Macau: The lost post!

Looks like this one is getting posted a year late!!!

Like Hong Kong, Macau is made up of island territory off the coasts of continental China, and this is not where their similarities end. Hong Kong and Macau are the only democratic regions in an otherwise communist China. Having both been key far east trading powers and providing inexpensive labor under the rule of their respective European conquestors/conquistadors, both HK and Macau benefited from the well developed economies left behing by their former rulers which has put them far 'ahead' of China red in many ways (that is of course assuming that you consider the western brand of democracy plus a predominantly secular/materialistic population as being ahead). One thing I've learned of the portragese on this trip is that though they may have lost out on the Guiness world record for "most colonies/ historical influence world wide" they may have descent shot at their own claim to fame for their persistence in holding on to their Eastern colonies. Having been released for portragese rule a meager 17 years before my arrival, Macau was no exception to portraguese &&clingyness%. 

I'd long ago blown my budget for the trip and was working my way into school funds, so I decided that I would stick to a strict budget during these last few days out of country. With about $260 in cash I figured I'd have just enough to get through my 5 days in China, and even a little to play with. When I arrived in Macau I met an American expat who had been teaching English in Taiwan for the past 7 years and spoke fluent Mandrin (that's Chinese, not the language of the oranges). He'd come to Macau for a few days to sort out visa issues and as he was familiar with the city and we were both headed to the inner harbor area my life was made much easier; though I do speak Spanish which is similar enough to pieteshirse, it didn't seem to do me much good in Macau and I was happy to not need worry about figuring out how to get into town. Half an hour later we parted ways as he went to the hotel he'd reserved and I went off to track down something cheaper. After nearly an hour of wandering about the inner harbor and asking hotels about their prices while getting oriented in the area. Most of the hotels that I could find were $50 and up, and anything cheaper was full. I'd been told there were cheap rooms in many of the cities brothels, though couldn't for the life of me find one as I couldn't read the Chinese signs above their doorways, hotel staff played ignorant when I asked about cheaper places and there was no way I was going to play cherades with a chinaman on the streets when looking for a brothel (I can only imagine..). Eventually it clicked: a flashing sign, the number 130, and 'Pen Sio' as the only distinguishable charecters: this had to be it! As I climbed the stairs I was welcomed by an inviting sign with a phone number, two interlocked hearts and the number 60- so they rented hourly.. The door boated the first sign in English which read "rooms only, no prostitute"- things were beginning to look better. I opened the door and entered the modest lobby furnished with a suprisingly elegant array of woodwork that served as seating and tables. The Chinese man behind the desk imediatlet leapt to attention and blathered something in an incomprehensible dialect, to which I responded "room?". His puzzled look told me that this might not be so easy. I looked around the desk and saw an array of signs in English talking about bag storage and checkout times before coming across the pricelist. I pointed to the lowest nightly rate and asked "possible?", he seemed to understand and again blathered on at legnth in a language so alien to me that Martian might sound more familiar.. I shrugged and tapped the price of the cheapest room again. He hesitated before again trying to explain something at legnth but again hesitated and decided to give up half way through, then he simply pointed at the next number on the list; the cheap ones were full (or unoccupiable for some mysterious reason). I considered the prospect of returning into the dark of night then nodded my affirmation. He took me to a room with the air con running full blast, an attached bathroom with a recently wetted floor, a couple of complimentary prepasted toothbrushes on the bedside table, an erotic poster above the bedside mirrors and a small tv mounted in the corner. At $24 this would have to do for the night. After checking in and unpacking my sewn up bedsheet I headed to the store for supplies and crashed after watching a bad movie. The next morning I again 'chatted' with the receptionist (and appearently owner) about getting into a cheaper room and after some negotiating (at least I think it was negotiating) he showed me into a similar roomwith a single bed and a tiny window which I agreed upon, only afterwards lifting the pillow to find some long black hairs.. Aha! So that's why he wasn't so keen on renting it out.

