Georgetown, Malaysia

It's night time, and it's still above eighty-five degrees. The air is humid from a short tropical downpour that only recently ended. The dimly lit streets ahead of me are lined with beautiful, crumbling, colonial-era buildings. A carnival of colored signs in Chinese, Arabic, and English advertise the city's kafe's, hair saloons, hotels, and seemingly endless array of restaurants and food carts. Cars and motorbikes tear down the wide avenues at high speeds, their loud motors eclipsing a broadcast of the Muslim call to prayer.

Georgetown is the main city of Penang, an island province that sits along the northwestern coast of peninsular Malaysia. It's convenient accessibility to India and Indo-China made it an important trading port in the latter-days of British and Dutch colonialism. The island was largely uninhabited until 1786 when British explorer Francis Light arrived. Light foresaw the small islands immense value to the spice trade and crafted a deal with the Sultan of the region allowing him to establish a trading port there.
For a time Panang in general, and Georgetown in particular, experienced a rapid amount of growth. Immigrants from China, Indonesia, Thailand and India flocked to the tiny island where free-trade policies brought ships to the ports, and with them jobs. By the early 1800's the streets of Georgetown were bustling with trishaw peddlers, restaurant owners, and various other hucksters. Though less crowded then, the make-up of Georgetown's streets that still exists today was clearly established during this early economic boom period.

Though it's late, the streets are full of local people, eating, smoking, laughing and shopping. The sweet scent of incense mixes with the rich smells of curry and the spicy smoke of heavily peppered stir-fry. We turn the corner and head up Lebuh Panang entering the area of town locals affectionately call Little India.
It is an abrupt change. As if every sense in my body has been cranked up three or four additional notches. The contents of every shop window are alive with color and patterns. Gold jewelry and other accessories glitter alongside pink, orange, and lime green saris. Tabla drums blast from stereo speakers accompanied by tongue-twisting Hindi rap. Video screens show absurd scenes from Bollywood musicals. Everything is sensational in the most literal sense of the word.
The smiling shopkeepers with their magnificent bushy mustaches beckon us to enter their establishments. Politely but firmly we refuse. Our stomachs are rumbling and we already have a destination in mind.

The streets of Georgetown are an orgy of food. Over the last month I've grown tired of the culinary options offered to me in Thailand. With it's varying ethnicities Malaysian cuisine is some of the most diverse I've yet to encounter. Chinese, Indian, Thai, and curious amalgamations of all three can be found everywhere, day or night. Right now I'm especially impressed with the Indian fare. For less than US$5 one can stuff themselves with mutton roti, tikki masala, and garlic nann. It's hard not to get hungry prowling the streets here, and I've found myself eating for sheer pleasure far too often for my own good.

We arrive at Sri Ananda, an Indian cafeteria-style eatery. Squeezing through the entrance we pass closely by a sweating, dark skinned cook as he violently slaps roti dough against a flour dusted metal counter. The piles of fried pakora, samosas, and steaming tins of thick, spicy gravies within view whet my apatite as we make our way towards the air conditioned dining hall.
The cool, white and blue tiled seating area here more closely resembles a locker room than what I normally think of as a restaurant. The community washing area in the back (this food is traditionally eaten using one's hands) does little to help dispel this.
The restaurant is full even at this late hour, and we take the only open table left. Waiters in white shirts and black pants wander from group to group, taking orders and tabulating bills. Bussers in dark purple and yellow tops with matching mesh baseball caps run platters to tables, collect dishes, and heckle the cooks through the small window that connects this room to the kitchen. Our waiter appears, his tall, broad frame striding towards us from the far end of the hall. We place our orders and patiently await their arrival.
The drinks come first. Glass jugs filled with tart, refreshing lime juice accented by sweet mint leaves. Every sip is a pleasure and I feel the oppressing heat slip away.
The next part happen so quickly I hardly have time to keep track of everything arriving. A steady, rapid stream of workers approach our table. The first rolls out two banana leaf place mats onto which the second scoops us generous portions of steaming white rice. A third appears immediately behind adding dollops of lumpy but delicious blended vegetables to the green husks of our place settings. The food keeps coming and before we know it our table is full of tiny metal bowls brimming with steamy succulent delights. The chicken curry I ordered is excellent, but so spicy I curse myself for sucking down most of my beverage before the meal. I crack off a section of pappadam, a thin cracker-like bread, and dip it into a cool, mellow yogurt sauce that serves cool my aching tongue.

