The Pets Are Going Places, Just Not Together

Is she leaving with you?

No. Its complicated.

Its never simple with the two of you.

So a friend remarked over dinner last Sunday.

In exactly two weeks, I am leaving Singapore.

At long last. Done with my mortgage. Done with my bond. Freedom is sweet.

So it should.

We never meant for it to be so, but where I am headed, for many reasons, my wife cannot follow.

I am starting a new job in China this October. I might be headed for Germany to do a PhD next year. My wife might move to Hong Kong.

In exactly two weeks, I will be in Damascus, Syria, the inception of a month long backpacking adventure, right before I start on my new job. A few weeks after, my wife will be ambling down the cobbled streets of Rome, Florence and Milan with a girlfriend.

While one might be inclined to think it best for us to spend as much time as we can together before the inevitable we reckoned otherwise. No amount of time spent together will make the inevitable easier, we have might as well start off this new phase of our lives with a bang.

We call ourselves each other's pet.

The pets are going places, just not together.

What Happened To The Pictures From Ko Samui?

Two weeks ago we received a package in the mail. It was a DVD, from Chusakun, with the images from the wedding shoot we did with him in Ko Samui.

Disappointment.

At first glance there seemed nothing wrong with the images. On closer inspection it became apparent to us a good lot of them were badly exposed and salvaged digitally, the colour, tone and contrast way off. The composition too left a lot to be desired.

Regret.

Arranging for the shoot was a trying process. Chusakun does not answer calls and takes forever to respond to emails; and when he does his replies were curt and not to the point. I wanted to look for another photographer but my wife wife loved his work and asked that we keep faith with him.

Thanksgiving.

At least the shoot we did in Georgetown turn out much better than we could have conceived. It capture us together exactly the way we wanted it. And we did both shoots while on holiday, one we enjoyed tremendously. The entire exercise was not all futile.

Thank You Mr Postman!

Joys!

The images from the first of our two wedding shoots, taken in Georgetown, finally came in the mail.

(Click on image to view album.)

Thank you Mr Postman!

Let's Fall In Love

Peaceful Protesters Not Terrorists

The overnight sleeper pulled into Bangkok's Hualamphong station at about 6am in the morning. There was joy. There was satisfaction. We made it to Bangkok from Singapore without flying and had the time of our lives along the way, stopping by Melaka, Georgetown, Ko Samui and Ko Tao. There was also a tinge of sadness, for we knew we were close to journey's end. (We flew home the following day.)

What could we do but make the most of the time we had left?

And we sure did.

It was my fourth visit to the Thai capital and the most fun I ever had by a long mile.

On our previous visits to Bangkok we based ourselves at Thanon Khao San, the ultimate tourist ghetto. This time around we opted for Soi Kasem San 1, a quiet lane lined with cheap cheery hotels opposite the MBK Center. We loved it. Everything we needed (banks, supermarkets, the metro and all) within easy reach with none of the madness that defines Thanon Khao San.

After hearty bowls of noodles and a sweaty, ice-cold glass of rose syrup soda mix from a street stall outside our hotel, we were off to the Grand Palace. It was our second visit to the Grand Palace. First time around, the complex was impossibly crowded with domestic visitors (it happened to be a public holiday) and the sky was overcast. We gave up in no time. This time round, the sky was clear, the sun was out and there were hardly any other visitors, likely due to the ongoing "Red Shirt" protests. We had a ball. The massive palace complex is really quite a work.

Wat Phra Kaew, Grand Palace

In the afternoon we went to Talat Pratunam, a grotty, dark, dank network of narrow alleyways stashed with textiles, tailors and wholesalers specialising in makeup and hairstyling supplies. Our purpose there was purely functional. My wife needed to stock up on supplies for her work. In no time at all she found what she needed and we were out of that hole. The only thing that could possibly hold any interest to the casual visitor would be the small cluster of stalls specialising in cabaret costumes but even that was no reason to linger.

