Monkey. Many Monkey.

Well, Dan and I have returned from our break for Eid in Malaysia. Just a bit of back story: I first visited Kuala Lumpur in 2007, on my way to Indonesia. Sandwiched between time in India and Indonesia, my one day in KL was a much needed break from chaos. The city is so much calmer than South Asian cities. The roads are paved, there are sidewalks, and being white isn't criteria for being interesting. However, since this week-long break was for Eid, the Muslim holiday celebrating the end of Ramadan, I was a little nervous that Kuala Lumpur, the capital of a Muslim country, would be a little crazy. Beyond that I was also a little nervous that getting out of KL would be somewhat impossible. We booked a hostel for one night in KL and got in pretty late. After spending what I later realized was literally 10 times the amount we should on a cab, we arrived at our clean and conveniently located hostel in Chinatown. The room was small enough so that you could almost stand in the middle and touch all four walls at once, and sleeping on the spring-loaded bed was basically like getting a night-long back massage from a car radiator, but the hostel was clean and not too expensive for Kuala Lumpur.

Dan in our tiny room in Kuala Lumpur

The next day we went first thing in the morning to the bus station and tried to get tickets to Mersing- a relatively small town on the East Coast of Malaysia where we would be able to catch a ferry to Pulau Tioman- a small island off the coast. To our dismay we were told that there were no tickets to Mersing for another few days. Eventually we were told to just buy a ticket to a larger inland city and try to catch a bus from there.

So with a plan ahead of us we set out in search of some delicious Chinese food in Chinatown. I should mention that despite the fact that both Malaysia and Bangladesh are Muslim countries, they are very different from each other. So, I was only a little surprised to find myself sitting in Chinatown in a Muslim country eating pork and noodle soup during the day during Ramadan. Malaysia is incredibly diverse, religiously and culturally. It's not uncommon to see women wearing long sleeves and a veil across their face next to women in short mini-skirts and spaghetti strap tank tops. Similarly, it's not uncommon to see a large mosque next to a Buddhist temple, next to a Hindu temple. I was also left with the impression that most people in Malaysia have a relatively negative view of Bangladesh. I was told it was conservative (when it's actually classified as a "moderate" country), there are many terrorists here, there are bombs all of the time, and that Bengali's have no respect for people who aren't Muslim.

After our soup, Denise (who we had met up with by chance at the bus station when we were all trying to get tickets), Dan and I all decided to get some moon pies. Apparently for the autumn festival in China there's a tradition of eating (and gifting) little pastries called moon pies. Since the festival was a few weeks ago they were still available in little packages in Chinatown. The cheapest I saw were about 2 ringgit (so about 60 cents) and the most expensive were about 20 ringgit (about 6 dollars). We bought some of the cheap cakes and enjoyed them on the street.

Dan and Denise with their moon cakes!

Dan's kitty shaped moon cake

Me and my moon cake in front of a moon cake advertisement

Denise and Dan with the Petronas Twin Towers in the background.

So after eating and relaxing for most of the day in Kuala Lumpur, Dan and I caught a bus to a town called Kluang. The bus ride was completely easy. We got to sit in the very front, and they played two US movies during the ride. I mostly looked out the window and came to the conclusion that Malaysia is very beautiful and very green! We got off in Kluang and had about a two hour wait for the bus to Mersing. In that time we managed to grab a bite to eat and some tea. Plus it was nice to have a little break after being on the last bus for about three and a half hours. That night was the end of Ramadan and the beginning of Eid, so everyone was celebrating. As we waited for the bus people around us were setting off fireworks. The ride to Mersing was pretty short- about an hour and a half- and when we arrived we were greeted by many moths, some stray cats (chasing, catching, and eating said moths) and a man with a notebook full of photos of his hostel. It was pretty late, about 11:30, and we weren't sure if we should go with this man. His price seemed reasonable, but he was being pretty pushy. An Italian woman we had chatted a little with seemed to think this man was trying to take us for a ride and overcharge us, and so she stormed off. Not really sure what to do, Dan and I followed her and quickly found ourselves walking along a deserted road hoping that a taxi would somehow chance by us. Eventually we gave up and went back to the bus station to take that man up on his offer. However, when we got back the man was gone, and we were shortly tracked down by the Italian woman who had managed to find a taxi in the meantime. The taxi driver confirmed what the man with the binder had told her- the place in Lonely Planet was closed. So he took us to the next place Lonely Planet listed and we ended up paying only 5 ringgit less than what the man with the binder had been proposing. Now, I'm not too picky about where I sleep, but on first impressions this place was pushing my limit. It was a little dingy- dirty looking sheets and walls that didn't reach the ceiling, so you could hear anything then went on in the place. There were huge dead months in a few places, and big holes in the walls. Omar, the man who ran the place (called Omar's Backpacker's Hostel) was a friendly sort of guy, and I took note that the kitchen was clean, and the bathroom didn't give me the heeby jeebies.

