Sunday, January 11
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Wednesday evening, January 7
The international terminal at LAX on a Wednesday night is a busy, multi-cultural place, a cacophony of languages, skin tones, life speeds. Cindy and I certainly stand out in this mostly Asian crowd but no one is paying any attention. Many little kids and babies.
The fifteen hour flight on Cathay Pacific to KL is great and we emerge rested and unscathed. Our first experience on a 747 is a good one. Thanks to Charlie we have bulkhead seats - just enough room to prop our legs on the wall ahead which is how we sleep. Dozens of movies available on command. Dinner is served within an hour; after all, it is almost midnight Pacific time and 2 pm THURSDAY at our destination. I watched Road to Rodanthe which is highly forgettable but served to put me to sleep for six hours - along with my always present mother’s little helpers. At 1 am, we wake up reasonably refreshed, read, are served breakfast (a checken flavored rice porridge) at about 3 and emerge in Hong Kong. We have been in the dark for almost 24 hours because we have been continuously moving west.
Friday, January 9 (we’ve crossed the international dateline and Thursday doesn’t happen for us)
The Hong Kong airport is the most .... Well most everything. Huge, clean, efficient, user friendly. Of course it is 6 in the morning and most of the shops and restaurants aren’t open. We take sponge bathes in the spacious rest room, Cindy dawns her new travel skirt, and we settle in at a breakfast bar for our second breakfast and are easily able to connect wirelessly to the internet. My carefully constructed Google homepage with the NY Times, CNN, the Indian Times, the Onion, my horoscope (both Cancer and my rising sign, Virgo, as Evie has instructed me) comes up in Chinese but I am able to get me email. My reply to a note from Dennis and Nancy in Mumbai disappears into the ether, however.
We are here in HK waiting for a four hour flight to KL on Air Asia. We are fortunate to discover that the Air Asia flight actually leaves two hours earlier than we knew..... Cindy and I had spent two days weighing and repacking our luggage to meet the very strict weight requirements of 33 pounds for the checked bag and 15 for the carry on and I am prepared to pay for the 8 pounds I simply can’t eliminate - and no one even checks. Another huge plane filled with what appears to be students and young professionals heading for the warmth of a weekend in Malaysia. Cindy and I both get window seats for great views of the islands (reminding me of Greece) and the palm tree canopy of the mainland. Luscious and green. One must pay even for water but US$ is accepted along with the Malaysian ringgit.
The airport is efficient, we glide easily through customs, the luggage arrives, and emerge to a blast of hot, humid air. We note that there are many cleaners, all women with head scarves. I’m still in my jeans and have to keep the red shawl on so Max can find us so I’m melting. We stand curbside for quite awhile before realizing that we have walked right past her, looking cool and as fecund as the rainforest around us. She has made the trip out to the airport by bus and has a taxi ready to take us into the city. Driving into town makes me think of a Caribbean island, lush, green, and rather rural looking.
This quickly gives way to crazy traffic and the bustle of a big Asian city. Jeremy and Max have a beautiful three bedroom, three bath apartment on the eighth floor of a 32 floor building with walls of windows overlooking another huge building going up, evidence of the building and population explosion in KL. We make a quick change of clothes and walk to the relatively new KLCC - Kuala Lumpur Convention Center - which is comprised of the famous Petronas twin towers and a manmade park. The first six floors are filled with expensive world class shops like one would find on Wisconsin Avenue in Chevy Chase and food courts and even grocery stores. Max, Cindy and I grab some sauteed vegetables for a total of 80 cents. Max says that, like most Asian cities, it is cheaper to eat out that at home. The mall is crawling with people, almost all the women wearing headscarves. Malysia is officially a Muslim country and it is the 60% of the population who are Malays that is Muslim, but a secular Muslim mostly observed in modest dress, no alcohol and no pork. 25% of the population is Chinese who, while they are the successful entrepreneurs and bankers, are politically passive, not needing the government subsidies that the Malays receive. Indians make up 7% of the 25 million population and are usually at the bottom of the food chain, making up the majority of security guards and blue collar workers; they are also heavily represented in law and medicine, however.