Incidentally, Talat Pratunum is just north of Bangkok's main shopping district, blockaded since March by "Red Shirt" protesters. Curious, we ventured in for a closer look. The barricade, made with tyres, barb wire, adorned with red flags and heavily guarded by men with red bandanas looked prohibiting but once we got through, and we did without any fuss, all apprehension dissipated in the unexpectedly upbeat, festive atmosphere. The streets are lined, packed on either sides with street stands selling food and red paraphernalia; posters, tees, banners, flags, clappers, even teddy bears with little red tees on. At the main rally site a banner above the stage read

Peaceful Protesters Not Terrorists

And that is really what we saw. Families, including young children and grandparents, on picnic mats, snacking as they listened to anti-government speeches. Not denying that there has been violent clashes and bloodshed but what we saw is what we saw. The media portrays Bangkok as a city under siege from violent, rabid crowds. The reality is most of the protesters are really just regular folk sitting out in protest to what they perceive as injustice. Outside the barricades life is peaceful and normal can be. The streets are still full of traffic. Malls and markets are still bursting with shoppers.

That evening we visited the Suan Lum Night Bazaar. The "Beer Garden", essentially the food section was a sorry sight. Desperate vendors outnumbered customers. Dim lighting matched by equally listless fare. Artistes sing and dance with energy effectively to nobody. Thankfully, that was no reflection of the market itself. Like all Bangkok markets, there were corny souvenirs and sappy handicrafts but for the most part, the market was a treasure trove of indie boutiques and art galleries, a haven of fantastic handmade toiletries. Hours flew by in a flash. At the time we realised we had to leave, for it was getting late, we felt like we had only just started. Developers are eyeing the site. It would be a pity if this ever had to make way for yet another mall.

Suan Lum Night Bazaar

The following morning we got up bright and early for the Chatuchak Weekend Market or J.J., the largest of them all. The boutiques here are more mass market than indie but it still made for an  interesting amble. Most come for clothes but there is really so much more to it; dusty antiques, atmospheric secondhand book stores, adorable pets and crazy kitsch. The market is a sprawling labyrinth, a monolith of mass consumerism. We left at around midday; rushed back to our hotel, had lunch, packed our bags and zipped off to the airport for our flight home.

Chatuchak Weekend Market

So ended two awesome weeks on the road together.

My contract with my current employer runs out 8th September, about 4 months from now. I know I must leave. What I do not know is where to go from here. Not even sure if I would stay on in Singapore. That being the case, I wonder, when will we do something awesome like this together again?

The Ko Tao-ism Creed

After an intense week on the road; a whirlwind tour of Melaka, Georgetown and Ko Samui which included two photo shoots, hauling ourselves all the way by bus, train and ferry, R&R was in order.

And Ko Tao provided just that. A prime diving destination, Ko Tao is well on the banana pancake trail but not anywhere nearly as overdone as Ko Samui, retaining an easy, laidback vibe. We spent four blissful days on the island. Diving was just about the only exertion. That aside all we ever did was to eat, sleep, laze on the beach and play with dogs.

Molly

My wife and I love collecting seashells and colourful stones on our travels. We were doing just that on the beach late one afternoon when we notice a local girl looking curiously and sneaking pictures of us on her mobile. Not long after she was doing the same, and got her entire family in on it. Later on we realized it is the same family who owns the beach resort we stayed in (and Molly).

For a place where most of the people you will meet are travellers staying for days, at best weeks, the crowd seemed oddly homogeneous. Maybe it is the fact that pretty much everyone is here for the diving. The island culture summed up in what I term the Ko Tao-ism Creed.

The Ko Tao-ism Creed

1. Tattoos are neat, even if you have absolutely no clue what that image or character really means.
2. Show some skin. T-shirts are for wimps.
3. Nothing speaks serious diver like a dry bag even though it is really a poofy rubber sack.
4. If you are not bronzed, you are not one of us.
5. Its OK to use diving hand signs on the surface instead of speaking like a normal human being.

Unwittingly, we found ourselves looking and behaving more and more like everyone else. We did not get ourselves tattoos or dry bags but we certainly did just about everything else.

