The Wild West Part IV -- River Deep, Mountain High

This part of the trip is covered by the Track My Tour app which you can follow here if you wish. Get app, thanks again Chris!

We hadn't really thought about it being around the 4th July that we had planned to come out to Jackson and hereabouts. Apparently two weeks ago, it was empty but this is the busiest week of the summer. Certainly traffic in the national parks was pretty brisk. Also wherever there was a significant spot (like Old Faithful) there were a lot of people. It also showed itself in our booking for accommodation. Both availability and pricing. But it did mean we'd be in a small town USA for the 4th July parade!!

Our hotel. We stayed in the little annex to the left. Ski runs all over.

The first night back in Jackson we went to the rodeo, just walking distance (we didn't as it rained) from our hotel, Snow King Resort. I'd booked a Mountain View room with the room rate reflecting that premium nature but found that the mountains rather than being over a lake away as at Jackson Lake Lodge were in fact less than 20 yards away so impossible to view with other than a cricked neck. Looking upwards that is.

The rodeo was wonderful. The heavens opened as we arrived but luckily we were under cover so rode the storm for the next hour or so until the skies brightened and became a starry, clear night again. Bronco riding, cow riding, horse racing and turning displays, cow roping and the simply wonderful sheep scramble where every child under the age of 12 went onto the ring and chased down 3 unsuspecting sheep trying to pluck something off the sheep's collars. The children kept coming and coming and coming! Tons of them. Just madness resulted.

A couple of teenagers were sitting next to us and we started chatting. They were from Texas and had driven up from Dallas a day or so before. The boy's name was 'Judd' and he was 16 years old. I asked if he had a car. He said 'Yup'. What kind, I asked. 'A truck'. He got out his phone and showed me a picture of a huge flat bed truck with cow bars front and back. Of course his name was Judd and of course he had a truck and of course he spoke in single syllables. He's from Texas! At a rodeo. What else would I expect?

It was still clear on the 4th July morning and we made it to the parade area, just down the road and this time we did walk. I'd mentioned it to Viv last night at the rodeo that I do think that the Americans have a wonderful respect for their flag, their nation and their vets. I don't know if this 100% true of course but the way the rodeo did the intro, the various flags -- town, state then stars and stripes -- and then the national anthem. It was all very rousing and inspiring. We Brits tend to be almost apologetic about it and find such outpourings of emotion to be rather cringeworthy and shy away from it all. But I was happy to cheer at the end.

Same at the parade. Huge cheers for everyone and everything and I do wonder just why all these people show up to parade, but then again why not? It is the collection of all the theys that make the community, town, state and country. The rodeo girls from last night carrying the flag, the ambulances, the fire fighters, the local organizations and of course Chewbacca on a skate board wearing the stars and stripes. Who would miss him out?

It was still clear so we jumped on the ski lift to the top of the nearest ski mountain as there was a hiking trail all around the peak. It wasn't the longest trail and definitely not the most difficult but it certainly ranks up there as one of the most picturesque. Just stunning actually.

Grand Tetons

Jackson the town and the 'Hole' further along the valley

It was so enjoyable that we decided that rather than catch the ski lift down, we'd walk. It was only 3 or so miles down the mountain in a sort of zig zag fashion. It did enable us to check out some of the ski slopes on the way down. The double black diamond one called fuzzy bear or something like that was almost vertical!

The mountain bike trails were not the ones we walked down. Those were far too wimpy for the bikers. Theirs were almost vertical like the ski slopes and followed a sort of in and out pattern through the tree line with jumps, rocks, streams.... I thought it was impossible to even walk down until I saw a group of kids skipping up the trail, probably whistling or humming.

Not the bike trail

Our hotel was only 5 minutes from downtown (did I mention that Jackson is actually a pretty small little town?) and after our exertions we felt that something cool and cleansing was required to hold us over until the fireworks planned for later that night. We chose the fabled Million Dollar Bar on the square and found it everything a modern western saloon should be!

Fine local brew!

As a result, Viv went out and bought a pair of cowboy boots (sorry another pair) while I contented myself with a hat. I know, we just have to come back out here again so we can wear this stuff. OK then.

Fireworks were fun and happily ended just before a rainstorm of epic proportions crashed down all around. The thunder and lightning actually did have the nod over the fireworks in the end.

Great visit. Too brief. Again.

The Wild West Part III -- National Parks

I tracked the tour for this segment of our road trip so if you'd like to follow it moment by moment, you can do so here. And of course, thanks Chris for the great app!

