not a picture in sight

Ugh. There are no pictures to post. Why, you ask? Well, it's because the memory card in my camera decided to commit some sort of electronic suicide and corrupt all my pictures. Yep, for the period starting when Alban and Lance arrived in Bangkok until southern Vietnam. Three weeks of pictures lost to some digital void. [insert some mild expletive suitable for parents and friends]

As icing on the cake, my battery charger is also on the fritz. Translation: the only way to charge the battery is to manually hold it in place for three hours or so. The thin silver lining is that I can post a few of the sketches from my journal to break up the monotony. Will do when I can find a scanner.

Peas.

indonesia: shifty taxi drivers, good wings, and a great location

Still catching up. Here's another installment:


Overwhelming. That was my first impression of Indonesia. Pretty much the complete antithesis of the collected calm of Singapore. Touts were vying rudely for my attention--believe it or not, my name is not 'hello, where you go?' The streets filled with frenetic traffic and sounds of people and daily life. I guess I had it in mind how easy it was to travel in South America; knowing the language makes the life of a traveller much easier. We tried bargaining with a taxi driver with fingers and bills and finally agreed on a price of fifty thousand rupiah for a trip to the eastern coast of the island and the beach. Little did we know that after an hour in the taxi-van, the price would triple to one hundred and fifty thousand--apparently the drivers figured on fifty thou a person. I'd like to believe that it was a misunderstanding, but part of me still avers that it was a case of lighten-the-foreigners'-imagined-money-bags. Ugh. That colored darkly the first hours of our visit to Indonesia. As we settled into our accommodation, however, the memory was quickly overwhelmed by the beauty of our locale.

Indonesia is a country made up of hundreds of islands--some say even arbitrarily placed together as some islands and cultures have very little in common. But I digress. Suffice it to say that we were on the island of Bintan, about two hours from Singapore by ferry. We found bungalows on the eastern side of the island with our own stretch of nearly deserted beach. It was phenomenally beautiful.

We only stayed for the night. But it is well worth the twenty-bucks-a-night price tag. And they had some fantastic chicken wings. Mmm. The next day we headed back to town and by way of the ferry, Singapore. All considered, it was a good stop: shifty taxi drivers, good wings, and great location.

On to Singapore.

too much money for crappy food

I wish I had been writing these posts as we were travelling. (Yes, spell check gods, I prefer two ls in the word travelling.) Let me try and recall all the places and things we have done so far.

I think I left you all in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, right before we departed to Singapore. A bit about Malaysia and KL, then. The state religion in Malaysia is Islam and the architecture of many buildings reflects this fact. The most ubiquitous feature is the eight-pointed star; it's everywhere: the side panels of buildings, sidewalk inlays, and even grates around trees. The only reason I mention this is that it came as such a change to be in a city that enjoys both wise urban planning and beautiful architecture. Believe me when I say that Bangkok has neither.

We had a chance to walk around the city and enjoy all this from street level. Kuala Lumpur is a city in the midst of the jungle and manages to preserve plenty of green space in an intensely urban setting. But I ramble.

Two highlights of Kuala Lumpur: Petronas Towers and Indian food. We had a chance to visit the Petronas Twin Towers, formerly the tallest building in the world at 452m. We were only able to visit as high as the forty-first floor as the Towers are functioning office buildings, but it was free. I suppose we got what we paid for.

The other highlight was delicious Indian food. And it was hecka cheap, to the tune of 2 Malaysian Ringgit (61 cents) for garlic naan and dahl. It was amazing. To contrast, our first night in KL, we decided to chance dinner at a random food stall. We suffered through plates of ginger wine chicken, and then were met with a bill of twelve ringgit a person (about four bucks each). Too much money for a crappy meal. Indian food, luckily, saved the day.

I'm out of battery. More later.