Malaysia and Indonesia

 A peacock at the crocodile park.

March 13-18 Bankok to Malaysia
March 13-14 After seeing Ian off at the Bankok airport, we got ourselves on a train through southern Thailand.  It was pretty relaxing as we got to see the countryside until it got dark; mostly small towns once we got out of Bangkok, rice paddies, limestone mountains in the distance and people going about their chores.  It got dark around 7:00 and we bought a dinner on the train.  The sleeper cars were slightly different than the ones we rode in India; they were newer and cleaner (sorry Anushree!) and were set up with the berths along the side of the train rather than in 4 to a compartment.  There was more space in the aisles and had racks for the luggage.  At 9:00 the car attendent came through and let down the upper bunks and made them up with sheets and blanket. (In India one has to make their own berth.)  The downside of Thai trains is they have a reputation for running late, which was certainly true in our case.  (In defence of India's rail system they more often ran on schedule). Instead of 7:30am we arrived 3 hours late at our destination on the 14th, but we managed to grab a bite to eat, find a minibus headed to Malaysia and be on our way by noon.

The central cavern at Batu cave.

It was a 6 hour journey when everything was said and done; negociating a border crossing and finally finding a hotel.  Malaysia has a great highway system and so the road was good and the scenery lush and green.  We stayed in the city of Georgetown, also known as Penang, which is on a large island.  It has a long history as a strategic  port and was controlled by the Dutch and British. The next day, the 15th, we caught a bus to Klang, a port city of a million, southwest of the capital of Kuala Lumpur.  Our friend and former exchange student to Guilford, Kelly Ch'ng and her dad picked us up at the bus station.  The problem initially was that we didn't know there was more than one bus station and they weren't sure which one we were at!  We had been trying to figure out the pay phone when a nice lady offered us her cell phone to call Kelly.  As our only point of contact Kelly called this lady's phone back 3 times trying to track us down.  It turns out the lady was a Thai tourist and couldn't explain any better than us where we were, so we handed the phone over to one of the food concessions workers and Kelly asked her where we were. It is these small kindnesses that make up for the times we get ripped off by unscrupulous ticket agents.  Kelly and her dad finally found us and took us to their favorite Malay-Indian restaurant for supper.We didn't allow nearly enough time to see and do things in Malaysia but Kelly and her family went all out for the 2 days we were with them.  We started the day of Friday the 16th at their one of their favorite

The entrance to Batu caves.

breakfast spots for a dish of (I think I remember this right) fat rice.  It’s a pork broth with a variety of things in it including pork, coils of intestine, and dunked bread spooned over rice.   We then met her aunt and uncle and we all drove 2 hours to Melaka.  Our first stop was the Crocodile Park where the feature was numerous saltwater crocodiles in several pens and pools.  There was also a bird pen, some snakes and a raccoon (of all things!) It gave us a chance to say we often see raccoons in our compost pile or in the bird feeder at home.  We then headed to a restaurant known for a specialty in the Melaka area, chicken rice balls Kelly’s mom Siewthang and her aunt Janet took charge of ordering for everyone and got a variety of authentic Chinese dishes.  The other must try item was cendol, a concoction of shaved ice, brown palm sugar, small green wheat noodles, kidney beans, and little tiny bits of jello.  It sounds like a gross combination but it is actually quite refreshing.  After lunch we went into the old historic district of Melaka.  Melaka has quite a history as a port city and trading center that dates back to early Malay history.  It was founded in the 1300’s and variously controlled by the Chinese, Portuguese, Dutch and British.  It is colorful mix of cultures; Chinese shops and restaurants, the old Dutch town hall and governors home (now a museum), the ruins of a Portuguese church and the one remaining gate of the old fort, and a British church. We spent the afternoon wandering that area taking in the sights and sounds of history and current culture. Supper that evening was at the Ch’ngs favorite Dim sum restaurant and again Siewthang and Aunt Janet picked out authentice Chinese foods for us to try.