Our plan for our stay in the Jackson area was to spend a couple of days in the Grand Teton National Park, in Jackson Lake Lodge to be precise, and during that time visit Yellowstone and generally cram as much in as we could in the relatively few days we'd be there. Luckily, it was great weather so we didn't suffer too much seeing as we'd omitted to know that Jackson is 7,000 feet high with many of the places we'd be visiting substantially higher than that. with mid-summer average temperatures in the 70's, this meant it could get chilly at times. Personally I wish I'd thought of that and remembered to bring a pair of jeans rather than just the shorts and T-shirts. But you live and learn!

It wasn't long enough but the location and views were breathtaking.

One of the smaller lakes along the way. The tallest peak is something over 13,000 feet
 

View from our balcony

Our day trip to Yellowstone was great. Bus tour with a dozen random people. The area itself is underpinned by a dormant volcano with the bulk of the park's area being its caldera. That is why there are so many geothermal areas, over 10,000 at last count and increasing all the time as new hot spots suddenly emerge and burst into the open. Most are small but there are a few larger areas with larger pools. Old Faithful is but the most famous of these.

Old Faithful is the most predictable of the pools that erupt. It is about 1 hour 20 minutes plus or minus 20 minutes between eruptions. Of course we had to stay!

The park area itself is so immense that it was impossible for us to do anything other than a shortish circle and hit a few high points. People come from all over the country to spend their family vacations camping, in a RV, fishing -- trout fishing is amazing there apparently -- hiking, biking... you name it. Really a special place. I am really glad there were visionaries around to make sure it stays unspoiled.

One of the things I am impressed by are the rangers and forest management. You get the feeling from media reports these days that forest fires are all over the place due to drought conditions brought on by climate change or whatever, but many of the forest trees have evolved so that they may only produce seeds and spores once the tree has been through a fire. This is an all natural event which Mother Nature has devised ingenious ways to accommodate. Obviously some fires are more severe than others. The guide said that the last big one in the 1980's had over 10,000 fire fighters at its peak. It does help that the entire area is dotted with lakes which this year are overflowing given the amount of rain that has been happening (but thankfully not when we were there).  In the park are huge areas of dead trees from the last/recent fire but in all instances you can see small saplings pushing up to replace them. It also helps that areas like this make it easier to spot the critters that are meant to abound here. We didn't see many because traffic was so busy (it was 4th July weekend!) but did see quite a few bison, elk, brown and grizzly bears. Not Yogi though.

Great time. Sadly too short. This place is a keeper!

Headhunting

We made it back from Sabah a couple of weeks ago now and if you are interested you may follow the daily detail on Chris' wonderful Track My Tour App... thanks as always Chris.... right here. If not, well that's OK just follow on from below once I get going.

Sabah is well within my 3 1/2 hour circle for direct flights from Penang...

Sabah is the top right bit

So Borneo, well Wikipedia has a lot to say of course (see here and thanks for this) and as you take a look at where it is located on both the maps, remember that 73% is Indonesia so the rest of it is now Malaysia with a hint of Brunei thrown in. That is the top part. The left hand side is Sarawak and the right is British North Borneo that was but is now known as Sabah (again thanks Wikipedia -- see here). So now you have all the history that you could possibly want and need, that is the 'official' history. Of course, what is said and what is not are sometimes worlds apart. I cannot say that our 10 days there gave me any great insights about the histories of things but present day observation sure adds some color and textures to what is formally stated.

The old British version of Borneo. Looks like the Dutch were pressing into the British but that wasn't the case at all. The island is so big, they barely met even though the green runs next to the pink. The Dutch were in the south of the island.

Direct flights to Kota Kinabalu (KK from now on as the name is far too long to keep typing) from Korea, Japan and China mean that this formally lush and serene paradise island (actually it never was that!) is now no longer quite so serene. At sundown, the coastal beaches facing the setting sun are overrun with coaches and coaches of tourists bussed in just for the occasion which I have to say is pretty darn amazing actually (not the coaches although that is quite a sight too but of a different kind). I have watched loads of sunsets but never before has it been so cloud free for all of it as the first I witnessed here. One minute the sun is there, the next ... poof... its gone!

Our first sunset!

Our last sunset

Anyway I was busily being cynical about bus loads of tourists clustering together on limited beach space for the 30 minutes that the sunset takes to happen; well approximately if you don't add a couple of cocktails along with things, like we did. Then it gets a bit longer.

But it wasn't me though being the cynical one, it was our Grab driver who rolled his eyes when talking about this. I merely nodded sagely and noted it for future reference as it joins in with a whole lot of other stuff that is out there clear as day but totally either missed or ignored (deliberately or not I wonder) starting with trash. It is everywhere. I asked one of our great guides/drivers/boat crew from Borneo Ecotours (terrific incidentally, thanks guys!!) about this and he was polite and diplomatic to a painful degree. Obviously it doesn't show people in a great light and this is the problem (I don't like that word but this time I will use it because it is a 'problem'). For the problem is that the newly wealthier tourists don't think of the environment at all. Hoovering up all endangered species they can as face cream, special soups, or just deep fried with noodles.

