Melaka was established in about 1400 due to its strategic location at the narrowest part of the Strait of Malacca. In its early years, Melaka was actually a protectorate of China, which shielded it from assault by the other regional powers, allowing it to flourish as a key trade stop, connecting China, India, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe.

You’ve probably already guessed that this arrangement didn’t last. Melaka had built itself up into a target, and the Portuguese, who had no word for consent, heard Yes. They took Melaka in 1511, intending to dominate Asian trading by leveraging Melaka’s critical role. Sadly, that required some competence in execution the Portuguese couldn’t quite muster. Their administrative ineptitude diminished Melaka’s role, allowing trade to be splintered amongst smaller, warring ports.

The Dutch figured they could succeed where the Portuguese failed, and launched a series of attacks on Melaka starting in 1606 and culminating with a Portuguese defeat in 1641. The Dutch held onto it until ceding it to the British in the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824. That lasted until the Japanese took Melaka in 1942. Melaka was part of various Anglo-Malay confederations until 1963, when it joined the now independent and newly named Malaysia.

One of the hallmarks of crossroad cities, from Marrakech to the Silk Road, is that their exposure to traders from other lands leaves a noticeable multicultural footprint behind. Welcoming is the brand that built these cities, the echoes of which still reverberate today.

While the British brought Indians and Chinese to work the plantations during its Malaysian episode, Melaka had a foreign presence practically since its founding. Chinese immigrants in the 15th century married local Malays, creating a unique culture called Peranakan, or Baba-Nyonya, with its own cuisine and unique crafts. The Portuguese also married Malays, creating the Kristang, with its own creole language and cuisine. Tamil traders came in the 15th century and intermarried, creating the Chitty. They adopted Malay language and customs, but insisted on keeping the Hindu faith. There’s a substantial Chinese presence from multiple Chinese ethnic groups, such as the Hokkien, Cantonese, and Hainanese, that didn’t intermarry. And, of course, the colonizers left their usual architectural stylings behind, even if most didn’t stick around for the afterparty.

That’s the backstory that motivated me to visit Melaka. That kind of history tend to leave a delicious residue.

I probably shortchanged Melaka, only giving it a couple of days. With so little time I was only really able to see the historic city center. That gave me access to most of the commonly accepted Places of Interest, but I’m not sure I was able to see anything but the surface. As a result, it was a little disappointing. “Baby, it’s not you, it’s me.”

Chinatown

My hotel was incredibly central, a short walk to all of the key locations. I stayed on Heeren Street, which, with its neighbor one block over, Jonker Street, is the heart of the historic Chinese sector. The area is known for its 17th century shophouses, and Jonker Street hosts a weekend night market. Hey, I was there on a weekend! Don’t knock it. Dumb luck is better than no luck at all.

Then there was the Jonker Street Night Market. I don’t know. This is month nine for me in SEA over the last year. Maybe I’m over night markets? They’re always crowded, and while I don’t object to people en masse, the shoulder-to-shoulder thing isn’t much fun. The highlight for me is always the food. The night markets always stand out for presenting the range of local cuisine all in one place.

The goods on sale always seem to disappoint, though. They’re a mix of cheap tourist goods and cheap local goods. I don’t know that I’ve seen a single interesting thing, that wasn’t edible, in a night market.

One thing the night market had going for it, as well as Melaka overall, was the relative death of mat salleh. Most of the tourists seemed to be from other SEA countries, and I’ll never complain about being one of the few gringos.

The Baba & Nyonya Museum

The Baba & Nyonya Museum is the actual home of a Peranakan family from 1861. Four generations of that family lived there until it was turned into a museum in 1985, which makes this as authentic a museum as is possible. Baba and Nyonya, by the way, are male and female honorifics, and are used together as a synonym for Peranakan.

While there were poor Peranakans, the owners of this house were distinctly upper crust, both socially and financially. The house represents almost a Gilded Age for the Peranakans in Melaka, with rich furnishings, tapestries, and hand-carved wooden furniture. It also raises the thorny epistemological question: Is it chinoiserie if it’s actually Chinese?

One of my children, to be unnamed, is contemplating major lifestyle changes. I was asked, in the event of becoming a grandparent, whether I had a preferred form of address picked out. I had never considered such a thing, and the most obvious answer, Mark, which is, you know, my name, was summarily rejected.

Truthfully, every other known option felt ill fitting at best and stomach-churning at worst. Gramps? Papa? Pop Pop? Pappy? How about The Dead Guy, since any of those other names would be over my dead body? But I think I could make Baba work. That doesn’t curdle. Although if I’m Baba I feel like Dorothy is more Yaga than Nyonya.

Crafts

There’s always shopping, amiright? Thankfully, all of the interesting shops were within a 5-10 minute walking radius. The shops along Jonker Street were definitely tourist focused, to the point where it was hard to figure out if Melaka had any craft traditions of its own, distinct from the rest of Malaysia. Whose primary craft traditions seemed to center on tote bags and refrigerator magnets.

One shop I found was a generations-old cobbler. His grandfather had made foot binding shoes for the Chinese gentry, but he was the last in the line, as foot binding was outlawed in Malaysia in about 1912, following China’s lead. But his grandson still has all of the old patterns, and makes the shoes now as artifacts.

The only other crafts I saw that had any Melaka terroir, and weren’t simply tourist gimcracks, were Peranakan beaded shoes and embroidered dresses for Nyonyas.

The highlight, as it turned out, was right across the street from my hotel: Mr. Joe’s Jewelry. It was contemporary design, nothing even vaguely traditional about it, with a specialty in stones and minerals. It is possible that I bought as much as I did because it was air conditioned. Mostly it’s that, while I can’t buy clothing for Dorothy in her absence, I have a passable track record with jewelry. The work was also objectively swell.

Dutch Square

Also called Red Square, but not in a Commie sense. In a paint sense. The Dutch built the primary structures in the Square, Christ Church and the Stadthuys (State House). In an unsurprisingly arrogant attempt to impose their will on nature, they painted them white. Stained red from muddy rainwater and peasants spitting betel nut juice on the walls (hmm…), the British finally conceded in the early 1900s and just painted them fucking red. And thus was an icon born.

The Square’s other main attraction was these trishaws. What you can’t see in the pictures is that each of them had a boombox strapped to its back, pumping out overamped Malaysian pop. That wasn’t ideal, much, I imagine, like being a BB in a can, but I could not get enough of the trishaws themselves. If you can’t tell from the pictures, these are basically bicycles with elaborately coiffed sidecars bolted on.

The trishaws are human-powered, which just seems wrong in the equatorial heat. I saw one poor bastard off the bike, pushing it up an incline, the sidecar fully loaded with a family of five. Whatever the amount, they did not tip him enough.

Little India

I had high hopes when I learned that there was a Little India neighborhood. But rather than a hotbed of vernacular architecture and Buddhist or Hindu temples, it was just an Indian neighborhood. Not unlike Jackson Heights in Queens. Not uninteresting, but it fell short of my imagined expectations.

Kampung Morten

Kampung Morten is a traditional Malay village in the middle of Melaka, designated a Heritage Village by the Malaysian government. For reasons unclear, it was named after a British tax collector. At least when I visited, it was just a bunch of houses of similar design, with Christ Church red roofs. There were no museums, displays, people, or information. Maybe technically a village, but practically a neighborhood. At least it wasn’t a long walk.

And that’s Melaka. Was there more to take away if I’d been there longer? Sure. Maybe. I dunno. But it was certainly an enjoyable interlude, and I can check Meleka off of my International Travel Bingo card. I’ve been to Melaka and you haven’t. No complaints.

My blink-and-it’s-over visit was a mere week, in the capital of Sarawak, Kuching. There’s a reason we don’t make a habit of the tourist cadence. It’s a drag. That week felt rushed, like I had to make every moment count. That frenetic pace is not generally how we roll, and it absolutely makes me want to come back, with Dorothy, and do it properly. Slowly. Thoughtfully.

But my commitment to squeeze out what I could made for a full week with much to report. I’ve already covered an overview of Sarawak and trips to view wildlife. Now comes the payoff: crafts. So many, many crafts.

Jalan Main Bazaar

Most people’s first exposure to Sarawak’s crafts will probably be the shops that line Jalan Main Bazaar. For about half a kilometer, souvenir shops stand cheek by jowl along this stretch, which sits right across from and parallels the Kuching River. Most of them are in the tote bag and refrigerator magnet class, although many carry manufactured versions of the traditional Sarawak basketry and printed versions of local batik patterns. There are also a handful of antique shops that seem to carry genuine goods, although at very high prices.

Jalan Main Bazaar had one other treat: actual treats. Specifically shops that specialized in Kek Lapis Sarawak, which translates just as you’d think, as Layer Cake. These are elaborately structured cakes made of layers of alternating flavor and color. Delicious and eye-bleeding. I enjoyed a chocolate/mint confection.

Steamship Building

The historic Steamship Building is on the Sarawak River side of Jalan Main Bazaar, opposite the souvenir shops. It’s a small building that holds maybe ten vendors, but they have been carefully selected for quality, and it shows. Everything on offer is hand crafted and exquisite. Most of it is priced accordingly.

Ranee Artisans

Now I’m digging into the butik and specialty shops where the real thing is to be found. Ranee Artisans has its own shop, but it also supplies many of the products in the Borneo Cultures Museum gift shop.

Songket & Keringkam Gallery

We had read about the keringkam, the dense metallic embroidery, and specifically about an embroiderer named Danny Zulkifli. I was able to track him down and reached out to ask what gallery represented his work. He was very gracious, and invited me to a workshop he was giving at the Songket & Keringkam Gallery. He offered me a tour of his studio after the workshop.

Once I figured out that the workshop was an all-day affair, I begged off, explaining that it would be wasted on me, as I could barely tie my shoes (I’m spending a lot of time in slides these days). Also, now that I’d done a little more work and understood how expensive the keringkam was, I didn’t want to waste his time in the studio, as I was pretty sure that unless he was selling scraps I wouldn’t be able to afford anything.

He maintained the offer and said he would love to meet me, but our schedules never matched, a victim of my short, overstuffed visit to Sarawak. But I did make it to the gallery, which was small but had excellent representation of both the keringkam and songket.

Some of their ridiculously baroque songket.

The keringkam selection was, no surprise, the best I saw. The work is so expensive, no one really carries a lot of it. Some of these closeups really communicate the scale of the work, both the overall effort and how very fine the work is. This is backbreakingly delicate work done at industrial scale. It’s very, very hard to wrap your head around.

Tanoti House

I’ve saved Tanoti House, the best of the craft shops, for last. They were out of the main shopping district, but only about a 25 minute walk from my condo. Which doesn’t sound like much except for the equatorial heat. Let’s just say that I was less than fresh when I arrived, and took a Grab back home.

The arrival part itself was pretty funny. As I was walking up the path to the building, a woman drove her car past me and parked. As I came up behind her she turned and asked if she could help me. “Is this Tanoti House?” “Yes.” We were standing in front of a large outbuilding full of looms. “Do you have a shop.” “Yes.” “Great. I’d love to see your work.” “Oh. OK, sure.” Like a customer walking up was so weird she couldn’t quite grasp why I was there.

But she warmed up quickly and led me around the corner to her shop. Which was staffed with a full-time sales associate (the delightful Jenny), so her confusion about a customer walking up seemed odd. Maybe they were one of those places that tours stopped at and walk-up customers weren’t a thing. They were a little off the beaten track. Dunno. However odd it started, it was a delightful experience once underway.

Not only did they have the excellent work produced in their own workshop, they also represented tribal groups from across Sarawak. I had struck a rich vein at Tanoti House. Everything was super high quality. However, this was another experience that required Dorothy’s direct involvement. I took some pictures and sent them to her, and we scheduled a return visit, when they were expecting me, so that I could bring her in on a video call and we could shop together. Important decisions needed to be made, so the Executive Committee was convened.

They had the best basketry I’d seen and beautiful songket.

But the standout pieces were the Pua Kumbu weavings.

One piece stood out from its brethren.

This is an Iban piece, and is, mostly, the Pua Kumbu Sungkit (songket) technique, which is actually two distinct techniques combined. Pua means blanket, and Kumbu is a warp ikat technique, where the vertical threads have been tie-dyed, rather than the more common weft ikat. In addition, songket is used, which is a discontinuous supplementary weft technique, meaning that additional weft threads are pulled through the warp and tied off to make discrete patterns that don’t continue horizontally across the width of the fabric.

What makes this particular piece an outrageous example of stunt weaving is that its three sections all deploy both different motifs and different techniques, all of which were executed on the same loom. One end holds the primary motif, the terabai, or shield. We were told that when displayed, the terabai is always at the top, never the bottom. This section is Pua Kumbu Sungkit.