Our nasty bed at Omar's Backpacker's Hostel

Dan, trying to be optimistic about Omar's. Note the dead moth stuck in the chicken wire wall above Dan.
Yeah, Omar's is a pretty classy place.

After we paid and started to get into bed, being sure to take out our sleep sheets and wrap them securely around us, I noticed that the sheets were covered in tiny little blood stains- an indication that there were bedbugs. I pulled my silk sleep sheet tighter around my neck hoping that the sheets were old and that any potential bug problem had since been taken care of. So at about 12:30 in the morning Dan and I shut the lights off and went to sleep. I dozed uncomfortably for about a half an hour and then woke up from being afraid of bugs. I woke Dan up (somewhat unsympathetically) and asked him to turn the light on. I then asked him to hand me my camera bag where my flashlight was. I was hoping that I could get out my flashlight, closely examine the bed, and then sleep feeling more assured that there actually weren't any bugs. BUT, as Dan dropped my bag onto the bed in front of me I saw, to my horror, a bed bug scurry quickly into the seam of the bag. No flashlight necessary! It was confirmed: we had bedbugs! So Dan and I spent the next half an hour or so removing the stuff from our room one item at a time, thoroughly checking every seam and crease and removing any bugs that we found. We put everything in the kitchen and then sat down at the kitchen table. We sat there, exhausted, until six in the morning, playing cards and playing the game: What would __________ do if he/she/they were here? After going through basically everyone we knew we decided there was no good solution. We were stuck in a small town that we didn't know our way around, in the middle of the night, with basically no other options. I spent a long time looking at a sign that said: Malaysia: Fascinating Destination. It apparently took me being awake at 5am at Omar's for me to realize what an interesting word combination that was:
Fascinating
Destination
So we sat there until six am when we went to the jetty to try and catch a boat to Tioman Island. Much to our dismay we were told that the early ferry wasn't running, and the mid-morning ferry was full. We bought two tickets for the 2pm ferry and started our mental countdown for the eight hours remaining before we could get out of Mersing. We tried to look on the bright side of things- we now had time to go to an ATM and get some breakfast before leaving (we actually had time to do these things several times over, but let's not get too specific...) We decided to search for someone who could tell us where an ATM was and the first person we ran into was the man who had been soliciting us at the bus station the night before. 'How are you?' he asked with a great smile on his face? We told him we were tired and that we had tried to find him. We explained that we had stayed somewhere with bedbugs and he immediately said: oh, Omar's? He then asked us if we had gotten tickets for the 10am bus. When we said they were all sold out he told us that he had come down to get tickets for the people that ended up staying with him and, finding that they were sold out, had dome some finagling and had managed to get seats anyway. He pointed to the three people who were staying with him. I looked over and saw three people, all seemingly well rested, laughing, and eating something. The man then chatted with us for awhile about Bangladesh and the importance for educating women. He referenced female politicians in the US and Bangladesh and Malaysia and gave us his opinion on Bangladeshi politics and religion. Eventually he pointed us in the direction of an ATM and told us where we could get a bite to eat, and we trudged off, resenting Omar's at every step.

We ended up getting a bite to eat from a food stand run by a Chinese family. We weren't sure how it worked, and were much too exhausted by this point to really try hard to get food. We probably spent 5 minutes just standing or sitting with our mouths open, watching other people come and go, buying lots of food and eating it. Eventually someone took pity on us and asked what we wanted. She gave Dan a bag and he started filling it with pastries. We paid and went into a nearby coffee shop to eat.

I honestly don't even remember eating this.

After getting some tea and eating enough to at least quell our hunger a little bit, we headed back to the jetty.

A funky boat on the jetty

Dan stayed with our bags, and took a little nap, and I sat politely in front of where the handed out boarding passes. After waiting for awhile someone took pity on me and gave me a boarding pass for the 10am ferry. We were quickly herded onto the boat and slept the entire way until the boat slowed down as it headed into the first jetty on Tioman Island!

On the ferry to Tioman Island, at last!

The boat dropped us off on ABC (Air Batang beach). I'm not exactly clear on what we did next, but I know we ended up finding a great place on the beach and I think we may have even gone swimming. We got food, and properly went to sleep after being awake for over 36 hours.