Not endangered of course but rather nice deep fried with noodles

Nothing on land, sea or in the air is off limits. Factor in also on a local basis the indigenous peoples who are poor as church mice and therefore have no compunction hunting a particular creature to extinction if there is the possibility of making a little extra money. And finally.... and this is something I really do not get .... there are really very, very few trash bins so even if you didn't want to throw stuff all over the place willy nilly, the only alternative is stuffing it in your pockets. Which let me tell you people do not do.

This is one of the picturesque tourist islands near the beach. At least this trash is in a bag but that does not deter monitor lizards from getting stuck in one bit. Incidentally I thought these were horrible creatures until our guide told us that is these lizards that clean up the jungle and keep it both clean and smell free. They are carrion eaters. Sounds nasty but very necessary.

If you listen to David Attenborough on the wildlife shows -- which I do as he is simply terrific, there probably is a better word for it but I cannot think of it. On a plane recently I watched a wildlife program about penguins narrated by Morgan Freeman, who has a great voice, but.... it just is not David Attenborough so even though it is really well done, it just isn't.... well David Attenborough, so it can't be right. Well, not as right as when David Attenborough says it. So when David Attenborough speaks, you listen and you give weight (or should anyway) to what he says. He says that Borneo is a stunning paradise for wildlife and then goes on about habitats and stuff. And he is right but then when he is joined by olive oil manufacturing companies who say 'yeah, look at those palm oil plantations...' that is when you should stop and start to think: 'why would that olive oil company (could be any related company) agree with David Attenborough on this?' Answer economics.

This is where I get a bit cynical about the whole eco thing because whilst I totally agree that we are making a mess ecologically speaking and doing things that will have a significant deleterious impact on the planet at some point, I do also think that some of the people going on about it have motives that are not 100% planet positive related, rather money related. And for others, well it is a bit rich them having a go at a newly emerging country trying to make its way when they have systematically cut down all their first growth trees, exterminated all their large mammal populations, turned their countries into concrete jungles, etc. etc. All for them to have a better life. So it's OK for them to do it, but it's not OK for someone else to have a go at making a better life for themselves??

Nice mess we've made for ourselves, isn't it?

It would be nice to see all those eco-friendly joiners in and armchair experts actually come out to all those places and see for themselves and.... try to do something about it out there instead of complaining to their MP back home or gluing themselves to a London Underground (happened yesterday.... really!) or having sunrise group yoga sessions for the world before their Starbucks soya milk lattes. It really isn't easy and there is no easy solution as economics and sinister lobby groups do rather get in the way as they cynically and self servingly talk about carbon footprints and the Paris Accord. But really, will pressure groups in so-called developed nations of the west actually convince the rest of the (developing) world to do what they couldn't and didn't do and in fact raced full pelt to actively do once they found out they could?

Sadly my bet isn't on the answer 'Yes'.

Being in the jungle even if for only a few days and staying at a slick resort does not make me an expert by any means but it does seem meaningful to me that one of our guides is an ex-hunter turned eco-fanatic. Clearly engagement did work with him and of course his uncle, presumably the senior partner in their previous enterprise who became the guardian of the last two Borneo rhinos in existence. They are still alive but sadly both males so don't expect much unless a miracle happens. The species was declared extinct in 2015 but there are still large tracts of first growth jungle remaining -- that is 100 million year old forests that have remained untouched by humans -- where people have never ventured so who knows maybe a miracle will happen. Hope so.

It was all rather wonderful though to be somewhere where critters that David Attenborough in his whispering voice tells us are endangered with their habitats disappearing all over the place simply wander up and start chowing down on some of the many jungle fruit seemingly on every tree and bush. Totally unconcerned by our presence. We kept tripping over orang utans and proboscis monkeys but still the thrill of seeing them in the wild remained. Catching some sun bears wrestling was rather wonderful. As for those noisy hornbills, well you couldn't keep them quiet. What a racket. Sadly no elephants this time nor rhinos and leopards, but there was this rather amazing civet (weasel shaped cat creature) that acted just like my cat Bella (alright ex-cat).

Through a telescope, well it was a long way away but somehow the ranger spotted it

Proboscis monkeys by the river bank. During the heat of the day, they retreat into the jungle but return at dusk to sleep 

This sun bear was terrific to watch enjoying that carrot. Surely not a jungle fruit? Well no it was in the sun bear sanctuary, there being so few remaining in the wild. That's what people think but as they never see them, how do they know?

