Deepavali/Diwali

Deepavali, Devali, or Diwali...depending on what region you are in...is known as the festival of lights.  This Indian festival is celebrated in a variety of ways depending on what religious community you are part of (Hinduism, Janism, Sikhism, Buddhism, etc.), but from my general understanding it is a celebration of good over evil/light over darkness or generally expressed as inner light.  Please excuse my Wikipedia paraphrasing, but to provide a little more detail about the back story...for Hindus this celebration commemorates the victory of Lord Rama (a prominent deity) over Ravana (a powerful demon) and his triumphant return to the kingdom after a period of exile. Keen to make Lord Rama’s homecoming as swift and safe as possible, his jubilant subjects illuminated the way with masses of twinkling diyas (earthenware oil lamps).  Deepavali also also symbolises the replacement of darkness (ignorance) with ‘inner’ light – garnered via the pursuit of knowledge and spiritual practices.

On the ground in Malaysia, Deepavali is a federal holiday for all.  Open houses are held, similar to Hari Raya, where Hindu Malaysians of all ethnic races welcome fellow Malaysians of different races and religions to their house for visiting, food, and relaxation.  In my neighborhood, since I'm living in the heart of Little India, it was also celebrated with an entire night of fireworks and fire crackers and street celebrations similar to New Years Eve in the USA.  Firecrackers are supposedly to drive away evil spirits, but at some point the people in the neighborhood would like to sleep!  Like I mentioned before (All things Indian), its also a time for Indians to buy new outfits and lots of sweets.  I indulged as well and am the proud owner of 2 new Punjabi outfits.     

Another beautiful aspect of Deepavali is the rangoli/ kolam art that appears everywhere.  This is a type of decorative folk art is created on the floors or courtyards to bring good luck.  It is made from colored dry granulated rice or flour and can be very elaborate, usually in a geometric or flower petal shape, but I've also seen lots of peacocks and even a duck design.  I have seen these all around lately from shopping malls to public transit stations. 

Intricate rangoli art on the floor of a shopping center.  Created by hand, very amazing!

Close up view of one of the flower petals.

In my neighborhood, there are also many mahendi/mehndi artists that set up shop on the streets and for about the equivalent of $3.25 USD in less than 10 minutes you can get adorned with some sweet temporary designs.  The material used is henna which comes from the flowering mignonette tree. 

Henna- my arm on the left (red/brown henna), my roommates arm on the right with a more black colored design.

My Deepavali outfit, including henna and bangles.  Posing with my wonderful Rotary host counselor where I was invited to spend the holiday at her parents' home enjoying time with her an her extended family.  Wow, I am so pale.

The Deepavali stalls disappeared quickly and we now have our streets back.  The sidewalks seem so wide and...walkable!  I kind of got used to the chaos, but I'm glad to have a little more peace in the neighborhood after the celebration.  I'm sure there will be another holiday soon, that's the benefit of living in a country that recognized so many cultures and religions!

Melacca

Last weekend after flying, I had the opportunity to take a quick overnight to the city of Melaka.  Known as the "cradle of modern Malaysia."  Melaka (or Melacca) is where everything from international trade to the country's political systems started.  Its avoided becoming a huge metropolis and still a relatively mellow place with a population of about 800,000 people, but it is a huge tourist destination where people come to explore the soul and history of the country.  It was one of the greatest trading ports in SE Asia in its hayday and is designated as a Unesco Heritage Site.  There are many remains of colonial architecture here as it was influenced by the Portugese, Dutch, and British for various periods of time. 

Trishaws tricked out by night.

Mouse deer statue in the center of town.

Melaka got is name from a tree.  A Hindu prince from Sumatra named Parameswara, was resting under a tree near a river while hunting when one of his dogs was kicked into the river by a mouse deer.  Impressed by the this action, and taking it as an omen of the weak overcoming the powerful, Parameswara decided to found an empire on that very spot, and called it Melaka after the tree under which he was sitting. 

Melaka riverfront by night.

