Malaysia, Truly Asia

KUALA LUMPUR IS AWESOME! GO THERE!

But seriously, do. It's my new favorite asian city, thanks in no small part to the lovely Pui Shen Yoong, and her parents. For some reason I didn't get a single photo of Shen while I was there (Argh), but here are her awesome parents taking me to breakfast. Basically, they just drove me from awesome food to awesome food, so they are A-okay in my book. Seriously nice people. Hi Shen's parents! You Rock! I hope I see you again! Thanks for the Roti Pisang! 

And then I went into the center of the city to "Study for the GRE" which translated to drooling all over myself as I stared at this for an afternoon:

 

BAM.  

And then I got to go all the way to the top! Obligatory awkward tourist photo alert: (complete with high altitude bird poop!)

And here we are again. I think I have a crush on the Petronus towers. 

Yeah, drool everywhere. I also saw other parts of KL, and ate lots of food, and figured out the subway system. However, I didn't take any photos of this, because the internet made me paranoid about purse snatching and pickpockets, so I rarely took my camera with me. So you're just going to have to trust me when I say that this city is wild. And full of EVERYTHING you could imagine. including, most crucially, PERSIMMONS. For those of you who don't know it, a persimmon is a small orange fruit that tastes PERFECT. It is the best fruit in the world. times a zillion. And for some reason it is impossible to find. But in the morning market with Shen's parents, I found BOXES of them. and proceeded to eat BOXES of them. mmmmm. Good bye persimmons. I will miss you. 

OK, will post more about the things I saw in KL soon. Also, I owe you all a post about visiting Jogja. I have spent a lot of time on planes, recently, hopping all over, and feel very much part of the jet set. Next week, we're off to visit Bromo, too. So more adventures to come!   Goodnight!

OK, so I just finished a monster updating marathon. I've split things into several posts, so you dont have to read everything at once. They are nowhere near chronological, so enjoy as you please. Thanks for your patience, and thans for still reading! Enjoy!

Love,
Arianna

Perfect Postcard Bali

Postcard Bali

On one more weekend of exploring more of Bali, Yustiana and her friend Inda invited Szuyin and me to come with them to eastern Bali, in the area just past Candidasa. And there, marked by a little hand-painted blue sign and down a long dirt road with a slope that would be illegally steep in the states, we found THIS:

Now THIS is what im talking about.  Apparently this is what Seminyak was like 5-10 years ago. There were definitely tourists, and definitely tourist oriented warungs, but there wasn’t the mad rush and crush of people. Just a couple dozen swimmers, and a few fishermen, chilling.

Also, I FINALLY got to drink out of a coconut.  I will now post pictures of food. I apologize, but I mean, look! THIS IS WHAT I’m TALKING ABOUT! Awwww yeah.  Basically, if I weren’t so sunburn-prone, I would stay here forever. Right here, on this chair. 

So, after a full day or doing absolutely nothing, and loving it, we stopped in Inda's city (again forgetting the name) and went to a night market! This was awesome. Tons of people out with lots of littel stalls selling everything from brooms to CDs to underwear food. Lots and lots of food.  So, naturally, we ate. 

And what we ate: This is not grilled chicken. This is, straight up, "a chicken: grilled."  I will henceforth call this "Flattened Chicken." It looks like some medieval torture threat, ..... but, my goodness, it is TASTY. 

And with that delectable image, I leave you. My internet cafe has got tired of me and is closing up shop. Good night everybody. Hope you are all well. 

Bamboo Harvesting

So the other time I ventured north was to watch how bamboo is harvested. We followed one of the PTBP employees who selects bamboo, and went an hour by bike to the area of Bangli.

We then met a group of raggle-taggle local logger dudes and jumped into a truck. (for those of you on  Dartmouth Woodsmen's Team or Crew, this is the Balinese equivalent of Pup Blodgget and Steaky the Truck, and friends.)

Hi ho, hi ho....