It seems impossible to keep eating, but equally difficult to quit. Just as we intend to stop, a final delivery arrives. In addition to our meals I'd also ordered mutton roti murtabak, a flaky bread filled with egg, curry, onion and lamb. But by this stage of the meal its impending arrival has been long since forgotten. A distant memory drowned beneath an ocean of excess. Groaning I enlist Amanda's aid in eating it. Breaking off pie-wedge sections, we enjoy it's savory flavor. Heavier on the egg than I prefer, but good none the less. We eat just enough of it so that it doesn't appear wasted.
Standing at the cashier's counter the sheer enormity of the meal we ate hits my stomach. I'll probably regret this later. But for now we slink out the front door into the hot night air, fat and shameful, but thoroughly satisfied.

First Impressions of Malaysia

Crossing the border from Thailand into Malaysia, one can spot immediate differences. Highways have barriers. Motorbike drivers uni formally wear helmets. Power lines appear modern and efficient. There are ballparks, playgrounds, toll-booths, and roadside landscaping. This is not the third world.
Malaysia is a unique and young country. Its majority population is a mix of immigrants from southern Thailand, northern Indonesia, China and India. A small minority of aboriginal Malaysian's, or Orang Asli (Original People) as they are called, also still exist here. However they are vastly outnumbered.
Islam is the dominant religion, and one can see this reflected everywhere throughout the country. The head scarf worn by Muslim women is more commonly seen here than blue-jeans and it's not unusual to see fast food restaurants advertise themselves as halal, meaning that their menu strictly adheres to all requirements of the Muslim diet. Large, spectacular Mosque's exist in nearly every city. Yet Islam is only one of the many religions found here. Hindu, Buddhism, Christianity, and even Animism are actively practiced as well. Though Islam is recognized as the state religion, it is important to note that freedom of religion is still assured by law.
With all of the diversity that is found here, Malaysia seems to be experiencing a bit of an identity crisis; similar perhaps to the one the United States must have suffered during its influx of immigrants during the 1800's. With all three of Malaysia's dominant cultures sharing the same space, but not the same cultural or religious traditions, what does it mean to be Malaysian?
The government here has been working hard at trying to create a sense of national identity. Bhasa Malayu, a language similar to that of Indonesia has been taught in public schools for several generations now, and has been widely adopted by all as the official language. Less successful, though gaining some recent traction, has been the movement to adopt Islamic law.
On the surface this odd Asian melting pot seems to be working. The various groups appear to interact easily and to even enjoy the diversity of their community. Indians can be seen passionately talking politics with their Chinese countrymen, while indigenous Muslim women in head scarfs share tea with red-dotted Hindi mothers. The youth of Malaysia especially seem to mix together with ease, each successive generation erasing barriers bit by bit.
But to characterize this nation as some kind of multicultural paradise would be to deny the complexity of the real situation. Things are further complicated by the large economic inequity that exists here, often found along racial lines. The Chinese are seen as the dominant economic force, and indigenous Malays often fear being left behind. Since 1970 law has required that 30% of corporate wealth be owned by indigenous Malays, and though this policy has helped to close the economic gap, it has understandably been met with fierce resistance from the other members of Malaysian society.
To the outsider though, the varying cultural landscape of Malaysia creates a fun and fascinating place to visit. You can have Thai noodle soup for breakfast, Indian curry for lunch, and Chinese Dim Sum for dinner. Cinemas play a variety of films from Hollywood, Bollywood, Hong Kong, and China. And the fingerprints of European colonialism can be found everywhere, from the Austrian style chalet apartment buildings to the rich roasted coffee of the local Kafe's.
It's a clean, comfortable, and affluent pocket of southeast Asia. The kind of which I had no idea existed. Overall, I'm incredibly impressed, and I can't wait to see more of what it has to offer.