Maritime Museum and Naval Museum housed in a huge recreation of a Portuguese ship that sank off the coast.

Diorama inside the Maritime Museum.

Coastline north of Melaka.

 

Klang Valley from above

On Saturday, I was thrilled to have the invitation to hop on a quick flight seeing trip around the Klang Valley.  In my presentation about "Alaska culture" I describe the culture of flying and small planes in Alaska and how it is an integral part of life in a state with so few roads.  It turns out a Rotarian in one of the clubs I presented to runs a flying club and flying school.  He offered to take me up and show me Kuala Lumpur and the surrounding area (known as the Klang Valley) from the air.  Its really great to be here as part of Rotary and get special invitations like this.  It rained hard the evening before, creating a bit of early morning fog so the pictures aren't crystal clear, but you get the idea!  

I don't think I have ever flown in a plane this small.

Tiny two seater.

He let me take the controls for a few minutes, slight terrifying!

Patchwork of oil palm plantations near the coast.

Heading toward the city.



A huge mosque in Shah Alam, a city just outside Kuala Lumpur, called Masjid Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah.



Kuala Lumpur city center emerging from the fog in front of our eyes.

University of Malaya campus.

City center including Menara KL (or KL Tower) and the Petronas Towers.

City scape.

Heart of the Klang Valley.

Batu Caves (limestone) and the world's tallest (140 ft.) statue of Lord Muruga, the Tamil God of Love and War .

How to eat a rambutan

One of the many joys of traveling, especially in tropical regions, is the variety of fresh local fruits and vegetables.  Since my arrival in Malaysia, I've been introduced to many fruits that I have never seen or experienced in my life, and its great to know that they are grown locally as opposed to Alaska where you have no idea where you fruit comes from, even if it is in a CSA box. 

Today I got a lesson in "how to eat a rambutan."  I don't think I've ever seen these in the America, but its possible they might show up in a grocery store every once and a while because they are grown and imported from Hawaii sometimes, and from this article (U.S. okays entry of fresh rambutan from Malaysia) it looks like earlier this year there was approval to start shipping these fun little fruits to the U.S.A.

A university professor I know here has some land and grows a small variety of different fruits and provided me with a huge bag of red rambutan (there is a yellow variety as well).  Below is a photo montage of how to eat a rambutan since they are just so fun to photograph : ) 



We have some work to do to consume all of these rambutan.





In the end, the fruit doesn't have as much flesh and I expected as there is a big seed in the middle.  But, apparently you can boil the seeds and make some sort of syrup.  The flesh of this red variety of rambutan is not juicy/watery, but the yellow version is more juicy.



Mt. Kinabalu

This weekend I finally found respite from the hot temperatures I have been living in for the past 2 months by climbing all the way to the top of Mt. Kinabalu.  This peak is commonly claimed as the tallest mountain in SE Asia.  Its located in state of Sabah, East Malaysia, on the island of Borneo.  My journey there was part of a very large district wide Rotary project where 115 participants, including 18 disabled climbers, attempted the summit.  It was dubbed "Rotary- A Climb Beyond Disabilities" (click here for info and photos).  The objective was to show the world that when given the chance, OKUs (the Bahasa acronym for disabled peoples in Malaysia) can achieve extraordinary goals, and to raise money and awareness for different OKU organizations.

And let me tell you, the disabled participants were amazing!  The group included participants that were blind, deaf, physically and mentally impaired by spastic disorders such as Cerebral Palsy, and Down's Syndrome.  Many Rotarians and non-Rotarians came together to raise over $95,000 USD with a goal of $160,000 USD which will likely be reached as publicity of the successful climb spreads.  The money will be donated to 6 different organizations including the Spastic Children's Association, Malaysia Association for the Blind, Music Dream Center for Autistic Children, etc.  There are too many fantastic details of the climb to share here, so I'll try a quick rundown of the logistics and successes.

