A weekend away

It was supposed to be a relaxing weekend away. Really, we would have preferred a quiet few days at one of the Malaysian destinations we are hoping to visit, but the 90 days of our Visitor's Visa were nearly expired, and we had to leave the country in order to re-enter and obtain a new 90-day visa/ pass. This could have, and should have, been a simple affair.

The Thai border is only four hours' drive north of Ipoh, and it's a favourite for visa runs from Perak. Because it was a long weekend, however, we decided to make a trip of it. It seemed simple enough, but after an entire week of searching and googling (and I really do mean an entire week!), our plans to visit the Malaysian island of Langkawi and the Thai island of Koh Lipe fell apart and, back at square one, we opted for the path of least resistance and booked tickets from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore. Even that seemingly simple plan came loaded, and I spent another stressful day organising accommodation, transport, and activities. I cannot even begin to explain the idiocy that drove the whole thing, because I don't even understand how things became so complicated, but by the time we actually left I was incredibly stressed and still considerably disorganised, never a good scene to set for a relaxed weekend away. I didn't actually calm down properly until we got home, though we did have a nice weekend away. Taking a short break is definitely not worth it if plans are so complicated!

One of the complications that presented itself was that the Inventor discovered that a group from our church would be visiting a mission on the Cameron Highlands on the Friday. For some time we had been wanting to go up there to see some of the isolated Orang Asli (aboriginal inhabitants of Malaysia), how they live up there and the issues facing them, and the inventor got it into his head that this had to be the occasion. I booked our tickets to Singapore for the Friday night so we could spend some of Friday visiting the Orang Asli.

Orang Asli men making the roof.

Our long weekend launched with an early start, picking up Lorena at 6am, as we'd offered to take her up and then drop her in KL. We crawled through the tortuous bends of the old road up to the highlands, to be at the designated meeting spot in Ringlet at 7.30am. From our rendezvous point, our little convoy of three cars snaked along the magnificent highway that heads south through the less populated part of the Cameron Highlands. Our goal was to visit three of the Orang Asli villages where Christian missions are reaching out to these disenfranchised people, who have been driven into isolated corners of the country by the invading Malays, Chinese and other races that followed. The story sounds all-too-familiar, and the challenges faced by these people to a large extent reflect those experienced by the Australian Aboriginal people. In contrast to Australia's aboriginal people, these people have been left largely alone until quite recently, and retain many of their traditional cultures and skills, although identity struggles are one of their major challenges. Alcohol in Malaysia is generally expensive, and being non-Halal, hard to obtain, and the problems associated with alcohol are rare. We were surprised to see in Singapore a group of young people staggering home from celebrations, as we hadn't realised that it had been months since we had seen anybody even slightly intoxicated. The government's response to the Orang Asli currently seems to be to visit a village and “convert” the chief to Islam, then offer gifts of brick houses and services in exchange for their faithfulness.

The Chinese helpers building the flooor.

We delivered two fridges to two different villages and then bounced and slid our way in four-wheel-drive along a single dirt track slippery from the heavy rains of the previous night. We passed many Orang Alsi along the way, making their way on motorcycles to the village we aimed for, and others further afield. At the village we hung around aimlessly, watching the men build the mission house in mainly traditional style. The ladies of the group handed out snack foods to the children and I played with them and entertained them taking photos. The poor inventor managed to slip while carrying two bags of rice to one of the huts, and his scratches were treated with some native medicine, a medicinal leaf, kneaded together with saliva to produce a yellow paste, as no-one had thought to bring a first aid kit.

 We left the village after lunch of rice, fish, chicken and jungle vegies which our large group took sitting in a circle around the bamboo floor of a hut, and then bounced our way back over the dirt road, now much less slippery, the sun having turned the thundering rains of the night into humid steam that rendered us lethargic and heavy. Back on the bitumen, we settled our heat-weary and muddy bodies into the airconditioned comfort of the D-Max, returned to Ringlet, then many curves later, to Tapah. We gratefully swiped our toll card, entered the expressway and pointed the mud-caked nose of the D-Max towards Kuala Lumpur. By 7pm we had managed to drop Lorena at a train station and successfully navigate our way through the maze of expressways that entangle KL, park the car and check in at the airport. The entire day was executed with only one major marital dispute, and less than two dozen navigational errors. We even arrived at the correct terminal, despite originally setting course for the low-cost terminal, many kilometres from KLIA terminal. The D-Max slunk into a dark and lonely corner of the airport carpark for a well-earned rest, while we exchanged muddy work-clothes for some more respectable attire (the majority of the mud had already been removed using taps at a highway rest-stop, where we had also acquired some fresh fruit to eat and bubble tea to drink).

Because our hotel for Saturday night was some distance from the airport and expensive, we had decided to spend Friday night closer to Changi Airport, and through miscommunication, misunderstanding and stress, ended up at a Hotel 81 which was not only not cheap, it was not clean, not pleasant and sealed its fate when another guest unlocked the door and walked in as I was getting dressed in the morning. I took great joy in rating it on Travel Advisor. The strangest thing of all with this hotel, was that the bottom sheet had been put on the bed so it failed to cover the bottom 18 inches or so of mattress. We had to remake the bed before we could sleep in it!