We spent the next week mostly on ABC. The decisions we had to make each day were: where do we eat? Should we swim, snorkel, sunbathe, lie in a hammock, or go for a walk? what should I eat? That was basically life on Tioman. We went snorkeling a few times. Part of the reason we decided to stay on ABC was that right off the beach there was nice snorkeling. We would just walk into the water, stick our faces in, and see pink and yellow coral, rainbow fish, jelly fish (with fish living under them), clown fish and anemones, sting rays, and many other kinds of fish! We pretty much spent every night eating at a sea-side restaurant that wasn't too expensive and watched the sunset. Most nights there was a lightning storm going on on the other side of the island and we could see glimpses of it when the lightning lit up the sky behind the high ridge of the island. Also nearly every night we were treated to an Eid fireworks display put on by the children who lived on the island.

Noodle soup- Noodles, squid, chicken, shrimp, cauliflower, corn, tomatoes, greens, chillis, cinnamon, cloves, aniseed, cardamom, mystery white balls... pretty good but a little tricky to eat since there was so much that actually wasn't edible.

Watching the sunset on the beach.

Going for a short hike to the next beach over.

Watching the Sunset, again!

Lovely Tioman Sunset

Sleeping in a hammock some afternoon.

Probably verging on sunburnt

Island Monkeys! Mama and her baby.

Monkeys on the road (path) that went along our beach.

All Monkeys!

A firework being shot off!

View of Tioman from the jetty on ABC

In a hammock next to the restaurant where we most often ate.

On the beach after snorkeling

Our beach- it's lovely.

Island cats. We were always in danger of being followed by these guys. They were professional beggars. One night at dinner I was sitting too far forward in my chair and a cat jumped up behind me. I was startled, but was even more startled when two seconds later a second cat jumped up. The next night I was sure to sit all the way back in my chair, but then the cats just jumped onto my lap.

So the highlight for the entire week on the island was probably the day that Dan and I decided to go on a trek through the jungle. The island has a ridge going through the middle, so the hike was mostly uphill. We prepared with plenty of DEET lots of water, and our cameras (I regret to inform you all, however, that I shot almost exclusively in film that day, so the photos won't be available until I get myself out into Chittagong and find a place to develop film for me).

Before we could set out into the jungle we had to walk through Tikkek, the beach/city that was just south of our beach. It was basically one of the most brutal walks of my life. We had sunblock on (and with us) but it was a long walk along a wide concrete road without any shade. We definitely should have headed out earlier to avoid having to make the walk to the jungle trail head in such heat. But, I can honestly say it was worth it when we got into jungle. The path was a a narrow boulder path with some stone steps put in place during the steeper parts. It followed the power lines across the island, but the jungle around us was still really dense. There were times I couldn't see more than about 10 feet to the right or left of me. We were basically just surrounded by forty foot high ferns and huge trees, bugs, bats, birds, monkeys, and giant squirrels (which we were luckily quiet enough to see!) The entire walk was pretty tiring and I haven't been that sweaty in a long time, but it was also completely awesome. We hiked up to a waterfall and then decided we should head back because we didn't want to get caught at night in the jungle when the snakes and bugs really started coming out.

So after 5 nights on the island we headed back to Kuala Lumpur for one night (where we stayed in a really nice hotel), and then back to Chittagong.

Dan among the throngs of street vendors in Chinatown in KL

Back to Chinese noodle soup with sweet pork! Okay, not too creative of us, but delicious nonetheless.

Fresh kiwi juice! mmmmm!

Fruit vendor selling interesting fruits.

Dan in Chinatown. Not *really* smiling because it is a little overwhelming.

Dan and a statue in Chinatown. Which one's Dan? Which one's the Chinese statue? It's hard to say.

Ramadan in Chittagong

I should admit that I haven't been updating for several reasons. Primarily my life here in Chittagong has settled into a routine schedule of work and eat. Additionally, I spent about a week and a half sicker than I can remember ever being before, so my energy for even writing emails was entirely diminished. More on that later, though!

So despite finding myself back in a routine in life, things here are still staying interesting. With a bit of turbulence and some improvising the school year here at AUW has started. I probably only know about 30% of my 75 students' names so far, but am learning more every day- and like I said, I was sick for a week (that's my excuse anyway).