The middle section is a motif called silup langit sereta. Langit means sky or heaven, and the overall motif represents the connection of the earthly and the divine. The technique used is sidan, which is a continuous supplementary weft technique, meaning that the pattern extends side-to-side.

The final panel is the kelekeit motif, a sacred pattern with strong protection powers. This is again executed in the Pua Kumbu Sungkit technique.

So this piece incorporates three distinct patterns, is built on a warp ikat base, and uses a discontinuous supplementary weft technique at each end and a continuous supplementary weft technique in the middle.

Sweet bleeding Jesus!

In case you’re still not convinced, here are closeups of the front and back sides. The amount of labor is almost unfathomable. Just thinking about it makes me want a nap. Although, to be fair, very little doesn’t make me want a nap.

This piece was also… expensive. They had so much beautiful stuff we were sort of looking at a shopping cart. Some of the baskets and purses, a floor covering, a little of this and a little of that. Instead, we put all our chips into the Pua Kumbu. This is a signature piece, always our goal, and will find its new home, I think, well suited. Sadly, it required that we leave all the other beauty behind.

Well… almost all. We still needed an example of the basket weaving, and their selection was outstanding. This piece is from the Penan tribe, and uses a fern motif called paku pakis. The rings that hold it together at the top are called ulat, the Malay word for caterpillar.

I left lighter in the wallet but richer in every other way. I love shopping with Dorothy.

What could possibly be left after that? A pair of museums, a cultural center, and a field trip to a songket weaver. But don’t worry, there are excellent gift shops still on the itinerary. That Pua Kumbu may have eaten up most of our budget, but there was still room for a few more treats.

Borneo Cultures Museum

Everyone in Kuching said the same thing: “Have you been to the Cultures Museum yet?” I like to think of myself as pretty resistant to peer pressure, but resisting seemed not so much futile as foolish. Why would I skip a Borneo cultural museum? Good lord. I only play an idiot on TV.

The first thing I liked about the museum was its name. Not the Borneo Cultural Museum, but the Borneo Cultures Museum. There are many cultures here, and we’re going to do our best to represent them all. Nice.

The next thing is the building itself, a five-story structure that riffs off traditional basket weaving and Pua Kumbu motifs. Not for nothing, it’s also the second-largest museum in all of SEA.

The oddest thing about the museum is that every time I entered or exited a gallery my hearing aids went all staticky. Dr. Google says it’s most likely some form of electromagnetic interference caused by the museum’s security systems, but they must be doing something no one else is doing. I’ve never had that happen before.

Also, and this is just me being weird, none of the escalators moved until you stepped on them. That’s not the first time I’ve run across that, but it still surprises me how disorienting it is. Are you broken? Is there a toll? Are you Up or Down? So many questions.

OK, enough. Focus. Museum.

Because there’s lots of museum to take in. This is just going to be the highest of highlights, but the bottom line is simple: You should go to Borneo, visit Sarawak on the Malaysian side, and go to the Borneo Cultures Museum in Kuching yourself. Until you can pull your shit together and execute on that perfectly reasonable plan, this will have to suffice. But it will be very sad for you if this is all of Borneo you ever see. Just sayin’.

Often in a museum I’ll think, “Oh, I’d love a reproduction of that.” But outside the Borneo Cultures Museum these pieces are being produced, not reproduced. They are the artifacts of cultures that are still current, active, and engaged. Their craftwork may be in a museum, but none of them are museum cultures. They’re out there right now, living the lives represented in the exhibits. Museums tend to be monuments to the past, not representatives of the present. That’s pretty unusual, and it’s more than a little exhilarating to know that I could see any of the cultures represented there in situ if I so chose.

So let’s dine out on the feast the Borneo Cultures Museum serves up. First up, basketry and reed weaving, a Borneo specialty.

There are textiles, to no one’s surprise. Mostly Pua Kumbu, with a few exceptions.

Some truly excellent beadwork examples.

More? Of course. How about some clothing and hats? Well, since you asked so nicely…

OK, one more. You’ve been good. Here’s some primo carvings and masks for you.

The museum opened in 2022, so it’s modern to the gills, full of interactive displays. This room held a series of decorated glass windows and a sliding wooden frame.

When you slid the frame over one of the windows, it came to life. Sorcery! Witchcraft!

This next display was an interactive book that took up an entire wall. You controlled it with hand gestures.

But this may have been my favorite interactive display: Smell-O-Vision. There was a whole bank of these, each with a different aromatic substance. Push the button and huff and you get to smell, in this case, camphor.

Is there anything better than a good museum gift shop? If there is, I’m certainly not telling you. I’ll snort it all myself.

Kampung Budaya Sarawak

The Sarawak Cultural Village calls itself a living museum, and that sounds about right. Visiting SCV is meant to be an immersive experience. The 17-acre grounds are dotted with reproductions of traditional houses associated with different tribes. The houses are all accessible, and there are docents to explain how people used those spaces and lived in them.

There are craftspeople scattered about the different houses, highlighting some sort of traditional activity or craft, such as games, baking, weaving, beadwork, and blowpipery. Many of these activities can be joined by visitors in a low-key version of tourist places that let you Make Your Own Batik! There are also performances, some taking place in the houses, some staged in their indoor theater. It’s meant to be a soup-to-nuts cultural experience and it pretty much delivers on that goal.

We actually visited someplace similar in Hà Nội, the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology, which is likewise made up of houses representing Vietnam’s different ethnic groups. I think the biggest difference is that most of the houses in the Museum of Ethnology were real houses that had been broken down and reconstructed on site, whereas the SCV is all reproductions.

This grand edifice is a Melayu home. It was built in 1989 from native ironwood, just as the original was in 1860.

This is a Melanau Tall House.

This is the Iban house, with crafts you’ll recognize from the Borneo Cultures Museum.

Another tall house, from the Orang Ulu.

And finally, a few lightly identified houses.

Here’s one of the Tourist Enrichment Stations, where an expert tries to teach a poor schlub how to throw a top. Opportunities to humiliate myself always seem to crop up without my intervention, so I passed. Schadenfreude only works if it’s someone else’s misfortune.

The performances were surprisingly good. The performers were charismatic, the costumes were great, and even the musicians were excellent. It was an unexpectedly professional production, especially since all the performers were pulling shifts in the houses before the afternoon Big Show.

I love this clip, where the pole dancer clearly has to work his nerve up for the trick.

And then this, indigenous crowd work. I’m sure the screaming is traditionally relevant and not just a Tourette’s-like outburst. Plus, more of those delicious thighs. What’s not to love?

But do they have a gift shop? What a silly, silly question. I picked up a few things there for the floor.

SCV was the other place, with the Borneo Cultures Museum, where everyone was all, “Have you been? Have you been? What about now? Have you been?” And I get it. It would have been a grievous error to have visited Kuching, for however short a stay, and missed either of those institutions. Thankfully, most of my lapses in judgement involve doing things I shouldn’t rather than missing things I should.

Tun Jugah Museum

I was texting with the tour operator who got me to Bako National Park and mentioned that I was interested in Pua Kumbu. She pointed me to the Tun Jugah Museum, right in town. Tun Jugah was a Malaysian politician who played a central role in the establishment of Malaysia as an independent nation. His foundation, set up to promote Iban crafts and culture, houses a museum and gallery with amazing specimens.

They must not get a lot of visitors, as it’s pretty hard to reach. There’s a sign in the lobby indicating that the museum is on the fourth floor. I naturally take the escalator up to the second floor, where I’m met with an escalator to the third floor that’s decommissioned and gated, with no obvious way to go any higher. Back down to the first floor, where I find the elevators that… don’t go to Four.

Then I see a sign for the museum at the head of a passageway, but the passageway dead ends. I back out and round another corner where I find another elevator bank and signs to the museum… behind an entrance that requires a key card. No signs, no help, but I’m now adjacent to the front desk in the lobby of what looks like an office suite. I ask the nice lady if she has any idea how I get to the museum on Four. She does! I get there when she hands me a visitor’s badge that opens the gate to the elevator bank. Of course. How foolish of me not to have figured that out.

When I exit on the fourth floor, I am honestly unsurprised that the museum staff is surprised to see me. Not me particularly, obviously, but anyone. I can’t imagine many people make it through the gauntlet required to gain access. It lacked only a troll and a riddle.

But the collection. Holy cow, they had the goods. Sadly, they wouldn’t let me take pictures in the fabric gallery, but I was able to take pictures of the looms and some of the workers, as well as a separate gallery with beaded goods. The ladies who worked there were super knowledgeable and helpful, and seemed truly pleased to answer my questions. And downright spooked when I was able to use the phrase discontinuous supplementary weft properly in a sentence. One of my favorite tricks.

Outside of the fabric gallery I can’t show you, the most interesting thing was the workroom, full of looms with work in various stages of completion. No one was weaving while I was there, as all of the women were tying off thread for ikat dying. But what was up in the looms as WIP was beautiful, even half-finished.

They had some completed pieces up for display, but nothing for sale. If any museum ever screamed for a gift shop, it was surely the Tun Jugah. The sound still echoes.

They also had a section of looms set up tagged with the technique being demonstrated, which was very helpful. I think these were specifically educational display, and not WIP.

The range of techniques on display was impressive. I would have gladly stolen any one of the pieces at random, had they not been still on a loom. And had I been slightly less thoroughly docented. You can just imagine what the display pieces in the Forbidden Gallery looked like, given how stunning the WIP was.

I was baffled by this first piece, but I think it’s because I’m not very smart. I’m used to seeing fabric woven in a length, and I couldn’t figure out why this was being woven from the bottom… up to completed weaving on the top? How is that supposed to end?

I’m sure y’all saw it right away, but I had to ask. The entire piece is being woven in a loop, and when the weaver catches up to the beginning she’ll cut it so it’s a single long piece. It seemed obvious once it was explained, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen that.

The live action while I was there was all in the ikat preparation. Three women were engaged in tying off thread to dye into ikat patterns. They’d move to the looms later. I’m sure they were waiting for me to leave.

Finally, there was the bead room, which featured beautiful pieces made from glass trade beads and carved shell. Most of the beadwork I’d seen in the markets was clearly tourist goods. It was a treat to see the real thing.

Seri Gedong Songket

It’s such a fine line between adventure and misadventure. I suppose the distinction is really just how much stupid you bring to the table. Game on.

I had read about this high-end songket maker, about 90 minutes south of Kuching, and made it the central focus of one of my day trips. When we got there, I found a small workroom with maybe four looms, three of which were in operation during my visit. I asked about their shop, where I could see and purchase finished goods, and they explained that it was in Kuching. After describing the location, I said, “Wait, are you the songket stall in the Steamship Building?” “Yes! That’s our shop.” The songket photo in the Steamship Building section above is theirs.

I had come all that way for no reason except to see the weaving. And don’t get me wrong, I love seeing the process. But I’d seen songket weaving in person in Bali and I’d seen Seri Gedong Songket’s finished work already in Kuching. I don’t think I’d have made that trek knowing those things. [counting the ballots…] Misadventure!

However. Lemonade shall be made from these lemons. The work was unquestionably denser than the Balinese songket, so it was pretty cool seeing it made.

Nothing like mixing up a little misadventure with the actual adventures. Keeps me young.

Dorothy and I had planned for our next leg, leaving Chicago before winter, to be 100% India. Current thinking, based on all of the above, is Kerala, Borneo, and Sri Lanka. More planning and thinking to do, but I’ll happily sign off on that itinerary. Especially the full-on Borneo tour. There’s so much more than a week’s worth of wow left in Borneo.

KL offered a couple of craft malls, an outstanding batik maker, and an excellent museum. But, as expected, the real action was elsewhere, where craft traditions are a lived part of daily life. In other words, Borneo.

Central Market

Central Market, despite its name’s connotations, is exclusively a crafts bazaar, with a second floor emphasis on batiks. This is considered the go-to market for crafts in KL. I love nothing more than a good crafts mall, a place that digs deeper than refrigerator magnets and keychains, and Central Market delivered.

As promised, the second floor delivered batiks, wovens, embroidered goods, and readymade clothes.

Kompleks Kraf

A larger physical complex than Central Market, but with dramatically fewer vendors. The emphasis here was on the experience, so there were multiple huts where you could make your own batik or make your own batik. The full range.

I get those, but I also kind of don’t understand why you’d want to go home with an artifact that represents all of the skills you could learn in a couple of hours rather than the work of a master who’d devoted a lifetime to his or her craft. Nothing comes out of those “experiences” but handprint ashtrays. To each their own.

