Well, I’m already back in the Singapore airport blogging from the same Pacific Coffee Company computer that I did a month ago. A month? It feels like it’s been a single day but two years at the same time. I remember riding the 10 baht slow train in Bangkok like it was yesterday but I remember Tonle Sap and the 3 dollar room on the river lake at Phnom Penh like it was years ago.
Sadly, we had to leave the beautiful water, coral, and fishes of Phi Phi behind. It was not near as sad for me as another bloke we met though. Originally from England but living in Spain for 7 years, he’d now been traveling and scuba diving for 7 months. He fell in love with a blond girl who was also traveling and they’d been together for the last 3 months. We met them the night before departing and he said he’d see us on the boat the next day as he was leaving too. As we boarded the next morning, he said, “this one’s gonna be a tear jerker.” They held each other up until the last second and from then on the tears freely flowed. Total heart break. When Danica asked him when he’d see her again, he turned his head and said, “Never.”
The hour and a half boat ride from Phi Phi is a sad one even after only being there for a week. It gives you all this time to sit and think and watch the islands fade away. Danica let her mp3 player soak her ears and, since I don’t have portable music, I softly sang every song I could think of to pass the time and memories. The van ride in Phuket to the airport was not suicidal this time so we safely made it there and caught our flight to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Another passport stamp! At the KL airport we taxied to the distant bus station and barely caught a bus to Johor Bahru. It was the nicest bus yet! Only a few horn honks! Ahhhhhh, much more peaceful. Along the way, we stopped at a hawker-style restaurant area and I ate some much needed food, teriyaki chicken, fish cakes with sweet chili sauce, a no-meat hot bun roll thing, some tapioca crackers, a Milo candy bar, and a Vanilla Coke. Danica called Mr. Chua, the gracious and hospitable man who she and her parents spent a bunch of time with on the first half of her trip. A poor phone connection led Mr. Chua to think we were already in Johor Bahru but luckily they waited and searched for us at the bus station for an hour or two until we actually arrived.
To our delight, he put us up at his brother’s incredible resort, Pulai Springs, home to a 5-star Chinese Restaurant and a world-renowned golf course. I felt U.S. clean for the first time since leaving; I didn’t even bother to use hand sanitizer. The rooms we stayed in are $250 a night rooms with beautiful dark wood walls and floors in the main room and marble floors and lots of mirrors in the bathroom. The bathroom reminded me of the old Chavez residence. I slept in until 10 am this morning and then breakfast’d at Glen Eagles, the other awesome restaurant at Pulai Springs Resort, with Mr. and Mrs. Chua and some friends of theirs. One of their friends is a Malaysian man who used to have a part in the kingdom. Apparently, in the city he lives all the friends lost out some years ago and there hasn’t been meetings there since. He told us this morning how he misses the meetings and has never felt anything like them in other churches he has visited. I think if there was a meeting where he lives, he would go. I hope he has an opportunity to revive his committment. As for the food, we had nasi lemak, the traditional Malaysian breakfast, “carrot cake,” and an omelet. I don’t want to try and describe nasi lemak or carrot cake but I bet Danica did in her blog about a month and a half ago if you’re interested. I’ll just say nasi lemak is not breakfast like we think of and carrot cake is not cake.
The rest of the day I spent lounging by the pools, sitting in a steam room, lifting weights, watching The Interpreter in the resort’s Cineplex, eating chicken satay with peanut sauce and chocolate banana cake and drinking Milo, hanging out listening to The Rubatos and watching English football (soccer), and finally eating another traditional Malaysian dish, some of Danica’s lasagna, some cheesecake, and a Tutti Frutti Ice Cream bowl.
Three pools sit right next to each other. One has a waterslide built into rock, one is an Olympic size or close lap pool, and the other has large boulers lying about. Upstairs in the Sports Centre you have your choice of a good-sized weight room, the spa area complete with 2 jacuzzis, 2 saunas, 2 steam rooms, and a bunch of rinse-off showers. A therapy healing massage area lives upstairs as well which Danica partook in. The locker room downstairs is the nicest locker room I’ve ever been in. Also reminiscent of the former Aunt Debbie abode, it has shiny black floor tiling, healthy dark wood doors, and a large entrance area with comfy chairs. It felt really nice to lift weights for some reason; maybe a taste of home and normalcy? I tried some I’ve always found awkward, the hip/butt ones where you sit normal but your legs start spread and you squeeze them together, and the opposite of that too. That probably doesn’t make sense but it’s probably enough for me to remember and that’s the main reason for this blog anyway.
