Back in NZ

Now that the holidays are over I’m on my way back to Malaysia from New Zealand. With son Henry in Austria and daughter Emily going to her boyfriend’s family for Christmas, there was a distinct danger that we would be celebrating the festive season as a sad old couple on our own in our converted Bedford bus, dreaming of a white Christmas in the middle of summer. So instead of going straight home we flew to Queenstown. Christmas Eve saw us bouncing across Lake Manapouri to get to Doubtful Sound which has no road access with the rest of the country. This is Fiordland, New Zealand’s most isolated area and the one significant part of the country that we had not visited before. Arriving there felt like we had entered through the looking glass, or the wardrobe or hopped on the train at platform nine and three quarters; we were in an imaginary world. In a few miles we had gone from barbecue beach parties on the sunny shore of Lake Wakatipu with its dazzling sapphire water, to a place where even a devout atheist like myself could sense the stirrings of the spirits in the swirling mist as it performed the dance of the seven veils with the majestic rock faces. We had booked an overnight cruise on a motor/sailor built specifically for the task and we were quickly under way, nosing through the coal black waters. Fiordland is far wetter than anywhere else in the country and its average seven litres of annual rainfall causes the Sound to be refreshed with many waterfalls which provide a layer, a few metres thick, of fresh water on top of the briny. Even if there is a sunny day in this other-worldly place the water remains stubbornly black. Real Journeys gave us a nice balance of adventure and luxury with a comfortable cabin, good companionship and excellent food. The icing on the cake came Christmas morning when we were joined by a pod of dolphins playing in the bow wave. The New Year looks good for travel. I’m currently in Indonesia finding my way back to Malaysia and then I will be planning a trip for us both to America for a friend’s wedding, probably calling in at Austria and England and maybe even the Caribbean where another friend is sailing a catamaran. There is a lot of euphemistic drivel spoken of Senior Citizens and Golden Years, but 65 is actually a very good time of life; a regular pension going into the bank without the need to work and still young enough to make the most of whatever opportunities arise.

Green Sea Turtles

Tourist brochures and adverts for Malaysia always show pictures of sea turtles. We were going to go to Bali for a few days but ended up on Tioman Island instead as an erupting volcano caused our flight to be cancelled.

We found ourselves inside a glossy tourist brochure, staying in a wooden cabin on a nearly deserted white sand beach but with a pleasant beach café, which allowed us to take our own wine, a few hundred yards away. Pulau Tioman is a 2 hour ferry ride off the east coast of Malaysia and when you visit you understand why it was used as the setting for Bali Hai in the film of South Pacific; it is a perfect paradise with barely any development.

A longer beach walk brought us to a turtle refuge and we were invited to see the release of a group (what is the collective noun for turtles?) that were hatched that morning. Without human supervision their first trip down the beach is fraught with danger from birds and crabs who enjoy them as a crunchy snack. They are meant to be very very tasty but no longer on any dinner menu we can access. Apparently it took ages before a giant turtle was successfully taken to Europe because the sailors always succumbed to the temptation of cooking and eating them. Hence in 18^th century England diners had to make do with mock turtle soup.

Those that make it to the sea spend the next few years swimming hundreds of miles in the deep ocean and getting their own back on the crabs which they eat, as well as gobbling up jelly fish. As adults they undergo a complete change of lifestyle and live as herbivores in shallow coastal waters munching sea grass.  We were told that the females then return to the beach where they were born to lay their eggs but no one could explain how this is known.

There is an even more extraordinary claim made for the long fin eels in New Zealand. As adults they have a momentous life decision to make. They can stay in their creek and live a good comfortable but celibate life until they die of old age (like the turtles they have a similar life span to us) or they can swim out to their breeding grounds which are believed to be somewhere near Tonga and never return. The fantastic claim made is that the offspring return from the ocean depths and find their way to the family creek. But where is the evidence? How can anyone know the antecedents of an elver? Mind you it’s pretty clever to find New Zealand at all from thousands of kilometres away; Maori didn’t arrive until 13^th century but the eels have been commuting for more than 20 million years!

Ex-pat essentials

There are still many Orang Asli, the indigenous natives of peninsular Malaysia, living in the jungle and we visited a village in the Taman Negara. I take aim at a teddy bear target with a blow pipe that the men use to hunt monkeys for food. Everything is made from natural materials and the darts are coated in a poison sourced from a rain forest tree.

In the last blog I included an excerpt from The Travel Addict’s Puzzle which noted the bizarre thrill of experiencing an alien culture as an outsider, but back in town we are not just skimming the sights but are immersed in the way of life. So if living and not just passing through, what does the modern ex-pat need to hang onto from his or her own culture in order to maintain that perspective and fully appreciate being in a foreign land?

1)     Mustard: I put a jar of Old English on the table the other day and Liz remarked that it was well travelled. I actually remember being very pleased with myself at finding it in a shop in Nanjing, and so I must have chucked it in the packing for Siberia before it came with us to Malaysia.