But the setting was beautiful, and there were cats. A win all around.

There were also a couple of large shops with truly outstanding examples. None of which, of course, were local. Every time I saw something juicy, it was from Borneo. All signs point to the Sarawak excursion as my prime Malaysian looting opportunity.

There was an excellent fabric selection, with batiks, wovens, and embroidery, all with prices to match.

But the highlight was the Borneo reed and rattan weaving. Wow! I can’t wait, and I’m already regretting that it’s only for a week.

Jadi Batek

Jadi Batek was so good, I went back and scheduled a morning visit so Dorothy would be awake. I put her on a video call and toured the store for her, zooming in where she saw something of interest. She was able to pick out her own fabric that way, and it was a lovely way to share the experience.

When I went the first time it was clear that there were way too many quality choices for me to just pick something out for her. Taking her shopping with me was the only reasonable option. And I am nothing if not reasonable. Shut up.

They had a nice selection of shirts, but nothing I loved. However, they offered to make one for me from any of the fabrics I liked at the same price as off the rack. They promised three-day turnaround, but actually had my shirt done that afternoon. Having been involved with Bespoke, Dorothy’s custom made clothing shop, I cannot imagine how that’s done. Pretty much the same in Hội An, so there’s clearly a method. Black, black magic.

National Textile Museum

Malaysia has been crafting textiles for centuries, and the breadth of that craft is, as you’d expect, on excellent display at the National Textile Museum. In addition to the specimens there are multiple displays demonstrating, step-by-step, how each of the different textiles is made. I surprised myself with how many of those techniques I already knew.

I’ve been chasing weaving all over the world with Dorothy, and damned if some of it hasn’t rubbed off. I’m no expert, obviously, and know exponentially less than Dorothy, but I am able to look at a weaving and say, “Ah, that’s a discontinuous supplementary weft.” Or, “How did they get a backstrap loom to do that?” I never tire of the surprise that elicits. Like a puppy that has just complimented your outfit in perfect English. And then pissed on your shoes.

I visited the Museum on one of my last days in KL, so it came after my Borneo junket. I’d seen examples of many of these techniques while there.

They had some spectacular examples of songket. Songket is one of those discontinuous supplementary weft techniques I’m so proud of recognizing. Additional gold weft threads are manually worked into the warp threads to create the patterns, which are discontinuous across the horizontal length of the fabric.

We’d seen songket woven in Bali, and came home with a piece, but Balinese songket, because of the complexity of the weaving, tends to be done as a border treatment. Hold my beer, say the Malaysians, who weave entire sarong lengths in songket. It’s a crazy amount of work. And the reason we don’t own any Malaysian songket. It is appropriately priced to the effort required, which puts it out of budget for us.

They also had some excellent beaded pieces. These are made from European glass beads, which started trading in SEA in the 1800s, although glass beads were being brought from India as far back as 500 AD. None of the pieces at the Museum have dates, though, so no way to know exactly what’s going on.

There was a separate gallery with an exhibition on technical experimentation. That’s 100% a sweet spot for us, the intersection of tradition and modernism, but we normally find that as the output of specific studios or artisans. Seeing that curated and aggregated was a nice surprise.

And there’s KL. A few treasures, but mostly just confirmation that Borneo is where I’ll find the hotness.

Semenggoh Wildlife Centre

The first of my two day trips took in a songket weaver, a local market, and monkeys. Not just any monkeys, though. We’re talking orangutans, which can only be found in Borneo and neighboring Sumatra. That Primate Bingo card is starting to fill up.

Semenggoh hosts about 28 orangutans (from the Malay orang hutan, person of the forest), ranging in age from 55 to in utero. Four of them have been rescued, the rest born on premises. Which is not the same as “in captivity.” The reserve comprises a robust 1600 acres of free range territory, more than enough for the solitary creatures to feel at home (mothers and children are the only orangutans that travel together). They could leave if they wanted, but the supplemental food that the rangers provide anchors them to the area. It’s especially important in between fruit seasons, when food can be sparse.

I happened to visit during fruit season, meaning that the orangutans were less likely to venture to the feeding stations, which are set up for safe observation. There was a possibility that none of them would venture out at feeding time, as the jungle naturally produced a bounty of jackfruit, durian, rambutan, and mangosteen. As you’ve all come to learn, though, I’m sprinkled with fairy dust, so of course I saw orangutans.

Before our first showed up, the result of rangers tramping the forest and ululating in the traditional orangutan Dinner’s Served call, our ranger gave us the lowdown on Dos & Don’ts to keep from provoking one of the orangutans into a deadly rage. Happy to listen. Along with hide your water bottles and put your selfie stick away, it included this pertinent gem: “If I say move, move. If I say move fast, move fast. If I say run for your life, get out of my way.” He assured us that he was JK and would stand as the last line of defense in the event of monkey fuckery. Good to know, but a little concerned that a last line of defense had been mapped out in advance.

I asked our ranger what else lived in the jungle, and he rattled off quite the list: gibbons, western tarsiers, macaques, slow loris, flying squirrels, wild boars, bearcats, pythons, cobras, and pit vipers. On the one hand, glad they closed the jungle trails. On the other hand, Wikipedia says that bearcats smell like buttered popcorn. In possibly the first instance of this sentence ever being written, I’m sorry I didn’t get to smell a bearcat.

Also, when he got to macaques, I said “Oh my god, macaques are the worst.” Even nature ranger agreed that they are the rats of the primate tree. It’s most certainly not just me. Everyone hates macaques.

Also, this was the sonic background.

Everyone hates cicadas, too. That’s what travel teaches you: all over the world, we are more alike than different. Kumbaya.

Our first visitor was Ruby, 13 years old and pregnant. Perhaps that’s why she was interested in bonus snacks. Sadly, photos and videos of the orangutans are sparse, but there’s a little. Here’s Ruby managing bananas in both hand and foot. The agility and dexterity is remarkable.

Here she is in action. I love her passing the bananas between mouth and hands/feet as necessary. It makes me imagine an evolutionary path where we have four hands and no feet. You could Hold my beer yourself.

There was a second sighting away from the feeding area. One of the alpha males, the 20 year old Anaku, was in the trees just off the path a few dozens of meters from the feeding area, so we all took off in that direction. Anaku was, we were told, only the fourth largest alpha in the group, which, once I laid eyes on him, was utterly terrifying. Nothing should be that large and nothing that large should have thumbs. And a hippocampus. And have three other even larger beasts nearby. That thing was fucking enormous.

And also closer than Ruby. Much, much closer. He was maybe ten feet away in open territory. Had he taken a notion to go all carnivore on us no one could have stopped him. He’d have been on us before we could even be shooed away. Thankfully, he was eating bananas and we were silent. Enough.

However close he was, he was also behind the first line of trees on the path, so the sight line wasn’t ideal. There were a number of us clustered trying to get good photos, but Anaku himself was the best reason not to try to angle for a better shot. I really felt like holding still was the best idea. The photos suffer. I only got one vaguely acceptable shot.

But I got better video. I love him catching the bananas while hanging from the tree.

Also, a note on their names. There was a population list up with all of the orangutan’s names, ages, and provenances. In addition to Ruby and Anaku there was an Analisa, a Baka, a Selina, a Sigat, even a Roxanne. Down at the bottom of the list was a 7 year old male named Ooooha. That is so weak. That is so, “Billy, what shall we call the monkey?” Honestly, that felt disrespectful.

Bako National Park

Bako is a must-see from Kuching. It’s Sarawak’s oldest national park, and despite being one of the smallest, crams a ridiculous amount of diversity into its modest 10 square miles. it features multiple biomes, from rainforest to riparian, trails of varying length and complexity, and more wildlife than you can shake a stick at. Or that can shake a stick at you. One of the highlights is the proboscis monkey, which, like the orangutans, is native to Borneo. You see them in zoos everywhere, and you’re like, “Oh, that’s a thing.” But it’s not. It’s a Borneo-only treat. With luck, I’ll complete a row on that Primate Bingo card.

Bako is a full day tour, all by itself, and it was quite the adventure. The park isn’t that far from Kuching, maybe half an hour drive to the car park. But even getting there was an accomplishment.

We usually use a service called GetYourGuide for booking tours when there’s something we can’t muster on our own. The whole somebody’s-cousin thing seems fraught. It’s like using a ridehailing app instead of a taxi. The communication is in English, prices are set in advance, the itinerary is specified… It’s just easier.

But GetYourGuide didn’t seem to work in Sarawak. First, the prices were heinous, like $150 for a day tour. But then when I tried to book, the price doubled to $300. I finally figured out that they were all private tours, and you had to cover the full cost if there was just the one of you. Unlike other places, where the tour is scheduled, they’re selling up to ten seats, and they take off with whoever shows up. I’ve had tours like that effectively be private tours when I was the only one who booked.

At one point I passed a hotel with a tour sign outside, so I went in to see if there were more reasonable arrangements. I still had to book a private tour, but at much less than $300. So that was the first hurdle cleared. I booked it for my last full day in Kuching.

The second hurdle was that it started to rain on the drive to the park. Transit from the car park to the park entrance was by boat, and there was no guarantee that a boat would take us, and no guarantee, if we got to the park entrance, that they’d actually let us out on the trails.

We arrived at the dock and my guide, Salihin, was able to procure a boat. But it was still raining, so I had to decide whether to take the chance or not. If I bailed before the boat much of my fee would be refundable. But if we take the boat I’m committed, whether we’re actually permitted to hike the trails or not. Not a difficult decision, having worked so hard just to get as far as the dock. All aboard.

To say that the boat ride was wet is an understatement. The skiff had a canopy, but it was also slicing horizontally through a rainstorm, rendering the canopy useless. I arrived to the park pretty thoroughly soaked.

A short walk brought us to the ranger’s lodge, where we’d learn whether we’d be permitted on the trails or not. Certainly not while it was raining, as the footing, as I learned, is questionable under the driest of circumstances. We’d just have to hang out there until given the all clear. Or give up at some point and boat back.

Just on that short walk we came across this on the path: a Bornean Keeled Pit Viper. Just one of Bako’s many species of deadly snakes. Not deadly to humans, however, as it only produces enough venom to take down little critters, not something our size. We get what’s referred to as a “dry bite.” Which is better, I guess? But which still seems undesirable.

Salihin shares all of this intel after I come in close for a photo. Makes me wonder if, as a small human, I’m critter-sized.

We wound up waiting about an hour before being permitted to head out. I got an order of lovely fresh pancakes with local honey from their café, so I was able to fill the time just fine. Here’s a better example of what we were up against.

Thankfully, there was entertainment available while we waited. Besides the pancakes. A family of bearded pigs was wandering the grounds, snuffling for treats.

But you came for the action shots, and I would never disappoint you. Here’s the family.

And here’s one of the adults, up close. Jesus their noses are weird. Swear to god, when I first saw one I thought he was carrying some pink plastic thing in his mouth. Life’s rich fucking pageant.

Free to roam the wilds, Salihin and I set out on one of the trails. There are some very long trails and some very challenging trails. Wisely, Salihin chooses Bako’s bunny slope for me. Which turned out to be more than enough, thank you.

It’s very hard to overstate the jungle’s lush beauty.

The spiky palms were scarcely the only hazard. There was the path itself. The paths are all what I now know are called desire paths. Meaning that they were created through use rather than planning. As people have clambered over these paths, the dirt has worn down exposing the tree roots. So the paths themselves are now an obstacle course of gnarled tree roots and irregular stone.

Completely understandable why hiking isn’t permitted in the rain. Not sure just how much safer the paths are right after rain has stopped. Those were still very wet trails. Like a geriatric mountain goat, I was somehow able to keep my feet throughout the 2.5km hike.

There were places along the trail that were considered problematic enough that railings, bridges, and stairs had been built. Having traversed the parts they considered passable without assistance, it truly made me wonder what was under those structures. It had to be pretty heinous.

Besides, the assists themselves were problematic. Stairs had been built with 2″ deep, unevenly spaced steps, structures were coming loose and dangling… The design prompt appears to have been “make it just like the rest of the paths,” as opposed to “make it better than the paths.” Fair.

While I was there for the monkeys, there was plenty of smaller wildlife to enjoy.

As we neared the end of the trail, Salihin gave me a choice: we could walk back, retracing our steps, or we could continue on to the beach, where he could arrange for our boat to pick us up and look for proboscis monkeys in the mangroves lining the shore. It would, however, cost an additional charge of 50 ringgit, about $12, as we’d only engaged our boatman to take us to and from the main dock. That wasn’t a difficult decision. Monkeys!