The trail head for Mt. Kinabalu is a and elevation of 6,122 ft.  Most climbers take a 2 day, 1 night hike to complete the trek, and it can be done up and down in one day if you are super crazy fit.  But for our climb, we took a 3 day, 2 night climb to assure that everyone had the best chance of making it to the top.  On day one we hiked up to approximately 11,000 ft. and spent the night at a series of "rest houses."  Better accommodations than I would expect as everything is brought up by porters to accommodate up to 140 people.  All the food served at the meals, linens, propane, etc.  There was electricity, running water, flush toilets, but no hot water this time (periodically they have had hot water available at these huts).  The temperature here felt equivalent to summer time temperatures in Alaska, haha, quite comfortable for me, but the poor Malaysians were freezing!

The 2nd morning, a small group of us woke up early and started hiking at 2:30 am to try and reach the summit by sunrise.  Scaling the granite faces of the mountain in the dark with the guide of a white rope to hold on to, we slogged on as the temperatures dropped and the moon lit our way.  Eventually I turned my headlamp off and was able to hike by the light of the full moon across the exposed granite.  I reached the summit at 5:30am and was able to spend about 45 minutes enjoying the sunrise and refreshing mountain air at 13,345 ft.  I had plenty of layers but a few of my fingers did go numb from taking off my gloves to snap photos, a nice familiar feeling! 

The OKUs and the rest of the climbers took a later start around 8am and almost everyone successfully reached the summit.  All of the group reached the huts at 11,000 ft. (a success in itself) and a few climbers and 3 OKUs, who were suffering from the effects of altitude, attempted the summit but couldn't quite make it.  I have to admit that I under estimated the OKUs; the hike and elevation gain (7,223 ft over 5.6 miles) was a challenge for me, so I can't even imagine the perseverance for them.  But thankfully Rotary put a lot of effort into providing abundant training for them over 5 months leading up to the climb, taking them out hiking practically every weekend. 

Making it to the top is only half the journey though.  I knew coming back down would be a challenge as the trail consists large sections of "stairs", probably adding up to hundreds of steps along the way.  These "stairs" consisted of boards and rebar placed into the mud and rock to keep the trail from eroding away from heavy use and rain.  They were very uneven from small steps to large gaps over a foot high so every persons knees and leg muscles were suffering by the end, but it was well worth the journey.  The idea of getting a massage is nice, but when I think about anyone even touching my calves today (even 2 days after the descent), I wince.

I have way too many photos to post here, so I attempted to throw a few of them into a quick slide show.  It greatly diminishes the quality of the photos, but at least you get an idea.  For best viewing, do NOT watch on full screen, but do turn on the volume to your speakers for some good mountain music.  This is my first attempt at loading a video format to the blog, so sorry about the poor quality, I'll try for better quality next time.
      

Kickin' it in Seremban

Scheduled to present to a Rotary club out in the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur, the Rotary Club of Senawang kindly invited me for an extended stay in their town.  I headed out to Seremban, about an hours train ride, and spent Sunday afternoon and Monday learning about the area with wonderful local Rotarians as my tour guides.  Seremban is in the state of Negeri Sembilan; whereas Kuala Lumpur is physically in the neighboring state of Selangor, but the city is its own federal territory.  Many people commute the 45 minute to 1 hour drive (if there's no traffic) from this area to work in Kuala Lumpur.  Its a pleasant suburban area, similar to the 'burbs in America, where most people live in bungalows (single family homes) and there are golf courses and much more green and open space than in the big city.  Its a place where you wouldn't expect there would be much to see, but they made sure my schedule was full of entertaining and engaging activities.  The tour included a pleasant drive through some of the agricultural areas to learn about the different fruits grown here, a visit to a Chinese cemetery, and something you wouldn't expect, a visit to an ostrich ranch where they conduct research and breed the animals.  I spent the night in the very nice home of one of the club members that is retired from the United Nations and worked all over the world on various peace keeping missions.  It was great to hear his stories.  Here's a photo journey of my time in and around Seremban:   

Feeding the fish at a local park with a Rotarian and his family.  It was great to see so many families enjoying the out of doors on a Sunday afternoon.