When we get home, our deputy political officer at the US Embassy KL has arrived at home having completed the 20 minute walk from the Embassy. Jeremy is the same age as my son Scott and we became friends during our A100 days with the State Department. His history is replete with experiences and decisions that aren’t typical. A Jew at West Point; a West Point graduate who joins the State Dept. rather than the Pentagon (although he served two tours in Bosnia during the 90s); a man with Hebrew, Arabic, and German language skills whose first assignment is Bangkok; a lawyer/MBA grad who is a diplomat. We couldn’t be more different as he is type A and I type C at best; I old enough to be his mother. But we have been close friends for six years now; in fact Jan 13 is the sixth anniversary of our first day as the 111th A100 class joining the Department of State under Colin Powell’s Diplomatic Readiness Initiative, a move to try to correct the attrition to which State has been subjected while the Pentagon has flourished. While all the recruits from that period have advanced to mid-level positions by now, they have also been sucked into the black holes of Iraq and Afghanistan so the diplomatic core is desperately in needed of Hillary’s pledged beefing up. We have arrived during the second week of the Israeli bombardment of Gaza and, like most countries around the world, there are protests against the American Embassy and businesses - especially in Muslim countries where there is no Israeli Embassy. As deputy political counselor, this is Jeremy's concern.
Jeremy, Max, Cindy, and I head out for dinner at the Westin Hotel’s Italian restaurant. Daring in all other ways, Jeremy does not have wide-ranging epicurean tastes, tending mostly towards pizza and American cereal; nothing green, not ever. I have what is probably the last glass of wine I’ll see for awhile. It is hot, hot, hot and we go by cab, that heavens.
Saturday, January 10
A great ten hour night’s sleep later, we are ready to experience KL by day. Not as congested as I’d expected but still borderline third world, KL has enjoyed a major explosion in building and population. Bustling but not packed. Sidewalks but precarious grates over mysterious channels, sometimes flowing with smelly liquid, mostly dry and filled with leaves and plastic bags; terrifying traffic that makes us choose pedestrian overpasses. We experience three of the four modes of transportation on Saturday although none of them is coordinated with the other. Buses and the underground metro and overhead train are not connected or compatible. The underground and the overhead do not leave from the same stations or have the same tickets or booths. I’m counting taxis as the fourth form and we don’t take a bus, the cheapest mode of travel.
We walk through what is supposed to be a neighborhood containing vestiges of the colonial past but darned if we see any. We’re drenched pretty quickly, take the monorail to another section of the city where we eat in a Chinese restaurant - no headscarves here. We walk through a fabulous market - open air but under cover where, given the heat and the third world nature of things, we are surprised by the cleanliness and lack of flies and dirt. Amazing unidentifiable produce; a teaming barrel of snails in mud; thousands of dead chickens with their feet reaching for the sky; cows feet (never pigs because this is a Muslim country); fruits and vegetables and spices.
We walk towards China town and through two more malls, one which is all electronic, and one which reminds you of any American mall on a Saturday afternoon, teaming with teens texting on their cell phones and checking out the latest fashions. Malls are ubiquitous because they provide free air conditioning so everything happens in them. They are mostly vertical rather than horizontal.
The Chinese market is lively but we declare ourselves wiped out by the heat and the sweat. The whole city but particularly Chinatown is bedecked with red lanterns because Chinese new year is on January 26th and apparently is as ubiquitous as Christmas in the states.
True confessions: we spend the rest of the day from about 3:00 holed up in Jeremy and Max’s apartment, reading, watching the news, catching up on email, resting. I’m not pleased to discover that my State Credit Union checking/savings account has begun charging NSF fees for transferring money from savings to checking; that’s the bad news. The good news is that the credit card fraud department is already checking to see if someone has stolen my card and is using it in Hong Kong and KL. Of course I had notified them in advance that I would be in Asia...... Nothing about preparing for this trip has been easy or done only once. Max whipped us up three courses of wonderful Thai dishes and we dined sumptuously and in air conditioned comfort.
