"I guess that's why they call it beauty rest" -Na
Spoken this morning, as we washed our hands at AnCasa hotel in KL and looked at our unwashed, baggy-eyed faces in the mirror. We were washing our hands to clean off the sticky residue of an unripe pomelo and the dirt from longan peels. How did we come to be there, you ask? I shall tell you:
first off: we had a great stay in Kota Bharu. Even though it rained virtually all day both days, i already told you about our eating-the-market experience on Friday, and yesterday was quite fantastic as well: we spent the morning sitting in the back garden of the hostel, meeting a Canadian (montreal) traveller named Eric who had just arrived from Thailand after having travelled for the last few months there and in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos. We picked his brain, he picked ours, we all watched the two male rabbits try to hump eachother. Eventually the mangos Na and I had each eaten (free, given to us by a nice chatty man named Bob at the market the day before)
were not enough to satisfy our growling used-to-being-stuffed tummies, so we headed off to the market to find some grub. I had daging rendang, basically beef in yummy curry-type sauce over rice. it cost me 1 ringgit and 50 sen. that's less than 50 cents US. We then went to the fruit area to continue (and hopefully complete) our quest for a pomelo. We purchased one we thought looked good. we got some more longan because it's delicious. we tried a kudan (small oval golden-orange colored fruit - tastes like kumquat). delicious as well. we bought a little round sugar disk that was also... you guessed it... delicious.
Wandering on, we went to the craft market and bought some stuff. Batik is big here. so is embroidering with gold thread and these special kites (wau) and cool timber/tin spinning tops (gasing) are unique to that state we were in - Kelantan. Back to the guest house where we met Eric to go to the Cultural Center for the free show they had. First i had to change my shirt though, because apparently i got a little too excited with the daging rendang and felt the need to stain myself with it.
The cultural show: When we got there, they had already started banging on the big yellow drums (rebana) - two people to a drum - and the beat was both simple and complicated. no one drummer was doing anything spectacular, but the offset of the simple rhythms on the six drums (12 drummers) made me want to boogie and forced me to at least bop. Nabia and Eric got to give it a go while i snapped some pictures. Next we got to watch a demonstration of the martial art they practice: silat. It's slow and precise, maybe a little bit like tai chi (if i knew anything about tai chi i'd be able to make a better comparison), including slow and deliberate hand movements and shapes, and some facial expressions too. After each warrior performs a solo part, they had a duel, which i could not quite determine the rules of. It seemed that no blows actually make contact, stopping just short of it and then being acknowledged by the receiver. Every now and then there's a more natural struggle to throw the other fighter off balance, but mostly it looks like a choreographed dance - one person placing a limb and the other countering afterwards. They asked for volunteers to come try. A man to our left, with camera around his neck and tye dye shirt, got chosen. Nabia got chosen as well, but she motioned to me as I hadn't tried anything yet (no drumming). So up i got, shoes off, sunglasses off, camera out of pocket. There were two patterned strips of fabric tied around my waist - one like a skirt, one like a belt - along with another piece around my head. Me and the other guy stood on either side of the older man, similarly garbed, who we were to mimic (we were doing the solo parts - not the actually fighting). We did it. i liked it. it felt really good to move my body in an artistic way and to copy movements as in a dance class. i miss dance class. so that was good. there are pictures, no worries.
Next we went and observed the throwing of the gasing (spinning tops i mentioned above). They make very precise and perfectly balanced disks, wind a rope around them, and toss, pulling the rope back to make the top spin. Then the other team member scoops it up on a little wooden spatula thing and relocates it to a peg where it can remain for as long as it spins. there are competitions of this sport. we tried to spin them with miniature versions, eric and I tossing them haphazardly in all directions and nabia making a very decent go of it.
Next back to town and a snack of roti canai before finishing learning about Eric's route through southeast asia, where we should and shouldn't stop (he's done it all alone and independently - made me feel better and gave me a better idea of what the routes are), etc... then off to the market for dinner.
found some ikan bakar (fish mixture in a banana leaf roasted over coals) just before an amaxing event. At about 7:15, or whenever the siren goes off, the bustling night market goes dead. everyone hurriedly closes up shop, covering food with lids and tarps and wax paper. They all leave (you have to leave too - can't even sit at the tables) and go to the mosque. it's the call to prayer and they all go. it CLOSES COMPLETELY. we sat on the curb and ate our fish. we waited for the half hour until the next siren went off and everyone filtered back in. within minutes it was back and bustling at full force. astounding. and fascinating. more food, la la la... got interviewed by some high school students for their school project, ran back to the hostel, thought we would miss our night bus to KL...
made the night bus, though very sweaty, got shuffled from seat to seat - ended up in the back, right over the engine (oh, pukiness), and the seats were not nearly as comfortable or as wide as some other companies we'd ridden with. so, though the view out the window was stunning for the first couple of hours and my iRiver kept me fairly entertained for a bit of it, it was NOT a good night's sleep by ANY means (maybe 3 or 4 hours off and on?) and when i was finally drifting away at around 5 this morning, i was shaken awake by my ankle and found Na telling me we were in KL.
