Good morning, Bali!

After a marathon 4.5 week venture in Southeast Asia for work, I was finally able to take some time off for a little vacation. As I was ending my trip in Jakarta (where normally it falls at the beginning of my work trips to the region), I decided it was high time I get myself to Bali.

I arrived to sunshine and what I thought was very hot weather, but as I was waiting for my driver to get the vehicle at the airport, I felt a pleasantly cool breeze, which must have been coming off the ocean. It made me wish I were staying near the beach after all, just for that breeze, but I hoped that the interior parts wouldn't be too much hotter; the island isn't that big, relatively speaking.

I'm staying in Ubud, and what I didn't know it's more than an hour's drive from the airport in Denpasar. So much for Google maps assistance! By the time I reached my hotel, the rain had begun to pour like an angry monsoon. In fact it was raining so heavily that I couldn't even check in properly. The hotel doesn't have any sort of covered area for vehicles, so we had to run out in the rain to get to the lobby, and then they had me wait there (as the breakfast is there as well) at at a table and have tea until the rain lightened enough to bring out my bags. The area was outdoors but covered, and I enjoyed sipping tea in the cool air. I think I waited over half an hour, but there wasn't a whole lot of difference. Eventually they just decided they would have to tough it out. At least there is free wi-fi here, so I've been able to do this blog updating, especially helpful when the TV only has channels in Bahasa Indonesian, which is surprising since this area is so touristy.

Having said that, this is a far cry from Jakarta, which is filled with malls containing all the stores we have at home, as well as tons of designer stores we don't have at home because no one can afford to shop in them. Here, there are a lot of stores selling local handicrafts, paintings, wood carvings, things like that. It's quite a pretty area, what I've seen so far. I only really went out for a bit last night to get some food as I hadn't any time for lunch yesterday, and I wasn't able to get anything while it was raining. There were pretty much only tourists on the street, and all kinds of people soliciting passersby for taxis, food, and massages. I'm a little put off by the massage offers, though. I mean, someone is standing in almost an alleyway asking you if you'd like a massage; it makes me wonder what kind of a place it is. Not that I'll go for one at a reputable place either, but if I were ever tempted, I would definitely not go for an alleyway massage!

Having come down with a bit of a cold, I'm not going to overdo it for myself. I'll go out for a bit today and see things by daylight and then book some sort of tour for myself tomorrow so I can see some of the cultural and historical sites here. Then I come home.

Life After Bangkok

I figured there's no sense in writing blog entries for every country I went to this time around because in most cases, I didn't do much. Brunei, there was no time, as was the case last year, and we didn't even go to another city for work this time, which means I had no photos from the vehicle window either. In Malaysia, I didn't do a whole lot. I did get to spend a couple of evenings out having supper in Kota Kinabalu (generally called KK) this time, so I did get to appreciate that a little. Friends from work and I went walking out in the market and decided to have fresh seafood from the market for supper. I have great pictures of all kinds of fascinating fish and seafood. I hope to post those soon!

Other than that, I did have a bit of free time in Singapore. I met one of the most delightful people, who works at the Canadian High Commission. He's one of the Trade Commissioners (and his identity shall remain hidden or else I'll have to kill you...no, really it's just because I don't feel comfortable posting people's names here unless I have their permission), and he has lived in Singapore for so long that he is a local hire at the CHC. So I thought he would have good advice about interesting things to do, and I was not disappointed. On one evening, I went with another work friend to Arab Street. I had never heard of this place before, and I was so sad that I hadn't known about it before. Most of the restaurants there appear to be Turkish, actually, and not Arab, but even still, there are a variety of excellent places to eat yummy food from all those regions, and if you're into shisha, there's no lack of places to smoke it. We didn't get there early enough to do any shopping; apparently the market there is really interesting, and I noticed there were lots of rug stores, so it would have been nice to wander through it, but you can't win `em all. In any case, we ate at one of the Turkish places, and I had some of the most delicious lamb. I have no idea what they used in the marinade, but it was really tasty. My friend and I both loved this area. As for me, it appeals to my inner Bohemian, and perhaps I enjoyed being somewhere for a while where a lot of people (shop and restaurant owners) actually look like me. I think if I ever live in Singapore, I will probably spend a lot of time there.