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Wednesday evening, January 7
The international terminal at LAX on a Wednesday night is a busy, multi-cultural place, a cacophony of languages, skin tones, life speeds. Cindy and I certainly stand out in this mostly Asian crowd but no one is paying any attention. Many little kids and babies.
The fifteen hour flight on Cathay Pacific to KL is great and we emerge rested and unscathed. Our first experience on a 747 is a good one. Thanks to Charlie we have bulkhead seats - just enough room to prop our legs on the wall ahead which is how we sleep. Dozens of movies available on command. Dinner is served within an hour; after all, it is almost midnight Pacific time and 2 pm THURSDAY at our destination. I watched Road to Rodanthe which is highly forgettable but served to put me to sleep for six hours - along with my always present mother’s little helpers. At 1 am, we wake up reasonably refreshed, read, are served breakfast (a checken flavored rice porridge) at about 3 and emerge in Hong Kong. We have been in the dark for almost 24 hours because we have been continuously moving west.
Friday, January 9 (we’ve crossed the international dateline and Thursday doesn’t happen for us)
The Hong Kong airport is the most .... Well most everything. Huge, clean, efficient, user friendly. Of course it is 6 in the morning and most of the shops and restaurants aren’t open. We take sponge bathes in the spacious rest room, Cindy dawns her new travel skirt, and we settle in at a breakfast bar for our second breakfast and are easily able to connect wirelessly to the internet. My carefully constructed Google homepage with the NY Times, CNN, the Indian Times, the Onion, my horoscope (both Cancer and my rising sign, Virgo, as Evie has instructed me) comes up in Chinese but I am able to get me email. My reply to a note from Dennis and Nancy in Mumbai disappears into the ether, however.
We are here in HK waiting for a four hour flight to KL on Air Asia. We are fortunate to discover that the Air Asia flight actually leaves two hours earlier than we knew..... Cindy and I had spent two days weighing and repacking our luggage to meet the very strict weight requirements of 33 pounds for the checked bag and 15 for the carry on and I am prepared to pay for the 8 pounds I simply can’t eliminate - and no one even checks. Another huge plane filled with what appears to be students and young professionals heading for the warmth of a weekend in Malaysia. Cindy and I both get window seats for great views of the islands (reminding me of Greece) and the palm tree canopy of the mainland. Luscious and green. One must pay even for water but US$ is accepted along with the Malaysian ringgit.
The airport is efficient, we glide easily through customs, the luggage arrives, and emerge to a blast of hot, humid air. We note that there are many cleaners, all women with head scarves. I’m still in my jeans and have to keep the red shawl on so Max can find us so I’m melting. We stand curbside for quite awhile before realizing that we have walked right past her, looking cool and as fecund as the rainforest around us. She has made the trip out to the airport by bus and has a taxi ready to take us into the city. Driving into town makes me think of a Caribbean island, lush, green, and rather rural looking.
This quickly gives way to crazy traffic and the bustle of a big Asian city. Jeremy and Max have a beautiful three bedroom, three bath apartment on the eighth floor of a 32 floor building with walls of windows overlooking another huge building going up, evidence of the building and population explosion in KL. We make a quick change of clothes and walk to the relatively new KLCC - Kuala Lumpur Convention Center - which is comprised of the famous Petronas twin towers and a manmade park. The first six floors are filled with expensive world class shops like one would find on Wisconsin Avenue in Chevy Chase and food courts and even grocery stores. Max, Cindy and I grab some sauteed vegetables for a total of 80 cents. Max says that, like most Asian cities, it is cheaper to eat out that at home. The mall is crawling with people, almost all the women wearing headscarves. Malysia is officially a Muslim country and it is the 60% of the population who are Malays that is Muslim, but a secular Muslim mostly observed in modest dress, no alcohol and no pork. 25% of the population is Chinese who, while they are the successful entrepreneurs and bankers, are politically passive, not needing the government subsidies that the Malays receive. Indians make up 7% of the 25 million population and are usually at the bottom of the food chain, making up the majority of security guards and blue collar workers; they are also heavily represented in law and medicine, however.