At the onset we felt so out of place. We could not find another soul with a shirt on their back. We were already fairly tanned but still felt pasty in the company of all the bronzed bodies surrounding us. (It did not help that next to the locals, we were just about the only non-Caucasians.) By the end of our stay, that was us, bronzed and waltzing about without any shirt on our backs, even into shops and restaurants.

We dived with one of the smaller but more reputable dive centres on the island. Overall, diving with them, diving in Ko Tao was a great experience. They were highly professional, the conditions were ideal for diving (high visibility, warm waters, weak currents) and ocean life was in abundance. The divemasters seemed disengaged but we did not let that get us down. Its easy to feel excited about diving when you only do it while on holiday but we reckon it really wears on you when you are doing it as a career.

From Ko Tao we took a ferry to Chumphon, on the mainland, where we got on an overnight sleeper train to Bangkok, our final destination.

At Chumphon, we had about an hour to kill before our ride out which we spent having dinner at a line of street stalls opposite the ferry operator's office. That was, up to that point, the most enjoyable meal we shared in Thailand. Casual street fare by the roadside, not pretty but the real deal. And we almost could not believe how inexpensive everything were. We had coconut jam puffs for a baht (about 3 US cents) each. After a week in Ko Samui and Ko Tao we just about had it with touristy restaurants. Even street food on the islands seemed muted to suit farang tastes.

One Man's Meat Is Another Man's Poison

From Georgetown we crossed the South Channel by ferry to Butterworth where we boarded the International Express to Surat Thani in Thailand.

We got on the train with next to no clue how long it was going to take us to get to Surat Thani. The timetable published on the Malaysian rail operator's main website, its own online ticketing website and at the station do not agree with one another or with the version on the Thai rail operator's website. Different versions of the timetable differ not by minutes, but by hours. An hour before we reached Surat Thani, the attendant came to inform us so and stated "the train is on time".

Really, who is to say?

Arriving at close to midnight, we spent the night in the city. In the morning we hopped on a ferry packed to the gills with Thai holiday seekers to our next destination, the island paradise of Ko Samui, where we had our second wedding shoot the following afternoon.

The shoot was initially scheduled for the morning. The photographer we hired, Chusakun, called our guesthouse the night before to reschedule it to the late afternoon. I felt tempted to call it off. My wife loves his work and really wanted him for our wedding shoot but arranging for a slot with him had been a frustrating process. He is slow to reply to emails and curt when he does. On the day of the shoot he turned up late. While waiting for him to show up, I wondered if we were wrong to keep faith with him.

We were prepared for Mr Sea Urchin but Chusakun turned out to be rather personable and pleasant. He apologized for being late, turns out there is a mistake in the location map on our guesthouse's website. He turned up at the wrong location. He also apologized for having to reschedule our shoot and explained the wedding he covered the day before ended much later than anticipated. He rather reschedule our shoot, get sufficient rest, turn up energized and up for it than to rock up at the initial appointed time half-dead. After some interaction we figured his emails were curt more for his poor command of English than anything.

He drove us to a secluded stretch of coastline for the shoot. We had the most spectacular of sunsets as the backdrop. For much of the shoot the sky lit up in every possible shade of orange, red and purple as the sun sank into the horizon. He worked himself (and us) hard to get as many images as possible, giving it 100%, right to the very last light. (As with Ke Wynn, at this moment we are still waiting on Chusakun to correct the images for contrast and colour.)

Chusakun was curious why we are only having our wedding pictures taken now. Told him briefly about how we had to marry in secret for my wife's parents' opposition. After hearing our story he told us his. He and his live-in girlfriend left home 3 years ago, coincidentally at about the same time my wife and I got married, to start life anew together on Ko Samui. He did not elaborate on the reasons why but their family did not look kindly on their relationship, prompting the move. As we parted ways after the shoot, he left us kind words of encouragement with regards to our situation.

Though at the onset it seemed like we made a mistake by engaging Chusakun, eventually everything worked out for the best, beyond our expectations. The following morning we left Ko Samui for Ko Tao. We were keen to get out as quickly as we can. Not that Ko Samui is a terrible place, but as the idiom go;

One man's meat is another man's poison.