Sai Yok National Park, Thailand

Sai Yok National Park
The bus dropped us off along the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. The only things around were a couple of roadside food stalls and a sign announcing in English and Thai the entrance to our destination: Sai Yok National Park. We had no hotel reservations, no map of the park, and barely an idea of where to go. A brief and largely uninformative passage on this place in our guidebook warned of limited availability of food and little in the way of English language information. We were in short, woefully unprepared.
Several weeks before leaving Seattle I had seen a travel blog that made mention of raft bungalows that rested alongside the river in a national park near Kanchanaburi. The authors description had peaked my interest, and an accompanying photograph of this riverside gem sealed the deal. I simply had to find this place. I was unable to relocate the source of my inspiration no matter how dutifully I Googled pertinent words and phrases. A phone number in my Lonely Planet guidebook for similar sounding accommodations was a dead end as well, as the line had been disconnected. But like Ahab for his whale I would not give up the hunt. Which was how we found ourselves, against my better judgement, standing beside a long and lonely strip of foreign highway.
We lugged our heavy packs across the road and entered the park. It wasn't long before a couple of older Thai men rode up towards us on scooters.
“Taxi? Taxi?” they called in short staccato voices. For once I welcomed the intrusion.
I read them the name of where we wanted to go to off of a crumpled piece of paper: 'naam tok sai yok yai.' I still don't know what it means, but I was encouraged when one of the men nodded indicating comprehension. Across fractured language barriers we agreed upon a price. Then Amanda and I each climbed on the rear of one of their scooters. Our heavy packs pulling us backwards, we held on for dear life with no helmets to protect our idiot brains.
The ride was slow, smooth, and most importantly, brief and without incident. We stopped twice. Once to pay an entrance fee to the park and another time to have our tickets checked. When we reached our agreed destination point it looked not unlike the parking lot of any average National Park back home in the States. Mercifully we saw that there were food stalls selling hot Thai dishes, cold bottles of water, and the ever important Beer Chang. We balked at the requisite V.I.P. buses towering over us nearly as tall as the strong, slender teak trees they were parked next to.
Off in the distance we spied the Ranger Station and figured it might be worth a shot to see if there was any relevant information inside. As is customary, we removed our shoes before entering the facility and approached the information desk. We were amused to find it occupied by two local children one around eight years of age, the other probably no older than three.
I smiled and greeted them in their language, “Sa-wat-dii-kraap.”
They giggled shyly, no doubt amused by my clumsy pronunciation, and then the oldest called out to someone in the next room. A moment later a woman walked out in a park ranger uniform. She spoke no English, and unfortunately, but not unsurprisingly, my phrasebook does not contain an approximation for the term raft bungalow. The woman was kind, but I could tell she did not understand what it was we were looking for. She supplied us with a pamphlet that contained a map, and an English summary of the parks services, but no mention of any riverside accommodations. It did however show us where the water was so we set off on a short jaunt to see if we could locate our destination from it's shores. We had not gone far when we saw a sign pointing down a small path that said River View Bungalows. We quickly followed it down.
The path led us down a wooden dock and around a corner. Our spirits lifted as we saw a gorgeous, wide stream of water with wood cabanas bobbing gently up and down along it's sides. The accommodations were lovely with tall glass windows laid into the doors and small porches with wooden benches where one could lounge around and watch the river flow. We spied one colorful long-tail boat parked along the edge of the buildings, while another zipped past us on the river leaving the platform we stood upon bouncing in it's wake. In the distance a waterfall spilled its way down a tall stack of boulders where it joined the gentle river and begun it's journey downstream. A casual glance in the other direction revealed a tall wooden suspension bridge that spanned the water. It was just as I had imagined it. Better perhaps.
It took a little trouble to find a room. The lodgings we had stumbled upon appeared empty, but we were told they had all been reserved. A kindly young Thai woman who spoke some English called out to another older woman across the riverbank. They exchanged a few quick words and we were told that though the lodgings on this side were spoken for there was plenty of room in the guesthouses on the other side. Even from here we could see that the lodgings she spoke were more shabby than these, but faced with the alternative of renting a tent from park services we quickly agreed.
