In Search of Christmas Lost

For six plus years a 'proper' Christmas was denied me. I wallowed in the lushly green and buffalo ridden heartlands of Malaysia. It was a very Muslim place, with nary a mincepie to espy or sausage roll to feed this yule starved Englishman. It was nearly enough to send this Christmas lover all Christmas crackers.

Last year, in a small town in outer regions of Penang, I set about recreating my ideal Christmas. I was with my wife, oven roasted chickens and non-roasting Chinese relatives on a cookery morning in a kitchen which was as hot as any Turkish wrestler’s jock strap. I got pretty close to rediscovering Christmas there, what with sherry trifle, bisto/oxo gravy and Paxo stuffing to accompany my home cooked Christmas fare. But it was one hell of a lot of cooking for me and I lay exhausted, unable to entertain.

This year, a whole twelve exciting months later, Christmas was being spent in a Christian country - the Philippines. It was there that I had severely hoped to be swept off my feet by a welcome wave of yuletide bonhomie, welcoming wassailing and good ole Christmas cheer. But I wasn't.

Despite being a seriously Catholic country, the Philippines, at least that presented via Makati and Manila, felt less like Christmas than my new home - Muslim Malaysia. In the marvellously materialistic Makati Greenbelt mall, the Christmas trimmings were there, but the heart appeared to be absent.

Desperately in need of some familiar festive fare, I had dragged my poor Buddhist wife into Marks and Spencer, now rebranded as a cool M&S. We hastened to the food section for me to buy luxury mince pies, Christmas pudding, sausage rolls and perhaps mulled wine. I like to do things properly at Christmas. No half measures.

Oh calamity,  as an aged American comedian was wont to say. Nary a one was there. No mince pies, no sausage rolls and no figgy pudding either. We looked and looked, but no yule log was evident.  The only vague remnant of an English Christmas, in M&S, was a tin of Scottish shortbread. But what could I have expected in a country of cock-crow church mass (Misa de Gallo - 4am), roasted pork (lechon) instead of turkey and Christmas cheese. Yes, you read correctly - Christmas cheese, eg Edam, all nicely round and waxed red.

Our visit had, thus far, teetered between the sublime and the ridiculous. The ridiculous being the service and breakfasts of the BSA Tower hotel in Makati, where cold egg, cold sausage, toast with no butter and stewed coffee arrives some time, up to 45 minutes, late. The sublime was the caterpillar clad, rosette lipstick wearing Filipina models who mock flirted with me for photos during my book launch.

Perhaps the lack of Filipino Christmas enthusiasm came as an aftershock, a tremor visa vie post tragic tornado and post viscous gun attacks, leaving many dead, right there in Manila. Or, perhaps, it was my unrealistic expectations, and the fact that Christmas there is a family thing and we had no family other than those we took with us.

I was suffering the acutest attack of high humbug. It was never going to be Thomas’ A Child's Christmas in Wales, or a merry Dickensonian romp ending all smiles and sloshing Harvey’s Bristol Cream around the fireplace. Maybe Christmas, once you stop being a child, is like that. Maybe Christmas is forever a disappointment. But my naive English optimism imagined something much, much more from a land brimming with countless confirmed Christians.

Christmas Day emerged from out of a bottled margarita fueled haze. Orchid Gardens Suites, in Malate, Manila, had released their barman early for Christmas. There was no alcohol to be had there on Christmas Eve. Luckily our friends had bought a bottle of margarita, which we hastily consumed in the hotel lobby, in lieu of the Southern Comfort on the rocks I really wanted.

It was all getting quite out of hand, and a teansy weansy bit bizzare.

Christmas breakfast in our new hotel consisted of two types of cooked fish (one smoked), Chinese style salted egg, Tagalog (Filipino) Beef, an assortment of fruits (including banana), veggies and a waffle replete with a very smooth peanut butter and marmalade. Needless to say, it would not have been my usual Christmas breakfast, but it was leaning towards interesting.

I thanked whichever deity for the hotel lobby pseudo Christmas tree. It had baubles and tinsel. I also thank the caterpillar clad eyes, and roseate lips which uttered Merry Christmas sir, as a timely reminder that it was, in actual fact, a Merry Christmas. We sat, the two families and I, some time after 11am, Christmas morning, in Starbucks,  at the Harbour Square, Manila. My wife was sketching - it’s what artists do apparently. There was one stepson reading, the other playing a game on his mother's iphone. One friend was sending text messages, another rustling in her handbag. One of their sons was drawing on their ipad, another drawing on paper and the final son gaming, also on his hand phone. I sat writing, disconnected from our group, but also totally aware of my surroundings and the predominance of elder white men, escorting much, much younger, Filipina women. I idly wondered who was whose trophy.