Completely disoriented (different bus station than we were familiar with - at first i wasn't even sure we were actually in Kuala Lumpur), we collected ourselves for a while before going for a taxi. After being informed that rates are in fact doubled before 6 am, we walked down the street to a big hotel and sat in their lobby, dazed, for a while, after checking the rates in the hope they'd be moderately reasonable (they weren't). Finally we went back out and took a taxi into chinatown, where we trekked about, lugging our packs and purchases, barely functional, ready to cry, from hotel to hotel to guest house to lodge, the first few saying they had one room left but it was ::insert more-expensive-than-we-wanted-amount-here::, then the last few being dirtier than we wanted or unavailable, and then returning to the first few, willing to surrender and pay the more expensive amount only to have them say they were booked up completely now (this was at MORE than one establishment, then finally finding one place, even more expensive than the first few, they have a room available (thank GOD), but our room is not ready for an hour and a half. we plopped on the couch in the lobby, looking forward to one thing: the pomelo. They cut it up for us at the restaurant in the lobby. as you might have guessed, it wasn't quite ripe yet. perfect. but i did eat some longan.
then i came here, to tell you all about it.
bottom line: we'll go check in, go eat some breakfast, shower, rest (not in that order), see something of K-L (though i'm just mad at it now - this is twice we've had issue!), and have a comfortable night in a shmancy hotel yet again. sadly, i was really not needed a shmancy night - just a halfway decent one. alas, it doesn't seem to be possible in this particular city.
Before Na said what she said that became the title of this blog, i was going to name it this: Muddy Confluence Indeed. Why, you ask? because that is what Kuala Lumpur means. how appropriate.
tomorrow we fly to bali. hooray. i'm much more excited about the rest of southeast asia after talking about it with eric. who looked like gene wilder and had a french accent.
ok, have a lovely day all, and happy almost birthday mms (27th or 29th?)
me
email me
first off: we had a great stay in Kota Bharu. Even though it rained virtually all day both days, i already told you about our eating-the-market experience on Friday, and yesterday was quite fantastic as well: we spent the morning sitting in the back garden of the hostel, meeting a Canadian (montreal) traveller named Eric who had just arrived from Thailand after having travelled for the last few months there and in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos. We picked his brain, he picked ours, we all watched the two male rabbits try to hump eachother. Eventually the mangos Na and I had each eaten (free, given to us by a nice chatty man named Bob at the market the day before)
were not enough to satisfy our growling used-to-being-stuffed tummies, so we headed off to the market to find some grub. I had daging rendang, basically beef in yummy curry-type sauce over rice. it cost me 1 ringgit and 50 sen. that's less than 50 cents US. We then went to the fruit area to continue (and hopefully complete) our quest for a pomelo. We purchased one we thought looked good. we got some more longan because it's delicious. we tried a kudan (small oval golden-orange colored fruit - tastes like kumquat). delicious as well. we bought a little round sugar disk that was also... you guessed it... delicious.
Wandering on, we went to the craft market and bought some stuff. Batik is big here. so is embroidering with gold thread and these special kites (wau) and cool timber/tin spinning tops (gasing) are unique to that state we were in - Kelantan. Back to the guest house where we met Eric to go to the Cultural Center for the free show they had. First i had to change my shirt though, because apparently i got a little too excited with the daging rendang and felt the need to stain myself with it.
The cultural show: When we got there, they had already started banging on the big yellow drums (rebana) - two people to a drum - and the beat was both simple and complicated. no one drummer was doing anything spectacular, but the offset of the simple rhythms on the six drums (12 drummers) made me want to boogie and forced me to at least bop. Nabia and Eric got to give it a go while i snapped some pictures. Next we got to watch a demonstration of the martial art they practice: silat. It's slow and precise, maybe a little bit like tai chi (if i knew anything about tai chi i'd be able to make a better comparison), including slow and deliberate hand movements and shapes, and some facial expressions too. After each warrior performs a solo part, they had a duel, which i could not quite determine the rules of. It seemed that no blows actually make contact, stopping just short of it and then being acknowledged by the receiver. Every now and then there's a more natural struggle to throw the other fighter off balance, but mostly it looks like a choreographed dance - one person placing a limb and the other countering afterwards. They asked for volunteers to come try. A man to our left, with camera around his neck and tye dye shirt, got chosen. Nabia got chosen as well, but she motioned to me as I hadn't tried anything yet (no drumming). So up i got, shoes off, sunglasses off, camera out of pocket. There were two patterned strips of fabric tied around my waist - one like a skirt, one like a belt - along with another piece around my head. Me and the other guy stood on either side of the older man, similarly garbed, who we were to mimic (we were doing the solo parts - not the actually fighting). We did it. i liked it. it felt really good to move my body in an artistic way and to copy movements as in a dance class. i miss dance class. so that was good. there are pictures, no worries.
