KUL --> HKG --> YYZ --> HKG --> KUL

I'm coming home a week from today, and stopping off in Hong Kong for a frantic 12 hours of sight-seeing on the way. It seems a bit surreal - but then I'll be back in Malaysia again by Dec.31. I'm happy about that - there's so much more here that I want to see, it has definately started to feel like home, and, when I'm not buried under a pile of marking, I love my job here. (I've posted some picks at the bottom of this post from a surprise party that my students threw for me (?!?!) on our last day - not something that I'd experienced at an all boys school in Canada...)


Understandably, in the beginning I dreamed about Canada all the time: friends, family, places, etc. I even had this reoccuring dream where I'd be walking through my mom's house in Canada talking with my family and I'd finished my year over here...but I couldn't remember anything that I'd done while I was here...and I was OK with it. In the dream, I was just trying to "get through it" and come home. I must have been homesick. Anyways, I'm over it - I'm dreaming about Malaysia now, and I imagine that I'll keep dreaming about it for the rest of my life.


Despite being very busy, the past 4 weeks have been awesome. I can't believe that I wasn't getting out of Subang Jaya every weekend since the beginning. Well, now I know. Over the past 4 weekends I've been up and down Malaysia from north to south and from sea to mountain top. From camping out in the rainforest to drinking $50 pitchers while sitting in a wheelchair in a hospital themed bar in Singapore, it's been a wild ride. (I'll post pictures later.)

I'm at school now (1am), having just finished imputing my marks and report card comments. I'm headed back to my condo...I have to pack - I'm off to Thailand tomorrow. I'll be back in a week...and I need home for a rest. If you want to reach me I'll be staying at my mom's place most of the time. The number there is 416-481-7684. Hopefully I won't be sleeping.

notes from a cluttered desk

It's 10pm and I'm holed away in my little office cubicle right now, cringing under the shadows of piles of marking. It's a sign that the end of the semester is nearing (and all of the marking that that entails)...and a good sign that I've been having a little bit of fun on the side.

Opening up my last blog I realized that I haven't written anything in a month or so - which may point to the fact that I'm happily into the rhythms of my life in Malaysia. I'm still enjoying all of my classes (and we're covering poetry now, into which I've thrown a little Dylan, DiFranco and Lennon), I've been reading great books, watching good movies, working out (my building finally got its gym installed) and spending a lot of time with friends. I'm carving out a good little place for myself in this concrete suburb. I've also made it out of Subang Jaya on a bunch of weekends.

Since I've been home I've been in two running events: the Terry Fox Run (held in downtown Kuala Lumpur) and the Perak Powerman. Both went well for different reasons.

The Terry Fox Run is in November here for some reason. I volunteered to advertize and organize the students at Taylor's to participate. I've often found event planning a little stressful, as one oversight can cause big problems; however the organizers downtown made the whole process very reasonable, and the students were surprisingly enthusiastic about it. All in all it was a good show and a substantial amount was raised. Once we were on the starting line I couldn't help myself and I put on a good clip; I wanted to see how fast I could run 5k. Unfortunately I ended up being directed down the "short run" option by a volunteer...only 3.6k. In that heat, however, it may have been for the best.

The next race was the Perak Powerman, a duathalon. The race went well and our team of three even won some prize money for coming in fourth! Moreover, it was a good opportunity to get out and see Malaysia. To get there we drove north through the mountains, cut west through the plains, and ended up on the west coast. There seems to be so much in this relatively small country that I'm not at all worried about being "stuck" here for 180 days in 2009 (see my blog titled Trapped in Paradise).

A few weeks ago a group of seven of us (all Taylor's teachers) headed up to Langkawi for a long weekend. Langkawi is a popular tourist destination for Malaysians, but the island also harbours a large number of ex-pats who just seem to stick around for years...maybe because it was made into a duty-free zone in 1986 in order to promote tourism. The view that the locals must have of foreigners must be pretty squewed as a result of the characters that have ended up planting themselves on the island.

We were right on a west-facing beach, but I ended up spending a lot of time on the road (in a rented car, and then by scooter) checking out the island's interior...I've never been much for the beach. Still I was always on a beach to catch the sunset. The one I snapped below was from a beach on the north end of the island: Trouble in paradise, or a good sign that there's nowhere that isn't beautiful on Langkawi? I guess that cement factory had to go somewhere.

I'm back in the office right now, but hatching plans for the next few weekends. I'm off camping next weekend (a school trip), and then off to Malaysia's highlands the next, then Singapore for a friend's wedding, and then Thailand for a long weekend.

