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Hotel Maya
I’d decided to really treat myself to a nice hotel in KL, and I hit it dead on with the Hotel Maya. This is the staircase next to the sweet little restaurant that served the morning buffet breakfast – the whole hotel has this awesome open-column architecture, and sadly I never found time to take a shot of the pool or spa, which sort of float above the central column in the middle of the hotel.
World’s Tallest Flagpole
Size, it would appear, does matter. KL is proud to boast, at Merdeka Square, the world’s tallest flag pole in the spot where, 49 years ago this August 31, the flag of an independent Malaysia was raised for the first time.
Beach Bumming
Turns out I seem to actually know what I need, on occasion. Three nights in KL gave me a chance to catch up with emails, sleep, order great room-service food, and generally leave behind the stress and tension of leaving China in such a rush. After that fine transition out of my Beijing life, I thought a few days of total decompression (and not in the bad, diving-related sense) were needed. I’d chosen Tioman Island, off the southeast coast of peninsular Malaysia, as my destination of choice to just let everything go. My choice seems to have been a good one. After four days there, I’ve landed in Colombo quite well rested, delighted at my new higher-level diving abilities, and very much ready and excited to get to work here. Now if I can just stop hanging on the blog long enough to learn my new responsibilities, maybe I’ll get a little something done here. 🙂 Wish me luck.
Tioman, the information sheets tell me, is the third-largest island in Malaysia, after Penang and Langkawi. Yup, when you order Penang Curry in the Thai restaurants in New York and San Francaisco, you’re odering something named after an island in Malaysia. Go figure.
It’s roughly half the size of Singapore – which basically means Singapore is bigger than I realized, though part of what makes Tioman seem big is that there’s only about 5km of road on the island: from a bit north of the aiport (you can see the runway in the foreground on one of these shots), to the Berjaya Resort south of Tekek Village. One of these shots shows you both the main pier for Tekek Village, and the control tower for the airport, which gets 4 to 6 flights a day.
They’re building a big new airport on the southern end of the island, for Boeing 737s. I think this is sad: there are plenty of islands you can fly to on big planes and stay in big resorts. There don’t seem to be quite so many where all the bridges are still made of wood, and where there are more motorbikes and walkers than cars, by far.
Views from Swiss Cottage, Tekek, Tioman Island
That’s Pulau Tioman in Malaysian, assuming I’ve understood correctly. I actually spent a full week in Malaysia without one single guide book: it all came through the web and recommendations from friends (big, big ta out to once and future MSF colleague Ching, who doctored our patients in Nanning until just about this time last year and is now back in London – but who took time from her busy schedule to tell me about good places to let it all go in Malaysia), and I’m happy to say it worked out wonderfully.
Tioman Dive Center is located on the grounds of Swiss Cottage, and is the best and only necessary reason to stay there: the location is perfect, but otherwise the Swiss Cottage feels a bit like a campground: accommodations are basic and spare, and they pretty much leave you alone. Seems I may have gotten a few bedbug bites (at least, I don’t think they’re mosquitos), but other than that I’ve no complaints and many happy memories, as these photos attest: all taken from the grounds, or from the deck in front of my little room, where I watched the waves breaking 10 feet away every morning and evening.
So these were my days on Tioman: run in the morning and watch the sun rise. Go for the morning dive. Have lunch. Relax. Go for the afternoon dive. Relax. Watch the sunset. One evening: go for a night dive (very, very cool: finally saw photo luminescence, or whatever it is where you move your hand in the water and little bacteria light up and luminesce in little sparks in the water). Eat lots of good Malaysian food. Sleep well. Tough life, huh? I did complicate things a bit by signing up to get my advanced open water certification, but considering the dives I got to do, it was certainly well worth it!
If you’re wondering how I got that nifty angle on the sunset – like, not right at beach level, but sort of above the beach? – here’s the secret: I was in the tree house. 🙂 Though I got on my own case a bit about that fact that here I was on vacation – relax, right? – and what do I do but sign myself up for the Advanced Open Water Diver course, which meant theory readings on saftey and decompression illness and underwater navigation etc. But when you consider that the bulk of said readings occurred on this little platform, with the views you’ve just been seeing and many more, you’ll understand that it wasn’t all that painful. And the rewards…ah, those wreck dives. And the sheer coolness of seeing stonefish (highly poisonous, usually well camouflaged and just sitting on the ocean floor) hanging out a the hull of a wrecked ship at 30 meters beneath the surface. Sweet, huh?