During the time we were in Sabah, we heard about the kimodo dragon island nearby on one of the Indonesian islands being closed to tourists to protect not the tourists from the dragons, but the other way around. At about the same time, newspapers reported the illegal transshipment of one in a cooler box. The report that did make me almost cheer was that of the unfortunate poacher in Africa who seeking rhinos was trampled by an elephant and eaten by lions. He ticked all the boxes in a wrong way! However, it all makes me realize that there is less and less time still available to visit and see all the marvels that the world has to offer before things change forever and they are gone. We'd better get to it then.

Past Historic

I have basically dropped the ball on following up on our visit to the historic tin town of Ipoh with a post on this blog but in self defense I have been thinking, well a bit anyway, about how I should couch the blog.

If you fancy following the moment by moment stuff, then I would urge you to take a look at my Track My Tour, wonderful app, thanks Chris as usual, which I have attached here. Viv and I really enjoyed our short visit but it wasn't quite what we thought and why we thought it may have been as enjoyable as it was. If you see what I mean (and rereading that last bit, I'm afraid I don't quite know what I was trying to say). Take it as being the things we thought would be good were either absent or underwhelming, those that we hadn't considered or felt were of lesser importance really stepped up and more than filled the gap.

It is the history that I am referring to.

So brief back up again: we wanted to visit Ipoh because it was an important historic town in Malaysia's development and was pretty close to Penang, in fact about an hour and a half on the motorway. Also we had been advised the food was really good there as was the famous Old Town White Coffee (it was).

So history: Ipoh was pretty much nothing more than a collection of huts before tin mining and the devastating series of Tin Wars (see Wikipedia link to the four different but rapidly consecutive wars collectively called the Larut War here) prompted the protagonists, initially competing Chinese regional tin miners but later also the Malay rulers who fell into a civil war in the state of Perak, to call in the British to restore order as they could not. These wars fell between 1861 and 1874 when the final Treaty of Pangkor was signed and this pretty much signaled the start of Ipoh as a place of significance. It also signaled the arrival of the British who to that point in the development of the country had held themselves only in the Straits Settlements -- Penang, Singapore and Malacca.... but also Pangkor, which was the port town for the Perak River, the means by which most tin made its way to the outside world.

The little blue bits are the tin lakes that now dot the area. Imagine 100 years ago these were mostly open cast mines.

Say what you will about the good and bad of British imperialism and Pax Britannica but this treaty brought peace to the area again and a new level of organisation and infrastructure that had previously never existed. It also forced the British to redefine their relationship with Malay states and set the starting point for closer cooperation, then the colonial era which followed. In a nutshell, the British took administration, foreign policy and defense. The Malay sultans kept religion (Islam) and cultural matters. Of course this meant almost total British control. However it wasn't as though the non-British parties didn't go into this eyes open. Probably though they may not have thought through the exact level of control they would be giving up by inviting the British in. Or for how long it would last.

In Ipoh, we went to two Chinese tin mining museums. One outside Ipoh and one in the old town. Both of these were private museums funded by in the first case a wealthy Chinese tin mine owner and in the second case by the Haka Tin Miner's Association. So both I knew would be as politically incorrect as could be imagined... and they were, all with the perfectly acceptable intention of providing the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth (Jack Nicholson speech in "A Few Good Men" springs to mind here).

Pre-1800 tin mining was pretty much a fringe thing conducted by local Malays. It wasn't until global demand picked up during the Industrial Revolution along with prices that the Chinese became interested. That also coincided with numerous rebellions and civil unrest in the fin de siecle period of the Ming dynasty, so people left China in droves for peace and an economic uptick.

Open cast mining was not eco-friendly and was very labour intensive. It also required massive volumes of water to be diverted from the Perak River and pumped through hoses to wash away soil and other detritus from the underlying tin ore.

This is wonderfully documented by the first museum as the owner has all the industry statistics you could possibly want for this industry and dutifully and relentlessly published the lot of them on frame boards in the museum along with dioramas 'interpreting' those statistics.

Data going back to 1800!

Mostly they were statues of Chinese workers 'coolies' holding some sort of tool connected with mining. In this time tens of thousands of mainly men came each year for the next 60 years. In all about just over 1 million. Most came for the mining which was centred around this area. I haven't read anything that talks about the demographic impact of having this many new immigrants in a specific location, in a specific industry, and in such a short period of time. But it must have been overwhelming for the indigenous population and obviously contributed in no small measure to the Larut Wars, which were essentially inter-Chinese turf wars squabbling over resources. No wonder the sultan lost control of things. (Malaya's population in 1950 was still just 6 million!).

We had a guide for both days we were in Ipoh who was very informative and in his non PC way told us: "The Chinese miners were only here for the money. They didn't care about who controlled what or how they got the tin. They just knew that tin was worth money and that was it." He was more direct than that on a wider variety of subjects too but I just restrict myself to this.