Under the shadow of my marking it's hard to remember that I'm living in such an exotic and exciting place. However, when I'm under the sun on the weekend it's easy to forget that there's work again on Monday.

All of the photos below are from Langkawi.

On a final note, I'll be coming home for the Christmas break (Dec.14-29)! My brother and his wife are expecting a baby around then!!, and I'm really looking forward to some quality time with friends and family. So, if I don't post again until then, I'll see you soon!

home for a rest

Upon arriving in the office this morning I heard variations of two things: 1) "Dave, you look tired," and 2) "Dave, you look like a 12 year old." Thank you Sumatra.

I just arrived back at work after a week of "vacationing" in Sumatra, a province of Indonesia. Sumatra is somewhat famous for it's size and it's natural beauty...something that attracted me to it in the first place. Sumatra is not famous for its haircuts: I got one for $1 and came out looking like a member of the Hitler Youth.

The plan was simple: spontaneity. A great idea, and something that has really worked for me in the past. However, I've never had such a short vacation with so little planning. It didn't work. Of the 9 days off I spent 4 relaxing/hiking/biking and the other 5 were a variation of bus, boat, train or taxi. I was fortunate enough to have a good travel companion (Colin) who was up for a relaxed approach and never complained about the lack of down time. Still, we were both pretty worn by the end of the trip.

I have a new appreciation for Malaysia - it looks like a developed country compared to Indonesia. On the upside to Indonesia, you can rent a cool room with a double bed for $3, get a tasty meal for $0.70 and take a 12 hour bus ride for $12. On the downside, many parts of the country are a mess. I don't know much about other social services, but waste management was a mess - there was trash everywhere. What would be beautiful rivers are clogged with human waste and garbage. I assume there is a poor waste disposal system, but there is also an obvious lack of caring from many people.

As for the highway system, I can easily sum up Sumatra's rules of the road: madness. Our bus ride to our final destination was particularly eventful. To list: we left 1 hour late, Sumatra is known for chain smokers and smoking on the bus is allowed, we were sitting behind 3 prostitutes (the guy sitting next to Colin took one of them up on their offer at one of the rest stops), the bus filled with the smoke of burning rubber and then broke down for an hour, the driver must have had strong faith and a low estimation of human life as he literally took around 30 blind corners passing traffic while going over 90kms an hour on a tiny two lane highway (the only way we survived was that the oncoming traffic either stopped dead to let us pass or they drove off the road to avoid us). To save my back from a painful night I perched myself on a little ledge at the back of the bus (the seats didn't recline), and when the sun came up the first thing I saw was a mid-size bus that had been bullied off of the road and was sitting in the ditch...I don't know how many we passed in the darkness of the night.

We finally arrived in Siantar, where we caught a new bus which quickly broke down as well. We finally reached our destination: Danau Toba (Lake Toba), and I relaized that aside from a looming dread of the return trip, the journey had been worthwhile.

Danau Toba is a Christian enclave in Indonesia (which I heard was 88% Muslim). From what I saw they farm, smile a lot, love making conversation with foreigners (limited, as most only know "Hello!" and "Where are you going?"), and make babies.

On one of our walks through the countryside, Colin and I met a village nurse. She'd only been working for 3 months, but had already delivered 20 babies. The population of the village she serviced was 500. That means that 8% of the women had given birth in the past 3 months...and that includes old women and children. Unbelievable. There were babies everywhere.

Another day we took a scooter ride that began beautifully. As we cruised through stunning countryside I remember telling Colin that "this is the best day I've had since I came to Malaysia." After visiting a hot spring where we ran into 4 girls from our hostel, we all decided to head home by circumnavigating the island. That was at 2pm. 10 hours later we pulled in to our hostel, soaking wet and covered in mud. We were hit by a thunderstorm, cold weather and terrible roads. Two of the girls described it as the worst day of their lives. Actually, I rather enjoyed it; it felt a bit like being back on trip and dealing with a tough day gone wrong. Either way it was a good bonding experience, and the 6 of us stuck together for the rest of our stay.

On the way home from Toba we were forced to hang around Siantar for the day. It was an apparently unremarkable city until we went on a hike further and further away from the city center. We got an increadible view of Indonesian life. While we saw real poverty, it seemed to me that Indonesian kids grow up happier than Canadian kids. They were playful and curious, and they had so many friends and family around them all the time. I know life must get hard later on, but they seemed to be in the innocent bliss of childhood that William Blake wrote about during England's Industrial Revolution.

