Chiangmai is such a likeable place...

Someone mentioned that it is a ‘small city with big city conveniences’...
I’d say, she is more a ‘big city that has not lost the small city charm...
She is after all, populated by about 2 million inhabitants... hardly a small city...

Initially rented a bicycle to dart around the huge Chiangmai University campus...
That bicycle was just too small for my body frame, such that I could not exert as much leg power as I’d like while peddling...
To make matters worse, the right pedal dropped off from the bicycle I rented... imagine me cycling laboriously with just the left pedal... and with leather shoes at that...

Changed to another bicycle (which was not in any better condition) and went riding in the old part of the city...
It is easy to navigate around the said area because it is completely surrounded by a man-made (I suppose) moat on all four sides...
Two rounds the moat I went, and just as I was about to return to the hotel, my right thigh cramped... arrrrghh...

Returned the bicycle immediately (had actually wanted to throw the damn thing into the moat) and rented a Honda motorbike... a 125 CC ‘JRD Storm’... Wooh, so nice to cruise around the vicinity...

Went up with this bike to the famed Doi Suthep temple in the hills on Sunday…
Couldn’t help but to notice that the temple grounds are filled with donation boxes...
‘Donate for a happy life... Donate for a better tomorrow... Donate for Children’s library’, etc...
Plus, little girls dancing in tribal wear, of course, with donation boxes placed in front...

Come evening, chanced upon the Sunday market...
Boy, was I impressed by the length of streets blocked up for this purpose...
The walk through this market seemed endless...
The sheer magnitude of this market makes the pasar malams in Malaysia look like child’s play...

There were street performers aplenty... little hill-tribe children...blind musicians... young, clean-cut boy singers... old folk musicians... a little girl playing the violin... a solo, ragged-voiced, cigarette-puffing rock singer on the guitar... and a flutist playing a meter-long, thin bamboo flute...

The amazing thing of this market is, despite all the goings-on, the atmosphere was just so silent... there were no blaring sounds and no one yelled across the road… it was so peaceful, so quiet, in spite of all the haggling, the buying and the selling...

It is easy to understand why so many foreigners choose to spend their days here in Chiangmai...

The following evening... had dinner at a clean-looking coffee shop...
Ah, I said to myself... this shop... I do not have to worry about risking my stomach...
Not too long after I rested my bum on the wooden chair, I noticed three girls, twenties maybe, chattering in loud Mandarin two tables away...
What the fish, I thought to myself... spoiling the atmosphere...
The chattering went on almost throughout my dinner...

After they left, peace prevailed as three equally-aged girls sat at the table next to where I sat...
Man, I had to strain my ears to eavesdrop what they ordered through the waitress...
Through the bits of conversation, I gathered that they spoke Mandarin... ooh, should I say that they were too civilized...

Kansai International Ghost Town

Holy cow, am feeling sooo sleepy...
It is 2 minutes to midnight and I am waiting for my departure to Chiangmai via Bangkok...
Boarding time is 45 minutes away, and what is there to do except to hit the keyboard...


Kansai International at this moment is like, all mine...
I can stretch-open my knees one meter wide and there'd still be room enough for me to elbow around...
There is just so few souls around at this hour...


Anyway, am really looking forward to visiting Chiangmai again...
Was there for the first time last December but the trip was too short to get to know the city...
I shall be visiting my counterparts at Chiangmai University....


Plan to rent a motorbike to cruise around the vicinity... the Wats, Ping River, the elephant camp... doodooodoooo...
Language will be quite an issue but let's see...


Been really busy at my workplace...
So, this trip doubles as a break from my routine work environment...
Still, am bringing my PC and my workfiles with me... god, the PC cannot live without me or what...
Will have to slam on the keys to come up with a couple of reports which are already due...

Officially, I should and will certainly be doing some research at CMU on the so-called 'internationalization of higher education'...


Still, the situation back home in Malaysia worries me...
Body snatching, creeping Islamization, the abuse of funds to win the hearts of the people before the upcoming election... pretty disgusting, I'd say...

And, eeek! I banged the car bumper against a pillar some days ago... and it was not my car... oooh...