A Chinese steamboat dinner with Kelly and her family.

   Saturday started with breakfast at their favorite Chinese coffee shop. Then we traveled to the northern part of Kuala Lumpur (the capital city of Malaysia, aka KL) to the Batu Caves, a Hindu temple and shrines.  They located in caves accessed by 272 steps, flanked by roving monkeys looking for a banana handout. The view from the top out over the city was great, but it was hazy and KL is set among hills and so it’s layout works around those and is uneven.  We could see the Petronas Towers and other skyscrapers of the city.  KL is also a very green city with many of the hills still tree covered. Lunch was in Chinatown in KL, in an older Chinese food stalls arrangement.  You sit down at a table when you can grab one, and then choose your food from a whichever stall.  We later walked through a Chinsese Tao Temple, a market and shopping street with small shops selling all manner of knock off name brand items from clothing to electronics; most of it from China. For dinner we met Kelly’s aunt and uncle at a Chinese Steamboat restaurant; where they again could treat us to authentic Chinese food.  Kelly told us that the Chinese often greet each other with not “hello, how are you?” but rather “hello, have you eaten?” It was a special treat to be with folks who could share with us specifically about the culture and authentic food.
More so than any country we’ve yet been in, Malaysia is cultural melting pot of ethnic Malay who are predominantly Muslim, ethnic Chinese who are Buddhist or Taoist, and ethnic Indians who are mostly Hindu  There is a wide variety of foods, and customs based on those groups.  Most of the Muslim women wear headscarves that completely cover their head and hair, and long sleeves to at least the elbow and most often the wrist.  Indian women are often in saris or kurtas and the Chinese are in mainly western dress including shorts and short sleeve tops.  It seems incongruous sometimes to see such a vast array of clothing.
On Sunday the 18th Kelly got us to the airport and after having breakfast with us we said goodbye to Kelly and Malaysia.  Next stop Banda Aceh on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia.
Posted by Martha

Banda Acheh, boat on the house.

A replica of the 2004 wave.

March 18-29 Indonesia: Sumatra
March 18-20 Banda Aceh   It was a one hour flight to Banda Aceh on the Indonesian island of Sumatra from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We arrived in a rainstorm and after having lunch at the airport we got a taxi into town.  Banda Aceh was one of the towns devastated in the 2004 tsunami.  Steve had been here shortly afterwards and had the chance to talk to people, go the the camps set up for the homeless, and see the devastation.  Much reconstruction has been done and in many places you'ld be hard pressed to know that 8 years ago 60,000 people in this city were killed and hundreds of buildings washed away or damaged. Most of the NGO's are now gone and the city has been rebuilt.
This region is devoutly Muslim and 99% of the women wear head coverings, long sleeves and long skirts or pants.  Indonesia itself is the world's most populous Muslim nation.  We were awoken each morning by the 5:30am calls to prayer by no fewer than 3 mosques in the immediate area.  We spent 2 days in the city itself; seeing the tsunami sights of the boat brought 2km inland and left on top of a house, a 2500 ton generator barge that was swept 4km inland and a Tsunami Museum.  The museum was built in an oval shape and was entered by a long, tall, darkened corridor with water running down the walls; a reminder of the "wall of water" that struck the city.  It included galleries of photos of that day and following days, a tall circular room with names of some of the dead on it, rooms with general information on earthquakes and tsunamis in general, and a covered area with a long pool and the flags of the nations who provided aid in reconstruction hanging overhead.  Steve tried to locate some of the people he met, worked with or stayed with during his time here in 2005.  Many phone numbers were no longer valid, people had moved and he only managed to locate 1, a now retired school teacher from a village 25 minutes from the city center.  After he located Yusnidar we moved to a guest house run by her son called Yudi's Place.

Surfing, Lhoknga.