The way home took us back to Melaka - the old colonial city in Malaysia that I visited a month ago. Getting off of the ferry and passing through immigration, I felt like I was coming home. You can see from some of the photos of Melaka how relatively developed Malaysia is (or at least some parts of Malaysia). Melaka even has signs that tell you where to take photos - too funny!

I'm back at school now, tired, but glad to have seen Sumatra. Next time, I'm going to put in a little more time planning and a little less time on the bus.

ps - Here's a bit more detail from Colin's blog about that scooter trip...a fun read:

dear all.

i am safe from a one week adventure in Indonesia. One of my colleagues Dave from school and i ventured to the Sumatra one of the regions in Indonesia - the least visited and considered the most remote.

hari raya is a holiday celebrated here during the time of Ramadan, and as a result I had a week long holiday.. woohoo.

we followed word of mouth to a small christian town surrounding lake tabo. Once a tourist hub, this area is best described as 'empty'. An abundance of guesthouses, souvenir shops and restaurants wait, and have been waiting for many years, for tourists to come.

Talking to locals I discovered why this is the case.
1) visas for foreigners became more strict and short
2) tsunami
3) earthquake
4) Jakarta bombings
5) Bali bombings

I guess this would do it.

Let me assure you I have never felt safer. For real, this country rivals Cambodia and Laos for the friendliest people ever encountered. Everywhere I received genuine "HELLO" "WHERE ARE YOU GOING" - people just dying to use those few words of English they knew.

Indonesia is 1/3 as cheap as Malaysia, and Malaysia is 1/3 as cheap as Canada. You do the math and this is also reflective of 'development'. Once home in Malaysia I felt like I was in a VERY developed country - obviously this is not the case.

We ended up meeting 4 excellent female travellers. 2 from England, 1 from Germany and 1 from France. Following our unresearched ideas, they decided to go on an around island motorcycle trip with us. Oops. Starting out at 10 am we leisurely mounted our bikes. 2 of the girls had never been on a motorcycle. The scenery was perfect, new and so green. Sumatra is truly a gem. Stopping to take pictures of the rice patty fields, ostentatious Christian things (graves, monuments, crosses etc.), water buffalo, beautiful children playing outside, elders sitting roadside, the gorgeous lake tabo. The day could not have been more perfect... too perfect. Around 5pm we predicted that we must be approximately half way around the island. Every time we mentioned 'Tuk Tuk' to locals along the way, which is where our guesthouse was (our final destination) they pointed us back where we came from. When we continued forward they simply looked confused; we should have read deeper into their body language.

As the sun was going down we are stopping to snap pictures. The road had been perfectly paved, smooth and perfect for cruising. No need for panic.As the sun sets the girls are getting tired, and having trouble keeping up. Becky from England loses control and hits a bench, knocking over flower pots - getting back up unscathed yet discouraged; she wants to go back; her friends encourage her to continue as we are half-way anyways.

The road is getting worse and worse. My colleague Dave, confident as ever on a motorcycle, passing by the girls, reacts to them swerving, loses control and before crashing into a tree jumps off his bike. Luckily he isn't hurt. We continue on as I rub it in his face that he wiped out. As if once wasn't enough, we are passing bystanders waving, and out of nowhere a 'chicken crosses the road' and the colonel Dave ready to fry up this chicky, panics and swerves losing control. This time the outcome wasn't great. Dave being the tough guy he is, gets up, legs and arms bloody and dirty from the crash. Amazingly, his flip-flopped feet are ok and his hands are more of less fine. The cuts aren't deep and he says he can continue on.

The road is continually getting worse - deep potholes, unpaved, lacking civilization in the surroundings, and we have been climbing a mountain for a long time now - the temperature is lowering - and it .... starts to rain.

In southeast Asia when it rains it pours. The rain is too hard to control the bike. Stopping at the first house, or I should say shack, we are shooed away like ghosts by the lady inside. Fortunately the next structure is an abandoned barn. We all slip of our bikes and walk the mud into this dirty old barn - no flashlight. The rain continues and it is getting late. We are all hungry.

Once it lets up a little we decide to continue on. All of our tanks are approaching or already on 'empty' and gas stations do not exist out here. It is now dark and the terrain is treacherous. The mud has been sliding off the mountain. In parts the road is a pond and at times it is so slippery that driving on it is almost impossible. Becky, one of the first time cyclists, becomes frustrated and instead of breaking hits the gas, bike spins out from under her. She lies on the ground screaming. Once finished I explained some of the technical aspects of the bike (gears, gas, starting, breaking) and the importance of keeping a level head in this situation. We were all scared. The rain is not letting up. Coming down the mountain, without using gas the bike slides. Others had slight falls - the feeling of danger was high.

