my luck could not get any better. I was soon proved wrong as they handed me $300 for the "inconvenience", the least they could do for someone traveling on a free ticket!
My luck did run out though and it happened as I got to Egyptian Customs in Cairo. All the passengers on the flight cleared without delay, except for an Asian businessman accused of offering a bribe to the agent, and me. I was just asked to wait without explanation, which I did for almost 3 hours. When I was finally summoned to the office of the
supervisor, the smiling man shook my hand and congratulated me on the authenticity of my passport. It seems that it is getting a bit (a lot) worn and no longer felt like right to them.
TO WALK LIKE AN EGYPTIAN MEANS TRUDGING THROUGH TRASH Cairo is the antithesis of Singapore. Where Singapore seems sterile, Cairo is full of the intense sights, sounds and smells of life, human and otherwise. Where I was ignored in Singapore, I was relentlessly hounded in Cairo by strangers claiming to be my best friends and strongly insisting that I join them for tea in their trinket shop. These hustlers were overwhelming at first, but after a couple days, the "I am an idiot" sign must have fallen off my back because a glaring "NO!" started to have some effect on them. During my first 2 days, I was not given correct change once until I insisted. They always give you a thick wad of small bills, Arabic side up, hoping that you don't bother to sort it out.
This, however, was in touristed areas. Elsewhere, things change dramatically. The garbage, stench and noise are still omnipresent and probably worse, but the people are
genuinely friendly, helpful and honest. It always takes a few days to get the feel for a new country and to learn how to interact and feel comfortable - then it's time to move on.
A highlight of my time is Egypt was just wandering the narrow, colourful and crowded back streets of the old Islamic District. Every few blocks, a magnificent mosque would appear, minarets rising above the mayhem. It's at least as interesting as a museum to see how these people live today. Another interesting place is the "City of the Dead" area of Cairo. When there's a housing crisis, you can't be too picky about your roommates and that's what prompted some living, breathing but low income Cairenes to move in with some dead folk at the cemetery. They built their houses amongst and often around the tombs, with a bizarre result. The arrangement seems to have worked out well because neither group complains that the other makes too much noise.
Trudeaumania may be ancient Canadian history, but I'm afraid the Egyptians have us beat with 5000 years of recorded history and artifacts galore to back it up. I visited the enormous but disorganized Egyptian
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Petronas Towers (452 meters x 2) Museum, the timeless Pyramids at Giza, Roman ruins in Alexandria, the Karnak Temple and tombs in Luxor that looked like new after 3500 years. These were already ancient when Homer wrote about them in the "other" Odyssey!
A WANDERING MIND * It occurred to me while buying my hundredth (at least) bottle of drinking water, that in Canada we flush our toilets with this precious stuff!
* Anyone who has visited western Canada will know the stereotypical Japanese tour buses. Well in almost every country I've been so far, there are countless coach loads of French tourists following tour guides with little flags yelling "Allez allez, par ici!" In Egypt, easily 90%!o(MISSING)f the tourists are French, here to see what Napoleon (among others) failed to plunder.
* Canada Dry is a strong brand in Egypt. They even have Canada Dry Cola. So the inevitable response to my saying I'm from Canada is "Ah, Canada Dry!" This from desert dwellers!
* My new Egyptian haircut makes me look just like a pharaoh. Ok maybe not, but that's what I thought from the amount of time it took the barber. I had a train to catch and didn't even
have time for tea and sheesha (apple flavoured tobacco smoked through a 1 m tall water-filled pipe).
* The Pharaonic equivalent to a web page must have been carving on the wall of your temple (what, you don't have your own temple?). Hatshepsut (the first and only woman pharaoh) did and she devoted much of her wall-site to pictures and text describing travel such as her visit to the very large queen of Somalia, who rode a donkey to the beach each day. There is an image of the donkey has the hieroglyphic inscription "World's most miserable donkey".
* I learned the hard way that some metro cars are reserved for women only. If looks could kill....
* Ever since some tourists were gunned down at Giza a few years ago, security is very tight anywhere foreigners may go: tourist sites, downtown, metro, train station etc. The very heavily armed tourist police may be protective, but they are not reassuring.
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