March 20-23 Lhoknga
 This village is also on the coast and many parts of it were damaged or destroyed.  The guest house was 1/4 mile from the beach and has been completely rebuilt since being washed away by the tsunami.  Yusnidar’s home was another 1/8 of a mile further inland and it too is totally new.  Our first evening we visited with her briefly and she

The Black mosque in Banda Acheh.

talked about that day in 2004 and trying to get her mother and other people to flee for the hills after the earthquake struck and she feared there would be atsunami.  Behind their new house is the small disaster relief 2 room house built by the NGO's by the scores that they lived in.  Many people tore theirs down after they rebuilt a bigger home, a few folks are still living in theirs.  She wanted to keep hers as a reminder.
   Steve had been given some money after his return from Banda Aceh for use in the relief effort.  He had not found a reliable way to transfer it over to Banda Aceh and ensure that it would go to the people who needed it most.  So one day he

School children in Lhoknga.

and Yusnidar took this money to town and bought some notebooks, books, pen, pencils and sharpeners with that money.  The day after that we visited 2 schools in this small town of Lhoknga and distributed them to children who have only one parent; some
due to the tsunami some for other reasons, and whose parents struggle financially for uniforms and school supplies.  I was most affected by the second school.  It was in an area that had been completely washed away by the tsunami, so this was a new school.  Indonesian schools are pretty easy to pick out.  There is usually a smaller centrally located administration block and then

A mass burial site.

there will be two wings either attached or perpendicular to the administration building with 8 to 12 classrooms.  They often have a large open area in front of them and are fenced in.  This particular school was set up the same way but was clearly only using 2 of the 8 classrooms.  Yusnidar was a teacher at this school in 2004. She was the head mistress of it when she retired last year. Before the tsunami there were 120 students in the school, afterwards 5.  There are currently 15 students, most of whom were born after the tsunami. Other reminders in this area were places where there would be a cement slab where a house once stood, or a piece of debris that was

Surfer in the suns

never removed.  There was a mass grave site 1/2km from the guest house; no individual stones, just a simple cement and metal fence enclosing the area.
     The beach area was mostly used by surfers and there were 4or 5 other guest houses in the area.  It wasn’t as good for swimming as there were big rocks not far off shore but we enjoyed the beauty of the surrounding hills, the warm water and the peace and quiet.

Indonesian family.

It took a 15 hour bus trip, an overnight stay in Medan and a 4 hour ride in a cramped minivan driven by a maniac (not a Mainiac) with a death wish and a 30 minute ferry ride to reach our next destination.
March 24-28 Tuk Tuk village on the island of Samosir in Lake Danau Toba

Trumpet flowers, Tuk Tuk.

Lake Toba.

Danau Toba is a huge lake set in the collapsed caldera of an extinct volcano.  It is surrounded by mountains in the north central part of Sumatra. The almost island of Samosir is in the middle of the lake.  There are several towns on the island and Tuk Tuk is the tourist town.  There are a variety of guest houses, hotels, resorts, restaurants big and small and souvenir shops.  Since it isn’t high tourist season (mainly school holidays) it was quite quiet as well. We ended up in a guest house on the northern end in rooms set on a small garden that was right on the lake.  We spent our days swimming, doing school work, wandering to the restaurant next door (each meal was a 90 minute experience as the restaurant was a small family run affair and each meal was cooked to order not ) walking around the narrow roads and reading.  One day the boys and I rented bicycles and rode to other parts of the island- about 20km total.  Since it is at a higher elevation t was not as hot as Banda Aceh and the water was refreshing.
This part of Sumatra is the home of the Batak people and the majority are Christian, so we saw no mosques in this region and many steepled churches.  One night I ordered the local fish grilled Batak style which turned out to be quite spicy hot.  The family who ran the restaurant were very sweet to us, always smiling and giving us extra bananas from their garden.  All to soon we boarded the ferry and were on our way back to Medan and a flight to the island of Bali.

A traditional Batak grave.

Tuk Tuk Island, Lake Toba.

Fun at the lake.

Lake Toba.

More fun.