When we get home, our deputy political officer at the US Embassy KL has arrived at home having completed the 20 minute walk from the Embassy. Jeremy is the same age as my son Scott and we became friends during our A100 days with the State Department. His history is replete with experiences and decisions that aren’t typical. A Jew at West Point; a West Point graduate who joins the State Dept. rather than the Pentagon (although he served two tours in Bosnia during the 90s); a man with Hebrew, Arabic, and German language skills whose first assignment is Bangkok; a lawyer/MBA grad who is a diplomat. We couldn’t be more different as he is type A and I type C at best; I old enough to be his mother. But we have been close friends for six years now; in fact Jan 13 is the sixth anniversary of our first day as the 111th A100 class joining the Department of State under Colin Powell’s Diplomatic Readiness Initiative, a move to try to correct the attrition to which State has been subjected while the Pentagon has flourished. While all the recruits from that period have advanced to mid-level positions by now, they have also been sucked into the black holes of Iraq and Afghanistan so the diplomatic core is desperately in needed of Hillary’s pledged beefing up. We have arrived during the second week of the Israeli bombardment of Gaza and, like most countries around the world, there are protests against the American Embassy and businesses - especially in Muslim countries where there is no Israeli Embassy. As deputy political counselor, this is Jeremy's concern.
Jeremy, Max, Cindy, and I head out for dinner at the Westin Hotel’s Italian restaurant. Daring in all other ways, Jeremy does not have wide-ranging epicurean tastes, tending mostly towards pizza and American cereal; nothing green, not ever. I have what is probably the last glass of wine I’ll see for awhile. It is hot, hot, hot and we go by cab, that heavens.
Saturday, January 10
A great ten hour night’s sleep later, we are ready to experience KL by day. Not as congested as I’d expected but still borderline third world, KL has enjoyed a major explosion in building and population. Bustling but not packed. Sidewalks but precarious grates over mysterious channels, sometimes flowing with smelly liquid, mostly dry and filled with leaves and plastic bags; terrifying traffic that makes us choose pedestrian overpasses. We experience three of the four modes of transportation on Saturday although none of them is coordinated with the other. Buses and the underground metro and overhead train are not connected or compatible. The underground and the overhead do not leave from the same stations or have the same tickets or booths. I’m counting taxis as the fourth form and we don’t take a bus, the cheapest mode of travel.
We walk through what is supposed to be a neighborhood containing vestiges of the colonial past but darned if we see any. We’re drenched pretty quickly, take the monorail to another section of the city where we eat in a Chinese restaurant - no headscarves here. We walk through a fabulous market - open air but under cover where, given the heat and the third world nature of things, we are surprised by the cleanliness and lack of flies and dirt. Amazing unidentifiable produce; a teaming barrel of snails in mud; thousands of dead chickens with their feet reaching for the sky; cows feet (never pigs because this is a Muslim country); fruits and vegetables and spices.
We walk towards China town and through two more malls, one which is all electronic, and one which reminds you of any American mall on a Saturday afternoon, teaming with teens texting on their cell phones and checking out the latest fashions. Malls are ubiquitous because they provide free air conditioning so everything happens in them. They are mostly vertical rather than horizontal.
The Chinese market is lively but we declare ourselves wiped out by the heat and the sweat. The whole city but particularly Chinatown is bedecked with red lanterns because Chinese new year is on January 26th and apparently is as ubiquitous as Christmas in the states.
True confessions: we spend the rest of the day from about 3:00 holed up in Jeremy and Max’s apartment, reading, watching the news, catching up on email, resting. I’m not pleased to discover that my State Credit Union checking/savings account has begun charging NSF fees for transferring money from savings to checking; that’s the bad news. The good news is that the credit card fraud department is already checking to see if someone has stolen my card and is using it in Hong Kong and KL. Of course I had notified them in advance that I would be in Asia...... Nothing about preparing for this trip has been easy or done only once. Max whipped us up three courses of wonderful Thai dishes and we dined sumptuously and in air conditioned comfort.
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