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Sunday June 6, 2004 A couple of items relevant only because it’s Sunday:
*** Once again, we will not mention the weekend football. Monday, June 7 They must have some strange bed sizes in the Middle East. Yesterday, I found a little shop on Jalan Ampang specializing in beautiful embroidered brocades from Syria. Since we need a new bedspread back home at Adamstown Heights, I checked out a few – they were all 2 metres by 1.5 metres, hardly the Queen size they were supposed to be. They would make beautiful wall hangings, though. Katrina’s mother, Margaret Lane, who is an expert quilter, has been emailed for advice, as I would really like to buy one. While I was out shopping, I gave in to hunger and found myself at a Pizza Hut restaurant. Since I’ve been in KL, I’ve avoided the western fast-food chains, but there appeared to be little else in sight yesterday The other options were KFC and MacDonalds – not much choice really! The menu was the same as back home, but the skimpy toppings were nowhere near as good as those Jenny used to put together when she was a kitchen-hand at the Adamstown Pizza Hut. On my way back from the Ampang Park shopping centre, I wasn’t paying enough attention at the underground train station, and being unfamiliar with this particular stop, jumped on a train going the wrong way. Since the route back to our local station, Dang Wangi, is underground all the way, my error became obvious when the train shot out into broad daylight, on its way out to the northern suburbs. It was an easy mistake to fix – just off at the next station, and across to the other side of the same platform, and where I picked up a southbound train in 2 minutes.
The city rail network here is very good, and the line we use is
fully automated – no driver. The trains run every few minutes, and
are clean, slick and fast. The odd thing is, very few westerners use
the system – mine would have
(left) KL’s inner city underground train stations have a good safety feature – glass sliding doors on the platform don’t open until the train has stopped. *** The weekend saw the celebrations of the official birthday of the King of Malaysia. The King, or to give him his full title, Yang di-Pertuan Agong Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin Tuanku Syed Jamalullail, was the subject of a special 16-page feature in the main daily newspaper here on Saturday. It’s hard to imagine Queen Liz’s birthday inspiring such fulsome attention, even in England. I noted with interest that the (Malaysian) Queen did not wear the full Muslim hajib; instead she had a loose flimsy veil floating over her hair. The conservatives here probably would not have approved, but they would find it hard to criticize the Royals. *** It’s hard for me to type today – last night, for the second time since I’ve been here, I came to grief on KL’s notorious footpaths, paved as they are with glazed, sloping tiles: a guarantee that at some stage, your leather-soled shoes are going to slip out from under. That’s exactly what happened to me last night, and it wasn’t even raining. My right hand and arm took most of the brunt of the mishap, and my middle finger now has skin missing, making it difficult to type. So, typos are more than likely today. Tuesday, June 8 Our Cambodian trip is now but a memory, but the task of sorting the photos continues. It’s frustrating how similar some temples are, and identifying them is tricky. However, the Internet is a wonderful aid, and I am generally able to confirm a location by searching for matching images on the Net. Plus, digital photography has allowed some cheating – cleaning up photos to remove unwanted elements…. Compare these two photos for what’s possible with Photoshop:
I thought the photo above would look better without the tourist in the centre of the group. So, a few clicks of the mouse, and, voila…
And they (used to) say the camera doesn’t lie. I have been dabbling for a while with Photoshop, Adobe’s graphic editing program. It’s considered the industry standard and in many ways it’s quite brilliant – but it’s not very user-friendly for a beginner such as I am. Now, I have decided it’s time a serious effort to come to grips with its main functions, even if only to keep the brain active. *** As part of my Internet research, I came across a website called “Tales of Asia”, compiled by an old Cambodia hand. I wish I had found it before the Cambodian trip, but now, reading it after the event, it is hilarious (had I read it before the trip, it would have been useful as well). Some excerpts: Q: If I'm involved in an accident, what could happen? A: If you're out in the sticks, and you think you are not at fault you might consider getting yourself out of there as quickly as possible because whatever happens it will cost you money. ….An American friend of mine once related a story where he was involved in an accident involving three motorbikes. The cops on the scene agreed that my friend was not at fault but asked him to pay damages anyway because they said, "you're the only one who has any money." Q: What about purchasing a motorbike? …Make sure you have a number plate. If for some reason there is something dodgy about your bike and you can't legitimately get a number plate, then have somebody make a fake one for you. This a third-world country, there is no computer check or anything like that if the police stop you. A fake license plate is as good as a real one. Q: What if I'm riding a motorcycle (or driving a car) and the police stop me? A: If you drive in Cambodia, sooner or later, probably sooner, you're going to be stopped by the police for some infraction which you may or may not have committed. If you can avoid running over the police officer and there's no one sitting on a motorbike that's as big or bigger than yours and ready to give chase, then there's no reason to stop for the police. Q: What about visas? A: Visas are available on arrival from anywhere, for anyone. They cost $20 USD. …The visa application form is easy to fill out and takes but a minute. Don't stress yourself over proof of onward travel or anything like that. They don't care. Your $20 is proof enough. Anyhow, that’s enough of that – go read it for yourself: http://talesofasia.com
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music would have sounded more
at home on a South Pacific island than in peninsula Malaysia. I
could easily have imagined the tune being sung in Fiji – and as far
as I know, there isn’t much of a cultural interchange between the
South Pacific islands and Malaya. Malaysians’ preferred brand of
music usually sounds much more monotonous to my western ears.
been the only white face on a very
crowded train yesterday. I think ex-pats find the ease of cheap
taxis hard to resist, and it saves trying to work out which
train to take. But trains are far superior at peak hours, when the
road system faces grid-lock congestion.