While we waited, I was able to take in the beach. I may have been soaked through, but I hadn’t actually dressed for swimming. That was ok. Between this and the jellyfish, I wasn’t really tempted. Not, I believe, that it was permitted. Salihin certainly wouldn’t have let me.

I asked Salihin whether the crocodiles were freshwater or saltwater, trying to calibrate the risk of running across one, and he cheerfully offered that Bako had both.

The beach had a kind of desolate splendor, beautiful but bleak. There were rock formations to clamber over and water to avoid while we waited for our ride.

As we slid down the coast, I was just able to get my camera up in time to catch a white crocodile entering the water from the beach.

What I had thought was another crocodile in a stand of mangroves was, I was assured, just a big ass monitor lizard. On close inspection, that’s definitely a lizard tail, not a croc tail, but it was so big it was an easy mistake to make.

But we’re all here for the same thing: proboscis monkeys. I have to preface the video by noting that this is more like a safari than a zoo. We’re visiting animals in their native habitats, so any sighting is a special thing. What I’m getting at is, no cute closeups.

Here’s a pair at ground level with one of them climbing up a tree. Their distinctive white tails make them easy to spot, even in the wild.

Here’s that same monkey hanging out.

And here he is dropping from the trees to the ground. An entire Day In The Life.

And that did it. Bako National Park wrapped up in a nice bow. Although there were a few more sights on the way back to the dock. There were these interesting structures. They’re rigs that hold fishing nets, which are dropped off in the morning and picked up in the afternoon with the day’s catch. They’re made from nibong, a palm used for building materials rather than food. They’re hardy enough to survive in the water for over a decade.

And just what do you think these massive rubbery mats are? I couldn’t tell, either. Salihin had to explain that it was a fisherman’s daily jellyfish catch being offloaded for processing. I noticed that the fisherman wasn’t wearing gloves, and asked if the jellyfish were the non-stinging kind. Salihin assured me that those were stinging jellyfish, but the fishermen spend so much time handling them that they just get used to it. We can add Borneo Jellyfish Hunter to the list of Jobs Mark Doesn’t Want. It’s a very long, very comprehensive list, but that’s a new entry.

To be fair, its sister document, Jobs Mark Wants, is empty.

Given how dire the day started, soaked and uncertain whether I’d even get to the park, this ended damned skippy. Getting to see both orangutans and proboscis monkeys during my stay in Borneo was 100% a highlight.

As Caesar did not quite have the Gaul to say, Borneo est omnis divisa in partes tres. [Come for the incisive analysis, stay for the Latin jokes] The bulk of it is Indonesian, called Kalimantan, with the north of the island, Sarawak and Sabah, belonging to Malaysia. Then there’s the little pimple of Brunei, carved out of the Malaysian piece. I visited Kuching, the capital of Sarawak.

But not, I am sad to report, for long enough. I’d booked a month in Kuala Lumpur, and by the time I figured out that I’d allocated too much time to KL and not enough to Borneo, I was pretty locked in to my logistics. I took a week out of the middle of my KL stay, packed a light bag, and sucked up the Airbnb double dip. Next time, more homework before committing.

Why did I need more time in Borneo? Part of the answer is embedded in the choice to refer to it as Borneo, rather than Sarawak. Like Bali and Java in Indonesia, Borneo has a culture notably distinct from the federations to which it belongs. No one says Welcome to Sarawak. They say Welcome to Borneo. I’m not sure I saw anything that identified the location as Malaysian. Their identity is as Borneans.

Although that’s not a real word. They identify by their particular chunk of Borneo, so the Malaysian Borneans are Sabahnauts or Sarawakjobs, while Indonesian Borneans are known as Kalimantandooris. You have to know this shit or you come off as insensitive. Trust me, no one wants that.

Borneo’s culture is the primary draw here, although the tropical equatorial jungle, chock full of sweet-bleeding-Jesus-what-the-fuck-is-that comes a close second. I don’t feel any particular need to introduce Dorothy to Thailand (not a shot at Thailand, just an acknowledgement that it shares a lot with the parts of SEA we’ve already visited), but I would love to get her to Borneo for a deeper dive than my one week afforded. I left plenty of meat on that bone.

My two favorite places we’ve been so far are Tunisia and Oaxaca, and Borneo is kind of a mashup. What made Tunisia special was the extent to which traditional Berber culture was Tunisian culture. Berbers were hardly dominant ethnically, but they held all the cultural cards. Sadly, the US had an indigenous culture that rich and deep, but something bad must have happened to the Native Americans, as their traditional culture is hanging on by a thread. Maybe ChatGPT knows.

Oaxaca is a little different, in that the dominant Oaxacan culture is actually a mélange to which 16 discrete indigenous tribes have contributed: Zapotec, Mixtec, Mazateco… The depth of that culture is astonishing, specifically because of the varied contributions from each of the individual tribes.

Borneo splits that difference, with the indigenous tribes creating the dominant culture but maintaining completely distinct identities. It’s as if Tunisia had half a dozen completely different Berber tribes, each with its own very specific culture. The indigenous tribes are grouped under the umbrella Dayak, to distinguish them from the Malay, Chinese, and Indian populations. Within that there are the Iban, Bidayuh, Kayan, Kenyah, Murut, and Ngaju. But even that’s an oversimplification, as those six groups collectively comprise over 200 discrete ethnic groups. The stew here is rich, delicious, and unavoidable.

Kuching

Kuala Lumpur is about 200 miles north of the equator, as close as we’ve been, accounting for its ponderous atmosphere. The obvious comfort break was to visit Kuching, because it’s actually closer to the equator, a mere 100 miles, a paltry 1.55° north. Basically, equator. So, whatever the superlative of ponderous is. Life threatening? As we used to say about St. Louis summers, wet but somehow still on fire.

Kuching is Sarawak’s capital, but not on the scale of Kuala Lumpur. About 600,000 people live in Kuching, as opposed to KL’s 2 million. It definitely feels much smaller. The Sarawak River winds through the city, so there’s waterfront everywhere.

Most importantly, the condo I stayed in featured a massive infinity pool, although they called it an Infinite Pool. It was so large I thought it might have been Olympic length, but I think infinite is a little much. Turns out it’s a mere 90 feet, just over half an Olympic pool (I counted the 4″ tiles. Shut up.).

The real Sarawak story is the crafts. Even in KL, whenever I saw something interesting it had come from Sarawak. But before we dive into crafts, let’s take a walk. Kuching has plenty of charm of its own.

And of course, always happy to enjoy local signage.

Markets

There was a hypermarché a short Grab ride from my condo, but the interesting markets were outside Kuching. I took a car and driver for a pair of full day tours while I was there and part of those tours involved stops at two markets: the daily fresh market in Serian, about 40 miles southeast of Kuching, and the Serikin Weekend Market, about 35 miles west of Kuching, right on the border with Indonesia. Those were on separate days, as they’re nowhere near one another.

Serian Daily Market

This was pretty much a photo op stop. I was going to the much larger market in Serikin the next day, and the merch here was pretty much food oriented. It’s hard to stock a kitchen for cooking for only a week (with my cooking skills, at least), so I wasn’t really in the market for a market. Mostly eating out in Kuching, as befits the seven-day tourist cadence.

But this was close enough to one of the nature reserves on my itinerary to warrant the stop for strictly ethnographic purposes.

Serikin Weekend Market

This was the big cheese, and well worth the trip. Serikin is right on the Indonesian border. How close, you ask? The far end of the market ends mere meters from the border.

It’s so close that it’s considered a free zone. Indonesians are allowed to cross the border and sell in the market without showing papers or dealing with customs, so long as they don’t go beyond the town of Serikin proper. I’m sure there are plenty of free border zones around the world, but this was my first experience. It’s an interesting setup.

My driver kept emphasizing that the goods on sale at the market weren’t from Sarawak, they were from Indonesia, muled across the border for sale. Which while technically true is kind of beside the point. That border is a line on a map, not in the real world. Like how the mountains of Chiapas butt up against the Guatemalan highlands. You can draw whatever lines you like, but it’s likely to be same same on both sides.

The market part of Serikin was over a kilometer long, set up right on the main drag. The far end was the produce market, right near the border, and while there were food stalls along the way, the bulk of the market was goods, from decorative objects to housewares. I was the only mat salleh (farang in Thai) there, which I always love. It means I’ve found the real deal, where the locals go.

In fact, other than hiring a car and driver, as I did, or renting a car and driving yourself (madness), there’s no way to get to Serikin from Kuching. There isn’t even a bus. I’ve run across this repeatedly in SEA, where there’s some locus of interesting culture that takes a Stanley-and-Livingstone level of commitment to access. Which most tourists, obviously, can’t muster.

Admittedly, the Serikin market isn’t specifically for tourists, but that didn’t keep me from leaving money there. I’ve visited a couple of places, like the Benjarong Pottery Village outside Bangkok and a weaving village outside Chiang Mai, that should be catnip for tourists interested in real craft traditions. How to get there? Rent a car and driver for the day. They should be bussing tourists in to these places, but they’re deserted.

Serikin was hardly deserted, except of tourists. It’s an exceptionally robust market, with a great array of goods. Here’s the produce end of the market.

And here’s the shank of it.

I have confessed to leaving money in Serikin. What did I buy? Two shirts for me, as shirts appear to be my love language. I have, at most recent count, added twelve shirts to my wardrobe on this trip. This market was also my place to pick up gifts, which is frankly harrowing on my own. I have zero trust in my judgement in Dorothy’s absence. I have no idea whether I’m bringing back treasures or tourist crap.

Roadside Attractions

My first day trip was to a fabric weaver, a wildlife reserve, and the Serian market. Day Two was a cultural center and the Serikin Weekend Market. Between the two days, there were a handful of little sidebars, interesting things along the way.

I suppose it’s churlish to note, but I didn’t much care for my driver for the two days. He never really left the car to serve as a guide, he just narrated whatever we were passing while we were driving. Usually the same things in both directions. And there always seemed to be something worth noting, even when there wasn’t.

But the biggest issue was his English. I have absolutely no call to dunk on anyone over their English, given that the only things I know how to say in Malay are thank you, forbidden, and danger. Although, to be fair, that does cover most circumstances.

Still, he was very hard to understand, which wouldn’t have been a big deal if he’d been using fewer words. He spoke in a mix of English words in a Malay accent, Malay words, and nouns for local places and things. So everything sounded Malay, and deciphering which of those sounds represented an English word gave me a headache. I said “I understand” a lot, even when I didn’t.

These local food courts, where we stopped for lunch, are a thing here. You walk by the stalls and figure out what you want, then sit down and wait for a waiter with an iPad. Everything is numbered. You tell them you want the #7 from stall #12, and they note that you’re sitting at table #5. Then food arrives and they take payment. Efficient, and, with maybe twenty stalls, the range of choices is excellent.

Kuching Buddhist Society

One pullover was at the Kuching Buddhist Society, which, unexpectedly, featured a large statue of Buddha. Did not see that coming.

The Buddha was impressive and the grounds were lovely. A completely worthwhile stop.

Paku Rock Maze Garden

The Paku Rock Maze appears to be a naturally occurring geologic formation that has been colonized and turned into a roadside attraction. It seems to be a popular spot to rent a traditional costume and have your picture taken. There was some kind of photo shoot going on while I was there.

The rest of my day trip adventures are covered in the posts on crafts and wildlife.

* Please note: All song title jokes and references, and they are spread liberally throughout the blog, are specifically for Bruce’s entertainment. If you are not Bruce you have my permission to be amused, just so long as you understand that these jokes are not truly for you.

Although this trip did start out with a shock. I got a notice on my phone that I’d received a WhatsApp message from Exotic Asia Hotline. My first thought was, “How did my WhatsApp number get compromised?” My second was, “Do they deliver?”

It turns out it was my infelicitously named tour company confirming my reservation. Maybe it’s a side business. More likely the tours are the side business. Sweet. I’m not just a tourist. I’m a coconspirator in a Malaysian money laundering scheme. Made it, Ma!

Land: Bukit Malawati

First stop, Malawati Hill, in Kuala Selangor. About 40 miles west of Kuala Lumpur, Malawati is a strategic location at the mouth of the Selangor River, draining into the Straits of Malacca. Malays built a fort there in the early 16th century, but the Dutch, in a fierce combination of boredom and rage, took it in 1784.

My favorite part of this history is that the leader of the Dutch troops was an officer named Dirk van Hogendorp. Yep, Fightin’ Dirk van Hogendorp. I am totally not making fun of his perfectly reasonable Dutch name. I’m sure there are respectable van Hogendorps all over Dutchland. But seriously. I’m sure he was positively savage in person, but the name doesn’t exactly inspire fear. Dirk van Hogendorp. Say it with me.