The ‘real’ Manila had revealed itself in the jeepney crowded streets and the exhaust fume nightmare which had been Chinatown, Binondo, Manila. Binondo Church, also known as the Minor Basilica of St. Lorenzo Ruiz stood as a crumbling relic amidst the grotesquery of ‘modern’ architecture. Street living poor crowded urine soaked streets outside Mc Donald's and Starbucks. Thoroughfares were a cacophony of jeepney horns and belches of black smoke, as cycle rickshaw (trisikad) riders pounded pedals into the smoky morass which could have doubled for one of the outer regions of a Christian hell. Right there, right then Christmas seemed further away than ever.

Later, sitting on the remains of Fort Santiago wall, I watched a pernicious tugboat ease its way up the Pasig River, sending pink, grey and blue waves against the citadel, creating sleek water sculptures with its wake. The Filipino sun was setting on our last day (Christmas Day) in Manila. Firecrackers sent salvos across the river as green galleon islands of water hyacinths floated by. Christmas had sunk in the area in which a Muslim Raja (Sulaiman) had once reigned.

It was a lesson in expectations, mine had been high in that Catholic country, and they were dashed. Christmas, of course, was not out there but in here (he says pointing to his heart). I carried Christmas with me. It was revealed in the kindness of others - our travelling companions. It was revealed in their thoughtfulness, their kindness and their consideration for others. On Christmas Day, we passed survivors of the tornado Haiyan (seabird) living on steps not far from our hotel. There were several whole families living there, women, children, babies all dirt covered and trying to exist somewhere, anywhere. As we sat in KFC, we decided to do at least a some very small thing to relieve the burden of those step dwellers, if only for a day. Between our two families we bought eight packs of KFC ‘Streetwise Box’, each box containing six pieces of chicken, and took them to those brave souls, the survivors of tornado Haiyan. It was all we could do, but at least it was something and it revealed Christmas in the giving, not the expectation or the taking but right there, on those steps, in Manila, in the hearts of my Buddhist Chinese friends (and wife).

After note, I did approach the day manager of the Harrison Plaza Village Square branch of KFC, and told him what we were doing, but he said it was company policy not to be involved in such charitable undertakings - this was on Christmas Day, in a Catholic country, but that’s alright because it is company policy.

Nominally Phnom Penh

Snail shells shine in the unshaded nightly light. The remains of a deep fried frog lay greadily on the small red plastic plate, and the egg embryo I just ate is working its eggy way down my gullet, to be digested.

It is our first day in Phom Penh. We survived the mammoth seven hour bus journey from Siem Reap, the narrow cratered roads and the rigors of that vehicle's narrow chamber of torture, laughingly referred to as a toilet.

To save us all from terminal boredom,  or is that sleep,  the bus crew bombards us with a selection of films, shown on a single screen, at the front of the bus. Due to the rockiness of the roads, and the quality of the videos/video player, all we eventually get is a succession of half viewed Jackie Chan films.

We arrive, and immediately want to sort out accomodation. We need somwhere to lay our weary bones, stretch a little and generally get the kinks of travel out of our racked bodies. We ask art teacher Seney, who is along for the trip, to help us, and end up in a small hostelry called the Sinh Foo Guesthouse.

Sinh Foo Guesthouse is right by the river. Our room has a stunning view of that river and strolling tourists but, sadly, no tea and coffee making facilities. The room is two flights up, threatening to give me daily exercise, and make me healthier. I shiver at that possibility.

All I seek is a simple burger.  My tongue needs a break from fish Amok. The alure of escargot (snails) and the other Cambodian night food, drag me to sit down at the roadside, under a partially open green tarpaulin. The blue hatted proprietor seemingly enjoys practicing his English on us. He is extremely helpful and jovial, this is why I sit with empty snail shells, remains of some bird embryo and deep fried frog on various small dishes before me.

My wife, as usual, gathers attention by watercolour sketching. Neighbours, staff and passersby all stop to watch her weave her painterly magic. Soon a crowd has gathered to watch, chattering away in Khmer. One small girl, with silver coloured bangles, is fascinated with the rhythm of brush to water, to paint to paper. Eventually, the crowd began to disperse.  Staff go back to work, others leak away into the night, including the two blonde English girls wanting a supper of snails.