I haven’t watched too much futbol/soccer but the few times I have I’ve gotten to like it much more and enjoyed it this afternoon, especially while listening to The Rubatos. They’re a five-peop cover band from the Phillipines with a guy on synth keyboard, a guy on guitar, and 3 ladies in black respectable black fish-net singing. They covered everything from sappy Classy 99.9 to Englebert Humperdink to Backstreet Boys to Tom Petty, all performed in their synthie smooth jazzy Phillipino glory. As for the Cineplex, I pretty much had my own private theater. The wide screen I saw upon entering made me think I’d be seeing a wide screen version like in the U.S. but they stuck with the Asian style of motion pictures, copied illegal versions. I’m pretty sure every single CD and DVD they sell in Asia is an illegal copy. This version was especially sweet with Malaysian subtitles, a time counter at the top, and it wasn’t even the final polished edition. It was raw scene cuts like you see on deleted scenes on DVDs. So even though I was out the third world developing country environment and in a nice fancy resort, I was assured that I wasn’t back home.
After all 3 giant meals of wonderful food today courteous to Mr. Chua, he still had sandwiches made up for us and Cokes so we’d have food for our overnight airport stay here in Singapore! He and his wife are so generous! It’s almost 3 am now, only an hour until we can check in, but I’m still totally packed full. I did just finish a tall Cafe Mocha, which even though we’re in a developed country like U.S. tastes nothing like Starbucks and lovely PAML Cafe mochas I’m used to. Earlier I joked with the D that our Pulai Springs care package may be our Thursday morning convention breakfast but it’s looking more to me like my joke may become true. As much I was foodless when I blogged from here at the start of the journey, I am now foodmuch’d.
I guess I’m out of words at the moment and we’re leaving to check in very shortly so I’ll stop and call it good. This is it, my last words from the other side of Earth. Kinda sad that any more words on this blog will come from home. But I’m definitely ready for a little home-time. I’m sure a week will be enough though! I’ve learned massive heaps on this trip and plan to use it on future ones! Thanks to all who have read my bloggage (rhymes with cloggage, hmm) and I hope it wasn’t too boring and I didn’t repeat the word “awesome” too much. I do plan on editing and refining the blog off and on, hopefully removing some of the awesomes and making it perhaps more readable. In any case, it will get filled with appropriate photos to supplement the words so watch for that! I’m sure the photos will do way more in describing my experiences than my words can. BUT, as Danica likes to quote, “A picture is worth a thousand words but being there is worth a million.” So don’t just live vicariously through me, get out and do it yourself! (Those who are able of course). Don’t you wish I had something thoughtful and moving to leave you with as a final Asia Tour statement? Well I don’t, so how about: I have to go catch a plane ride home.
Keith
p.s. Is home where it was when I left? If home is where your heart is, where is my heart? Is it in Cambodia? Is it in Viet Nam? Is it in Thailand? Is it in Spokane? To be shallow and literal, my heart is in my chest. Is my home in my chest? What chest am I talking about? The chest on my body or my hope chest? But I don’t have a hope chest. So I must be talking about the chest on my body. So my home is in my chest on my body where my heart is. Doesn’t that mean my home is wherever I am? Doesn’t that mean my home is right here right now, in the moment? I think so, my home is in this moment. This small instant digital sample of life. The moment.
Hey Keith,
This is D’s mom and I sure enjoyed reading your version of the events after reading hers. You guys really had the experiences. The hard part is wondering when you will ever see the people you met again, after they left such an impression on you! Now we’ll hope to see your pictures some day!
Get home safely!
The other mom…..
Anonymous | April 9th, 2007 at 3:55 pm |that last paragraph was way too much for my thinker. Did you get a chance to get to Jamestown etc ?
derek | April 24th, 2007 at 12:25 am |