2)     Crossword: I get Liz to print off the Guardian prize puzzle for me and, when I am with a group at the golf club and I can’t follow them speaking Malay, I can busy myself with the puzzle instead of sitting there looking completely stupid.

3)     Internet: There is a danger that this makes life too easy and allows us to avoid the challenges of life abroad. We use it to watch UK television, keep in contact with friends and family, download books and even get driving directions. Has it made the world too small?

4)     Booze: Living in a Muslim country we perhaps could change our habits but there is a strong tradition of the gin soaked ex-pat which is important to preserve. The government attitude is that if you want to do things which we disapprove of you must pay us a lot of money in tax, and so the non-halal section of the supermarket sells beer, wine and spirits at a price. Consequently, while Liz is busy at work I have to make regular trips to the island of Langkawi which is duty free. A tough life as shown below.

Eating out

Malaysia is rightly noted for its food but at times something different from the simple eateries serving chicken and rice in various forms, which is pretty much what is on offer in our small town, is required. For Liz's birthday we sought the comparative cosmopolitanism of Ipoh, the state capital of Perak, and ended up in an Irish pub.
This reminded me of passing through Kazakhstan's oil rich town of Atyrau and the following excerpts are from Chapter 8 of The Travel Addict's Puzzle:

I’m not sure what to do about money. I suspect that no one will want Kazakh Tenge once I have left the country, but I may not have enough for lunch and I don’t really want the embarrassment of having to rush to the ATM to pay the bill whilst making incomprehensible gestures, or frantically patting all my pockets searching for cash, which is a routine known in New Zealand as the Australian Hakka. I do manage to find some kind of supermarket and satisfy myself that I can spend any excess Tenge there, and so make a visit to one of the many holes-in-the-wall, and now it is time for lunch.

I can’t decipher anything on the menu but hear mentioned ‘business lunch’ and say that I will have one of those, whatever it is. It is alright but nothing memorable and the waitress keeps trying to get the table lamp to work despite my waving her away. I am unable to raise Liz on Skype but have a conversation with my brother-in-law in England.  I can imagine exactly where he is sitting, in a completely different world to the one that I currently inhabit. This must surely be another reason to travel; the ability not to immerse oneself into an alien world but to skim it- to live it but at the same time to belong elsewhere and to experience the bizarre thrill of the physical world and the emotional being in complete juxtaposition. Before I leave I unplug my re-charged little computer and turn the table lamp back on for them.

In the distance the sun is glinting off golden domes which I first mistake for a mosque, but these have the pinched tops of cake decorations my mother used to use or, for those who never sampled my mother’s baking, of confections such as St. Basils in Moscow or the Brighton Pavilion. The subtle difference in the shape of the dome reflects the divergence of belief; while Moslems revere Jesus as a great prophet, they don’t buy into the Holy Trinity bit, and maintain that there is only one God, which rules out divinity for Jesus Christ (and Mohamed). Of course not everyone has had the advantage of early schooling from Irish nuns, who were able to simply solve the conundrum of there being three-in-one by reference to a picture of a shamrock. With God-the-father in Heaven and Jesus in Palestine I was left with the assumption that it was the Holy Ghost who hailed from the Emerald Isle. As the Christian church survived its first 300 odd years without the idea of Jesus being divine, there is perhaps less difference between these two enormously powerful religions than the media would have us believe.

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I still have loads of time to spend in Atyrau and find what claims to be an Irish pub. This is a worldwide phenomenon and I have come across them, with names like Molly Malone’s or Nelly Dee’s, from New Zealand to China. They may even have them in Ireland. What they are trying to do is replicate the unique institution of the English pub, which is also found in Wales but not in Scotland or Ireland, other than as another attempt at a copy. It may be that they think calling something ‘Irish’ adds an extra layer of romanticism, or else the whole thing is an invention of Guinness marketing, which is quite a plausible explanation for the phenomena. It can never work of course because the English pub is a part of, and grows out of its environment. You might just as well dismantle London Bridge and rebuild it in a desert in Arizona (which for some unknown reason was actually done). The English country pub is something that I still have faith in and something that I miss in New Zealand, where they are just not quite the same.

It is just opening and I am handed a menu. The beer is so expensive that they can sell it for half price in Happy Hour, from 6 o’clock, and still no doubt make a good profit. It is 5.20 pm and the waitress seems to accept my suggestion that I stay sat outside reading until the prices become more reasonable. I wonder if this place explains the large number of banks in town as you would need to negotiate a personal loan every time you needed to raise funds to buy a pint of Guinness. At one minute past six I am at the bar, feeling very thirsty and ordering half a litre of their cheapest beer. They charge me full price. I object and they explain that while my watch shows the official time, and is correct for the train I need to catch, local time is an hour behind. I drink my beer and find my way back to the supermarket where I invest the remainder of my Kazakh Tenge in bread and cheese.

The Travel Addict's Puzzle paperback can be found at www.createspace.com/5714720 or from Amazon as paperback or e-book.