The next day, I had some hours before heading to the airport for Medan (where I did absolutely nothing because there is so little to do), I went to Haw Par Villa. For those of you that have been following my blog since I first started my travel writing in 2006, you'll know by now that I have a bit of a penchant for the weird and wacky. Haw Par Villa is right up my alley for this reason. There is no point in my writing too much about it because the pictures will really speak for themselves. You'll see the link and know what this place is all about. The only comment I can say about it is that I felt it was really funny that they would describe and explain all the Chinese mythology scenes that were depicted, but when it came to other sculptures and representations, there was no explanation. Again, the photos will explain everything. Sometimes there just aren't words...

Does it surprise you that I'm in Southeast Asia again?

But at least I got to go to a new place this time, Bangkok. Before I get to that, just one thing I'd like to point out. While quickly skimming through my last entry, I noticed that the word "flight" was hyperlinked, but not by me. I hovered over it and learned that Surf Canyon has somehow flagged it. I really dislike Surf Canyon because it's popping up all over the place when I search for things and especially browse online catalogues when I'm considering making a purchase, so I just wanted you as my readers to know that I disapprove of this link, don't know how to get rid of it, and highly resent its presence on my blog. I won't even get any cash from advertising it, so please don't support it!

Anyway, Bangkok. I had mixed feelings about going to Bangkok and being in Thailand generally. It seems like such a touristy place, and by now, you must know how much I'm not a tourist--or at least how much I don't want to be a tourist. Secondly, a colleague and friend of mine who lived in Southeast Asia for about 4 years said he'd leave Thailand any day for Malaysia. To him, Thailand is the place where you find the dirtiest and most decrepit aspects of life, whereas you can go to Malaysia, get the same beaches, same cheap prices, and it's so much cleaner and safer, aside from the fact that most everyone in the cities tends to speak English. In addition, other colleagues of mine told me that when they go to Bangkok (as white males), they will be approached by random people on the street and asked if they would like to purchase the services of a young woman, man, or "lady boy" as they call the transgendered ones there. How disturbing!

I didn't know what to really expect when I went to Thailand, and I didn't really know what to make of it while I was there or even after, now that I've heard these crazy stories. Again, there are reasons why being me, having a universal face, is sometimes an advantage because I feel like I can blend in so much more easily and don't get noticed as much. In any case, why I was disturbed when I was there is that I saw so many older white guys with their cute, tiny Asian (likely Thai) wives, and I wasn't sure what to make of that either. One of the same colleagues that told me about getting approached by strangers for services told me that in some cases, it's probably mutually beneficial because the woman probably gets taken care of really well, and the guy probably even makes enough money to help support her family somewhat, and the guy in turn gets a cute wife. I'm entirely sure that is the case for many of those guys and have no contention with that, but I also wonder how many of the other ones are just creepy old guys who couldn't find a woman at home because they're creepy!! And it's not like you can tell the difference just by looking at them, most of the time, so I just didn't want to think about it.

I just couldn't stop thinking about how much the sex industry is so big there. Even on some taxi windows (photos forthcoming!), there was a sign indicating that the drivers would know where to take you if you wanted such services. It would disturb me less if I thought people in that industry truly wanted to be there, but many of them have been trafficked, and many feel desperate and like they have no choice.

On the lighter side of things, however, the organisers of the education fair I was there to do invited us to dine at a place called Cabbages and Condoms. It seemed like such an inappropriate venue until I learned more about the place and who started it. The guy's name is Mechai Viravaidya, and you'll come to learn more about his charitable work and what he has done for Thailand, given its sex trade, if you have a chance to read the links. No sense in me writing that info here since it's already better explained elsewhere.