The next day I did a bit of an ambling tour of the city and made my way to the hotel and casino zone. Macau is overlooked by a hilltop fortress built some time ago by the portrigese, and I must say I find it truly amazing that they had the foresight to precisely target what would be the exact location of the recently built Grand Libosa hotel with the cannons of this old colonial fortification; especially considering that the Grand Libosa Casino would relieve me of some 710 Patacas($90) a whopping 382 years after the the forts construction. Now all I needed was a cannon ball, and a bucket of shoddy Chinese fire crackers to extract sweet revenge on those viscous card sharks with their rigged slot machines and weak coffee! Alas it was not to be, for sadly the canon ball manufacturing industry seems to have fallen into decline since cannons lost public interest some hundred years ago.. So short of breaking into a war museum and making off with 200lbs of warped antique metal then hauling it up the hundreds of stone steps that wind their way to the hilltop fortress I was left only to dream of such revenge... 

With my Macau budget running low I resorted to a near exclusive diet of cheap noodles served in the cities back alley eateries where no English is spoken. Ordering was often interesting, and I pretty much had to settle for whatever I got served as questions like "sorry.. What kind of meat is this again?" were met with little more than blank looks or gestures of encouragement. I browsed the many shops and markets- minding my lack of disposable income, and checked out some of the sights of the city. Soon enough my three days in macau were ending and on the last morning I treated myself to a fresh mango breakfast which happened to be the best mango I've ever tasted (possibly influenced by the excess of noodles in my diet) and prepared for the trip back to Hong Kong. Between the money lost to gambling and the basic expences of living I was left with little more than the fare for my ferry ride. 

Kuala Lumpur

The plane landed a little before 11pm at the international low cost carrier terminal (LCCT) outside of Kuala Lumpur. I had learned some Indonesian in the days before my arrival and

quickly discovered that my entire vocabulary Indonesian was interchangeable with Malaysian- an unexpected treat! My return to Kuala Lumpur reaffirmed many of the observations that I had hesitantly made during my previous visit. Simply put, KL is a clean, orderly, law abiding, and architecturally impressive city with all of the above likely having some roots in its British occupation that ended some 50 years ago. The crippling effects of widespread corruption are, unlike India, not running rampant and unchecked here. The suburban sprawl that snakes out from the city center is made up of cute little red roofed houses as opposed to the rag tag slums that I have grown so accustomed to and there is a general feeling of success and progress in the air. Though Malaysians population is primarily Muslim I was not once disturbed by overzealous calls to prayer blared 20 decibels beyond the capacity of poorly made loudspeakers; the predominance of Islam is apparent here in other ways: the attire (the head scarf being very "in"), the media, and even in the countries flag. Despite the huge Muslim population Hindus have managed to make their mark with a substantial Indian population on the outskirts of ever bustling Chinatown (again likely due to old British rule). Upon my return to KL I promptly made my way to Chinatown and checked into a quirky budget hostel staffed by at the time by an obvious transvestite. Living chiefly on heaps of inexpensive noodles and satays (kebabs) I spent my 5 days in KL exploring the city and doing a ton of research online (which happens to be less expensive and more informative than drinking). After doing s few of the tourist things (I.e. Going up towers for the view and cycling through the ooh's and aah's) I landed smack in the middle of a massive 'western temple'! At first I was surprised at the parallels with some of the massive Hindu temples I'd seen: each god has his own little compartment where devotees go to pay tribute. Some of the more ferverous will spend a whole day making the rounds while others just poke their noses here and there in search of something special. Where western temples do substantially differ is in their Gods and the rewards reaped from them; you've got Armani, Billabong, Channel, Dior, Esprit, Fox, Gucci, Holister(&co), Indigo- the list goes on and on. The massive six story KLCC shopping center was perhaps the closest I've been to home in months; it was creepy. I decided to look around in wide eyed amazement at the countless accessories sold at astronomical prices. I ran a few numbers in my head... A Boss purse at over $400- that's over half the annual wages of a low class Indian peasant and about twenty times the price of the same thing in Chinatown! I guess that's the price of authenticity (assuming of course that it is indeed authentic and not a clever Chinese replica). After some time spent wandering this modern temple of consumerism I took a little 'time out' by the rather lovely fountain behind the mall. As I say there I noticed a substantial buzz of activity at the convention center next door and decided to see what was going on and whether I might be able to sneak in... Within a few minutes I found myself immersed in an enormous computer fair spanning 3 stories and packed solid with thousands of bargain seeking Malaysians. I let the latent geek inside of me out to play and spent a few hours checking out all the latest and greatest in unnecessary gadgets before realising the fact that I'd just finished condemning a shopping mall not so different from the geekfest that I'd thoughtlessly immersed myself in.. Whoops! Score one for hypocrisy.. Damn! Thankfully I didn't buy much other than a couple dirt cheap accessories that I hope were fabricated by inmates or Oompa-loompa's rather than children. I can't think of much more to say on KL other than that its pretty allright for a big city and certainly showcases Malaysia's success in keeping up with the times. Sadly I didn't get to see any more of Malaysia, so my impression of the place is unquestionably bias- but you work with what you get. After my 5 days in Malaysia I had a flight to catch to Macau- the other SAR (special administrative region) of China and a Portuguese colony up until 1991.