Next we went and observed the throwing of the gasing (spinning tops i mentioned above). They make very precise and perfectly balanced disks, wind a rope around them, and toss, pulling the rope back to make the top spin. Then the other team member scoops it up on a little wooden spatula thing and relocates it to a peg where it can remain for as long as it spins. there are competitions of this sport. we tried to spin them with miniature versions, eric and I tossing them haphazardly in all directions and nabia making a very decent go of it.
Next back to town and a snack of roti canai before finishing learning about Eric's route through southeast asia, where we should and shouldn't stop (he's done it all alone and independently - made me feel better and gave me a better idea of what the routes are), etc... then off to the market for dinner.
found some ikan bakar (fish mixture in a banana leaf roasted over coals) just before an amaxing event. At about 7:15, or whenever the siren goes off, the bustling night market goes dead. everyone hurriedly closes up shop, covering food with lids and tarps and wax paper. They all leave (you have to leave too - can't even sit at the tables) and go to the mosque. it's the call to prayer and they all go. it CLOSES COMPLETELY. we sat on the curb and ate our fish. we waited for the half hour until the next siren went off and everyone filtered back in. within minutes it was back and bustling at full force. astounding. and fascinating. more food, la la la... got interviewed by some high school students for their school project, ran back to the hostel, thought we would miss our night bus to KL...
made the night bus, though very sweaty, got shuffled from seat to seat - ended up in the back, right over the engine (oh, pukiness), and the seats were not nearly as comfortable or as wide as some other companies we'd ridden with. so, though the view out the window was stunning for the first couple of hours and my iRiver kept me fairly entertained for a bit of it, it was NOT a good night's sleep by ANY means (maybe 3 or 4 hours off and on?) and when i was finally drifting away at around 5 this morning, i was shaken awake by my ankle and found Na telling me we were in KL.
Completely disoriented (different bus station than we were familiar with - at first i wasn't even sure we were actually in Kuala Lumpur), we collected ourselves for a while before going for a taxi. After being informed that rates are in fact doubled before 6 am, we walked down the street to a big hotel and sat in their lobby, dazed, for a while, after checking the rates in the hope they'd be moderately reasonable (they weren't). Finally we went back out and took a taxi into chinatown, where we trekked about, lugging our packs and purchases, barely functional, ready to cry, from hotel to hotel to guest house to lodge, the first few saying they had one room left but it was ::insert more-expensive-than-we-wanted-amount-here::, then the last few being dirtier than we wanted or unavailable, and then returning to the first few, willing to surrender and pay the more expensive amount only to have them say they were booked up completely now (this was at MORE than one establishment, then finally finding one place, even more expensive than the first few, they have a room available (thank GOD), but our room is not ready for an hour and a half. we plopped on the couch in the lobby, looking forward to one thing: the pomelo. They cut it up for us at the restaurant in the lobby. as you might have guessed, it wasn't quite ripe yet. perfect. but i did eat some longan.
then i came here, to tell you all about it.
bottom line: we'll go check in, go eat some breakfast, shower, rest (not in that order), see something of K-L (though i'm just mad at it now - this is twice we've had issue!), and have a comfortable night in a shmancy hotel yet again. sadly, i was really not needed a shmancy night - just a halfway decent one. alas, it doesn't seem to be possible in this particular city.
Before Na said what she said that became the title of this blog, i was going to name it this: Muddy Confluence Indeed. Why, you ask? because that is what Kuala Lumpur means. how appropriate.
tomorrow we fly to bali. hooray. i'm much more excited about the rest of southeast asia after talking about it with eric. who looked like gene wilder and had a french accent.
ok, have a lovely day all, and happy almost birthday mms (27th or 29th?)
me
email me
posted by theonetheycallamy at 3/26/2005 07:27:00 PM
3 Comments:
Well, it's me again.
Kota Bharu sounds quite terrific...and I love that you did the "dance" thing at the cultural market. I bet you were really good at it, too (that's a mommy speaking)
By the way, interesting comment about the two male rabbits in the garden- and you knew they were both male- how??
I hope your quest for a ripe,yummy pomelo is soon attained. What frustration. And since your wardrobe is rather limited, I hope your future dining experiences stay off your clothes!!
Put KL behind you, and have a safe and happy flight to the wondrous Bali!
Love,mom
has eric given you hints or sugggestions? joshua cronin 23 from london grandson of a cousin spent a month in bali all the nights in clubs and pubs all the days sleeping in a rope hammock on the beach he emailed often and didn't mention food once oddfellow? luv alice
This is just a general comment out there for Amy's readers- since she hasn't yet put up a new entry. I know many of you are concerned about her whereabouts at the time of the big earthquake today in Indonesia( Mon 3/28). As of this morning, she had landed safely in Bali (though she WAS closer than I'd like to the earthquake area 2 days ago).
This trip has greatly improved my geography skills,so for those who don't want to look it up, Bali is further south and east than where it hit....so she should be fine. And she's staying there for awhile. So thank you all for worrying!!
Amy's mom
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