Moreover, I had one day to myself to explore Bangkok because it was in between my school visit day there and the fair. At one of the school counsellor's suggestions, I went to Chatuchak (a.k.a. Jatujak or JJ) Market in the morning, but generally I found it a little disappointing. While there were definitely Thai people there, it was mostly designed for the tourist, selling items that you could find in almost any market in another Southeast Asian country, and in some cases a Latin American country, in my experience. There were some unique and interesting things, though. One was their art gallery section that featured the works of local artists. I would have loved to buy one or two pieces but couldn't find any salespeople for the life of me. I love to support local artists, though. There was also a store or two selling teas and spices, so I bought some saffron, cinnamon, and tom yum soup paste. The former two items are much more expensive in Canada, so I thought I'd bring home a bit for myself.

According to an online Lonely Planet web site, Wat Pho (pronounced something like wot poh) was supposed to be walking distance from JJ. I thought I would go there since it has one of the largest reclining Buddhas in Asia, and as I had missed that one in Penang a couple of years ago when I didn't realise it was inside the beautiful Burmese temple I kept walking around, I thought I should try to catch this one! I happened upon a tourist info centre near the market and asked them for directions, and they told me if I started walking then, I'd get there by midnight at the earliest! So much for Lonely Planet! They suggested I take the bus, so I crossed the street to the bus stop and waited for a while, but as I was already hot and sticky and didn't see a bus come for 10 minutes, I decided to take a cab over and flagged down one of the ubiquitous hot pink ones that brighten Bangkok streets. It happened to be a female driver, too. I love that because you don't see it very often. I've had female taxi drivers now in Mexico, Malaysia, and Thailand. Anyway, tangent is done...

Minutes before I arrived at this place, monsoon-like rain came gushing down. Since I was in regular clothes (as opposed to being dressed up), I wasn't overly concerned, and I had to wash my hair that night anyway, but the problem was my feet. I was wearing my sandals, which are leather and which were expensive, a price I paid because they were the only sandals I had found that fit my even more expensive orthotics. Now, work covers my orthotics, but that doesn't mean I want to ruin the leather insoles that the molded part is attached to. I stood under cover at the entrance to the temple for a good 10-15 minutes. Eventually, the rain seemed to let up a bit, and then I decided I'd just take my shoes off and carry them around in a plastic bag I didn't need that I had some stuff in from the market. You have to take your shoes off to go inside the temple, anyway. I rolled up my pants, removed my shoes, and walked around in light rain and puddles, and had a marvellous time. It was refreshing, cooled me down, and appeared to be quite safe as the grounds looked really clean. This temple is actually an active one where there are monks residing there, and I even came across an open door where young boys apprenticing for monk-hood were learning to play traditional songs on just as traditional instruments. I tried to get it on video, at least for a minute, but I can't remember now if I got it or not. I seem to recall having some issues with pressing a wrong button or something. Again I digress. I did finally get to see the reclining Buddha, and I correctly guessed that it would be inside the temple, not outdoors!

Wat Pho itself is also surrounded by other temples and the national palace as well as a beautiful national theatre, but I didn't get a chance to see or photograph those, unfortunately. I caught a cab back to my hotel after grabbing some fresh fruit punch to re-hydrate, and sadly, the cab couldn't take me all the way there. We only got about halfway after 1.5 hours, and because Bangkok traffic is notoriously thick, he suggested that he drive me to the nearest train station, and I take the train the rest of the way back because it would be faster. I agreed, so that's what I did! I had already taken the train out to JJ in the morning anyway, so I was familiar with what I needed to do and which stop I needed to get off at. The traffic really was crazy!

Anyway, I will likely get my photos up after I get back home, but I finally have some decent free time and thought I would post some stories here. The pretext to this is that there also isn't a very good selection of TV stations here in my hotel in Singapore, so I don't have much competition for distractions! ;o) Readers, aren't you happy I value you so much? Tee hee!

The photos, finally!

Please click on the album to view the pictures in Picasa--and they'll be larger than thumbnail!