We are here to attend meetings, to discuss sponsorship for our charity Colors of Cambodia. A friend has very kindly given us contacts for tomorrow.

In the very slight cool of the Phnom Penh evening we walk back, then across the busy road to perform a romantic promenade by the riverside. Five minutes breathing in the river's stench and we high tail it back to our hotel for a night without tea or coffee.

In the morning, a rising sun paints the immediate sky a pastel pink, and washes the whole riverside in Van Gogh blue. At breakfast we are kindly reminded - one more cup of coffee not free.

A Quiet Khmer Day

It is a quiet Khmer day. I am interrupted only by the Tan Kang hotel maids stirring the insidious Cambodian dust around the room, and rearranging the inadequate bedding to make it look smarter, not cleaner. I spend the morning writing, such as I can, with a constantly interrupted internet. 

In time, my hard working, racing, wife returns from guiding her Malaysian Chinese chicks (20+ now) hither and thither across the outskirts of Siem Reap. I board the bus they travelled in, which reminds me not of American and Malaysian school buses, but of the colour of the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine. We head off to Wat Damnak temple to witness the Buddhist monks having dāna (lunch). Daily, early in the morning, the monks exit the temple with covered bowls and satchels. People give either food - in the bowls, or money - in the satchels, to sustain the monks for that day.

We briefly meet Director the Venerable Somnieng Hoeurn, who guides us to where the orange draped monks are sitting, cross legged, waiting patiently for their food. A chanting in Pali begins, first from the monks, then from the visitors offering dāna (which might be translated as giving, offering or alms). The food is distributed. The Venerable hastens off to  get his. We wander from the temple to the Life and Hope Association project set up by the Venerable Somnieng Hoeurn and established in 2005. It started as a singular project - Food for Education, and eventually grew into six.

A fellow Englishman - Clive Butler (Organisational Development Director), and his wife, have taken over the reigns of the sewing project and oversee the language learning side too. The ‘workers’ are having lunch, so we are able to see only resting sewing machines, limp lines of cotton thread and material awaiting loving hands. Those old machines instantly remind me of my mother, and the days she would spend sewing curtains, shirts or her skirts on her Singer treadle sewing machine, at home, in Essex. I sigh. Times change and Clive, his wife and I are a along way away from the London were we born in, both in time and in so many miles. We agree to consider the Life and Hope Association making some of the equipment we normally buy from outside, for the children in the schools Colors of Cambodia helps sponsor. There are cost considerations, but also ethical ones. By working with the Life and Hope Association we could be helping more Cambodians find work - something which in short supply in Cambodia.

It is a pleasant, welcoming, trip to the other side of the river. Sadly to say not all visits to other NGOs are as pleasant, nor as welcoming. In the evening we escort the Malaysian Chinese visitors to a small local orphanage. Siem Reap is full of orphans, and orphanages, some larger, some smaller, but all concerned with children’s welfare. I am looking forward to this walk. I have not been to this particular orphanage before, my wife has. We troop in the dark, balmy, evening by the side of the Siem Reap river, along the dusty road, past the usual sellers of bottled petrol, and past empty, resting,tuk tuks. We walk a little further than any of us thought, guided by the light from my small torch, attached to my house keyring. Eventually we reach the poorly lit orphanage.

We slide back the gate grill. It takes a little effort because of the build up of dust and debris, and enter the small compound. We are immediately confronted by two young, white, women who, evidently, are far from pleased to see us. True we have come outside of the normal visiting hours, but we had to wait for our visitors to use bathroom facilities before marching off with bags laden with goodies for these orphan children. We initially fear that we were being turned away after our walk. Perhaps we would have been, save for the smiles and the evident caring of a young male Khmer, who doubles as both a security guard at night and accountant during the day. Unlike the foreign volunteers, the Khmer (Cambodian) is most welcoming. He allows us to sign the visitors register and motions us to visit with the children. One foreign volunteer seems unhappy with this decision. He stands, folding his arms before him, closed off, unwilling to engage. As we approach the small area where the children are sitting with other foreign volunteers, we notice a lack of interaction between the volunteers and we visitors. The volunteers appear to be holding the children back from coming to greet us. There is no eye contact. 

