Thursday, September 30, 2010

Bali Revisited

My lovely accommodation! Sheer luxury. Just spent four pleasant days in Bali. It's my fourth visit since 1979 and Bali has changed and grown a lot. Sadly all the wealth do not go down to the people of this charming island who still have to struggle a lot to make a living. And things are not exactly cheap in Bali!
Stayed in a beautiful resort in Kuta and made day a tour of Sanur and Ubud. The 'macet' (traffic jam) was bad in many parts with more vehicles plying the narrow streets which could never be widened for eternity! I was happy to visit Bali again but there was nothing there that excited me anymore. I went around looking for batiks but they were all very expensive and the majority were machine printed. The few traditional hand-drawn ones that I came across were so expensive that I could buy a return economy air ticket to Europe with the price! I did buy two overpriced wax printed shirts though just for the heck! Maybe Bali was not a place to buy batiks.
I came back a day ahead of schedule due to the demands of work back home. But I will always remember the kindness and gentle hospitality of the Balinese people. Now that's something Malaysians cal learn or emulate!

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

The Original 1Malaysia

Johore Bahru 1966 - Hoong Po (still in JB), Roem (all over the world, now finally back in KL), Willie (Canberra, Australia since 1969), Ranthir (UK, now Melbourne) - still best friends today and forever. Nothing new about 1Malaysia!

Shanghai sojourn

I recently spent six days in Shanghai, flying there on the 2nd day of Raya. I visited the Malaysian Pavilion at the World Expo (I won't comment about it except that everything else asides, we do get lots and lots of visitors, and perpetual long queues just to get inside the pavilion).It rained the first three days I was there and getting to and from the Expo was quite a hassle that I was just not bothered to visit many pavilions. Was glad I had a privileged tour of the Chinese Pavilion though. That was something else!

A day's outing to the heritage town of Zhouzhang with its ancient canals was most pleasant. Then onwards to Suzhou with its many lovely gardens.Shanghai was very impressive - clean and orderly despite the overwhelming crowd (17 millions inhabitants) but the haze of polluted air crowning the city and miles to the next cities around it was just too much. And upon my return home I finally succumbed to the exposure to the millions of people at the Expo and am now down with flu and cold! What misery!