Re: Indonesia & the rest

Let's see if I can squeeze out one last blog entry from this trip. I feel like I couldn't process anything after the MC Fiasco because it really seemed to put me out of my element, and I didn't feel like I could either ponder or fully enjoy the rest of the trip. Granted, there wasn't much to do, either. I really had little time for anything other than working every day. Still, we did have some free time in Surabaya to do a little bit of sightseeing. After our one school visit that day, we did a free city tour, which included visits to a couple of important places like the city hall and the cultural centre, but it also included a tour of the House of Sampoerna. If you've never heard of this place or the name Sampoerna, it's Indonesia's most famous tobacco company. Phillips Morris, an American cigarette company, recently bought the Sampoerna company, so it is no longer Indonesian-owned. While I don't smoke nor condone smoking, it was interesting to learn about how the company started, through a Chinese immigrant to Indonesia, coming as a child and then practically being orphaned to building one of the most famous and highest grossing companies in Indonesia. You will see some photos taken in the museum, which is located next to the Sampoernas' actual house. Descendants of his family still live there. The factory was so fascinating to watch. We weren't allow to take photos there, unfortunately, to protect the privacy of the employees, who have historically all been women and continue to all be women to this day. Otherwise, I would have taken a video to show the speed at which these ladies roll cigarettes, all still done by hand, as is the packaging. Cigarette rollers must be able to roll 350 cigarettes per hour, if I remember right. What I do remember is calculating that the women must roll 1 cigarette every 6 seconds. Can you imagine! They go through a bootcamp of sorts, and all the women who can't roll fast enough don't get hired. It was so amazing to watch them that it actually looked like machines working, not real human beings. Kind of frightening, too, in a way.

Outside of that, the rest of the trip was fairly dull, sightseeing-wise. I did manage to get back to a place to get the fish spa treatment, which I had tried for the first time last year. Those little garra rufa fish are great to cleaning up your feet! I took a fellow recruiter with me this time, and he really enjoyed it too. We both laughed ourselves silly at first because it really does tickle, but once you get used to it and try to think of other things, you can calm down and even watch them gnawing away at your dead skin cells. I'm still not sure why dead skin is good for them, though.

The only other really eventful day was another bad day, but to make a long story short, some poor advice from a hotel staff member and lack of following my instincts led me to arrive too late to check in for my flight to Penang two days before I was leaving for home. I was scheduled to visit 2 schools there, making a day trip from Kuala Lumpur (KL) to prevent myself from having to bring all my luggage with me and save time going through the airport, and I ended up having to change everything around because the next possible flight that had space for me to get on was departing 45 minutes after my first school visit was supposed to start. I'm happy to say that I was able to go to these schools later and still meet with counsellors, but the bad part is that there weren't as many students to meet with because they couldn't wait after school that long. The other downside is that I had no time to do anything there, including not eating. Penang is known for its street food, and there just wasn't time to stop for food! I had a driver for the day who was going to take me touring around a little in the couple of hours I should have had available before my flight back to KL, but I didn't have any time at all. I finished my meetings and went right back to the airport! That was another stressful day, but I made it through.

As a result of schools not replying to me about my final day in KL, I ended up having the whole day free, which was great because it turned out one of my cousins was home for a holiday, so not only was I able to see my aunt, but also my cousin, so that was a treat as I hadn't seen him in 5 years. We didn't do anything but chat, visit, and then go out for supper with his in-laws, but it was still good, and just good to be with family and feel safe and relaxed after all the fiascos I experienced. I do wish I'd known in time that my cousin was going to be there because I would have taken a few days off to stay in KL and then he would have taken me all over to eat yummy food! Such is life, I guess.

I returned home to a blizzard, but I was happy to be home, where I knew I could be safe, warm in my apartment, and get everything sorted out that I needed to. I've also begun to realise that I am indeed travelling too much: I actually had the same flight attendant on my flight from Shanghai to Vancouver as I've had on one of my previous return flights from Asia. It's on Air Canada, and I just remember him because he's a really tall, older guy. You know it's bad when you start recognising the airline staff, and yet, I love it just the same :o)