Nevertheless, and because we are there for the children - not the volunteers, we distribute the toys, gifts and sweets to whoever manages to reach us, and give the rest to the Khmer guard/accountant to distribute later. We stay a short while. Those children who dare interact with us, do so, laughing and playing. As we leave, we ask the one approachable member of staff what the orphanage really needs - he says rice. They always need rice, and perhaps pork, but rice first and foremost. We leave, promising to deliver a bag of rice for the next day.

Cambodian Monday at Khnar Char School

It is Monday. The Cambodian sun shines. Skies are once again blue. A troupe of tuk tuks potter out of Siem Reap city heading for the countryside. Again the roads are dusty. One of my Chinese companions manipulates her green checkered Cambodian scarf, wedges it behind her large sunglasses, and masks the dusty, warming air. The further out we go from Siem Reap, the worse the roads are. The stretch of road immediately before the school we are visiting today, is laden with craters, it’s like we are rinding moon-buggies, but tuk tuks have little or no suspension. We bounce with every bump, slide with every swerve, and truly experience the questionable delights of Cambodian road transport.

Khnar Char School is an old friend to Colors of Cambodia, My partner has been teaching there as a volunteer, for years, but it is a new one for the sponsoring of children’s education. Recently taken on, Colors of Cambodia now supports 77 children at the school. Today we come to see those children and give them blue ‘goodie bags’ full of school equipment and clothing. Firstly, a classroom is organised. The children line up in two rows - girls and boys. They wait patiently in line, some wearing shoes, some not. White blouses and white shirts are no longer white, but grey or browning with stain from the reddened earth. Blue shorts are loose, threatening to drop with each step, or simply by waiting in line. One girl has a prosthetic leg. The children all have identically coloured hair and eyes.

The children are led into the classroom, seated. Colors of Cambodia volunteers help the children place their names on ‘thank you’ cards that have their photo, ready to send to the sponsors. Seney, our art teacher, writes what is required of the children on the blackboard, encourages the children to colour in small pictures and to add stickers, to make it all more personal. Eager children dive into their given bags, pull out small bags of school equipment - rubbers, rulers, coloured pencils etc. They investigate the clothing, comparing them, looking at others, seeing what they have. Everyone is busy with their bags, too busy to notice the growing crowd of children peering through the iron bars at the school windows. Those children are not sponsored and therefore ineligible for such bags, and attention.

Outside it is break-time for some children. A group of boys play kick-fighting in the dusty, leaf strewn playground, emulating films, TV. They smile, happily, under the imposing Cambodian sun. Mostly the children play barefoot. Rubber slippers are discarded all over the patch of grassless ground, to be collected before class for those that have them. 

Towards the rear of the ‘school yard’ are vegetable beds, neatly placed into rows with shoots just visible as plants. Elsewhere around the school are raised beds with some small bushes and flowering shrubs. It is all very basic, simple, easy to maintain. A small ‘tuck shop’ is adjacent to the last classroom. Like those in other Cambodian schools we have visited, it is staffed by a woman with small children. It sells some Western items - crisps of many varieties, and locally made jellies and other morsels or savoury snacks for momentarily hungry children.

 I sit and watch young girls playing. They sport small gold looking earrings, ‘Hello Kitty’ embroidered blouses, and one - a small craft made bag. She is a little smaller than the others. Her eyes are bright, intelligent. As I sit on a concrete seat, in the playground, she approaches me. Other children gather too, and watch as I write. She starts to read my writing, aloud, in English, stopping for me to prompt her when she had difficulty, not with English, but with my handwriting. The others copy her. Soon I have a large group of small children gathered around me, reading what I write. I write more carefully to help them read. That young girl presents me with a thin green book. In good English she asks me to read to them all. I am a little overcome with emotion. The moment is too beautiful for my clumsy words.

The book - Reading Books 2011 - The World of Stories - Phnom Doh Kromon is in dual language - Khmer and English. The children listen intently as I read to them, correcting me when I mispronounce the Khmer names, repeating after me as I read the English. When I stop, the girl thanks me most politely in English then Khmer. Another child places a small bunch of picked yellow flowers on my thigh, as I sit. Another, a boy, not to be outdone, goes off and comes back with a mixture of small yellow and pink flowers, which he has inserted into a straw to make a posy. He presents it to me and I almost cry, it is so touching. The school bell rings and the children have to go to class. I walk back to the waiting tuk tuks wearing the small posy in my hatband. My friends and my wife have many questions. I tell them this story.