Most of us agreed that one of us would run out of gas soon. I was so cramped, all muscles continuously tensed from the cold. Two of the girls had been doubled up on a bike, and needing a break I took a second on my bike. From here she had to get off and on continuously if the sections of road was too bad or muddy for us to make it through with both of us riding. I literally had to drive with both feet out to support the tipping from a mud induced slip.

Finally after coming straight down this mudslide of a mountain, enduring the worst conditions, we encountered a somewhat decent section of road. I couldn't believe we were all still in one piece.

Arriving at midnight, a 14 hour bike trip was complete. A beer and then sleep.

Indonesia was a gem.

City-states and historical sites

It's been a busy few weeks since my week off in Borneo. Outside of school I've been getting around to some of the surrounding areas. While I'd rather be living downtown, Subang Jaya - known by the Canadian teachers as "the Mississauga of Kuala Lumpur" - has been a good travel hub. It's own undesirable characteristics make travelling out all the more desirable. As a result, for every one of the past few weekends I've gotten out of Subang Jaya/KL.

A few weeks ago I headed west to the straits of Malacca. These waters were once part of a famous trade route between India and China, and in more recent history (the past 200 years) dominance over this channel became the subject of bloody colonial wars. Now, they're an infamous stomping ground for pirates. I hopped on a short ferry that took me to a mangrove island with a fishing village. Near the port the place was relatively busy (it was a weekend, and only a fairly cheap train ride from downtown KL), but it really quiet when I wandered out into the outskirts. I walked around for a few hours in bliss of the fact the island doesn't have a single car on it. The whole thing is made up of elevated walkways and houses on stilts - because of tide fluctuations, I assume. SJ is not pedestrian friendly, and I doubt that car owners suffer under any emissions regulations, so it was sweet relief to walk freely in a town that seemed entirely at odds with SJ. Beneath me skuttered hermit crabs, stray dogs and mudskippers...living in relative harmony.

The next weekend I went down to Malacca with a number of the Canadian teachers. Malacca is the oldest colonial town in South-East Asia, and has the best feel of any place I've been to in Malaysia.

The downtown is made up of tight streets, old colonial buildings and dozens of temples and mosques from the 19th century. From the downtown there wasn't an office building in sight. Some of the streets were even blocked off for pedestrians - I was amazed. On the way home we had a beautiful drive along a local highway (spotted wild monkeys and domesticated water buffalo) and stopped on a near-clean beach to watch the sunset.

The car we drove down in was amusingly shoddy: there were no seat belts in the back, a tape player and radio that fell off when we tried to turn it on, a driver side window that didn't work (and it was toll roads all the way down), a trunk the popped open every 10-15 minutes of the 2 hour drive home, an ignition that refused to work on two occasions, windshield wipers that smeared rather than cleared during the thunderstorm on the way home...I know there was more. I realize that when you rent at what the agency calls a "dirt cheap" price, you get a dirt car.

This past weekend I took a bus trip down to Singapore, which is on the tip of Peninsular Malaysia. The bus was the total opposite of the car: it was a double-decker with a lounge on the lower level, dinner service and huge reclining seats. I have a cousin who's been living down there for the past 15 years and he and his wife put me up on Friday and Saturday. It was strange and welcome to see family being so far from home. I'm certainly lucky to have them here.

Singapore is newly one of my favourite cities. Due to decades of stability under a single-party rule, and the fact that the country is so geographically small, long range plans have been effectively implemented. The river is clean and has a public walking path on each side, there are beautifully manicured parks everywhere, every street has a sidewalk, the museum is well resourced (and well air conditioned), and apparently it's one of the world's safest countries.

On the other hand, freedom of press is restricted, and their punishments for breaking some particular laws seem inconceivable from a Canadian perspective. On the more innocent and amusing side, you can't spit or chew gum in public, and you will be fined $800CDN for littering. The sign below should say: "BE FINANCIALLY VIABLE: Pick up your dog's poo." Food, beer and activities are also just as expensive as Toronto - a bit of a shock having come from Malaysia.

In two days I'm off to Sumatra for a week. It's Indonesia's largest island and is known for having lots of trees and not too many people. I'm heading over with a different colleague this time. The plan is to take the ferry across the Strait of Malacca (yarrr!!!) to the mid-point of the island (Dumai) and then rent motorbikes and head north, stopping for hikes along the way. Nothing's been planned, so I imagine that I may end up with an entirely different story about the experience on the next blog. Until then...