 We headed along an bone-jarringly potholed road for a bit, and along a path for another few minutes.  And then we went down. Straight down. We did not realize that the bamboo would be at the bottom of a freaking RAVINE. Poor Szuyin had on flip-flops!  Eventually we climbed/slid down to the bottom, and set off along/in the stream to find the bamboo.  Once we had located the bamboo, tested its density, and selected the one we wanted, the logger dudes took over.  I just stood there, transfixed.  I was absolutely sure that I was about to see a man get crushed to death by giant bamboo. I’m still not sure how that didn’t happen. Again, for those of you with Dartmouth woodsmen, they proceeded to break every rule of chain saw safety you every told me.  Literally every one. Every one. And continued smoking through it all.

This is my scared face!

The greatest mystery of all is, other than “how are you still alaive with all your limbs” of course, how the heck do you get the giant mutant grass out fo the giant ravine? Unfortunately this will remain a mystery, as they said they would leave the Ptung culm there to dry out a bit before hauling it out by some alternate rout. Presumably by magic. So we just scrambled back up the clif, and hoped back in the Balinese Steaky, and headed farther north. Here we found a pile of drying felled Ptung that was ready to be loaded onto the truck. Bamboo is light, but still, I was amazed to see these men each lift a 4-meter section of giant bamboo onto a shoulder and calmly toss it into the back of the truck.  After they had loaded everything, they perched on top, we climbed back in the cab, and headed homeward.

After this experience, I spent about there days trying to design things with only the absolute minimum number of columns, cause I now have a whole new respect for how much effort it takes to harvest each one of the dozens of bamboo stalks that come into the work-yard every day.  Eventually, I realized you cant build a bamboo house with only 3 pieces of bamboo, but still…. Just wow.

Also, bamboo is freakishly big. This is a species of GRASS. Like the little things in your front yard. It’s just giant, mutant grass.  When I think too hard about this, things get weird.

Sydney, darling Sydney

Australia is AWESOME!
At two months in I was starting to feel a bit of Bali-fatigue, so a trip back to the first world was just what I needed. And, wonder of wonders, my old high-school friend Shantakumar, who is living in Sydney at the moment, was willing to put me up and show me around for a few days.  T

he first night I was there, I got to see him play tabla and guitar in a concert of devotional music at his Ashram in western Sydney, which was awesome. Just a little while after i arrived, he had to go to soundcheck and a last-minuit rehearsal, so he dropped me off a few blocks away at the west-sydney Koala Sanctuary. So within an hour of setting foot in Australia, I was hanging out with kangaroos.
they were all super relaxed because on a saturday afternoon, there was no one around, and on the remarkably cold first day of spring, each one had claimed a patch of sunlight, and didn't really want to move. So I literally got within petting distance, and all they did was kind of sniff at me, in a bored kind of way.

 then over the weekend he took me around the city, and we went surfing at Manly beach!  Despite his best efforts to teach me to "feel the waves" i spent most of the time sideways, underwater, or snorting water out of my nose while trying to crawl back up on my board. I had a ton of fun, but ....lets say my performance wasless than elegant.  Can't tell from the photos tho!

I then Spent a day just wandering around Sydney on my own, while Shan was in class. It was a breath of fresh air. It's hard to explain, but it felt really familiar. Like some perfect combination of Boston and LA. Boston's downtown and student population, plus LA's beaches and weather. I wandered, enjoyed not sticking out like a sore thumb, and bought myself a pair of pants that actually fit. BY Indonesia standards, I am an XXL.  Shopping for pants that only come in skinny-jean style size -2 is highly amusing, but not very effective, and in August, bali is surprisingly chilly. So I ended the trip with some key Items: jeans that fit, a few dozen koala keychains for people a the office, and a decent haircut. SCORE! 

Oh, but how could i forget: THE SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE!!! WOOOO!! I went there, and learned about how it was designed, engineered and built. Unfortunately i didn't have time to see a performance, but i did get to learn about the custom-designed tiles that cover the thing! This is an awesome building. And one of the many examples of why working as a structural engineer at ARUP is now officially my dream Job. 

One more night on the town with Shan, which included this lovely pic taken by an obliging photographier along the park walk at sunset, and then, all too soon, i headed back to Bali, refreshed, revived, and ready for another round.

Shan, you rock. Thanks for the awesome time! Australia, it was nice meeting you, I hope we can get to know each other better. 

North to the Forest

I've had two opportunities now to wander northward into the central part of Bali.