Some of the well fed coy and their turtle friend.

This photo may not seem interesting, but I like it because it shows children of many different races (Chinese, Indian, Malay, etc.) enjoying the same play ground.

A fellowship dinner with some Rotarians and their families at a chinese vegetarian restaurant.  They were very kind to arrange this get together and pick a special vegetarian restaurant just for me.  So many yummy choices and good conversation.

Chinese cemetary.

This, my friends, is a very rare and special coconut tree.  Usually cocount trees only grow straight up with one trunk, no branches or splits.  This tree not only has one fork, but two!  There are no others like it.

Dragon fruit plant, part of the cactus family.

A variety of orange coconuts.

Jack fruit.

This is where your coffee comes from!

Its so great to have such a variety of fresh. locally grown produce after living in Alaska.

Afternoon snack.



This ostrich had it out for me.  Good thing they don't have teeth!



The part of the ranch(?) where old ostriches get to hang out in retirement and watch the goats frolic around.  I learned you can't tell the gender of the animal until they are over a year old.  The feathers of the females turn brown, and the males stay black and their beak becomes very pink/red colored.  Baby ostriches are very sensitive to everything and if they are even around lound noises then can drop dead right then.

Ostrich eggs. They can weigh up to 2 pounds each.

And they were able to with stand my body weight, even with all the extra pounds I have put on since I got here due to the abundance of cheap, yummy food.

And the grand finale of the ostrich ranch tour, a chance to try my hand at ostrich wrangling.  What the photo doesn't depict is how ridiculously sweltering it was.  It was mid-afternoon, 90+ degrees, high humidity, and the bird itself was a huge heat generator with those black feathers.  I only survived long enough for a few photos, haha.

Presentation to the Rotary Club of Senawang, this time in an Indian food restuarant where we had a fantastic feast afterward.

No females in this Rotary club, but a very good bunch indeed.

Sorry for the multitude of photos, maybe the blog isn't the best place to post since you have to scroll through them all.  But I'm not posting them anywhere else (I don't want to be annoying and put them on Facebook all the time), so I'm just posting the best/most representative pics here.

Addicted to Travel

While I've always been interested in travelling and exploring the globe, my time in Alaska quelled that desire a little because there's just so much to see and do and experience within the great state itself.  I'm fortunate to have experienced some world exploration through short trips to Central American in high school and college, a trip to China when I was 14, and 5 weeks in Eastern Russia at Lake Baikal as part of an environmental exchange during my bachelor studies.  But this is my first true open ended immersion experience where I get to spend a substantial amount of time in a foreign land as a resident.  So many students experience this through foreign exchange during their bachelor studies, but I am glad in the end that I am experiencing this now as a more mature person.  I can definitely say that I am more confident and comfortable with myself than when I was 19 and able to have a much more perhaps meaningful, or at least different, experience than if I had hopped the train back then. 

Although it was very sad to leave my beloved Alaska, the idea of endless travel possibilities was enough to pry me way.  Looking at a map of Alaska, there isn't much near by.  While looking at a map of SE Asia, the travel opportunities are almost too many!  So many countries so close that I feel like a kid in a candy store.  My head spins every day researching and arranging trips to near by lands.  So far on the docket:  Sabah (Eastern Malaysia/Borneo) to climb Mt. Kinabalu, Singapore, Cambodia, Bali and Thailand, as well as many other travels within Malaysia.  That's all before the end of the year (except for Thailand), also looking forward to planning excursions to Vietnam, Laos, Burma, and maybe China, India, Nepal, and Bhutan.  I feel this screaming in my head that "this is your only chance to REALLY see the world!"  The thought of returning to America and starting my career with the possibility of only a few weeks off a year doesn't bode well for future thorough travel experiences.  So I better enjoy it while I can! 

On another note...and ode to the air conditioner.  What would we do without it?  This is a scientific laboratory building at the university.  At least if I have to consume energy by running the A/C all the time just to sleep, then its slightly balance by the fact that I'm car-less here.  I would be terrified to drive the roads here anyways!