Return to the Great White North

I flew out of Hong Kong this morning at about 1 am and landed last night in Vancouver at around 10pm (15 hour time difference). It was 1 degree and snowing. I was wearing shorts, sandals and a T-shirt and sorely unprepared for the cold. The whole time I had a big stupid grin on my face: watching big fluffy snow flakes illuminated by airport lighting as drifted down from the heavens to the earth, feeling a strange nostalgia for cold, withdrawing a wad of good'ol Canadian dollars- a currency I hadn't seen in months. I checked my messaged and learned that my niece Kyla happened to be working near the airport that night and would be able to give me a lift to my brothers place- a welcome surprise considering the alternative of busing into downtown Vancouver and heading to Hastings street at midnight on a snowy mid April Friday and hoping the hostels weren't full.

I must say I'm glad to be home- not that the trip was bad, it's just that the past bit of the trip has mostly been layover and not the kind of loose and free travel I prefer. Upon landing in Canada to snow and cold, with a wad of 20's in my wallet and surrounded by my own countrymen, knowing that they would all understand me if I spoke to them and that we shared cultural dispositions. With a line on some work upon my return to Toronto, a wonderful girlfriend who has patiently awaited my return, a pretty solid decision that I would accept the offer to attend York university, and a bunch of friends and family to catch up with... the future is looking pretty damned good and I just couldn't help but grin a big wide grin as I waited for my niece, the first familiar face I would see after months abroad, to come pick me up. So here I am at my brothers place on the outskirts of Vancouver, soon to head back to the Island to visit my mother, and soon after flying to what I hear is presently a much warmer Ontario.

Well, I still have to fill you in on my time in KL and China, but effectively the trip is over, the battle won, and I have returned a little more learned, a little more aware, and a little more appreciative of all the many things that we too often forget we have.

And so begins the next journey; the return to the 'real world', or perhaps the surreal world depending on your perspective. And life, as always, keeps on keeping on.

Hope to see you soon.
-Zac

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1 day left in Asia

As the clock ticks and my flight to Vancouver approaches I find myself sitting in a pension in Macau that doubles as a brothel (cheapest room around.. They have to make their money somehow!). Yesterday I lost enough money in casinos to pay for a 2-3 weeks of moderate living in Nepal (though still sub-fiddlesticks by Vegas terms). As such my budget for china has taken a hit leaving me eating in the queer ambiance of back alley noodle stalls. Much of my time has been spent figuring out the next year of my life and doing heaps of research online. The tail end of this trip is fraught with introspection which has sadly removed me from the madness that goes on around me; which is good in some ways and bad in others. I'll have to fill in the gap of KL later, for now just figured I'd give you a little update.

By the by - I figure we're just over half way to getting Paapu a camel! I'll be sure to extract further funds from friends upon my return to Canada.

See you soon!
Zac

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Balikpappan, Borneo

From Bali I headed to Balikpappan with four more days scheduled to hang out with Allyson&co before a brief return to Bali. On a stopover with a few hours to kill I sank into a copy of the Herald Tribune and read stories of Free Tibet rallies, an extinguished Olympic flame and a worried Russia once again speaking up against the eastward expansion of western elements beyond the fringes of the European continent (even though the EU promised they would stick to Europe and missile silos in Poland wouldn't do so much to help with a war against Iran as they would against, say, Russia or China).

It would appear the assertion of the American empire has over the past decade blundered so furiously and frequently that its domineering assertation over the global stage no longer goes in questioned, leaving a lot of room for speculation over what might happen in the near and distant future. With China and Russia back on the rise and a small pack of booming Asian and Latin American economies the western world might do well to start giving some serious consideration to its place in the future. Perhaps some day the precedent of intrusive and hypocritical foreign policies against less powerful or more complacent nations will come around to bite us on our asses.. But that's not the point of this blog, so back to the story!