MC Fiasco Aftermath and Beyond

Thinking that my troubles were finished when I received my emergency card in Jakarta, they still hadn't quite all been resolved. Issue number one was not even being able to check in to the hotel because my credit card hadn't arrived at that point, and without a valid card, they wouldn't let me check in. Now, I could have paid cash, but I didn't know how much they would have wanted me to pay for the deposit, and I had tried to find out in advance by emailing them, but with the language barrier, that didn't work out so well as people on the other end couldn't figure out what I was trying to ask them. So I had to wait. My colleague from another university was at some meetings, but I knew he was going to be back at the hotel within a couple of hours, so I sent him a text to see if he'd be able to use his card to check me in, and that way, I could at least get a room and then wait for my card to arrive that day so I could still pay with my own card upon checking out. By the time he returned, and I was able to check in with his card, my own card had already arrived, but the transaction had already taken place, so the clerk swiped my card just to see if it would work, and it didn't, so at the time, I thought it was just as well that my colleague was there to help me out.

I decided to phone MC to find out if I had to activate the new card, and they said that I didn't, but that the reason it didn't work was likely due to the fact that with these emergency cards, they have to punch in the number manually because they can't be swiped. I made a couple of insignificant purchases the next day to try to see if it would work, and still, even with the manual entry, the card still didn't work! I called them later, and I found out that the reason it didn't work is that the card had already been blocked because when they tried to swipe the card rather than do the manual entry, the card got blocked again, so I ended up having to get MC security to unblock the card. I'm happy to say the card worked for the rest of the time, except for a brief scare at the Sheraton in Surabaya, although it turned out it was something wrong with the hotel itself, not my card, thank goodness.

Other than that, I can't really say a whole lot else happened on my trip. In Hong Kong, it was great to meet up with old friends (i.e. recruiters I've met on other trips) and hang out with them. One of these guys, who happens to be Chinese, was able to introduce us to some interesting foods there. He took us to this place where they have good desserts, and I tried what he was having as he had recommended this coconut milk served warm in the shell. There were some gelatinous bits in it that I didn't think about, and then all of a sudden, he took another look at the menu and said "Ohh, I had better wait until you finish to tell you what's in it." Well, then I had to know, so he informed me that I was eating bird's nest and we ended up learning is called "harsmar" in English, although I'm not really sure if that's a word. In any case, for those of you that don't know, bird's best is sparrow saliva, the kind that's used to glue their nests together. Harsmar is also a questionable food, in my opinion. The taste was quite okay. It's not that I would seek out these foods, although it adds to my repertoire of weird things I've eaten, but the thing I don't understand is at what point someone decided these are things that should be eaten. I mean, Fallopian tubes of toads? Bird spit? That's the part I don't get. In any case, it's all part of the adventures of my life, right?

Let's see if I can muster up another entry for Indonesia :o)

Travel Advisory - The MC Fiasco

What an experience I've had the last several days. I'm not even sure what the best solution is to this situation I went through. There are things I and my office could have done better, but let me share the story, and please use it accordingly as you travel.

I checked out of my hotel on Friday morning from my hotel in Kuala Lumpur, and I went about my school visits that day. Our driver had arranged for a taxi for me to take me from the last school I could visit to the airport so I didn't have to return to the airport. When I got to the airport, I had to pay a bit of an excess baggage fee, so I tried to pay for that with my credit card, only to learn it was being declined after two tries. So I went to get cash, chalking it up to the system being down. I've had that happen to me before where the card didn't work somewhere, but it worked without problems before and after, so I didn't think anything of it.

When I arrived at my hotel in Hong Kong at around 10pm, I was a little concerned about the fact that I hadn't enough cash to pay the taxi because I thought I had enough for it, based on what I paid last time. I had to exchange some of my US cash right then and there to pay him--at least $50 minimum, so I'm glad I happened to have that much on me. When I got that settled, I went to check in, and my card was declined again. The guy at the counter tried it about 5 times with different amounts as we thought perhaps I had unwittingly gone over my limit and would need to make a payment, but nothing worked. He asked me to make a cash deposit of HKD500 (about CAD60), but I only had 300 on me, so they decided that would have to do. As soon as I got to my room, I connected to the internet to get a number to call MasterCard, and I was able to find that they had toll-free numbers for all over the world for emergency services.