Ko Samui is way given to tourism, going all out to cater to every conceivable need and desire visitors to the island might have. The long stretches of blonde, powdery sand fringed by even longer, seemingly never-ending, nigh unbroken chains of shops, restaurants, resorts, massage parlours, travel agents, dive operators and pubs. There is even a Tesco supermarket on the island. For Ko Samui to become what it is, I guess this is just how many like it but it seriously failed to resonate with us.

Dog Rescue Centre Samui

That said, we did made good of the time we had on the island. On the day we arrived, we visited the Dog Rescue Centre Samui, a refuge for abandoned and stray dogs and cats. They were all over us. Everyone wanted a little love, a little attention and we obliged gladly.

Na Muang 1 Waterfall

The following morning, before our shoot in the afternoon, we visited the Na Muang 1 waterfall. Its more spectacular neighbour, Na Muang 2, has been developed into a "Safari Park" where visitors part with a fistful of baht to have someone bring them to the waterfall on elephants that really should not be held captive for the purpose to start with. Gave that the wide berth. Na Muang 1 was blissfully untouristed, an oasis of peace and tranquillity detached from the tourist circus. It was the tail end of the dry season, as such, the waterfall was more of a trickle but that did not matter. We spent a good hour and a half there, taking in the peaceful and relatively pristine environment about us.

Beauty & The Crash Test Dummy

Georgetown is the first of the two stops en route to Bangkok where we had our wedding pictures done (the other being Ko Samui). No particular reason why Georgetown of all places. While planning this trip, the thought came to mind and it just seemed like an awesome idea.

An image I took of my wife right before the shoot

Arriving in the evening and leaving midday two sleeps after, we had just one full day in Georgetown, the afternoon of which we had the shoot. The weather, in terms of lighting, was perfect for natural light photography. The photographer we hired, Ke Wynn, was engaged, easy to get along and work with. For the two hours we were with him, he worked himself (and us) hard to capture as many images as he could manage.

My wife is a natural in front of the camera and never needed much prompting from Ke Wynn. In contrast I was about as natural in front of the camera as a crash test dummy (i.e. NOT AT ALL). Never liked posing for the lens and having someone point one at me for two whole hours felt awkward as two left feet. Still glad to have done this. It is really small sacrifice to fulfil a promise to my wife, to have her happy.

At this moment we are still waiting on Ke Wynn to correct the images (for contrast and colour, we specified that there should be no retouching).

We spent the morning before the shoot, and the morning after, before leaving Georgetown for Thailand (by train from nearby Butterworth) meandering, almost without aim, about the historic enclave, something we enjoyed tremendously. While far larger than Melaka's compact Chinatown, Georgetown is still small enough to explore with ease on foot.

Where we walked on the first morning

Where we walked on the second morning

On paper (and in fact, at first glance), Georgetown appears to be a scaled-up version of Melaka, with like architecture and shaped by similar cultural influences. We discovered quickly enough that the two are really quite different.

Masjid Kapitan Keling

Tua Pek Kong

Chew Jetty

Chowraster Bazaar

Loo Pun Hong

While Melaka was eager to impress and all about the tourist dollar, tourism seemed but a sideshow to local street life and economic activity in Georgetown. Quaint as Melaka was, it was completely given over to tourism, rendering it a theme park of sorts, a self-parody. Though nowhere nearly as pleasant or well-presented, and to be honest, polluted and bordering on being decrepit, Georgetown felt real. It was charming, in its own rundown way.

Our only regret was passing on the chance to spend a night in the historic district, in one the many old shophouses functioning as guesthouses. On our travels we usually restrict ourselves to cheapie hostels and guesthouses. This time round we opted for Cititel, a modern, swanky but nondescript-as-can-be business hotel right on the perimeter of the historic district. Any other time we would have never considered it but this time round we needed a well-lit room with a dressing table and attached bathroom for my wife to prepare for the shoot (she did her own hair and makeup).

Guess we will have to leave that idea for our next visit.