Life in Chittagong has changed dramatically for me in the last few weeks in two ways. Firstly, Dan has arrived! I'll post a link to his blog at the end of this entry. He will probably be better than I am at posting interesting photos. He arrived right when I was starting to actually recover from the flu (perhaps of the swiney variety?!), so it was nice to have someone feeding me right when my appetite came back. I think Dan was a little shocked when the nurse came in to check on me and said that I was looking more lively than I had in a week. I think Dan had thought I was looking horrible- little did he know how horrible I had been! Basically I was stuck in bed with fevers that spiked and dropped as if someone were tuning through my internal radio stations looking for a good song- 99.8 100.3 101.5 102.4 103.6 102.3 100.0 101.3 99.6 100.5... up and down up and down. I developed a rash basically all over my body. I basically couldn't open my eyes without feeling pain behind them. After a few retrospectively hysterical bouts of delirium (during which time I found myself clutching desperately at a thread that I found in my bed and weeping that the thread was my closest friend...) the nurses and doctors at AUW decided that they should take some blood to make sure I didn't have typhoid or malaria. A man came in from the lab that AUW uses and I was called forward to sit at the table in the Health and Wellness Center and have my blood taken. However, this man and I were not on the same page. As soon as I started sitting at that table I started feeling light headed. I lost my vision and started losing my hearing- I was definitely about to black out. However, there was a part of my consciousness that was aware of the fact that this man had to take my blood so that eventually someone could give me something to make me feel better. So I resolved to stay sitting at that table until he took as much of my blood as he needed! But as I was sitting there my arm would start to droop sadly and the man would say: HOLD STILL! And I would mumble an apology and try to hold still- which is harder than it sounds when you think the room around you is moving. As soon as I felt him finish up taking my blood I decided I needed to lye down. "I think I need to lye down" I said, and I started to crawl onto the floor right there under the table. The man, panicking and perhaps a little nervous that someone might come in and think he had put me in this floored state, grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet. He called for a nurse who rushed in and found me, once again, trying to lye down on the floor. The nurse pulled me up and started herding me towards the "chill out room" where I had made myself a nest on one of the spare beds. Luckily I was lucid enough to alert her of the fact that I was about to throw up, and she managed to get me into the bathroom in time. After throwing up and then sleeping for the rest of the day I started feeling better. Eventually they got my test results back and I came up negative for both typhoid and malaria, and have actually been feeling great the last few days!

So I have physically recovered, and Dan is here to entertain me, so thing have been going great in that respect!

The other huge change that's happened in Chittagong in the last few weeks is that Ramadan has started. For those of you who aren't familiar with the ins-and-outs of Ramadan, I'll just give you a short run down. Basically Ramadan is the month of fasting in Islam. What this means is that Muslims who are observing Ramadan do not drink any water and do not eat any food from sunrise to sundown every day for the month. This has become a part of my life for several reasons despite the fact that I'm not fasting. Firstly, every morning at about 5:20 a siren alerts all people in Chittagong that it is now officially time to stop eating. The siren then sounds again at about 7:30 in the evening to alert everyone that it is now okay to eat again. The first time I heard this siren I thought it was a tsunami warning and I found myself wondering if living on the 6th floor of my building would be protection enough against a tsunami. However, I soon realized what the siren was actually for and now I anticipate its sound in the morning while I'm half-awake after my neighbors inadvertently wake me up when they get up to make an early meal for themselves, and again in the evening after work.

Because there is no eating during the day during Ramadan, every restaurant is closed all day. This basically means that Dan and I are making all of our own meals. It's still possible to go out during the day and buy uncooked food- vegetables and fruits, grains and lentils, etc. because people really do feast during Ramadan after sunset. Also on the streets you can buy what's called iftar (iftar is actually the meal that happens at the end of the day after sunset- but people also refer to the food by this name). So every restaurant that is closed during the day opens up street stalls at night and sells all sorts of iftar- samosas, chick peas, fried chilis (a lot of deep fried food actually), and desserts (also deep fried). I've found it's difficult now to buy naan or parota or roti on the streets, whereas before it was incredibly easy, but now it's easy to go out and buy samosas, so it's a compromise.

Something that I find interesting here is that by the end of the day people are far less productive. Dan and I went to Central Plaza to buy fabric and even though iftar time was still not for another half an hour, we were told to come back another time. People just get so hungry that things literally shut down. Also right after iftar time it's possible to go out onto the street and just walk down the middle of it. Traffic has stopped, and shops are quiet. Even beggars won't follow you around during this time because everyone is busy eating for the first time in 14 hours. When I was working in NYC I had a job taking 15 boys to Central Park to go ice skating. Needless to say that experience was loud and chaotic. When the boys were back on the bus, however, we would give each of them two chocolate chip cookies. The moments that followed us handing out the cookies were the only quiet moments in the entire afternoon, and this is much what Bangladesh is like at iftar time. The streets calm down, the beggars don't follow you down the street, and people don't yell at you from their shops. Everyone is busy eating.

Well, I should actually get going to go buy some samosas and some bananas before things start closing at iftar. I'll try to give some general updates soon- maybe with photos! There's a vegetable market near my house that Dan and I went to the other day, and I really want to return to with a camera. You basically get to it by walking through a little alley where men sell fruit and dried fish. In the market you can buy all sorts of vegetables or you can buy fish or shrimp, mutton (which hangs, whole, from the rafters) or chickens (which you pick out, live, and they kill and feather for you). So hopefully I can get up the courage to take some photos there, because it's a pretty awesome spot.

I hope you all are well

--- Catie


Dan's Blog:

http://blog.danbretl.com/travel/