Kinabalu

I just arrived back at school after 9 days off - my first real holiday here in Malaysia. I headed east (to the far Far East) for the break...into the jungles of Borneo!

Borneo had big appeal to me before I came down here (I'd just read a book of short stories set in 19th century Borneo by Somerset Maugham), and I wanted to make it the first place I visited. The stars were aligned: there was an international climbing race down there that I wanted to give a shot, and a friend from school wanted to head down there as well.

We left directly after class on Friday, and by Friday night we'd checked in to a beautiful lodge at the bottom of Mount Kinabalu - the highest peak in South-East Asia. We were expecting something a bit more spartan, as you can tell by the look on Gord's face (right). Below is a photo of the mountain from the porch of our hotel room.






This was the mountain I was going to race up and down a week later, so on top of taking in the sights, I wanted to break in my legs and get acclimatized.

The hike was a beauty - if somewhat busy (it was a Malaysian national holiday). We had to camp out halfway up in a hut that was a bit more rustic and very cold (right), but we got an amazing sunset (below).


Both Gord and the guide wanted to start the hike to the summit at 3am, so we woke, layered up, and set off. When I made the summit (4095m), I realized that my camera's battery had gone!!!

Following the climb and some over-priced celebratory beers we hitch-hiked south to a small town from which we heard that you could climb Borneo's second highest peak. It ended up that despite being a forest reserve there were no maps available, and all guides insisted on a 4x4 ($200 CDN) ride to within a 5 hour hike of the summit. Some guides.

With money in our pockets, and our sore legs relieved of a second hike we put out our thumbs and got a long ride in the back of a pick-up to the capital - Kota Kinabalu. From there we rented a tent and headed out to a small island off the coast and camped out on a little secluded beach with monitor lizards and washed-up pop bottles for 3 days. We'd been tipped off that the snorkeling off of the island was excellent. We kept a fire going on the beach, lay in the sun, went hiking and swam in the coral: perfection.

After the island, Gord headed home to Kuala Lumpur and I turned back to the mountain. I shared a room with a guy who ran a half-marathon in 1:06 - Brunei's fastest distance runner. When he told me that I was in equal parts impressed by the man and terrified at what I'd gotten myself into. After a couple of stomach-turning days I found myself at dawn on the starting line. It was there that the organizer told us that we had to summit in 2.5 hours and be back at the finish line within 4.5 hours and that on average only 40% of the participants completed the race in time - the steepest one in the international mountain running series. I looked around me. My heart sunk. There were about 3 ounces of fat spread around the other runners in the men's category. Their calves were as big as my head.

In the end I got to the top in 2:18 and back down for a total of 4:02. And aside from my knees I'm feeling pretty good right now...I think my quads are still in disbelief.

As much as I enjoyed the break, I'm actually happy to be back here. I like my place, my students and my day-to-day back in KL. Most of all, I like my elevator.

trapped in paradise

I just realized the other day that I've been here for over a month. Almost a month and a half. I have a local bank account, a phone, a condo, a driver's license that works (actually just my Canadian License, but it works!) and I'm working on becoming a Malaysian "resident". That status, however, comes with some hitches...

If you're a "resident" you qualify for local taxes (15%) versus foreign taxes (28%) + being taxed again upon returning to Canada (I think). In order to become a resident you have to spend 182 days of the calendar year in Malaysia. However, once I arrived I realized that I only had something like 185 days left in the calendar year - you can do the math. I think I'm going to take some time to go south to Singapore for a weekend or two, but aside from that it's all Malaysia, all the time.


Fortunately, this is an interesting country.

I made it out for a walk in the jungle close by (the above photos), and I've crossed Peninsular Malaysia twice on my way to the east coast and the South China Sea (photos below). The sea is nearly blood warm and it has these amazing little creatures in it that are like underwater fireflies that light up when they sense motion around them. As you pass your hand through the water 10-20 of the little things start glowing and it looks like sparks are flying off of your hand. When they are caught in the breaking waves they light up and make the crashing waves glow. Last Saturday a bunch of us were nightswimming in the ocean as a lightning storm rolled in. All of the stars were covered so it was pitch black except for the glowing waves and the lightning breaking the sky over the ocean.