Friday afternoon I took advantage of the necessary dive-recovery time (before boarding an airplane, you need rest time for your system to recover and vent all your excess nitrogren) to take a long walk up the spine of the island, partway along the jungle trail that connects Tekek, the main town, with Juara, a little hamlet on the east side. It felt rather like being in the jungle or bird house at a zoo: especially as the sun got lower on the horizon toward 6:00, the monkeys came out and jumped around in the canopy; birds started singing in tones and songs that told me I wasn’t in Kansas any more, and the light under the dense jungle canopy got dimmer and dimmer except where the sun slanted in.Here you see the self-portrait I feel obliged to take every time I’m in some new and unusual place where my inner Ohio-boy can’t quite believe I really am. There are also several general shots of the trail, the jungle, and the cute little rest stop that someone lugged all the way uphill to install for us weary hikers that had toiled our way up that high mountain-hill (tallest peak on the island is about 1,100 meters) through the tropical haze.
Rubber Trees
These shots remind you that Malaysia is next door to Indonesia, and were it not for European colonialism the two might have been one nation, or might not yet have coalesced into more than the jumble of princely states that they were (I believe) until the Dutch and British marched in. The reminder: the little baggies hanging on the trees are collecting rubber sap; yup, folks, the jungle trail runs through a rubber forest. I was relieved to note these are not the people-spoiled monkeys I’d gotten to know in parks in China: these monkeys, far from viewing me as a source of potential food, ran away: thus I got nothing better than this dim shot of a little guy hanging out on an electrical wire.
Final Views of Tioman
Hard to believe that I only left Tekek yesterday morning, but there it is. Here are a few Friday shots to remember it all by: yours truly after his last advanced open water qualifying dive on Friday morning (the 30-meter wreck dive), the town mosque up in the hills near the start of the Tekek-Juara jungle path, and the view from my cabin deck at sunrise on Friday morning.
How Deep is Your Love?
It’s a lazy day here at so much world, so little time: today’s events have included having breakfast and hoisting myself over to the monorail for a trip to the offices of the little airline that runs from Kuala Lumpur to Tioman Island, there buying my ticket for tomorrow morning. But before I ponder the posts I’ll make next, capturing some of my impressions of Malaysia and KL, we’ll bid one last (at least for now) adieu to Beijing, my once (and future?) home, with this little item I penned while awaiting takeoff Saturday morning. And a big ta (that’s Brit for thanks) to Catherine for this last pic of Paulo in front of that Beijing icon, the Worker’s Stadium all dolled up in Olympic finery.
How Deep Is Your Love?
Of Duck’s Chest Sandwich? I’ve fired up my ‘puter because I just had to note a few items before the airplane I’ve now boarded departs Beijing (bye bye) for Kuala Lumpur (cool! awesome food, one hears!). Item one: leaving Beijing means, among many other things, losing – at least for now – my chance to buy a Duck’s Chest Sandwich to accompany my half-double-decaf-half-caf at the local Starbucks, here at International Departures in the groaningly overcrowded Beijing Capital International Airport. Having been veg since before most people now alive were born, I of course know little of our feathered friends’ edible anatomy. But I wonder: Did they want to say Duck’s Breast, but someone told them that’s a durrrty word in English, so they’ve self-censored? Dare we hope that Duck’s Chest (and my second favorite, Pork Floss) sandwiches will be coming soon to a Starbucks near you?
Ah but the spur du moment to fire up that ‘puter was this: How Deep IS Your Love? This is Bee Gees Week in so much world, so little time land! And we’re not talking “Staying Alive,” or “Nights on Broadway,” or any of those other fine songs that have so sadly vanished from the American airwaves. Please recall: Monday’s highlight was 3 Venezuelans humming and singing along to “HDIYL” in a swank little Indonesian-Burmese joint frequented by embassy diplomats from the neighborhood. Today’s early-morning (it’s 9:15 as I type this) highlight? Malaysia Airlines was playing “HDIYL” a la piano Muzak when I boarded! The stars have aligned! Clearly, at last and long overdue, underappreciated 70s Americana is taking over the airwaves of Asia. Perhaps a Chinese Kung Fu director will soon do for the boys in white pants and bad hair what “Priscilla” and “Muriel” did for ABBA? ‘Nights on Broadway, the Musical’ opening on the West End, anyone? You heard it here first!
(so much world, so little time....) 