Curiously, the British didn’t come along and fuck the Dutch for the fort (until much later). The Malays actually captured it back the very next year, before it fell for good in the 19th century during a civil war fought with the colonialists as amused bystanders.

But there was plenty of back and forth before then. To no one’s surprise, the Dutch took the fort back and used the opportunity to build a lighthouse on the hill in 1794. Then the whole thing became British, as things did back then, and they refurbished the lighthouse in 1910, which still stands today. The ruins of the fort are also still around.

But I promised wildlife. And a land war. What gives?

OK, absolutely no one goes to Malawati Hill for the lighthouse or the ruins of the fort. They go, as I did, for the monkeys. And where there are troops of monkeys, there will be war.

Did you know that the alternate collective noun for monkeys, besides the more standard troop, is cartload? I can assure you, Malawati Hill boasted cartloads of monkeys. Specifically, there’s one cartload of Long-Tailed Macaques and another of Silvery Langurs, also called Silver-Leaf Monkeys.

I’m on record about the macaques. They are not mischievous. They are aggressive little thieves and thugs who’d mug you for a banana. To use a random example. But I was very excited to meet a cartload of the langurs, who are, by repute, gentle, pleasant creatures. From whom the macaques could learn a thing.

They’re easy to tell apart, by the way. The Silvery Langurs, as the name implies, have black fur tipped in silver, approachable faces, and bright orange babies. The macaques are brown, with frightening muzzles tapering to sharp, pointy teeth and dead eyes that would love nothing more than to watch you suffer.

We’re dropped off at the bottom of Malawati Hill and make our way up, through the trees abutting the coastal mangrove forests that are home to both macaques and langurs. The various cartloads of monkey hang out in those trees because they are adjacent to a generous source of food: us.

On the way up the hill.

The langurs, especially, have no problem being close to humans. Very close.

There are a lot of babies, and lots of committed parenting.

Very alert and protective.

Both the langurs and the macaques carry their chiddlers clinging to their bellies.

I am forced to admit that this particular cartload of macaques seems less criminal than most. Perhaps it’s the exposure to the langurs, or perhaps they’ve simply learned that they get more food if they display some rudimentary manners. Either way, I feel noticeably less at risk in their presence.

It feels like the walk up the hill introduces you to the whole concept of monkeys, so you’re at least somewhat prepared for the scene that greets you at the crest. What is that scene like? Chaos. Madness. War.

At the top of the hill, vendors hawk little burlap sacks generously stuffed with sliced fruit, beans, shoots, and bananas. For a mere 10rm, about $2.50 USD, you can be part of the great circle of life. Feeding monkeys. So many monkeys.

That looks like fun, doesn’t it? Since the theme of this whole adventure seems to be Stupid Things Dorothy Isn’t Here To Prevent, I signed up. You’ll never guess what happened.

How did that episode end? With one of the fucking macaques tearing the bag from my hand, running off, and hissing at me with bared teeth when I tried to retrieve it. Macaques, amiright?

The langurs were pretty awesome. Even if they had trouble maintaining boundaries. But you’ll notice in these shots that none of the macaques actually clamber up people. They’ll get close enough to steal, but don’t seem to favor scaling their marks. I am, as always, grateful for the small things.

Monkey selfies!

Air: Kampung Kuantan Firefly Park

From Malawati we drove to the banks of the Selangor River, one of Malaysia’s most critical water sources. We stopped for a ridiculous dinner, and then hopped a boat to take the river upstream to the Firefly Park.

Which is exactly what it sounds like: one of the largest firefly colonies in the world. Although the official collective noun for fireflies isn’t colony. A group of fireflies is a sparkle. Aww. In related news, I just learned that the collective noun for kittens is coven.

There’s not a whole lot to see here. It’s dark, and camera flashes both ruin the view and confuse the fireflies. But floating past is an experience so magical it seems almost fake. Like if Disney wanted to do the whole firefly thing, it would look exactly like this.

This doesn’t do the experience justice, but it’s all I’ve got.

Sea: Blue Tears

After the fireflies, we turn around and head back down river, past the mouth and into the Straits of Malacca. What are we after? Dinoflagellates. No, not prehistoric kinskters, bioluminescent plankton. Pervert.

This will be my third time with glowy sea monkeys: once before as a child in Guadalajara and once in Vietnam with Dorothy. There aren’t that many places in the world where they occur. Filling in my bingo card.

But it is a subtle effect and hard to capture. Like the fireflies, camera flash washes it out completely. We were each given a PVC pole with a fish net at the end. Scooping the net through the water agitated the poor things and made them glow. Did we care? We did not. We all scooped and scooped, bathing in the mystical glow. All you get out if it is a murky video.

As promised, Malaysia’s wildlife in land, air, and sea. It may not be much for y’all to look at, monkeys aside, but it was a pretty fine show in person.

If you’d never seen a Hindu temple, it would be hard to imagine that Buddhist temples were attempting to take it down a notch. Give credit where it’s due, though, as It takes a fair amount of effort to make a Buddhist temple look restrained. Unapologetically lurid, Hindu temples are a brightly colored rebuke to the very notion of moderation. Give the people what they want: tall tales and flamboyant displays.

The Batu Caves site is actually two attractions piled atop one another. There’s Batu itself, which is a Hindu temple built inside a limestone cave and dedicated to Lord Murugan, the Hindu god of war, in 1891. The 140 foot tall statue of Lord Murugan was erected in 2006, and still has that new deity smell.

The other attraction is the Ramayana Cave, home to several Suyambu Lingam, or naturally occurring Shiva Lingams. What I might call stalagmites. But I have no connection to the divine, because I’m a peasant. The other feature of Ramayana Cave, which gives it its name, is a series of dioramas depicting scenes from the Ramayana. I’m not 100% sure when they were installed, although they’re clearly modern, or if there were more primitive installations before these, but they certainly take advantage of the natural cave system.

The Grounds

The grounds feature a handful of bonus temples, beyond those built in the Batu Caves, and a metric buttload of fucking monkeys. So many monkeys. I submit to you that there are monkeys that are cute, both visually and behaviorally. Macaques are not those monkeys. They are rats with prehensile tails. The collective noun for macaques is infestation. Look it up.

Are these adorable? They are not. They are evil.

Cute? No. Clearly retreating to their lair so they can plot against us.

Practicing boarding techniques for ship-to-ship warfare. And you thought your yacht was safe.

You know what’s even worse than macaques? People.

Vendors were selling bananas for the express purpose of feeding the monkeys. No one needs a hand of bananas at a temple. These jamokes were teaching the monkeys that if a human was holding a banana it was theirs by divine right. Droit du fucking seigneur. [This is called foreshadowing, by the way.]

This is the big not-in-a-cave temple.

So I go into that last temple, which is a no-shoe temple, as they do. But I walked past this on the way up, and there is no fucking way I’m leaving my shoes for the thieving macaques. So I take them off and carry them in, all respectful like. But everyone starts gesturing and yelling at me, in a very chill Hindu way, until it finally dawns on me that even carrying my shoes is verboten. They force me back out to set them down on top of the steps, but that was the fastest temple visit I’ve ever done, and I was looking over my shoulder the whole time. There was no way I was letting the little terrorists run off with my shoes.

The Ramayana Cave

My first stop was the Ramayana Cave, an installation that strongly suggested that LSD is part of the Hindu sacrament. God loves all his children, but especially when they’re tripping. And then we love Him right back.

The approach certainly set the stage.

The immediate response on entering is to look for the disco ball. Color changing LEDs appear to have revolutionized the Hindu religion.

The true and real attraction, disco lighting notwithstanding, was the Ramayana dioramas. Spectacular.

Come for the Suyambu Lingam, stay for the trippy lighting.

Batu Caves

Everything about the approach to the Batu Caves is epically proportioned. A massive, 140 foot tall golden statue of Lord Murugan stands in front of the 1,000 foot tall limestone bluff and to one side of the 272 colorfully painted steps that lead to the first of the caves and temples. A temple sits to the left of the stairs and is dwarfed by its surroundings. It is truly breathtaking.

You’ll be surprised to learn that there are macaques all over the damn place. I refuse to call them monkeys, because I think it’s insulting to other monkeys.

Once the 272 steps have been surmounted, the vista opens up. That’s some cave.

On my way into this temple I was offered a piece of waxed paper with some kind of rice goo on it. I asked if I was supposed to use it as an offering and was told that it was their special blessed rice goo and was a free snack. OK. Then I stood in line briefly so this next guy could magically transform a 10rm note into a smear of ash on my forehead. It’s a miracle! He also gave me a banana.

I had to ask at the rice station what I was supposed to do with the banana, and they looked at me like I’d taken a blow to the head and explained that it was a snack. And that the common practice with snacks was to eat them.

So, with ash on forehead and banana in hand, I take the next set of 100 stairs to the penthouse temple.

If you know your classic literature, you know that a banana in the first act always goes off in the third (I even called out the foreshadowing for you, because I like you, but you’re a little slow).

Next thing I know, I’m being trailed by one of the fucking macaques. Not this one specifically, as I was too busy fending off a macaque attack to take a picture for you. Get over it.

This little bandit has locked eyes on my banana. I switch it to my left hand, further away from him, and he’s tracking it like DefCon One has been declared. Back to my right hand, left hand, right hand, and he’s tracking every millimeter of movement while inching closer. I’d seen what one of his mates had done to that poor woman in the square, and she was trying to feed them.

I finally tossed the banana over his head, away from me, so I could draw him off and finish my 100-stair climb, safety trumping snackage. Fucker leapt for it and gave a distinct what-are-you-doing-with-my-banana vibe. And I thought white people were entitled.

To everyone’s surprise, there was another temple in the attic. More ashes, please.

But I watched the guy after me, and the priest dude ducked back into the alcove and came back with a little golden statue. Merch! Maybe he donated more than 10rm, maybe there’s a secret handshake, but all I got was ashes. I wasn’t even offered a banana, but I knew better by that point anyway.

Past that temple, the space opens up into a limestone chamber soaring over 300 feet and open to the sky, like a Yucatán cenote. It’s a spectacular space, and the perfect cake topper for a truly beautiful site.

Sometimes tourist places are meh, and sometimes you totally get why people bother. Batu Caves paid off.

But not until the descent. No one bothered to explain that there were also 272 steps down. That seems like a thing you’d want to know.

But Wait, It’s A Hindupalooza

Everywhere else we’ve been in SEA, Hinduism is a palimpsest, overwritten by whatever local flavor of Buddhism has taken root. You can see its traces, most obviously in the Ramayana, but even that’s picked up Buddhist flavoring along the way.

Not so Malaysia, where Hinduism stands on its own. It has to be the Indian population. Malaysia has the most Indians of any of the SEA countries, both in terms of raw numbers (almost 3M) and percentage of the total population (about 7%).

So it’s no surprise that a substantial Hindu temple, Sri Maha Mariamman, can be found in Kuala Lumpur’s Chinatown. It’s not a massive structure, but it’s still the oldest Hindu temple in Malaysia, having been established in 1873. Its current structures were built in 1968. It looks like nothing so much as the temples we saw in Mumbai (before this adventure, so no blog posts about that trip).

This is a working temple, an active place of worship for KL’s Hindu population. And while it might lack the overwhelming scale of Batu Caves, it makes up for it with the quality of the execution. This was a Grade A Prime Hindu temple.

The temple’s interior.

The grounds were full of really well done sculptures and dioramas.

He who loves Ganesh is my friend.

There were galleries on both sides of the temple, flanking the exterior, with truly excellent tile paintings.

What a lovely addition to the Batu Caves tour. It will be interesting to see if the Hindu temple is part and parcel of the Malaysian experience, or if these were sports. If this is all there is, I’m satisfied. This is quality, quality templeage.

Let’s set the daytime 90s aside for a moment. I walked out the other night on what should have been a balmy, pleasant 78 degree evening. Within twenty minutes I was literally dripping sweat and had to mop my face with a handkerchief. To be fair, this is as close to the equator as we’ve been, a mere 200 or so miles north. We were pretty close in Java, about 550 miles south, but I guess that extra distance matters. Or, and this is a distinct possibility, Malaysia is a portal to hell. Just putting that out there.

That justified getting a condo with a pool, which has been religiously used. Not five-times-a-day call-to-prayer religiously used. But daily. I offer my thanks at least daily, and they are sincere. Also, moist and cool. The very best kind of thanks.

Although now that I think of it, I’m probably showering on the call to prayer schedule. That sounds right.