So there you have Malaya in a nutshell (and still pretty much modern day Malaysia too, from what I have seen). The Chinese just want to do business and don't care about how they go about it, whose toes they trample on, who is the 'ruler' and that other stuff like personal freedoms, rights, rules about intellectual property, all of that. So for them in 1874, getting the British in was a no brainer. Obviously the Malays may have had different priorities.

One downside to this is heritage. Living in a UNESCO world heritage site (Penang) it is almost ironic that this should be the case for this UNESCO accreditation comes with specific rules and regulations governing what you can and cannot do to 'heritage' buildings and other artifacts. The practical downside in Penang is the almost endless number of colonial era mansions that are derelict and left to rot. Conflicting reasons for this. One is that the UNESCO rules make it very expensive to renovate (ironically McDonalds and KFC have taken over and renovated mansions for their purposes) and the other main one being that they are owned by old time trusts (Chinese clans presumably) with many different strands of ownership meaning that nobody can agree on anything, so nothing happens.

Specific to Ipoh and the reason that I have taken the path in this post are the railway station together with the city administrative building right opposite. Both are WWI constructs in the Imperial fashion -- massive long white buildings -- the railway station is in use but much changed to accommodate modern traffic whilst the city council building has been abandoned and is being left to rot whilst the current city employees work in their new blinged up glass and concrete high rise just down the road. So from a 'heritage' position ... and this is something that Ipoh Tourism really focuses on (that is if you read their website blurb and visit the Tourist Information office) and if you have followed my trail to this point, you will remember that prior to 1874 Ipoh did not exist so anything 'old' from then will perforce have had to be .... Imperial era construction, which sad to say is being ignored probably to ruin at some point. You can already see green plants growing out of the walls of the old city building. As Ipoh virtually burned down in 1892 it had to almost entirely be rebuilt. This is where the town's grid layout dates from.... again here heritage = Imperial era construction.

The magnificent railway station in Ipoh. Its derelict brother lies just across the road... in fact I took this picture standing right in front of it

Heritage wise, this visit for us really didn't work out as we thought but then again it did. For those parts that did elevate our time here were those specific private museums and the energy and dedication put into those. So all of what I said about the general attitude completely falls apart when you consider just how conscious these private benefactors (who were outside the norm) are in preserving the history of the tin miners of Ipoh. They did a great job. Other heritage, not so much. You can see it being ignored on a daily basis as younger people in the modern times presumably simply don't care about the past so much. I think it's a shame but then again I just turned 65 so am what is now considered 'past historic'.

PH definitely looking past it on the left hand side in front of some Ipoh street art that our guide rather amusingly dismissed out of hand. He was right though, most of it was just graffiti masquerading as something else

Looking at it a different way, heritage is expensive and a question of priorities. As a lover of Italy, I am continually amazed by the almost total disregard by the population of the old ruins of this and that that lie around everywhere. To restore everything to its former glory (and define that if you can) would be prohibitively expensive and time consuming. In the US by contrast, a country with virtually no similar heritage or history, every speck of rock that can be deemed 'heritage' of some sort or other has its own national park surrounding it with display panels, interpretive films and tourist centers. Last year we visited the site where the 1850's go west homesteaders covered wagon tracks can still be seen. You can't see anything. The site is a huge..... prairie covered in grass.

I will leave this post with some comments from a magazine that I just read whose editorial reported that even though 2020 has been designated Visit Malaysia Year, Tourism Malaysia is cutting funding for marketing purposes. One should remember that the country is up to its ears in debt from past corruption scandals and over spending on infrastructure that nobody needs or uses, so the new government is presumably doing its best in prioritizing what it can without continuing the damaging debt trend. This said it could also up its game a bit for as this same magazine says "it does suffer a bit from the all too common local hallmarks of subpar service and mediocre maintenance."

Ipoh was great fun though. And the food.... well who wouldn't love to find a fantastic tandoori restaurant laid out just like a high end steakhouse in the US? Visit the Tandoori Grill!!!

Yodeling and Mooing

It is interesting sometimes to consider how people see themselves. We all have our opinion of how old we are mentally, for example. Me, I think I am 25. I know I am not of course. My knees and other joints tell me something quite different. But on our recent Christmas trip to see Indy and Cat in Zurich, it rebounded quite strongly. Not my knees, this thought.

You'll no doubt have followed our every move on Chris' fantastic and now beautifully updated travel app, Track My Tour, which if you haven't you can catch up with right here.  I alluded to our arrival and departure interludes when on the airport shuttle trundling you between terminals, the voice over charmingly welcomes you to Switzerland (in English) and when finished is replaced by these sounds that you think really cannot be. Surely that cannot be alpine bells tinkling, alpine horns moaning and ... wait for it... contented Swiss cows mooing. Can it? But yes, it is. We listened to it going in and out and both Indy and Cat confirmed that it is a standard thing. So the Swiss who are some of the most sophisticated people in the whole darn world think these cutesie little things are those things that most completely describe them??

