Flooding in Malaysia

The beach at Port Dickson, facing south, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

This was the scene in Port Dickson in the state of Negeri Sembilan where we were just over a week ago, with a grey threatening sky. Now it turns out that southern Malaysia has had the worst rains in a century, six people have died and 60,000 displaced as a result. Th erains have hit Sumatra as well, with eighty people dead, just two yeras after the tsunami. Our thoughts are with them this Christmas.

Downtown KL

Downtown, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Richard with Uncle Malcolm, Brad Pitt looking down.

Kuala Lumpur skytrain

KL skytrain, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

My goodness, how Kuala Lumpur has changed over the years! Here a view from Bukit Bintang, looking out across to the skytrain.

The Alfa Romeo Santas

The Alfa Romeo Santas, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

They were trying to sell Alfa Romeo's dressed in the colours of Santa Claus, and they were wearing mini-skirts!

Snowing in KL

Snowing in KL, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Here we have the snow falling at the Marriott in Kuala Lumpur.

Christmas in Malaysia

Christmas at Bukit Tinggi, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

The previous Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir Mohammed called Malaysia an Islamic state and indeed the majority of the people here are Muslims, but this does not stop them celebrating Christmas. Not althogether in a Christian way with the Virgin Mary, Baby Jesus and the Seven Dwarves, oops!, I mean the Three Wise Men, but in an American way with Santa Claus, Snowmen, Christmas trees and an assortment of other characters, accompanies by various versions of well-known Christmas songs and carols. only exception was a poster advertising 'Tenors for Christ', a concert sponsored by a Chinese fundamentalist Christian who seems to own most of teh best rteal estate in downtown KL.

Christmas is everywhere.

Yesterday in Colmar Tropicale in Bukit Tinggi, the reconstructed French town in the mountains, where we took this photo. Later in the hell of Genting Highlands (4,250 feet above sea-level) at the New World Hotel, which at 6,000 rooms (all seemingly occupied) is the largest hotel in the world, where Santa Claus was dressed in blue!

And again today in all tghe various shopping centres we visited where Santa Claus had even turned into a woman with shapely legs and a mini skirt. In the centre at Bukit Bintang (s)/he was still in traditional red, but by the time we made it to The Curve, she was now dressed in green and had a double!

We had snow falling from six stories high into the lobby of the Marriott, where we had a delicious Italian lunch ay Shooks!. Real snow it was too, falling between all the white Christmas trees which were hanging from the ceiling, sometimes coming down in large flakes, at other times, small powdery flakes, while the sun shone through the roof. It was quite a surprise later to step out into the bright sunshine and heat on the streets of Kuala Lumpur.

Our last evening here, Aunty Nina cooked us a delicious dinner of prawns in a yellow cocounut sauce, petai beans in sambal, a mixture of herbs and greens from the garden, ikan bilis, some more prawns in another sauce, followed by durian and honey jack-fruit. Delicious!

Tomorro wa trip down to teh coast for lunch at a seafood restaurant, where we hope to be served by nice friendly Burmese (or Nepalese), followed by a trip to Port Dickson and then the airport for our flight to Bangkok. Richard's over-weight baggage charge will have increased somewhat from Wednesday due to his purchases, while I will struggle to keep below the 15 kg allowance, despite taking two full rucksacks on board... and then there is all the stuff we had left behind in Bangkok!

Big leaf

Big leaf, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

A day spent in the jungles on the mountains to the east of Kuala Lumpur.

No motorbikes today

Hanoi - street scene in Old Quarter, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

No motorbikes today, only cars and shopping malls, Malaysia having already become rich on it mineral, oil, rubber and oil palm resources, amongst other things.

The Air Asia flight to Kuala Lumpur was perfect, a full plane with comfortable black leather seats, delicious food served at very low prices and arriving 25 minutes early to the LCC, Low Cost Carrier Terminal outside Kuala Lumpur, where we were met by Uncle Malcolm who had got a little bit lost finding the recently opened terminal. It was good to see him again and we had an hour in his car to catch up with news, driving along empty roads before arriving at hisn house in Damansara Jaya, where Aunty Nina had stayed up to greet us. She was looking very well, I am happy to say.

We stayed chatting until about 2 before going upstairs to sleep in air-conditioned comfort, me waking up a good deal later than Richard, in time for a continental breakfast on the terrace at the back of the house, overlooking the fish pond, with the lilies opening up in the sun. Aunty Nina had already got up early and was out at her sister's plantation, getting durians for us to eat later in the day. There has bene too much rain here the past weeks/months, so not so good for durians, but Aunty Nina was hopeful of coming back with a good crop. And so she did, eventually.... and now I am stuffed full with too many of the delicious durians. Unfortunately she had cut herself while cutting through the durians and we just missed seeing her sister and garnd nephew as they came home just a few minutes before we eventually did.

We spent most of our relaxing day, wandering around a couple of shopping malls in Petaling Jaya, namely The Curve and Utama One, both very large, with a wide selection of shops and some excellent places for eating and great places for studying the local middle classes as they too wandered around eating, drinking and shopping. Bought some New Balance running shoes, the mountain trekking shoes not being in my size. Quite cheap, but the price of things like electronics looked to be uncannily teh same as tehy are almost everywhere else, the new Sony A-1 camera with standard 18-70 mm lens costing a thousand US dollars, the same as Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Holland! Mum had sent us off on a search of a new Ninentendo game console, something none of us knew anything about, but whatever it is, it seems to be more expensive here than in the UK.

Surprisingly, a little, there were many book shops ot be found and Richard is quite keen to get his hands on Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, but even more surprisingly, it was sold out and on order at every place we asked! Other creationist books however seemed to be in great supply, due no doubt to low demand. As it was Richard bought Sam Harris' End of Faith and UNcle Malcolm bought a book about Malaysia and the Club of Doom (The collapse of Islamic countries). He thought he had better be quick about it before such a book gets banned!

A day's rest from photography, we might take the camera out tomorrow as we go to the hills out to the east of KL, weather permitting as we had a very heavy downpour this afternoon. Nice to be listening to the frogs croaking in the garden behind me as I sit here in Uncle Malcolm's study, getting ready to look through some photos of his travels.