At Least The French Have Clean Hands (Hint: They Were Otherwise Occupying)

As part of my Get Acquainted tour of Kuala Lumpur, I visited the National Museum of Malaysia. That would normally get a post of its own, except a) it’s pretty small (six galleries), and b) it’s focus is pretty tightly on Malaysia’s long, sumptuous history of colonial predation. There’s history going as far back as Paleolithic times and a skosh of culture, but mostly it’s the predation. So not a lot of pictures. Except for this.

Am I mocking a culture that’s not my own, making fun of rich traditions simply because they look humorous to my Western sensibilities? I am not. I am mocking nose flutes. I am an equal opportunity nose flute mocker. If they were a part of my own culture, I would be on mockery’s front lines, daring the rearguard Tucker Carlsons of Big Nose Flute to cancel me. I stand proud.

And just so you know I take all this cross-cultural stuff seriously… The museum featured a high-tech digital kiosk where you could try on different outfits and get the photo sent to you via QR code.

But I digress.

Thailand, as one of a handful of countries on the planet that have never been colonized, was a refreshing chaser to the Malort of post-colonial outcomes we’ve been chugging. I don’t think I truly appreciated that break until I landed back on the Tour de Fuckery. Malaysia was the dusky temptress that every one of the colonial powers had to ravish at least once. Except the French, who were busy tearing the knickers off of Haiti.

The Dutch and Portuguese fought over Malacca for a while back in the good old days of colonialism, the 1500s and 1600s. But the British brought Malaysia the brutal efficiency of the industrial revolution in the 1700s, turning the sleepy colonialism of their forebears into the hellish Bosch triptych of mechanized dehumanization that they later perfected in India.

The Chamber of Horrors Theater of the Absurd Chamber of the Absurd Horrors crescendoed in the Malayan Emergency that lasted from 1948 to 1960. What was the Emergency? Apparently, that the natives were restless. Having tired of the extrajudicial killings of activists, they were beginning to see torching plantations as legitimate political speech.

But why an Emergency? Because British insurers wouldn’t have paid out claims during a war, so the government simply refused to call it a war. Everything old is new again.

You’ll be shocked, shocked to learn that the British, intent on importing their enlightened civilization to the savage natives, committed war crimes and atrocities in pursuit of their goals. It finally led to their departure in 1957 when the Federation of Malaya pried the Brits’ fingers from around their throats and sent them home. I love a story with a happy ending. Even if it takes a few centuries to get there.

As a ridiculous sidebar, I would be remiss if I didn’t share the story of the White Rajahs of Sarawak. A Brit named James Brooke was adventuring around Borneo and made himself of use to the Sultan of Brunei, fighting off pirates and such. In gratitude, the Sultan granted James the province of Kuching in 1841, making him the first White Rajah of Sarawak, a title that descended through patrilineage to his heirs for over 100 years!

How did it end? One of the grandnephews, not the actual Rajah at the time, ceded the territory to the British in 1946, his not having the actual rights to do so being a non-factor for the British, who were delighted to claim a new Crown Colony. It wasn’t to last, as they were booted out of all of Malaysia in 1957.

You cannot make this shit up.

Ethnography

Malaysia is a mostly country. It’s mostly Bumiputra, a catchall for ethnic Malays and other indigenous groups, with healthy dollops of Chinese and Indian, the descendants of the indentured workers the British imported to work the plantations. Malaysia is mostly Muslim, but while Islam is the official state religion, freedom of religion is enshrined in the constitution. About ⅔ of the population identifies as Muslim, with the rest split amongst Buddhists, Hindus, and even Christians (mostly a sad remnant of Anglican converts).

But that’s really the iceberg tip. In fact, Malaysia is home to over 100 distinct indigenous languages, bespeaking a much richer stew of ethnicity and belief than the raw statistics suggest. In our experience, it most resembles Indonesia in that regard, which seems to have a distinct ethnolinguistic profile for each of its inhabited islands. If Malaysia is one thing, it’s that it’s not just one thing.

The Apartment

I’m in Southeast Asia, so my condo features the usual insults: a duvet instead of a top sheet, hot water only from the shower head, and a mattress clearly discarded from an oubliette as inhumane. Also, like my Chiang Mai condo, I’m being charged for electric, but at least here I can get a running read on consumption. I’m pretty sure I lived unnecessarily like a monk in Chiang Mai.

I suppose if I’m groping for positives, it’s nice that I don’t have to wait for the hot water when I’m doing dishes.

The apartment itself is a little studio, which is fine for me but way too small if I’d been traveling with my usual allotment of wife. But it has a “full” kitchen and is comfortably appointed and centrally located. No complaints.

Although I did have the owner send a plumber to fix the bidet, which has, in the last year, moved to a lower level of Maslow for me. I opened the valve, closed the valve, nothing.

So the plumber comes over, presses the handle and water comes out. Looks at me. “What’s the problem?” It turns out the handle holder is also the fucking valve. Pull the handle out and you can rotate the holder to open the water line. Great way to start off with my host, establishing without question that I’m an actual idiot.

But tell the truth. Would any of you have tried rotating that piece? That’s a special bit of hardware, right there.

But the real attraction is the pool. You know that moment when you get in the pool or the ocean and you clench up and tell yourself that if you just get in all at once your temperature will adjust and you’ll be fine? And then you are.

That doesn’t happen here. You just slide right in without any hesitation at all, because the water temperature is perfect and delicious. I’m not ashamed to admit that there are days in this heat when I’ve gone in twice. I filtered for pools on Airbnb. I am unrepentant.

Transit

Getting around is easy. Grab, SEA’s Uber, is everywhere, and KL boasts a modern, unified transit system that’s accessible through a single payment apparatus.

The hardest part of getting around is as a pedestrian. Everywhere in the world, pedestrian traffic follows vehicular traffic: Drive on the left, walk on the left. Drive on the right, walk on the right. Simple. Except fucking Thailand, where they drive on the left and walk on the right! It’s maddening. After three months in Thailand I accommodated, but now I’m back somewhere rational and I’m all verklempt. I’m walking on the right now when I should be walking on the left, causing all kinds of farang (technically Mat Salleh in Malay) chaos. I’ll adjust, but those are tough patterns to break and relearn constantly. Makes my head hurt.

Buildings

KL is a skyscraper kind of town. Most notable is the Merdeka 118, just a couple of blocks from my condo. It’s the second tallest building in the world, after the Burj Khalifa. 118 refers to the number of floors. Will I overcome my acrophobia and visit the observation deck on 118? That sounds stupid, so probably. On the other hand, airplanes don’t squick me, so what could possibly go wrong? I’m the spokesmodel for the Willing Suspension of Disbelief. And the Complete Absence of Executive Function.

At 88 stories, the twin Patronas Towers fall short of Merdeka 118, but they are probably KL’s most iconic skyline view. I’d seen them from afar, but it wasn’t until I was right up on them at night that I realized how insanely beautifully they’re lit. They’re Deco confections made almost entirely of light. Unbelievable.

Up Up & Away

So. Did I go to the 118th floor observation deck of the Merdeka 118? I did not. But not, I am at pains to admit, because I thought better of it. They’re still working on the Merdeka, and the observation deck won’t be open until later in the year.

I bet you’re thinking that I was lucky to be saved from my own folly, but that just shows how poorly you know me. Both the Patronas Towers and the KL Tower offer vertiginous observation decks. At 1,000 feet, the KL Tower has the highest open air deck in the city. At $35, it had better offer some superlatives.

How about Most Iconically Phallic? Most Like A Billionaire’s Rocket? Most Likely To Absorb Cows?

The tickets for KL Tower aren’t timed, like Patronas. They’re for the day, and you can show up whenever you like. I got there at about 6:30, so I could see both the daytime and nighttime views. You would be right to think, from 1,000 feet up, that they’re spectacular. You’re very clever.

The daytime views are great, providing a real sense of KL’s scope.

But the nighttime views kill. I think of all the big cities we’ve visited, I like KL’s skyline best. It’s iconic skyscraper after iconic skyscraper, each more beautiful than the one before.

But KL Tower had one more trick up its nasty sleeve: the Sky Box. The Sky Box is a cantilevered glass box that sits out over the edge of the tower. Shockingly, given the extortionate entry fee, they tack on another 10rm (about $2.50 USD) for a timed 45 seconds in the Sky Box. Although I imagine that’s less about the revenue and more about gating access so people don’t camp out in it and everyone gets a shot.

There are two Sky Boxes, one in front of the Patronas Towers, one in front of Merdeka 118. That’s just dumb luck, as the KL Tower is thirty years old and predates both of those towers. I had plenty of time to circumnavigate the deck, waiting for the transition to night, and I danced right up to the edge of the Sky Boxes repeatedly. “Don’t be a weenie, just do it, you’re here.” “I’m a weenie for a reason, I should listen to my guts. Especially when they’re churning.” Who says I don’t have a rich interior life? Oh, right. Everyone who knows me.

With my Jiminy back in Chicago, I didn’t stand a chance. Look, grannies are doing it! [that’s how I needed to be rescued from the top of a pyramid] My 10rm blood money paid, it was my turn to face death. I inched my way across the platform to the box itself.

Hilariously, I couldn’t go all the way in. The white band in the picture below is the actual edge of the tower structure, and I couldn’t get past it. Even though I was standing in the same structure, I couldn’t get over the visual of floating in space. Too much. Plus, and this is definitely not nothing, I could feel the fucking thing sway. No way was I staying in a second longer than necessary. I grabbed a picture and scarpered off.

I used up a fraction of my 45 seconds and backed out sweating. At least I didn’t need a rescue.

Shopping

There’s a perfectly credible supermarket in, as is typical around these parts, the basement of the closest mall, a mere fifteen minute walk. There are convenience stores near the condo, so I don’t have to haul gallons of water too far. Or carry ice cream bars even fifteen minutes in this heat.

As is usual in Muslim countries, the Jaya Grocery keeps their liquor in a segregated area that’s a separate store within the store. They’ve gone a step further than I’ve seen so far, designating that shop the Non-Halal Zone. All of the sins, not just booze, but ham and sausage, are under the same roof. Convenient!

They’re also happy to editorialize. I’ve never seen this sentiment expressed before, but sure. Why not?

Bukit Bintang

Jalan Bukit Bintang is central KL’s nightlife and restaurant locus, and it’s packed, especially at night. I’m about fifteen minutes from it, now that I know where I can cross illegally and cut out an unnecessary loop.

It also offers up what is now my new favorite street food, beef roti. It’s a dough ball filled with spiced, curried minced beef and griddle-fried until it will burn your face off. Seriously, I’ve taken some home and thirty minutes later they were barely cool enough to eat. They appear to be popular in Sri Lanka and South India, but this is the first time I’ve seen them in SEA.

This place, Restoran Mon Chinese Beef Roti, had a long, slow line, so I figured it was the best. Hard to say since I haven’t compared, but so good I haven’t been tempted to compare. Also, given how generally expensive it is here, the roti are a bargain at 6.50rm, about $1.50 USD.

In addition to restaurants, bars, and massage spas, BB also hosts the night street food market on Jalan Alor.

Also available on Jalan Alor, and everywhere else: durian. Durian has been a favored treat everywhere in SEA, but in Malaysia it rivals Islam as the state religion. While plain old durian was on offer in other places, here the range of cultivars is a selling point. They are clearly connoisseurs.

Bukit Bintang also hosts KL’s most glitteriest mall, the Pavilion. Of course, it’s more than just a seven-story, 1.7M square foot mall. It’s also an office tower, residential towers, and a five star hotel. And a yacht. I think it’s also a yacht. And a pony. It opened in 2007, but it’s still top of the mall food chain here. Which is a big deal. SEA loves its malls.

I went, perversely, in search of crafts. Dorothy had found a maker of tudung saji, woven food covers, and the article suggested there was a little shop in the Pavilion that carried them. I didn’t find that shop, but I found the maker’s FB page and reached out and she told me where I could find them in KL: one shop in the Central Market, the crafts locus, and one in the Pavilion that I’d missed. In fact, on my first tour, the closest I found to a craft shop was the Christian Louboutin boutique. That counts, right?

I went back after getting instructions and was able to find the little shop in the top floor Tokyo Street section, which largely featured small Japanese shops. This shop, Artist’s Haven, specialized in local crafts, but I guess there was nowhere else to put it.

This should probably be in the Crafts post, but fuck it. Here are the tudung saji. The two shops only had the smallest size, 12″, which was fine. Even getting one of the little ones back safely will be a packing challenge.