Why not fondue? OK well it is a solid cheesy mass that sits in (and on if you are a bit messy like me) your tummy for days and days afterwards. 

Apparently so, and as for myself I do like a chuckle or two so appreciate self deprecation but really the Swiss are all about milk, bells and yodeling?? No I don't think so and I am glad we spent some jolly hours in the Swiss National Museum to straighten things out for myself. Mind you I could have just walked down Bahnhofstrasse past all those watch shops, private banks and name brand designer shops selling hideously expensive stuff to realize that that milk, bells and yodeling stuff is just plain hogwash. (Spoiler alert here... I did walk down Bahnhofstrasse on several occasions).

So where do I start?

Switzerland was a nonentity waypoint in Roman Empire days so not much is made of that and it became more important when Charlemagne's grandson's daughters found they liked Zurich enough to build an abbey there. In the 9th century Zurich was a mildly unimportant rural town in the Holy Roman Empire but these ladies upped their importance and dignity for with religious buildings like cathedrals, monasteries and abbeys comes people and lots and lots of money. However although this is a key point in Swiss history, it is almost forgotten now as Zurich in particular was an amazingly focal point in the Reformation. Some of the key men that took the Reformation onwards and upwards came from here and of course they needed pulpits and found plenty to chose from, including the abbey which these days is called the Fraumunster. The then abbess around 1524 politically decided to cede the abbey to the town (and hence the reformation) and go somewhere they felt more welcome leaving the place free to the fire breathing reformers that were the new breed to howl at the moon and their congregations. We know this for the pamphlets provided by the churches said so and more. Very open they were. Apparently these new breed were so vociferous that when one of the main voices died, the congregation of course paid for a statue but also took a loooong deep breath before settling back to enjoy the more charming cocktail party manners of his successor. Who apparently had a long and happy life there.

The Fraumunster on the river

I love this story as it is just like the early days of the Christians who had the hard nosed, fire breathing evangelists discussing fire and brimstone and of course love everyone who were followed by St. Paul who had to tone it down a bit and put the whole thing onto a more stable footing... and of course more remunerative along with his buddy St. Luke. They basically wrote most of the New Testament and I don't think I can read St. Paul's letters to the Corinthians without laughing out loud. His attempts to suggest that when our lord talked about loving everyone, he was talking rather more spiritually than physically and the Sodom and Gomorrah that Corinth had become in the first century AD was actually a bit of an anachronism as opposed to a model community.

Apologies for the digression but it certainly is curious how things repeat.

But I was talking about the Swiss, wasn't I? Well they dumped the Empire back in the late 13th century (maybe the Empire noticed, who knows these days?) and started off on their own.

An early freedom fighter from Empire days... or a terrorist? Depends on the viewpoint

One massive irony came almost immediately after the Reformation when they decided to remain neutral during the 30 Years War that started in 1618. That's right, leaving all their protestant buddies in countries nearby whom they had done so much to convert to be ritually slaughtered over the next 30 years as the war utterly devastated Central Europe, particularly Germany. One of the reasons for the civil disturbances of 1649-50 in Switzerland came as a result of demand for Swiss products declining in the aftermath of the war as local economies started getting back on their feet. Just like the general strike of 1918 (the main display in the museum when we visited) when you know demand for Swiss products declined as their major customers (Germany and Austria) stopped buying. And again just after WWII when nobody would speak to them as they had sided with the Nazis (stopping short of being a part of the Axis of course). Some of the key trading items during these times in no particular order were Lenin, looted Jewish gold and flat packed log cabins used for military purposes by the SS in Eastern and Central Europe..... they had to apologize to the Soviets before they were allowed in to the UN.

How do you write about this stuff and say as little as you can so that people don't think that you are really despicable? But you have to say it. Or at least something approximating it. At least they are better than the Japanese at owning up.

So much for being moral arbiters.

The country itself is picture postcard perfect although Zurich as we discovered is in a valley where it may not snow that often but which more than makes up for it with fog, mist and rain. Lots of drizzle too so I felt just like back in England.

Ridiculously beautiful

Speaking of whom I can't let the current Brexit situation pass without comment and Switzerland is a perfect example of what Britain could be if they chose this path. Now of course Switzerland isn't physically separated from the continent like Britain but it is not a part of the EU but has open borders being part of the Schengen system. It is almost laughably expensive but has zero unemployment and has a population that is totally OK with buying Swiss made stuff. So almost every brand you can think of has a Swiss plant that produces stuff at double the price of the not quite so laughably expensive EU.

