Malaysian Monsoons to Kiwi Meat Pies

Kia Ora! The last time I sent a dispatch I was sitting in a tiny East Indian store in monsoon soaked Georgetown, Malaysia. In contrast, today I find myself chilling out at my friend Spen’s flat in Wellington, New Zealand enjoying all the Western comforts of home. Mind you, some of these comforts are proving a bit difficult to start enjoying again. Indeed, after a solid Southeast Asian diet of chicken and rice, my stomach is finding it difficult to return to digesting the Kiwi staple foods like meat and potatoes.

The monsoon back in Georgetown was a pretty wild thing to witness. A storm had rolled in on a Saturday and we spent the night huddled close to each other in our bed listening to one of the most intense and unrelenting storms I’ve ever experienced. Huge rain drops pelted the windows of our hostel room with such intensity that they seemed as though they might shatter the glass. The wind was literally howling and every once in a while it would blow the windows open and the rain would start rushing in. The next morning as we left our room for a day of sightseeing, we found the three steps we normally climbed to get to our room were completely submerged in water. The Swiss Hotel (a pretty funny name for a place that is run by Chinese, flies the Danish flag out front, and it in no way resembles a hotel) was experiencing a full-on flood. This could have been disastrous for us since our room was on the first floor of the hostel. Thankfully, we were on the part of the first floor that was elevated from all the others. The rest of our floor had 12 to 16 inches of water stagnant water to deal with. We had to roll up our pants and wade through the water to make it to the exit. Other travelers’ backpacks were floating around in their rooms and some were still sleeping in their bunks with water sitting only inches from the bottom of their mattresses. The next night we took out a little insurance by moving to the second floor of the Swiss Hotel!

The next day we departed for Malaysia’s capital city, Kuala Lumpur. KL, as it commonly known as is not like anywhere else in Malaysia. The contrast between this modern city and the smaller, poorer towns and cities across the country is striking. Indeed, Kuala Lumpur is a fully modern, clean, towering city comparable to any other world city you can think of. The glittering, punctual subway system is particularly impressive. On our stroll around the city we stopped off at Menara Tower, the fourth tallest structure in the world. The Menara staff was thoroughly impressed that we hailed from the city that boasts the towering CN, still tallest structure in the world. We also made an attempt to ride the elevators up the twin Petronas Towers, which were featured in the latest Sean Connery film Entrapment. The towers are currently the tallest building(s) in the world, but unfortunately we found that they aren't open to tourists for security reasons. The twin towers’ architecture is inspired by Islam and they have a polished steel veneer and a bridge connecting them at the 41^st and 42^nd floors. The towers make a truly a magnificent edifice – likely my favourite piece of modern architecture. We were told by some locals that most of the Malaysian scenes of the film Entrapment were filmed in the picturesque city of Malacca which is located halfway between here and Singapore. Apparently the KL skyline was superimposed into the background in order to make the big metropolis have a more exotic feel. The miracle of movies. While I really enjoyed my time in the city it made me a bit uncomfortable to see how much money is thrown around in KL while so many other places in Malaysia – especially along the east coast – are so desperately poor.

On Friday, Sept. 10 we caught a 10am bus to Malacca. Malacca is an extremely cool city with a unique colonial history in the country. In fact, Malacca has the unfortunate distinction of being the first Malaysian city to be colonized by Europeans. colonial city in Malaysia. The city was first taken by the Portuguese in 1511, then by the Dutch in 1641 and finally the British in 1824. At that time Malacca became the third in a trinity of British settlements on the Malay Peninsula known as the Straits Settlements. Together, Malacca, Singapore and Penang – of which Georgetown is the capital – comprised the most important regional trading ports for the British East India Company on the route between India and China. The colonial past has given birth to – quite literally – a unique race called 'Baba' who are an extraordinarily beautiful mix of Portuguese and Malay. The Baba community in Malacca is significant enough to have been able to sustain the use of an old dialect of Portuguese.

Malacca also has a significant Chinese population who arrived here over the years due to the demand for coolies by British traders. Thus, the town has a fantastic Chinatown full of wonderfully tempting things to buy. The shops are housed in very old wooden buildings with wooden folding doors adorned with worn Chinese characters carved in to them. This style of wooden folding door is said to be unique to Malacca. Many of the Chinese shops are surprisingly deep and much of the stock towers all the way to the high ceiling. Several shops claimed to have several props from the film Anna and the King for sale. The Jodie Foster film was recently filmed in the area – despite the fact that it is supposed to take place in Thailand – so I suppose it is conceivable.

Despite the exotic charm of the city, developers seem to be hard at work turning it into a modern metropolis. For example, just the other day we ate lunch in a Kenny Rogers fast food restaurant. It’s hard to describe the strange sensation one feels when you are suddenly transported from a Malaysian streetscape into Memphis, Tennessee. One minute you’re listening to the call to prayer from the Minaret of a nearby Mosque and the next you’re looking at an array of Kenny Rogers portraits with the smell of fried chicken up your nose and The Gambler playing in the background.