Chinatown

Chinatown is orthogonal to Bukit Bintang, still very close to the condo. Although in this weather even a twenty minute walk leaves you drenched. The big attraction here is Jayan Petaling, a bustling street market. Perhaps I’m getting jaded (this is month nine in SEA, total), but the bustle seems very merchcentric. Nothing but tourist stuff.

On the other hand, it was the perfect spot to pick up a cheap suitcase as I prepared to leave KL. Somehow I’m leaving with more than I came with. If you have any ideas how that might have happened, please let me know in the Comments.

Street Art & Follies

The usual review of entertaining streetscapes.

I thought this was the world’s worst retail mascot job, in KL’s heat, until I realized that they were cavorting for tips, like dehydrated Times Square Elmos competing in the Heatstroke Olympics.

Here we have one of my favorite sights so far, a location that obliterates the fine line that customarily separates restaurants and miniature golf courses.

And as I have learned through hard experience, a new location is truly understood through its packaging.

Massage Culture

I didn’t set out to see how far I could walk without passing a massage spa, but after a while it was hard not to notice that I hadn’t seen any. Their absence was a palpable presence. My second night in KL I went for a walk to learn the neighborhood, and I walked a tick short of six miles without once seeing a massage spa, some kind of SEA record.

Crossing Jalan Bukit Bintang is Changkat Bukit Bintang, and this is where KL’s massage spas are clustered. There are spas scattered throughout the city, in the neighborhoods, but Changkat BB is the only place where they’re dense like the rest of SEA.

Like everything else here, I’ve found KL to be the most expensive place we’ve been in SEA. Not First World expensive, but definitely the high end for the area. Food, groceries, crafts… and massage. For example, an hour of massage in Thailand runs about $11 USD. That same hour in KL is $16. Not a life threatening difference, but notable.

In both cases, that’s the bottom end of the price spectrum. I’ve found that the more expensive spas are more luxuriously appointed, but I don’t think there’s much difference in the quality of the actual massage. I’ve yet to have a bad massage, and some of my best massages have been from the cheapest neighborhood dumps. I’m a value traveler.

I was all freaked about the massage scene in Thailand, because I didn’t want to wander into a Happy Ending joint looking for a real massage. Everyone would end disappointed. But I had no such qualms in Malaysia, an officially Islamic nation. While the massage spas all seem legit (I’ve yet to be offered any extras) the scene on Changkat Bukit Bintang is typical on the one hand, with women standing in front of the spas trying to lure you in, but surprising on the other hand. As in I was walking along and a woman came up from behind me and grabbed my hand. Which surprised me. If I don’t ask for consent I’m a monster, but I’m apparently fair game on the mean streets of an Islamic state.

She kept trying to steer me into restaurants, and I kept peeling her off, like I was clean enough, dammit, and no longer needed my remora. I think I finally clipped her off by taking a sharp corner around a parked car, but it made me look at my surroundings a little more closely. Why, over there are three beautiful African women in revealing dresses, each sitting alone in a restaurant. And that cluster of women offering massages are all wearing LBDs and standing on a corner that doesn’t have a massage spa. Huh. Makes you think.

Does falling in love with every one of my masseuses make me shallow? [yes] But I’m a sucker for strong, knowledgeable hands. And elbows. And feet. And knees. Like Thai massage, the local flavor, Urut Melayu, is a full contact sport, although with less yoga-like stretching and more pressure. Each practitioner I’ve tried has had some minor variation, but, like the Thai massage, they’re riffing from a common base.

I think my particular flexibility issues are best addressed through Thai massage, but Urut Melayu does include stretching, and it may be better than Thai massage for the upper shoulder tension that’s a natural side effect of immoderate blogging.

I liked one masseuse a lot, and asked her name so I could request her on a return visit. She said she didn’t have a name, just a number. She was number 21. That seemed… dystopian? Sad? Liberating? I mean, I assume that was a work thing. I’d hate to think she really didn’t have a name at all. Maybe her parents named her 21.

The Changkat Bukit Bintang massage scene also served up an excellent pedicure. In fact, it was my first four hands pedicure. I had colored glitter nail polish (because I am apparently a five-year old girl, and sparkles make me giggle) that was a struggle to remove, so they divvied me up. Having, by way of Herculean effort, flensed the old polish off, you’ll never guess what replaced it.

Money

After the differential calculus required for some currency conversions we’ve suffered *cough* Indonesian rupiah *cough*, the ringgit is a straightforward quarter. One ringgit = 25¢. 100rm = $25. Praise the Lord.

Bahasa Melayu

After the hell of Vietnamese and, somehow worse, Thai, Bahasa Melayu is a breath of distinctly less fetid air. Why so sweet? It uses the same Latin alphabet we know and love, and those letters largely make the same sounds we expect them to (looking at you, Vietnamese…). Bonus, it’s basically the same language as Indonesian, so I’ve already learned it some.

Of course, it’s only the same language to me because I speak both so badly. Native speakers can certainly tell them apart, although they are mutually intelligible, sharing about 70-80% of the same root language, Malay. The difference is in pronunciation, grammatical structure, and the source of loanwords, the latter driven by the usual colonial suspects.

Bahasa Melayu is stuffed full of loanwords (and a handful of cognates, but mostly loanwords), meaning that many signs are decipherable with zero Bahasa Melayu. Farmasi. Restoran. Kaunter Tiket. Sup. Butik. Agensi. Stimbot. Polis. Nasional. Klinik. Teksi. Komputer. Telefon. Coklat.

That last one only works if you remember that Bahasa Melayu has sensibly assigned the ch sound to C. K makes a hard C and S makes a soft C, so what is the C even for? It’s the appendix of letters, and Bahasa Melayu and Indonesian have at least put it to good use. Finally. Personally, I’ve been over the C for ages.

They’ve donated to us, as well. We can thank them for amok, ketchup, bamboo, orangutan (from orang hutan, man of the forest), compound (from kampung), gingham, rattan, sarong, gong, and tea. We’ve given them so much more. Well, the Portuguese, Dutch, and British did. And not just loanwords.

Also, not for nothing, English is the unofficial second language here, so most signage doesn’t have to be pieced together from loanwords. It’s super easy to navigate here, and the English levels are really high. I’m in the big city, so I’m sure that fades in the hinterlands, but smooth linguistic sailing so far.

Or as smooth as sailing can be through the admittedly turgid air.

Or maybe a trip to Thailand’s highest spot, The Roof of Thailand, just sounds fun. Rumor has it there are waterfalls involved. Reason enough right there.

Doi Inthanon (doi is mountain) is named for King Inthawichayanon, whose given name at birth was Inthanon. He died in 1897, the last king of Chiang Mai, and his ashes are housed in a stupa at the highest point in Thailand. Improbably, Doi Inthanon is part of the same range that includes Everest, which, at 29,000 feet towers over Doi Inthanon’s 8,415 feet.

But before we reached the Roof of Thailand, there would be trekking and waterfalls.

Wachirathan Waterfall

Our first stop, inside Doi Inthanon National Park, was Wachirathan Waterfall. At ~250 feet, Wachirathan isn’t Thailand’s tallest waterfall, but it may be the most powerful. The volume of water is truly impressive.

There’s some rainbow action in the video, too.

Trekking

Back in the van, which held a dozen of us plus guide and driver, to our next stop, the Pha Doc Siao Nature Trail, a three kilometer trek that started at over 4,000 feet. I kept asking the others whether they felt the altitude when they tried to, you know, take a full breath while hiking, but all I got was pity. Bastards.

I wasn’t sure whether the end of this hike was Thailand’s roof or only its mezzanine, so nothing to do but carry on and avoid, if at all possible, fainting.

Here’s our guide, Lucy, introducing us to the two members of the Karen village who would be our docents for the hike, as we weren’t permitted to wander loose on the trail. If one of was slow, not naming names, one of the Karen would hold back and make sure we got back to the group.

I suspect this was more safety than anything. The path was super uneven and completely unmarked. If one were, say, panting to take a breath, one might get disoriented or trip over a tree root in the path. No one wants to be the weakest gazelle at the watering hole, so the extra help was appreciated.

The trek involved following a series of three waterfalls through the jungle, the third of which permitted swimming. We’d exit through a Karen village, and then some other things would happen. Not clear what the post-3km trek offered.

You will be, I believe, unsurprised to learn that the nature trek was just unfairly beautiful. Other jungles were jealous. On the negative side, though, we didn’t see any of the gibbons we were promised lived in the area. Lucy did share with us that Thai people, who will apparently eat anything (she listed monkeys and snakes specifically) won’t eat gibbons because they pair bond for life, like humans. Aspirationally. I just felt better knowing that as an actual lifelong pair bonder, Thai people would be unlikely to eat me.

We quickly came to the first of the trek’s waterfalls. We were cautioned not to swim, but that seemed unnecessary. It was no Wachirathan, but there was still an impressive water flow. There was no part of this fall that called out to me to risk my life by entering.

The water kept us company as we trekked to the next waterfall.

This was another no-swimming, no-problem waterfall. Not even the shadow of an inclination.

Our trek to the final waterfall took us through a valley that was used by the Karen for rice cultivation. The water had been diverted around the valley, and routed to the next waterfall, to prevent random flooding that damaged crops. The park was established in 1972, but the Karen and Hmong villages had been established right around 1900, so their agricultural footprint predates the park by a fair amount.

When I was at DC Comics I visited one of my artists, Steve Parkhouse, who took me for an excursion around his home in England’s Lake District. We were touring one of the national parks when we crested a hill and I saw a village in the valley below. “Who let them build a village in a national park?” Steve laughed. “The national park is just over 50 years old. The village is over 1,000.” Like that. Only newer.

Which brought us, blissfully, to the third and final waterfall, the one where swimming was permitted.

Here we have delightful proof that children are stupid in exactly the same way across vast cultural gulfs. Let the children teach us: we are more alike than different.

The end of our 3km trek took us to the Karen village of our guides, a hamlet of about 350 people. This turned out to be the highlight for me, which was a surprise, as I’d already visited a Karen village. But these two villages could not have been more different.

The first village I’d been to had been a Long Neck village, while this tribe was White Karen, who don’t use the neck-lengthening brass coils. But the differences went way deeper than that. As I mentioned, the White Karen village had been established around 1900, while the Long Neck villagers had fled persecution in Burma/Myanmar in the 80s. As a result, the White Karens owned their land and were Thai citizens, while the Long Neck village was effectively a refugee camp, the villagers having no actual rights within Thailand.

How this played out in the two villages was fascinating, manifesting in both art and architecture. But we had a couple of stops before we hit the village proper. The first was their coffee operation, which is an important part of their economy. Prior to its establishment as a National Park, this part of Thailand was thick with opium poppy cultivation. The government officially banned opium production in the fifties, but the effort picked up speed with a Royal Project in 1969 that focused on crop substitution. That’s why the Karen grow coffee and strawberries now.

This fellow was by the path roasting coffee by hand. If only he’d had some for sale. JK. Of course I bought his hand-roasted coffee. I’d most certainly also have bought his opium, but if any was available it wasn’t on offer to farangs.

The next stop was the Karen weaving shop. I’m sure most of the weaving is done in the home, but this is a central spot on the nature trail that gathers all of the village’s wares in one place. That’s the longest backstrap loom I’ve ever seen, by the way. For making the long straps on the woven tote bags? Maybe?

I will always share video of weaving. Don’t click Play if it bores you.

The two Karen villages’ vastly different profiles, one settled citizens, one stateless refugees, couldn’t have been more apparent than in their weaving. The Long Neck Karen had small backstrap looms they clearly carried with them when they fled Myanmar, while the White Karen had frame looms large enough to be cosplaying as backstrap looms. That difference leads to a notable distinction in the depth and richness of the patterns being woven.

Finally, the Long Neck Karen have made a virtue out of the vice of scarcity, weaving pieces that are more open float than weft. While the White Karen weaving does feature some open floats, it’s a design accent rather than the primary effect.

Here’s what I picked up from the White Karen village. Those are rich and subtle.

And here’s what I picked up from the Long Neck Karen village.

I’m not suggesting for a moment that there’s a qualitative artistic difference between the two villages’ work. Both are beautiful. I’m suggesting that the obvious differences in execution are attributable to their different circumstances, that the decisions aren’t purely aesthetic, but are tied to their social and economic profiles. I wasn’t expecting a master class in microeconomics on a hike and a swim, but you have to hold yourself open to the universe.

The final lesson came when we reached the village proper, where our van was waiting to pick us up for the next leg. The village was so much more built than the Long Neck village. It might look like corrugated tin lean-to construction, but it was solid.

This is what tipped me over, though. Fucking dormer windows!

Compare that with the Long Neck village, whose building designs are constrained by the materials available. No architectural details for them, just pure utilitarianism.