When I finally arrived in Balikpappan and while I waited for my bag to appear I noticed a couple of guys casually loading bullets into revolvers at the desk of a prepaid taxi service. At first my brain tried to rationalize; they were gun shaped cigarette lighters or I had imagined it... But no- there were indeed a couple of guys in plain clothes loading individual bullets into the chambers of revolvers. Once loaded, one of them put his in wax paper then stuffed it down his shirt while the other out his in a cotton sack and put it down his pants, after which they both headed to a corner of the arrivals bay for a bit before vanishing... Can you say creepy? My bag arrived and I got the hell out of there, quickly finding Agus who'd been waiting to give me a lift (and who assured me that the whole gun thing was rather unusual).

We drove through downtown Balikpappan, which seemed to have a fair but going on despite the late hour, and then through what I mistook for military housing but turns out to be a compound for oil company employees. On the outskirts (and thus minutes from work) we pulled into the house- heavily renovated from its original Indonesian design to make it feel more homey and with an ocean view from the kitchen table.

Now as I'd previously mentioned, most of Indonesia is Muslim; though Bali is an exception to this, Balikpappan is not. As such at least half a dozen mosques broadcast their call to prayer five times daily with the volume cranked on failing loudspeakers and occasional oppressive and discordant vocals; sometimes I chose to join them in shouting incomprehensible off key melodies from Allys back yard (probably inadvisable upon some reflection).

For the next three days I chilled out with the family, continued to play catch up with Ally as I picked her ex-pat brain on a variety of topics, We hit the night market to check it out and get a few DVD, and I worked away in Agus's silver workshop under his expert guidance (results classified). Ally provided an endless flow of leftover pastries from her extremely condensed English course and Agus introduced me to just about every kind of deep fried soy bean I could imagine (don't worry - there was healthy food too!).

Soon enough the day of my departure was at hand, and after a final round of farewells I hopped on a plane headed back towards Bali for my final two days there.

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An Oasis or a Mirage?

A mirage is an optical illusion caused by super heated air at ground level giving the heated area the fluid appearance of a liquid such as water when viewed from a distance. In deserts worldwide these illusions are often mistaken for a pool of water or oasis, but when approached they simply vanish- revealing nothing but hot sand.

I have recently had such an oasis vanish before my eyes; they called it Oasis Hong Kong. When I checked my email late last night I was surprised to see a message from the airline that I'd booked my ticket back to Canada with, and upon reading the email I began to seriously worry. The company had gone belly up and was undergoing liquidation, all flights canceled!! Yippie!

With 9 days before my scheduled flight I understandably became somewhat panicked; at $350 they were unquestionably the cheapest ticket home, and I knew competition for any other cheap tickets would be intense considering the thousands of other budget travelers that would also be impacted. I didn't have much flexibility in dates due to other non refundable reservations so I had to move fast.

The next four hours were spent looking through dozens of airlines and travel sites, checking for flights between April 16th-21st for cheap flights departing and major airports in south east Asia to Vancouver. I ran well over a hundred searches and the best I could come up with was twice the price of Oasis (three times my expected cost of return if I don't get a refund for the initial ticket!). By 2am I was pretty wiped and had done about all I could. I'd found reasonable fares with Air Canada and United, but the cheapest was an unknown company 'Eva Air' (which I was tempted to book as Eva is the name of my gorgeous girlfriend who patiently awaits my return), but after a few calls to airlines that had offered to help out with the Oasis ordeal I found out that Cathay Airways was giving a huge discount that neared my initial ticket cost for people with Oasis tickets scheduled prior to April 23rd from Vancouver to Hong Kong. As I was flying the opposite direction I had to wait for the HK office to open at 9am.

I headed back to my hostel and passed out for 5 hours before heading back to the internet cafe to see where things stood, and within a couple hours I had a confirmed ticket from HK to Van for a reasonable price (though a couple days earlier than initially planned) and had sent in my paperwork for a refund on the Oasis ticket.

Now I find myself with 6 days left on the Asian continent and ready for an early night tonight.

I guess that's the price you pay for saving money on discount airlines; sometimes the Oasis disolves before your very eyes, leaving you stumbling through the desert thirsty, hot and tired... Or something like that.
Z

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