$17 for a burger.......no fries

Why hasn't anyone in Britain thought about discussing the "Swiss Model"? That is, if Brexit is to happen.

But it works. Spectacularly so. The standard of living is one that can only be dreamed of for the rest of the world. And that is totally normal. For everyone I think (although I don't know this for sure but it sure seemed that way). Mind you Swiss people are forever popping over the border for a shopping experience which their EU neighbors happily manage by placing supermarkets, shopping malls and every manner of retail experience right there, walking distance away from a very large car park on the border in Switzerland. For while it is not legal to drive back with stuff that has no duty paid on it, you can certainly trundle it back by hand.

All in all I loved it warts and all.

Another Road Trip

It has been a while since we went on another road trip from Penang ultimately down to Singapore via the orang utan reserve at Bukit Merah, Taiping, the Cameron Highlands and Malacca accompanied by our Bermuda friends Charmaine and Dave. I did the Track My Tour thing here but wanted to add some other bits as an afterthought.

Orang Utans

Everyone has seen these hairy but gentle apes on TV programs like the BBC's Earth or something like that and to my surprise we discovered that there's a refuge just over an hour away in Bukit Merah. I thought it was great as the apes are housed on an island but visitors are within a caged tunnel so you can view but the apes are free to roam. It is home to the early stage apes saved from death in the wild. There is another 2nd stage which gets the apes more used to fending for themselves and then its vroom, out into the big wide world.

The island at Bukit Merry

Except if you're a full grown male that is. The really big ones get to 200 kgs (that is huge!) and they don't much like moving around in the trees as that's a heck of a lot to swing from branch to branch. They also don't like the rain largely because they are massively hairy and if wet, that adds another ton of weight for them too. So all those pictures you see of those cuties swinging and playing are the tiddlers, before they are grown.

Growing up is tough too... and this isn't a comment aimed at the orang utans alone. It applies across the spectrum. They live in single grown male family groups and the only way for an adult male to live past a certain age is to kill the alpha male and take his place otherwise it is curtains for you! The one on the island comes in at a growing 145 kgs and he made it to number 1 by killing the former alpha male who was the 200 kg guy.

Talk about survival of the fittest. There must be an analogy to all grown males there somewhere.

Tea in the Highlands

One of the many things the British did during colonial times was to create hill stations. The Cameron Highlands is an example in Malaysia. Actually so is The Hill in Penang. At sea level it is hot and sticky and in past years, colonials may have ranked at the top of the social tree but they also ranked at the top of the diet for a multitude of bugs, bacteria and various viruses. You can see it anywhere there's an old church and cemetery. In Bermuda the big killer was typhoid and it seemed that almost everyone in the graveyard was less than 23. My doctor once told me during a physical that if I didn't die of a particularly nasty disease before I hit 70 that I should be OK for another 30 or 40 years. Not sure about that but I suppose that means if you have good resistance to fell diseases, you'll survive. At least from fell diseases.

The hill stations are particularly nice. Including Penang, I've now been to three (Penang, Cameron Highlands, Sri Lanka... the oldest) and I can certainly see why they would be popular. So much cooler, fewer bugs and great views. Also tea. Now of course tea isn't indigenous but introduced and even now it forms a massive part of the local economies. More in Sri Lanka than Malaysia but when we visited the Cameron Highlands, what is apparent is the massive scale of development. I should have thought about this before as every time you buy veggies in the supermarket here, all the local ones come from some Cameron Highlands farm or other.

Tea harvesting in action. No technology here

Sadly they are really, really ugly.

Endless greenhouses. They are everywhere

Tacky Stuff

I know that we are all sophisticated and would normally look down our noses at tacky stuff. I mean who needs another fake handbag or pair of Gucci shoes? We wouldn't go there, would we? Also who would want to ride around a Unesco World Heritage city that was one of the oldest European settlements in the Far East riding around in a floral pink trishaw decorated with little ponies also pink and a soundtrack of Asian rap?

Nyonya Cuisine

The term nyonya refers to Chinese immigrants who came to Malaysia during the 19th century mainly to work in the mainland tin mines or to escape one of the endless wars or famines prevalent in China. They settled and in many cases married locally and generally found they couldn't get the same ingredients for their cuisine as back home so they adapted to what was available locally... hence nyonya cuisine. The nyonyas are also known as Perankans and other names too, but this one seems to to be the one used mostly for cooking.

Some well known dishes have a nyonya twist. I am thinking of curries here and of course beef rendang is a nyonya curry varietal. So when I saw the chance of having a day of cooking classes, yes please!

Heavy coconut cream? Yup. Thanks Kathy, nyonya chef supreme

One thing we'd omitted to pay attention to was the fact that much nyonya cooking is really heavy so it was a little rash to expect to want to do anything energetic after eating as we'd originally planned. If you have the chance to try nyonya cooking, try it!! You do like chillies though, don't you?