Indian Curry Chicken Wanton Mee

Singapore to Bangkok.

Its takes 2 hours by air, 2 days by train, we took 2 weeks, stopping by the UNESCO World Heritage towns of Melaka and Georgetown, and the island paradises of Ko Samui and Ko Tao in the Gulf of Thailand.

We arrived in Melaka on a Sunday evening, in time for the weekend night market on Jonker Street, the main thoroughfare of Melaka's quaint Chinatown district.

Melaka's main draw is the unique, mosaic cultural heritage evident in the local cuisine, architecture and the going abouts of its inhabitants. That night we passed a noodle stand with a sign that read "Indian Curry Chicken Wanton Mee". A Chinese noodle dish, served with Indian curry and prepared with Muslim sensitivities in mind (using chicken instead of pork). Only in Melaka.

A traditional stamp maker demonstrated his craft outside a bar where the live band belted out the most inept rendition of John Lennon's Imagine. A modern, concrete monster of a stage stood where a traditional, wooden Chinese opera stage used to. Street stands and old school bakeries churning out traditional fare competed with colourful stalls paddling fad foods to pop tunes. Tacky trinkets and sappy souvenirs were in abundance, over antiques and traditional handicraft. Clan houses were given over to karaoke parties. Quaint old houses glowed with pink spotlights and gaudy neon signs, giving the district the look of a sleaze zone.

Its difficult to say whether we were amused or bemused by what we saw in the market that night. The contrast (or should I say conflict) between quaint traditional charms and the garish tourist circus is jarring to say the least.

The following day was, incidentally, my wife's 30th birthday, though as I had always done, I congratulated her on turning 7, for her enduring (and endearing) childlikeness. Walking down the streets of Chinatown in the morning, looking for breakfast, we heard a violin rendition of Happy Birthday to You from one particular household. How did they know?

We spent the day meandering aimlessly about Chinatown. End to end, it takes minutes to transverse the compact enclave but it sure knows how to pack it in. Few houses from our guesthouse is a dark, dank butchery where butchers hacked mercilessly at whole pigs in full public view. Within earshot of the butchery is a "vegetarian" canteen that serves more mock meat than vegetables. A stone's throw away from the canteen stands Kampung Kling Mosque, which, rather curiously, has a Chinese styled minaret. The mosque is adjacent to a row of shops selling Chinese temple supplies and offerings for the dead, paper money, houses, cars, even mobile phones. At the end of the stretch is Cheng Hoon Teng, where we witnessed funeral rites. Opposite the temple stands a small cluster of restored traditional Malay residences. All these, before we even got on Jonker Street.

Hokkien Huay Kuan

Cheng Hoon Teng

Cheng Ho Tea House

Chinatown in the day, with all its joys and wonders more than made up for the farcical night market. There were testing touts and tourist traps but for the most part, Melaka is still quite the quaint, traditional charm.

The local cuisine, a reflection of Melaka's mish-mash personality was another joy. We had a go at chicken rice balls and satay celup (essentially peanut sauce fondue), both unique to Melaka. While they were pretty fantastic, it was really the simple delights, tucking into rich, ice-cold cendol's, hearty soup noodles and sock-drawn tea in sweaty coffeeshops that we enjoyed the most. That probably says more about us than anything.

Rounded off the day with a movie at the Dataran Pahlawan mall. We caught When in Rome.

After the movie my wife commented on how predictable the movie was.

Are not all romcoms predictable?

I asked.

Yes, but this, its on another level!

The movie sucked. That is not to say we did not enjoy it. Couple-hood is a strange creature, two can enjoy a bad movie together for no better reason than because they are watching it together.

The following morning we left Melaka for Georgetown by bus.

Endnote: During our stay in Melaka we based ourselves at the River View Guesthouse. Converted from one of the old warehouses lining the river, the establishment is simple but impeccably clean and well-operated. The couple who own the place, Raymond and Mina, were friendly and amicable. They gave us a detailed rundown of Melaka, what to see, do and eat on check-in. Traditional businesses still operate from the neighbouring buildings. Highly recommended!