I have my first holiday coming up in a week and a half (9 days off). One of the other teachers and I are going northern Borneo to climb Mt. Kinabalu - South East Asia's highest mountain (4100m). After that I'm going to tour around the eastern end of Borneo for the week and then return to the mountain for the last weekend. I've signed up to compete in a race up and then back down Kinabalu. I've been running the stairs in my building to prep for it (which is one good thing about living in a condo). The mountain may be a painful climb, but at least it will be out of the heat! The photo below may give some idea of the power of the sun here. I've honestly walked around on a sunny day holding up my umbrella like a lumbering t-shirted geisha. Anyways, here's the link to the race website:

http://climbathon.sabahtourism.com/2008/


I should get back to work now. I like my students and I like what I'm teaching, but it's been busier than I expected. At times that seems like a good thing: I was on a 6 hour bus ride the other day listening to Sarah Harmer and started missing Kingston - something I haven't done in years. Whenever I think about canoing I get a little sad too - my Asian suburbia is a far cry from northern Ontario. Still, I have no serious regrets about coming, and I'm happy to be working/living here rather than wandering around South East Asia with a backpack - even thought that would be fun! With my "resident status" aspirations taken into account, the two seem as different as can be.

thanks for the mangoes

I imagined a year of solitude in Malaysia, and my first night here didn't change that image.

I was staying in an impersonal hotel, and set off wandering around Subang Jaya - my new home, and a suburb of the capital - looking for an internet cafe to write to my family and tell them the flight was fine, I had arrived, safe and sound. And, while wandering, I stepped in something sticky - you can probably guess what.

However, Malaysia has proved to be far from lonely. I quickly met fellow teachers, and they're good people. Everyone has an interesting story, and everyone is up for a cold tiger beer and spicy food.

On the first full day I headed down to the capital - Kuala Lumpur - with a few other teachers. We hit the aquarium, which had an very cool underwater glass tunnel, where snaggletoothed sharks swam a foot above my head - none, however, were very photogenic. To the right is a photo of some relatively tame fish.

We walked all over the city, saw Little India, the CN tower inspired KLCC, the Petronas Towers (below). Petronas Towers seem to be an appropriate symbol of Malaysia. They're new, huge and modern - and at the base is a mega-mall. Malaysia is an NIC (newly industrialized country), and that fact has been evident everywhere I've gone. The highways are growing like ivy and high-rise buildings are popping up like mushrooms. Moreover, consumerism seems to be big here. I feel that everyone who can afford a car has one. I look out off my balcony and there is always a steady flow of traffic - right through the night. Still, for the working class wages are low - somewhere around a dollar an hour, so I'm told.

The next week was spent apartment hunting and in meetings at my new school. The school is very different from what I'm used to. There are no formal extra-curriculars for the students - they are here to study and, for most of them, enjoy their first experience away from home. The majority are 17-18...some are older.

I've just completed my first week of teaching, and am writing from the teacher's office (40 little cubicles in a florescent room). I should be lesson planning right now, so I'll have to cut this short. My students are exceedingly polite, and still rather quiet. I think/hope that will change as the semester goes on. As far as classroom issues, "classroom management" hardly even exists, but English language proficiency is going to be a bit of a problem. Additionally, only have few of these students have ever taken a literature course before, and for most of them rote learning and memorization have been the staple in their education.

I've clipped in a couple of photos of my new studio apartment below, as well as a view of sunrise over downtown Kuala Lumpur from my window.

While the place is beautiful, what you can't see is the noise coming from the highway and train tracks below (north side); and walls are thin in Malaysia. In a year a new highway is going to open on the east side of my building - it's under construction now - and the building will be hemmed in on three sides (there's a major road - 2 lanes in each direction - to the south of the building).















As for the heat that I was warned about: it has been oppressive when the sun is out during the day. I'm taking cold showers only, and I even sometimes ignore drying off afterwards - I simply put my clothes on while still wet. Fortunately, most places have AC. Still, because I'm on the 19th floor I haven't had to put on the AC in my yet; I'm only home at night and there seems to be an ever-present breeze in Subang Jaya. David Suzuki would be proud.

One last piece: the Malaysian people I have met have been wonderful. I know from my students that the family unit is strong. However, it seems to spill over beyond the family as people do their best to be kind and polite - even the 7/11 clerks. (I do, however, feel like I'm getting special treatment (sometimes bad, but usually good) because I'm white - I've heard and seen that race is still a big issue here.) Just today, walking back from a forest reserve a family picked me up off the side of the road and drove me to a main road where I could get a bus - I didn't even have my thumb out. I came home to find a bag on my doorknob; it was full of mangoes from my landlord.