5 golfing tips for the uncoordinated

1) Do it
I actually believe that I am not much worse than the average at sports. The problem is that most people with my level of ability have the sense to give up rather than show themselves up. But should they? Why should taking part in any sporting activity be the exclusive preserve of those who are good at it? And why should taking up a sport put some kind of onus on the individual to become expert in their chosen field? We put far too much value on being the best and far too little on just taking part, this is why the majority of us end up as spectators instead of participants and top professional sports people are paid absurd amounts of money. I have a personal interest in promoting this because if others with my lack of skill persevered, I could take my rightful place as only just sub-standard instead of being totally useless.
2) Do it abroad
I'm now playing golf in Malaysia. The people here are far too polite to laugh outright at my often pathetic attempts at the game and, where in New Zealand I was often the butt of cruel jokes about the standard of my play, here my understanding of the local language is far from good enough to comprehend any insults spoken. They do sometimes ask how long I have been playing the game, thinking that I'm a beginner who will improve, and I have to own up to not being able to use learner status as an excuse as I first wielded a club 50 years ago.

3) Less is more
The harder you try the worse it gets. A career in social work has taught me that problems quickly become crises when the response to them feeds what caused the issue in the first place and a vicious cycle is established. It is annoying when a shot destined for the centre of the green doesn't even get off the ground, but a determination to give the ball an almighty hit is bound to result in greater failure and more frustration leading to a need to belt the thing regardless of the consequences. And this is all because of this totally unfair expectation that if you choose to play a game you must be reasonably competent at it. If it weren't for that I wouldn't have to feel the acute embarrassment at my failure which forces me to try too hard resulting in a total loss of control over my own body. And that is the problem, when your body refuses to do as it is told:
'keep your head down' right
'look at the ball' yes
'swing slowly' okay
whack fuck!
4) Be proud
Sport should be played for fun, winning or losing isn't important; especially when you're no good at it. Those of us lacking hand eye co-ordination can lead the way in championing the proper spirit of sportsmanship while the top players curse their luck and vent their anger on their equipment. Glory in being rubbish, take the high moral ground and remember that those at the top can only move in one direction. What would it be like to be the best at your chosen activity and expected to beat all-comers? I think that then the fear of losing would creep in and threaten to spoil any enjoyment of the game, an issue which I'm sure the All Blacks are currently acutely conscious of.
5 Most important) Do as I say: not as I do

Red menace

The holiday a fortnight ago to celebrate Malaysia's independence was dominated by demonstrators in yellow shirts. Yesterday's holiday had demonstrators in red shirts. Apparently these people are pro government which, ironically as this was meant to be a celebration of unity in the country, can equate to pro Islam and pro Malay (as opposed to Malaysian Chinese and Indian). I was reminded of the political system here this morning as I walked past a cafe advertising porridge with crispy fried innards.
There's little evidence of the clothing companies doing so well in Britain but I did enjoy watching the Labour Party leadership on the BBC world news. At one point the ribbon of writing at the bottom had Corbyn news listed as 'sport' and I was pleased that it wasn't clashing with the Rugby World Cup. The establishment would have us believe that radical policies will never win an election but in the past things have changed; 100 years ago the country was not a proper democracy as less than half the population were enfranchised, 75 years ago most British people couldn't afford a nutritious diet, died for want of money to pay medical bills and a decent education was seen as a privilege and not a right. 50 years ago we were into the Wilson/Heath years and, well, since then nothing of any real significance has happened in British politics.
China has gone from the Cultural Revolution to unfettered capitalism, with the break up of the Soviet Union Russia has moved from being a planned economy to a criminal one, Germany has re-unified, the USA has progressed from Jim Crow (apartheid) laws to electing a black president and Britain is just same same; maybe a shake up is overdue.
In other news my book is now available as a paperback from https://www.createspace.com/5714720 or from Amazon.

The Law of the Jungle

The rolling English drunkard who built the rolling English road got utterly rat-arsed before going up to Bukit Fraser; there are more twists and turns than Agatha Christie could ever imagine and at the top could be Miss Marple’s village. Except of course for the monkeys. We stayed in an olde worlde English inn but lost the contents of the fruit bowl by leaving the window in our room open.

While we were enjoying the climate at an altitude a bit higher than anywhere in Britain, others dressed in yellow T shirts which the government banned the day before, were sweating it out in Kuala Lumpur’s Merdeka Square where they were demonstrating their unhappiness about reports that the Prime Minister had trousered $700 million he had found lying around (see blog Cracking Malaysia 30^th July). This action, although totally peaceful, has backfired as the police are now using all their resources to track down the uncouth protesters who stood on a picture of the PM, which according to The Star seems to be far more serious than worrying about that odd bit of money that has been mislaid.

We continued our holiday week-end with a trip to the jungle and read in The Star (which is majority owned by one of the political parties in the government alliance), that a woman had been arrested on suspicion of releasing yellow balloons from the upper floors of a building where the PM and his wife were attending an event. The charge is intentional insult with intent to provoke a breach of the peace. In the Taman Negara they know how to breach the peace. We tried out a blow pipe that the locals use to hunt monkeys once they have added the poison from one of the rain forest trees. The law of the jungle applies to some but not to all in Malaysia.