On Sept. 12 we caught a bus to Singapore and went directly to the airport for an 8:30pm flight to Auckland. It’s sad to leave Asia behind - there's still so much I want to see. Nevertheless, the trip was unforgettable, and we know we’ll be back soon. After taking off for New Zealand I made a mental note of how awesome it was that we had virtually no problems as far as theft is concerned. Practically every other traveller we met had something stolen – everything from passports to cameras to entire backpacks full of all their stuff. I might consider it luck, but I’m more inclined to attribute it to us being pretty good travel partners. After three months of travelling the only thing we had stolen was a bottle of shampoo from our hostel in Kuala Lumpur. I had left it in the bathroom of our hostel and some other traveller was obviously in need! Our flight to Auckland took us over Indonesia and I couldn’t help thinking about the troubles going on below in East Timor. I guess 40,000 feet is about as close as anyone would like to get just about now!

The first thing I did after touching down in Auckland was run to the bathroom. I walked directly to a stall and flushed the toilet. To my disappointment, the water went straight down. I had been looking forward to visiting the Southern Hemisphere since my grade 11 physical geography teacher, Mr. Gislason introduced us to the Coriolis effect. This effect brought on by the rotation of the Earth is supposed to exert a clockwise force on things in motion in the Northern Hemisphere and a counter-clockwise force on things in the Southern Hemisphere. I had been waiting more than ten years to see a toilet flush to the left and there it was…straight down.

Since being here I’ve found that New Zealand’s unusual name comes from the Dutch rather than the British who ultimately colonized the two big islands. As it turns out, Abel Tasman, the first European to set his eyes on these two big islands in 1642 hailed from an area called Zeeland in the Netherlands. Old Abel was a pretty busy dude in these parts and as a result the Australian state of Tasmania bears his name as well as the huge Tasman Sea that separates New Zealanders from their Aussie cousins to the west. New Zealand is an incredibly beautiful place and at first I couldn’t figure out why Tasman didn’t just hang out ‘til his dying days. Then, I found out that several of his crew had been killed and eaten by the indigenous inhabitants. Tasman subsequently set sail for friendlier pastures Maori or Maoriori cannibals killed and ate some of Tasman's crew, he was scarred off it seems for good. Then 1769 the intrepid British explorer James Cook who mapped and set up the country for British colonization and the subsequent destruction of native history, religion, and lifestyle.

My first impressions of New Zealand is that it is very cold compared to Southeast Asia and that it is indescribably beautiful. Everything I had heard about Auckland is that it was just an ordinary big city, but we found it to be a really cute little city with a charm reminiscent of Victoria, British Columbia. New Zealand has a population of only around 3 million and a third of them live in Auckland. We've found the Kiwis – as they like to be called - to be amazingly friendly and helpful. Auckland is going to be the sight of the upcoming America's Cup sailing race. It was pretty cool to walk around Auckland harbour because there are top secret buildings that look like airplane hangars on water that are housing the American and Kiwi boats. Both teams have to hide the secrets of their hull designs until the day of the race to protect their advantage. (hiding the secret hull designs until the day of the race, next year). The America’s Cup is not taken lightly down here. The Kiwis are determined to hold on to yachting supremacy and they don’t even joke about it. Other things not taken lightly down here include beer drinking and rugby. Two weeks from now is the World Cup of Rugby and everybody’s talking about it. Jill and I will undoubtedly be cheering on New Zealand's national rugby team the “All Blacks.” It should be pretty wild.

We've spent the last week in Wellington, the nation’s capital. We’ve been enjoying the hospitality of our friends Spencer and Lisa. We’re pretty indebted to them for the experience because they have a small flat and, naturally, two extra bodies make a bit difference. It’s such an awesome experience to stay with locals in another country because we’ve been able to enjoy Kiwi culture in a way we never could have otherwise if we were staying in hostels. We've been drinking lots of beer, having barbecues, eating meat pies (I’m in love), playing poker, and having an overall great time. One day Spen and Lisa trusted me enough with their car to let me drive to the beer store. This was my first experience driving on the left hand side of the road. I was under Spen’s able guidance and we even made it home in one piece. Tomorrow, we’re heading northeast to the town of Napier. Napier was levelled by an earthquake in the 1940s and rebuilt entirely in the Art Deco style – the symbol of modernity at the time. After that we plan on doing some tramping – or, what we would call hiking – which ranks right up there with beer drinking as a national pastime.

The recent earthquake in Taiwan has gotten us a bit nervous since Wellington sits directly atop a very active fault-line. In fact, New Zealand is a literal hot bed of geothermal activity – I’m feeling a strong desire to scale a volcano and peer into its cone. Much of the country’s turbulent geology is detailed here at the national museum which is called Te Papa Tongarewa. It is one of the nicest museums I've ever been to and admission is free! If you’re ever here you can’t miss it.

A.