Markets in particular Night Markets

One thing I have discovered here is that whenever guide books say such and such Night Market is a blast and shouldn't be missed, you should take that with a distinct pinch of salt. For sure markets and in particular night markets are busy places with hordes of probably mostly tourists scouring through endless stalls of vendors selling... well junk really. You may want a fake handbag for example or yet another little zip bag with elephants embroidered onto it, or some such like that. But you can go to daytime markets for that too. If you're expecting an authentic cultural experience, forget it. This is all about selling stuff to you.

The Jonker Street Night Market in Malacca was like that although the upside to all of these places is that the street food is fun, very creative and often very tasty. And at the end of the day, yes it is still pretty fun too. Remember that decorated pink trishaw I wrote about before? Well they also have fairy lights on them for nighttime so in addition to all the other stuff, they are a cascade of lights too!

First take wooden satay sticks about 8 inches long. Lay them in what looks like a waffle press like this but in the specially crafted grooves. In the little holes that are under these grooves, crack small quail eggs and wait for a second or two et voila you now have a yummy snack of 5 cooked quail eggs on a stick that you can drench in your favorite chilli...

Cricket

There's a guy at the Penang Sports Club, John, who is a long time ex-Singapore hand and at some point was the President of the Singapore Cricket Club. Now I've been playing cricket for over 50 years and know quite a few club presidents. Most are nice guys but have had a history of presiding over, say, Leigh on Sea CC whose pitch is one of the two connecting pitches on the big field at Chalkwell Park in Southend on Sea. My home town. It has a nice elevated view of the Thames Estuary too but can in no way compete for the location of the Singapore club. My goodness. It reminds of the story of the rollers at Centre Court Wimbledon. The lovingly maintained grass courts depend on this big, heavy roller to keep the surface so pristine and one year someone asked to borrow the roller for Court One. The groundsmen said OK, hasn't been asked for before and then tried to move it over discovering in the process that the roller was too big for the exits. It simply could not be moved from Centre Court. This caused much head scratching until the early records were consulted and it was discovered that because in the old days there was no lifting mechanism capable of moving the thing far away from Centre Court, they simply built the stadium around it. Yes folks, the roller came first.

It strikes me that Singapore CC is very much the same. It occupies an unbelievable location on the Esplanade and if you know Singapore and can visualize the sky scrapers and development in the city, you'd be amazed that such an anachronism could still exist. But exist it does and it is, yes, right there in the middle of the most expensive, most exclusive, most desirable, most demanded part of town. I guess they simply built the new city around it.

IP Theft

My school in Southend was called Eton House and was for some years after I left school the cause of much confusion. At one interview when I was I think 21 or 22, the first thing I was asked was "who do I know from my school days?" Well of course I know loads of people: Pete, Kev, Gary, Ronnie. It took a little while for me to realize that the interviewer was looking for something else. As in which member of the royal family, nobility or political class was I at school with? It made me laugh sort of (I didn't get the job as after I explained and we all dutifully laughed, they lost interest completely) as I knew that our Headmaster (and owner of the school) chose the name in 1926 specifically for this reason. He felt that Southend School for Boys may not have had the same cachet and PR hook as a vague and unexplained Eton connection.

In Singapore! Bloody cheek!!

He was an interesting character all by himself. His nickname was Bubble as that was what his bald head looked like in later years but his name was SHT (before the acronym became tarred by another similar word made by inserting the letter 'I'). His twin died in WW1 and he took part in the Los Angeles Olympic Games as a 400 meter runner ("too upright, see, so no good, flagged at the end due to me gassing at Loos in 1917"). He was an unforgettable character!

Management on Steroids

I think you either love or hate Singapore. Maybe not, but its just a gut feel that I have for what they have done to transform a tiny island swamp into this sparkling megalopolis is just stunning. And to think that most of it happened after independence and the rather embarrassing split with the rest of Malaysia. I have heard it described as 'Asia Light' and the more I think on that, the more apt I think is that description. We have friends that spent a couple of years working there that seems to have given them a bedrock in life and while they visited Angkor Wat and some of the other cultural high points, I'm pretty sure they never visited a hawker centre, or Little India, or some of the more Asian bits. Certainly Singapore is in the midst of Asia, but at times it doesn't feel it.

I loved it and going back to the tacky comments from earlier, who wouldn't love to stand on a balcony 57 stories up in a 3 tower hotel that reminds you of Las Vegas? The view is stunning.

Talk about planning. I simply cannot imagine the meetings they all had. I worked in a quango for a time in Bermuda and the meetings we had barely rose above the mundane. There must have been some powerful thinkers, strategists and personalities to get this done.

Great trip though with my favorite traveling companion!!