In late August, Szuyin and I took advantage of yet another festival day and went in a road trip on the occasion of the Galungan Festval. Galungan is kind of like new years (though not really).  It is the occasion of the Birthday of the World! This year it was August 29, and is an island-wide holiday.  So Szuyin and I decided to visit Pura Luhur Batukau, one of the most important temples in Bali, at the base of Agung mountain. We started out early in the morning, with Szuyin driving the motorbike, while I perched on the back with the infinitely-useful Bali Atlas and Road Guide. (This thing is 200 pages, and a miracle. Best book ever). As we drove along, every house was decked out with these giant bamboo poles outside the front door. Each house decorates their pole differently, with pink leaves, tinsel, christmas lights, paper machet, you name it. I'll think of this as the Bali Christmas Tree. It's cool.

First we stopped at  another large temple on our way up, which Szuyin had heard about. I’m honestly forgetting its name right now, but it was great. Taman Ayun! And it was Awesome.  It was the family temple of the kings of the local city, at one time, and is surrounded by a very impressive moat.  We had brought with us out formal garb from Odelan, Sarong, Kebaya and sash, and at the front gate, we put them on. A nice old lady passing by was so delighted with out attempt that she hung around and helped us out! Sarong tying is deceptively tricky. But once we had it all figured out, we proceeded into the temple. As we went in we got a lot of smiles and nods form all the Balinese ladies leaving the temple after delivering offerings. One lady, after passing the gaggle of booty-short wearing tourists ahead of us, saw us all dressed up, and gave us a big wink and a thumbs up!  Despite our success, we were not let into the temple itself, but were able to wander through the gardens, and look in over the chest-high wall. As we were ding so, marveling at all the (many) temples, a group of ladies came over and … to our utter surprise, asked if they could take a photo with us. This is a bunch of headscarf wearing, middle aged ladies on a sight-seeing tour with their mosque group, and all of a sudden they are clumping around us, gesturing to “scoot in closer” and “everybody smile!”  We were so amazed; we forgot to get out own photo documentation.  They were super sweet about it, and I was totally confused.  (This was the first of many many such requests that I have to field whenever I’m slightly off the western tourist path.)

Anyways, then we headed farther north. We wanted to avoid the big city traffic and see more of rural Bali, so, map in hand, we left the main roads behind. Hijinks ensued. Secondary roads on the map are all uniform thin red lines. In real life those thin red lines can either be a small-town’s main street, a gravel track through a rice field, or 5 km of potholes occasionally interrupted by patches of pavement.  At one point I was sure that all my teeth were about to rattle right out of my head. But eventually it payed off, as we found ourselves in the middle of unending rice terraces. of course this is when my camera battery ran out, so Szuyin has all the pictures. I'll post some later. The point is, it looked amazing, like bright green velvet covered stairs running the whole height of the mountain.

Eventually we got to the Pura, still (miraculously) with all our teeth. Hundreds of people were wandering through, delivering offerings, and participating in one part or another of what was to be ten solid days of ceremonies.  There were two complete gamelan orchestras, predominantly made of wiry little old men, so that one group could rest and smoke, while the other group played... and smoked.  Seriously funny to see a white-mustached wizened old man play gamalon with one had and take a drag from his cigarett with the other. He absolutely could play this music in his sleep.  No one was in any particular rush. Everyone was just hanging out, chatting about the most fashionable way to tie a sash, and texting away on their blackberries.  These two matching ladies were adorable.

We stuck around, took photos, ate more satay (I love satay. Have I mentioned that?) and eventually headed back. We took an even more rural rout back, hoping for fewer potholes, and got lost, winding up at yet another temple. This one mostly deserted, and covered in dragons. Eventually we figured out which thin red line we were supposed to be on, with the help of many ladies hanging out at many warungs along the way. In one town we even saw a troop of little boys acting out the Barong dance! Look at that awesome costume! Plus another dozen little kids with gongs and gamelan-pieces.

We made it back to Sibang at about 10 pm, exhausted, but super proud of ourselves. Szuying is a champion bike-rider, and I got significantly better with the practice. 

A couple days later, I headed off to Australia, for my first visa renewal, and to visit Shan!  So the next post will involve kangaroos.