Cambodia Trois

Under the brightest of Cambodian morning skies, our three Malaysian Chinese princesses arrive. They are a little bleary-eyed after their early morning flight, but nevertheless game to begin their new journey into volunteering. My intrepid wife, and her not so intrepid husband, guide the three Chinese belles through the scooter/tuk tuk laden streets to our usual watering hole, at the rear of the old market, in Siem Reap. From there it is a short hop and a step to the gallery Colors of Cambodia, Mundull 1 Village, Sway Dong Kum Commune. 

The gallery has changed a little since our last visit. The front has been let to a company producing and selling striking black lacquer work, which augments the paintings by the Colors of Cambodia students, and teachers, nicely. There is a very nice art/craft feel to the building now, and many foreign visitors stream in to see both crafts and paintings. Of course the two Cambodian beauties selling the lacquer work only enhance the inherent attractiveness of the place.

We pick up Seney, a Cambodian artist and art teacher for Colors of Cambodia, and Sarouen, the gallery manager and tourist guide, and head for rural Siem Reap aboard slim, fragile looking motorcycles. Seney has the unenviable task of transporting my largeness, but he copes well, despite the mud sliding and near collisions on the journey to see the homes of the children we sponsor.

Firstly we head to Thai Zo school to pick up the Elementary School Headmaster (Director), as our guide, then off onto very narrow dirt tracks entirely unsuitable for any other form of transport save motorcycles, cycles or pedestrians. The houses of the sponsored children are several kilometers along the tracks, and too far for us to walk. For a while we travel adjacent to a muddily brown canal. Smiling Khmer children, their bodies immersed in water, gather blue water hyacinth and lotus seed pods. We travel on, over ruts, around holes filled with recent rains, past water buffalo drying in the sun, past white cows, their backbones prominent and past oh so many acres of tall paddy.

My wife has signaled a stop. We dismount. Me with a little difficulty, but Seney is patient. It is a photo op. We have come to rest at a rice paddy field, where a whole Khmer family are busy harvesting their crop. Despite their need to quickly gather the rice before too much rain falls and ruins it, they stop their work and allow us to take pictures. Husband and wife both pose for photographs, the children continue working. The wife demonstrates cutting paddy to my wife. She hands her a small scythe, and advises her with body language how not to cut her legs off as well as the rice. There is no major blood letting incident so we continue, having thanked the family profusely.

Despite a small detour - it is was when Seney and I lose sight of the others and continue in the wrong direction, we eventually arrive at the first of the homes for visiting. It all appears very idyllic. There are tall, waving green stalks of rice. There is a mid-blue of the sky and a wooden house on stilts in the mid-ground. It is a December morning, and cool. A photographer’s masterpiece. It is all practically meditative. The rural silence speaks volumes of simplicity and contentment, but we are cautious not to let that glimpse of paradise fool us into believing in ‘Noble Savages’, but rather of honestly diligent Cambodian peasantry.

Some of the houses we visit have electricity, many do not. All are simple wooden structures, some on stilts, some on the ground with earth as a flooring. Most have but one simple room for the family to do everything save cook. Cooking is performed in an outhouse - a lean too with a corrugated iron roof. Many are families of twelve, or ten, eking   out a living in the best way they can. They lay traps and catch fish, eels, crabs from the flooded fields, grow their own rice, vegetables, spices and herbs. For the one house with electricity, it is provided by someone else's generator, for which they have to pay. Colors of Cambodia assists those children of poorer families with their education, by giving them the barest of essentials for them to attend school, but cannot help them with the six kilometers they have to walk to school.

Cambodia Day 2

Tiredness was still blowing through the windmill vanes of ours minds. Reluctantly we arose to catch a breakfast that we really wish we had not, at the hotel, before heading off in a rickety tuk tuk to a school we help sponsor, near Siem Reap airport.

Breakfast at Tan Kang Angkor hotel was a most unusual mixture of impoverished British seaside B&B, and an equally impoverished, not to say forlorn, Chinese eatery, where customers had long since ceased visiting. The kindest thing I could say about the hotel breakfast was that it was just, barely, edible if you were desperate enough to consider doing so.

It was the usual Cambodian journey, passed roadside sellers of bottled petrol, mushrooming hotels and posters proclaiming this or that political party to be the one choice for the people of Cambodia. Thai Zo school was down a dirt track off the main road. It was built by a Japanese company to educate children in that very rural area. The children were having a school break when we visited, but the art class children came as usual, and a couple of dozen children milled around helping to clean the school grounds. While my wife diligently helped Colors of Cambodia art teacher Narong teach the children the wonders of ‘sand art’, I took photographs for our records and wandered at will around the very functional shoebox like school.