By the time we checked out on Saturday morning, I was almost beside myself with exhaustion, stress and disappointment. My legs went to jelly and tears welled in my eyes with relief when we finally checked into our destination hotel, the Swissotel Stamford, though it was too early to go to our room. We left our bags and headed out via train and taxi to Singapore Zoo, where spent the remainder of the day exploring. After three months of living in Malaysia, I particularly enjoyed the clean, tidy, prefectly-groomed surrounds of this massive and beautifully presented zoo. The zoo has a large range of primates and many other species, and we didn't leave until we had seen most of them, around 6pm closing time.

A young proboscis monkey.

No explanation needed. It's a giraffe!

Two bunnies.

At the zoo- the giraffe behind us kept trying to exit the photo.

One of the things we had enjoyed on our first trip to Singapore, and missed on the most recent, was the Suntek Plaza Fountain of Wealth, so we managed to drag our weary bodies from the king-size bed on the 22^nd floor back out to see one of the light and water shows. Although a few blocks from our hotel, we walked nearly the entire distance through underground malls. The light show was nowhere near as spectacular as we had remembered, but afterwards we were allowed to walk out to the fountain and walk around it three times with hands in the water, “for wealth”.

On the boat ride at Singapore Zoo.

For the superstitious, the omens are good- we are blessed by the Fountain of Wealth, my left palm is also regularly attacked with bouts of itching, so wealth must indeed be on its way! For the less superstitious and the sensible, the omens are also
good. Testing and development on the project continues to go well, the inventor has unearthed some research projects that have given him additional useful information, and pressure is now on to get the pilot plant running by Chinese NewYear. Plans have changed slightly, though, and it seems now that the pilot plant will not be one-tenth scale as planned, but full-scale. Supplying the raw product to run in it is no problem, and the market exists for anything produced, provided its quality is satisfactory, and the lab is there to check that. The main difficulty is organising the assistance needed to get things built by the specified time, communication difficulties being less language and more cultural.

We hope to have things really rolling by Chinese New Year, as this will be a big time for us. In the five days spanning Chinese New Year, the inventor, D, my father and myself all have birthdays, the inventor and my father turning 50 and 80 respectively. We have big plans and are going to take some time off, as we will be visited here by both our children and their partners, my parents, both my sisters and a brother-in-law, and also, I think, the inventor's mother. We are looking forward to spending some time with family and doing some sightseeing. James will be on university holidays and is coming earlier to spend a few weeks working in the lab, hopefully working on the building of the pilot plant, which should be in full-swing by then.

Cadbury popping chocolate. Just like magical elves, only bigger!

After the emotional day in Singapore, we had no energy left for the planned visit to the restaurants at the 72^nd floor of our hotel, so we grabbed some snacks on the way back to the hotel and enjoyed the view from our hotel window. The following morning was much the same, and apart from wandering down to the pool deck on the 10^th floor, we didn't do much. We had planned to have Sunday brunch in one of the hotel restaurants, but $300 seemed excessive for a lunch, even in Singapore dollars, so instead we found a nice Vietnamese pho bar in the shopping centre downstairs. We enjoyed wandering around the shopping centre, and I became unduly excited at the purchase of real vanilla essence, real Allen's snakes, and a block of Cadbury's Marvellous Creations Jelly Popping Candy– real Cadbury chocolate imported from Australia, which tastes so much nicer than the Malaysia Cadbury's. Singapore is just so western compared to anywhere in Malaysia, even KL. The absence of restrictions imposed by Islam makes a difference, too- stores can stock a wider range of products- and the presence of more “expats” means stores are more inclined to stock foods that appeal to we foreigners. Even in Ipoh, there is little demand for many of the products I would like to buy.

We returned to the hotel to pick up our bags from the luggage room, and the inventor asked about going up to photograph the view from the pool deck, however the girl mistook our request and directed us to the 72^nd floor restaurants. Apparently it wasn't a problem, and being mid-afternoon, there were few patrons to disturb, so we had a little wander around and enjoyed the spectacular views. I have read that Swissotel is the tallest hotel in Singapore, and the Singapore vista is an interesting and attractive blend of fascinating architecture and blue waters. I had been terribly disappointed to have missed coming up here, so it was the icing on the cake to snap a few shots with my wide-angle lens before slipping down, down, down to the subway and clattering our way to Changi International.

Our arrival at KLIA was unimpressive and blessedly uneventful. The passports were stamped with the new 90-day visas, we found the car, paid for the parking and navigated our way to the KL office without fuss. Just at the corner we found a clean, simple and cheap hotel, and next to it an acceptable restaurant. We were parked at the KL office around the corner early the next morning, and spent the entire morning there, meeting with D, the new Belgian general manager, and a business associate of D's who may well become involved with the project. It was good to touch base with the girls in the office and Harry, too, though the gentleman accountant was away.

The weekend ended with the two-hour drive back to Kampar, relieved, tired, and grateful to be home. Hopefully, this will be our first and last border-run, as the company is now registered and we are just awaiting the official papers so we can apply for a proper visa, and then, a bank account. For now we have happily fallen back into our quiet everyday life in the backwaters of Malaysia's north.