I learned that between the time I checked out from my hotel in KL on Friday morning and tried to pay my excess baggage fee that afternoon, some 7 or so hours later, someone in Canada had used my card number somehow to pay for gas a Canadian Tire in Richmond. MC thought that was suspicious and blocked my card. So I ended up having to call another MC number in order to request an emergency card. According to their web site, they can actually produce one in 24 hours, so I figured I'd have one before I checked out from my hotel the following Monday. To make a long story short, once I got everything sorted out, they weren't able to get my card to me until Tuesday, which meant I'd already be in Jakarta by that time. What that meant was having to pay my full hotel bill by cash in Hong Kong and potentially not being able to check in at the hotel in Jakarta unless my card was already there, as the only thing MC couldn't tell me was the exact delivery time for the card. The annoying part is that my own bank, which is where my card is issued, didn't respond to these types of requests before 10am EST. Some emergency hotline! That delay didn't help anything, and I had to wait several hours before they would be able to respond to my request for the emergency card.

I don't really have tons of extra cash in my account, quite often, so thankfully I was able to take some out of my dad's account as we have a joint account exactly for this purpose, in case of emergency. Now, I wasn't sure what my dad's withdrawal limit was, I tried to take out the maximum from an ATM. I used the wrong PIN at first as I couldn't remember which one I use for that card. The initial amount, the machine said it didn't contain that much cash, so then I tried a smaller amount, and that worked, so I was able to take out half of what I needed, and then I tried another bank, thinking I might be able to get more, so I tried twice, and I couldn't get anything as I had apparently exceeded my limit. The hotel would have to live with it, and I'd have to pay them the rest the following day. That night, though, I got a phone call in the middle of the night. Thinking it was my alarm in my groggy state, I turned it off to realise I had answered a phone call, and it was my dad's bank, telling me that they suspected fraudulent activity because of all these attempts to withdraw cash from ATMs in Hong Kong. I explained to them the whole situation, and after some security questions, they were convinced that there was no fraud and unlocked the card. Imagine what would have happened if that had been locked, too! I don't even want to think about it.

Anyway, I was able to get to Jakarta ok, but as I suspected, they weren't able to check me in to the hotel because I didn't have a valid credit card on me, and my emergency card had not yet arrived. I wasn't sure what to do. Again, I didn't have enough cash on me for a deposit, and I didn't know what time my card would arrive. I had tried to email them the previous day to ask what I should do or what they would advise in this situation, but unfortunately, language issues prevented anyone from understanding what I was asking, so that didn't help at all. It suddenly occurred to me, though, that I would be able to get some colleagues already here in Jakarta to help out if necessary. Since the card is just to hold the room, my one colleague staying at the hotel could use his and at least I'd have a room while I wait for my mail. He was out at meetings, but I sent him a text to ask, and he was fine with that, so I just had to wait for his return, which was just a couple of hours after I arrived at the hotel. I call him my knight in shining armor at this point because I feel like he rescued me and saved my life!

By the time I tried checking in the second time, the credit card had arrived, but we didn't know that until the transaction with my colleague's card had already gone through, but at least I have it now, and it should help me get through the next few days until I get home. What an experience!!

In the meantime, everyone around me, from recruiters to Canadian government people, to the really good customer service overall that MC gave me, has really helped. People on Facebook have poured out their love, prayers, and words of encouragement as well as even financial help if need be. It's amazing, and I am blessed. I got a free taxi upgrade from a sedan to a minivan from the airport to the hotel, and then when I checked in successfully, they gave me a bit of a room upgrade as well, so it was like walking into heaven when I arrived, even though I've stayed in ever nicer rooms. But after an ordeal like the last several days, I don't even want to leave, and I feel like I can finally rest. Exhaustion has hit me like a ton of bricks! I can say I'm also glad MC is looking out for me, but it's just that the timing was so poor. Had this happened in Canada, it wouldn't really have mattered because I don't use my card that often there. But be warned, travellers. Have a backup plan! I'm going to check what measures my office has to prevent this from happening again!