Stepping foot on Urumqi & Turfan

Just returned from a trip to China...
In fact, the very first trip to Mainland China, and of all places, Urumqi, the capital city of the Uyghur Autonomous Region ...
Had hit the brakes when the order from my boss came...
For, who in the world would want to visit such a frigid place in the deep of winter?
For a warm blooded creature like me, how about a high of minus 9 degrees and a low of minus 19 degrees?

Anyway, just when you least expected it, it turns out to be quite an adventure...
The trip to Beijing from Osaka was short... a mere 2.5 hours, compared to the 3.5 to 4 hours on the Beijing-Urumqi sector...
But the pain of being squeezed in the Boeing 757 on that sector...
(The Boeing 757 is very much like an elongated Boeing 737, and definately not a comfortable place to ride in for such long trips.)

Urumqi is the capital of the Xinjiang province, and the seat of Xinjiang University...
I had to this day, tried my best to avoid going to China on official trips for the one big reason that (at least according to colleagues who had gone there) the folks there want you to drink with them...

And man, upon arrival at the hotel, there it was... a 46% proof Chinese wine, sitting on the table...
Luckily, our counterpart at Xinjiang University was not the persistent type...
I must also say the wine was really good...
Smooth, and it really warmed up the system...

But things turned out quite differently on the second day...
A Vice President joined us for lunch, and he really kicked the booze off the table...
So there I was, happily gulping in glass after glass and in no time, was in full swing...
My head was just spinning and it felt quite good, actually...

Unplanned as it was, they pushed out the karaoke machine...
Before I knew it, I was croaking away... aaaahh...

Our gracious host took us to Turfan, another important trading post along the Silkroad...
I found myself quite captivated by the scenes that seemed to open up to me like those in a documentary movie...
The donkeys, the poplar trees... the cute little mosques... really fascinating, I would say...

But, with reference to my friend MM's experience with cleaning a nasty toilet during his scouting days, the sanitary condition in this area is, pretty shocking...
Imagine the jolt of seeing raw and untreated sewage in the public toilets along the highway and the tourist sites... and I am not talking of merely small lumps...

That aside, lunch at Turfan was absolutely delicious, and the loo at the restaurant was as good and clean as any other that I have seen anywhere...

So, ironic as it sounds, I sense that I may be heading back there for a second time although I hope it will not be in the midst of winter...

The smells of Malaysia

Just got back to my home in Japan yesterday...

Must be the age catching up on me and my better half as we were almost dead tired from traveling just this 'short' distance...

And to think of the possibility that I may be going to Urumqi in western China in a few days...

The temperature there is probably like, minus 20 degrees...

Anyway, had a ball of a time in Malaysia...

In the quaint little towns we traveled to, pretty no doubt, it was the smells that got the better of me...

The drains... the toilets... the blocked waste water...

Somehow Malaysians must have developed this enviable stamina to shut off from their biological radars, the stench and the ugliness of the drainage system...

At one place in Banting, I was sure that the stench came from a dead cat or dog... and people were eating not too far away from there...

On another 'smelly' matter, I am once again reminded of the 'holier than thou' stance taken by the government...

They are prohibiting the Malaysian Christians from using the word 'Allah' to denote 'god'...

I do not know much about this area but from numerous reports, 'Allah' simply means god in Arabic... so, what is the big deal?

Nonsensical, if you ask me...

Back in the village

Am spending the final days of 2007 at the village I was born...
The padi fields are still a little greenish and on the verge of turning to gold...
But I shall not have the privilege of seeing them harvested due to my short stay...

Spent five days at Mabul Island off Semporna in Sabah...
The resort we stayed at was just as pretty as in 2003 when we first went there...

The diving at Sipadan was very satisfying...
Baraccudas... jacks... hundreds of them tornado-ing around us...
Each of the baraccudas measured a meter or more...
Turtles... everywhere...

Diving the walls is actually an amazing feeling...
The sea floor purportedly drops to about 600 meters...

Meanwhile, saw the pygmy seahorse for the first time while diving at Mabul...
The pinkish creature was about one centimeter in length...
There is an orange colored one as well, the size even smaller...
But the currents... wooh, for the first time, my tank went almost empty...

Shall certainly be back for more...