A long-tail boat was arranged to carry us along to the other side of the river. The journey required little use of the motor, mostly skillful navigation on the part of the driver augmented by an occasional burst of the combustible. We were very thankful for the ride as this small kindness saved us the trouble of lugging our backpacks across the bridge and along the narrow cliff side that led to the accommodations.
A quick shower cleared my mood and I took a rest on the porch of the cabin to watch the world go by. Traffic buzzed up and down the river. A young boy jumped into the water, letting it carry him downstream, climbing out a few yards later. A quick convenient way to clean up and cool off.
I began to wonder what it must be like to grow up here. Having been born and raised in the suburbs of the Pacific Northwest I had never considered before what it must be like to live ones life with a powerful and defining natural force, like this river, at it's center. This river served as highway, bathtub, playground, and less spectacularly, sewage system for the people that live here. It supplied economy in terms of the tourism it brought. And though I loath to imagine due to the waste going into it, this river more than likely served as a source of food to some extent as well. These people knew this piece of water inside out. Respected it in their own way. There is nothing back home in my neighborhood that could possibly equate to it's importance to them.
The luxuries of modern life have isolated us from the natural world, making us to numb to the importance of the resources that surround us. So much so, that we've begun to see the grocery stores, retailers and other companies that we patronize as the suppliers of these goods rather than the rivers, oceans, and vast tracts of land that truly sustain and support our lifestyles. Our entire eco-system has become virtually invisible to us. This powerful world that we live in has lost the mythic properties we once attributed it to it, and with that loss we have forgotten a way of life.
We have replaced it with the Bull, the Bear, the Dollar and the Dow. These are our modern myths. The Invisible Hand of the Marketplace. “It's the economy stupid.” A way of life built not on the world that surrounds us, but on intellectual ideas that have become our reality.
It is however, this very framework which has allowed me to come here. Enabled me to see all of this. Without the high-tech economy that feeds my bank account I wouldn't be sitting here halfway across the world romanticizing poverty, naively waxing for a “simple life.”
The sound of a overworked engine snapped me out of my thoughts and brought me back to where I was. Looking up I saw a long-tail boat struggling to pull a large floating platform down the river in our direction. There were around a half dozen or so foreigners on the platform, sipping cocktails and sunning themselves in their Speedo's. In the distance, coming up swiftly behind them, were another two dozen pasty white bodies bobbing up and down in the river. Life jackets keeping them afloat they were clearly headed to join the platform.
A young man, probably their tour guide, blew a loud metal whistle, and shouted a warning at the group in what sounded like Russian. The platform docked at the waterfall, and as the floating bodies pulled themselves up onto it, they began one by one, to stand underneath the strong spray of the waterfall. The women screamed their heads off. The men stood grim, macho and stoic in that way Russian males have perfected after decades of cold weather and existentialist philosophy.
I was angry. After working so hard to find this nice, quiet place, after going so far out of the way, it seemed cruel to have my contemplative quiet ruined by this loud and unruly mob of package vacationing tourists. I was frustrated and disappointed. But mostly I was jealous because it looked like so much fun.
As the day progressed it began to seem as if the whole of eastern Europe was here. Group after group of former Soviets came bobbing down the river like ripe Red apples. It turned out that they had booked all the rooms across the river.
That night we ate at a buffet dinner at their guesthouse's restaurant. We were too shy, outnumbered as we were, to approach any of them and start a conversation, but sat in the corner our voyeuristic eyes watching them eat and drink themselves silly. They held raffles giving away cowboy hats, stuffed animals and Thai whiskey. They blasted disco, took shots of alcohol, hugged each other and drank some more.
From what we gathered this was the last night of their trip to Thailand and in a couple of days they would return to the cold winter of their mother country. Figuratively chained behind their desks, they would dream of the feeling of freedom and the sunny weather that I'd still be here experiencing. Long after I went to bed I could still hear them partying across the river, and for once, I could hardly blame them.