Many years ago, on a DC junket, I found myself at Skara Brae in the Orkney Islands, one of the world’s oldest neolithic cities. You could see the foundations of the housing and the street grid. What was most fascinating to me was that there was evidence of indoor plumbing, the oldest, I believe, ever found. Which spoke of a society with enough labor bandwidth that not all of it needed to be focussed on subsistence.

You don’t get indoor plumbing without the equivalent of a city planning function, and you don’t get city planners unless you value their efforts enough to feed them, since they’re busy city planning instead of hunting. There’s an entire value system embedded in something as simple as sewage lines.

That’s what I thought of when I saw those hilarious dormer windows. There’s a value system embedded in those windows, that says we value beauty over efficiency, joy over utilitarianism. And we have the necessary labor bandwidth to manifest those values in silly, silly windows. The Long Neck Karen, on the other hand, are just trying to survive, and their buildings, as they will, reflect those values.

Made It, Ma! Roof Of The World…

At this point it was clear that our 3km trek was not terminating at the Roof of Thailand. Would there be another trek to the highest point in Thailand? I dearly hoped not. I hadn’t actually tweaked anything, but more than one of my joints was throbbing. That 3km was over very uneven paths, and knees and ankles took a beating.

So I was delighted to get back in the van, and surprised when, just a few minutes later, we pulled into the parking lot for the Roof of Thailand. Which was only a modest walk of 250 meters from the parking lot. That’s service! I’d just assumed that reaching the summit was its own trek.

It wasn’t a trek, but it was a ball of confusion. For starters, the sign that says “The Highest Spot in Thailand” isn’t. It’s just the sign at the beginning of the trail. You can even see the trail behind it winding higher on the mountain. I mean, you can’t even trust the signage.

Next up the path was the stupa holding King Inthanon’s ashes.

If you continue around the path, you go behind the stupa.

You can see the little square plinth just in front of the stupa’s base. For awhile, that was the tallest thing on the mountain, but so many people were traipsing up to it that it put the integrity of the stupa at risk. So on the other side of the path they built a new plinth, a couple of inches taller than the old plinth, so that could now be the highest point in Thailand, and people would leave the poor king’s stupa alone.

One nice thing about Thailand’s roof. At over 8,000 feet up, the air was deliciously cool. They’ve still never had snow up there, which is fine, but it was a refreshing break from the turgid lowlands.

Dueling Pagodas

Our final stop on our long day was the twin pagodas, one for the king, one for the queen. The setting was peaceful and the pagodas were quietly beautiful, as opposed to the not infrequent Clown Car approach to Thai temples. Looking at you, Wat Rong Khun. Let’s take a restful break before we head back to Chiang Mai.

Our Real Final Stop

Before hitting the road for real, two hours back to Chiang Mai, we stopped at what Lucy called a local market. I mean, technically true, but only in the sense that every market is local, if you think about it. But not at all true if you think the common English meaning of local market is a place where locals shop.

This place was inexplicable for so many reasons. First, there were dozens of those stalls, stretching in both directions. So that’s a lot to parse, right off the bat. What made it doubly hard to parse is that every stall carried the same snacks. In the same packaging. With the same labels. At the same price. There could honestly have been one stall.

This was all clearly a front for Big Snack. At first I thought, well, they may be buying big bags of this stuff wholesale, but at least they’re bagging it up for retail. But then I saw that the labels were identical. I honest-to-god think they’re all just buying the pre-bagged snacks from the same supplier and stacking them on their tables. As a demonstration of native Thai stacking culture it was awesome. As a local market it was… weird.

Ephemera

A couple of things that didn’t fit elsewhere.

More Me!

My daughter, Ruby, is pathological about having pictures of us on our travels. I’ve consistently demurred, as I think in any given setting we are always the least interesting thing. But I couldn’t escape my guide for my tour of Wat Doi Suthep, who insisted on taking my picture, which I shared on the post. Well, that made Ruby clap her little hands together in delight, like Veruca Salt stealing a squirrel, so here we are again. Please. Blame Ruby.

But Wait, There’s More…

These kinds of tours can make or break based on the folks. Some people are wrapped up in their own thing, which is often us, to be fair, but mostly people are there for the experience, and sharing it with the rest of your tour group is part of that experience. Which is to say, this was a pretty good group.

With one standout, who warrants specifically name checking: a charming Frenchwoman named Doris Buttignol. I know, I dunk on the French all the time. But only because it’s easy and fun. But when faced with an actual French person, I’m unexpectedly open-minded.

Doris was interesting to talk to, which we did off and on over the course of the day very pleasurably. But at lunch she confessed that she’s a documentarian, which immediately made her more interesting to me. Not that I operate at her level, but writing the blog requires looking at the world through a lens and trying to understand it, rather than letting the experience just wash over you. I’m an ardent amateur, so It was great to spend time talking to someone who does that professionally.

Doris shared with me a link to her most recently completed piece, about Icelandic politics. Which sounds dry but was anything but, encompassing as it did both women’s political empowerment and dealing with climate change. It was trenchant in its observations, but more than that it was visually stunning. Her eye for framing and composition is superb, and I was regularly brought up short by the raw beauty of an image.

Doris has generously let me share the link to her documentary. So everyone, please say Thank You to Doris.

My thanks go to Doris, as well, for giving me an experience, both in her company and her work, that went well beyond what Thailand had to offer. This is why we travel.

Khon Ramakien

The first performance was of the Khon Ramakien, the Thai version of the Ramayana. Which we’ve seen so many times at this point that I feel like I can shout out the lines, like I’m at a Rocky Horror Picture Show screening. “Girl, don’t step outside the circle!” I knew Thailand had its own version, but I honestly hadn’t planned on attending. Ramayana fatigue is real.

I was out walking a new neighborhood in Bangkok of a brutal midday and saw that I was directly across the street from the theater. Noted for future reference, until I noticed the crowd on the steps. I crossed over to check it out, and sure enough, a performance was about to tee off. An air conditioned performance. Sold.

The performance was notable for two things. First, its duration. It came in at a sprightly forty minutes, the thinnest slice of Ramayana we’ve yet been served. Maybe it’s because I’m so familiar with the story, but I wasn’t actually craving more. There’s something to be said for guerrilla Ramayana.

The second notable thing about the performance was the professionalism of the production. Of all the many versions we’ve seen, this one stood out for the quality of the costumes, stage design, lighting, special effects, the whole ball of wax. Everything about it was exceptional. Including the air conditioning. What’s not to love?

I haven’t called out the performance and the music, not because they weren’t good, but because they’ve been uniformly good at all of the various Ramayana performances we’ve seen. It was the production design that really stood head and shoulders above the competition in this performance.

My favorite lines from the supertitles: “Look, monkey. Know that my words are as strong as the mountain. I cannot take them back.” I’m going to start all my sentences from now on with “Look, monkey.” The other was “Only when Rama strokes him from head to tail three times will he be free from the curse.” Which was enacted, but modesty forbids video of such an intimate scene. You’ll just have to trust me that everyone left satisfied.

We’ve never seen the underwater kingdom in any of the other versions we’ve seen, but these folk had the budget and chops to pull it off.

And the Battle Royale.

Look, monkey! That turned out to be, after all the variations we’ve witnessed, the very best version of the Ramayana we’ve seen. Can the cabaret possibly measure up?

Siam Dragon Cabaret

A five-minute walk from my condo brought me to Chiang Mai’s premier, if perhaps only, ladyboy cabaret. Well, why the fuck not? It was obviously that convenient to me for a reason. Who am I to try to outfox kismet?

Of course, had I known that photography was verboten I might have skipped it. I don’t think my experiences are even real unless I can properly share them with you. But I was able to scrape promotional photos from their web site, so you can get a flavor of what went on. Beyond that, words will have to suffice where a picture would be otherwise worth a thousand of them.

Let’s start out with the ladyboy part before we tackle the cabaret part. I’ll confess that I’d had too narrow a definition of ladyboy, or kathoey in Thai. Based on the ladyboy gogo bars in Bangkok, I’d assumed that a Thai ladyboy was, by definition, someone who’d enjoyed some level of medical intervention, from hormone therapy at one end to aftermarket breasts and vaginas at the other.

While those are certainly ladyboys, kathoey embraces the full spectrum, including those who maintain their biological roots but simply prefer to present as women. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Siam Dragon Cabaret represented kathoey culture with performers at every point on that spectrum. Once I got over the confusion, it read as a lovely form of inclusivity. “I’m not better because I have tits and you don’t. We are all kathoey.”

I would hope that it’s uncontroversial to point out that the Thai are a small folk. That’s not othering, that’s observation. I would likewise hope that it’s uncontroversial to point out that Thai boys tend to start out pretty. The truth is, it doesn’t take a lot of sorcery to turn a pretty Thai boy into a pretty Thai lady. Especially since the Thai, not to overgeneralize, are not an extravagantly busted people. What isn’t achieved through the surgeon’s arts is plausibly attainable the old fashioned way, through padding and bust tape. It’s not a big gap to close.

The range of expression within the culture of kathoey was brought home to me the day after the cabaret. Our guide for a trip to Doi Inthanon National Park was a kathoey who called herself, for our Western ears, Lucy.

Lucy’s presentation as a woman was restrained: lipstick, lilac nail polish, and small silver hoop earrings. That was her entire kit. But she used the term ladyboy to describe herself, and the most obvious manifestation of her identity was actually linguistic.

Thai appends a gendered particle at the end of sentences to indicate respect. If you are a woman you would end your sentence with kha, and if you’re a man you’d use khrap. So a woman would say thank you as kwop kuhn kha, and a man would say kwop kuhn khrap.

Lucy ended her sentences with kha, making it abundantly clear that she identified as female and you were to treat her as such. It was a refreshingly unambiguous way to share that information, tied directly to the structure of Thai speech.

As to the cabaret, this was my first, so I have no point of comparison. I don’t believe I’ve been to either a drag show or a Vegas-style cabaret. I am, or was, a cabaret virgin. That said, I strongly suspect that this followed a well trod path. It was all lip-syncing to power ballads or overblown diva anthems and outlandish costumes whose headdresses fell a mere pineapple short of ridiculous.

I’m sharing my seat because it was actually central to the experience. Who knew that they’d be doing crowd work, and that my aisle seat put me in the splash zone? Dorothy must have had an inkling, because when I told her I’d gotten a VIP seat she said that she hoped I didn’t get accidental bottle service. I assured her that they still use the expression Happy Ending here. Although, to be fair, maybe I’d have better luck if I asked for bottle service.

The crowd work involved… shaking hands, a curiously polite and gentle interaction. At the expense, if I’m being honest, of the whole lip-syncing act. Apparently lip-syncing and shaking hands at the same time wasn’t in the union contract. One of the performers, as she reached to shake my hand, endearingly clutched her costume as if her nonexistent breasts might spill out when she leaned over. That’s some charming commitment to the bit.

They had one Divine-scaled performer, who lip-synced to one of the only songs I recognized, When You’re Good To Mama from Chicago. She totally deked me, though, when she came in for the handshake. She reached for my hand, then grabbed my head and smothered me, in a modestly non-consensual way (I think, like an airport, my presence represented implied consent), in whatever she was using to create her substantial bosom. When I broke the surface she presented her cheek for a kiss and turned her head at the last minute to plant one right on my lips. I didn’t realize until I wiped my mouth at dinner afterwards that I’d been sporting a substantial dollop of bright red lipstick on my lips. I’m sure everyone else at the restaurant was amused.

As mentioned, the songs were almost completely unknown to me, largely because many were clearly local bangers. Then I realized that while photography might be forbidden, no one said I couldn’t use Shazam. Songs included: The Show Isn’t Over, by La Voix, This Is Me, from The Greatest Showman, Get Sexy by The Sugababes, It’s A Beautiful Day by Sarah Brightman, Butterflies by Kamaliya, and Bole Chudiyan from Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (a Bollywood musical). Who even are these people? I didn’t even bother Shazaming the songs in Thai.

The performance differed from a Ru Paul jam largely because of the song choices, although there were definitely more apsara hands than I think is normal in Western drag shows. The show ran an hour and ten minutes, and I have no idea if that’s generous or mingy compared to the norm. Sadly, it seemed modestly attended, on a random Thursday night. In a theater with 104 seats there were about thirty, maybe forty tops, in attendance.

But that didn’t stop our plucky crew from lip-syncing their little hearts out. Afterwards, they lined up in a gauntlet to pose for tips. I didn’t pose with them (I think I was still recovering from my near-drowning) but I snapped a few shots of the lovelies on my way out. Proof, because I know how you are, that I was really there.