It was the rainy season. It had rained when we arrived. It rained the previous lunchtime and evening. Rain had accompanied our breakfast with large drops splashing into the dolphin tiled swimming pool. This had slightly delayed our start, but at the school all we experienced were grey clouds and a distinct lack of sun. It was just as well, as the tuk tuk ride would not have been as pleasant in rain. The overall temperature was much cooler than my previous visit, almost bearable. 

Having snapped away at all that needed snapping away at, I sat with the two school Headmasters (elementary and secondary), a collection of teachers and our guide/interpreter Saroeun. Idly, as Sarouen translated, I watched a small group of girls playing Lort Koe Su. Lort Koe Su (Khmer) is a jumping game where the jumper has to kick a stretched string, or elastic, held aloft by two children. The string gets higher and higher until it is eventually held at arms length, and the jumpers leap to touch it. The girls were of all sizes, big and small, younger and older, but it was one small girl, her rubber slippers in hand and ponytail lashing out as she jumped, who eventually beat all the others. 

The game wound down. Those children dispersed. Some wandered off to the classroom where my wife has been volunteer teaching, on and off, for over five years now. Other children continued to tidy the grounds, unsupervised, in between bouts of play. Within minutes some of the girls returned. They pressed their treasures - packets of ‘sand art’, to their immature chests while chatting furiously, and beaming radiant smiles at each other. 

As I sat, the teachers drafted proposals for things the school was in need of - a new floor for classrooms, computers for when electricity eventually reaches the school and playground equipment for the elementary school, which has none. As I was digesting the school’s needs, I watched as a cowherd sauntered through the school grounds, bringing three white Asian cows with him. He was on his way to collect the fourth, which had been laying at the far end of the school playing field. I had to remind myself of the differences in school life in Cambodia, Malaysia and in Britain - where few city children had actually seen a cow, let alone four within their school’s playing fields.

Continuing in Cambodia

Waiting on flight AK1480, there was the distinctly British sound of Artic Monkeys being played as we waited. A conglomeration of red bedecked flight attendants fluttered carefully mascaraed caterpillars, and pouted abnormally red lips while gossiping and tinkering with plastic trays.

The red gantry was eventually withdrawn and the ‘girls’ announced departure. My wife cuddled the small pillow that we had bought from home, and slept. The uneventful flight took its one hundred and twenty minutes (approx) and began its descent towards water logged, green, Cambodian fields.

Siem Reap had waited for my return. It was a fraction cooler. It was December, but nevertheless still damn hot, and damp. It was the rainy season, with previously parched land now drenched. Like most times of year for Siem Reap, it was still also tourist season, with (mostly) Western travellers flooding into this the fastest growing city in Cambodia.

We took succour at an eatery backed by the main (old) Siem Reap market. A bubbling group of U.S twentysomethings displayed their contempt for restaurant staff by shouting across the not large dining room “Here, beer” then laughing amongst themselves as if their inability to communicate with hard-working local life was humorous. It seems that ignorance travels as much as insight these days.

Outside of Serge’s Champey Restaurant the emaciated, tattooed, fire eater performed to an all white ensemble of onlookers, brushing his lithe body with fire and threatening to flambé his nether region too. On the conclusion of his performance he produced a black bag and approached his audience. As one they found interest in each other, the local shops, the sky or just about anything than the man they had been watching so avidly, save one tourist with a white goatee beard. He withdrew his wallet and proffered a note. The fire eater pocketed that note and collected his paraphernalia together, to begin again elsewhere. A comfortable coach drew up and whisked the tourists away.

Fried ‘minned’ pork did indeed turn out to be fried minced pork, luckily. The misspelling brought memories of The Goons and the eccentricities of the English. It also made me remember that the other surreal British troupe - Monty Python’s Flying Circus, who were reuniting some decades after disbanding like some aging rock band.

A small Khmer boy appeared with a large light blue bag. He posed against one of the restaurant’s posts for a while, then continued his quest for plastic bottles, which he scrunched and crunched into his bag. Shortly after, a small Khmer girl bounced up to us - “one dollar ten, ten for one dollar”. She stuck out a thin hand and offered rattan bangles. Like a novice tourist, I bought those brown and turquoise objects, much to my wife’s surprise, and placed them on her waiting arm. The girl, seemingly satisfied, wandered off into the rain bespeckled Siem Reap street.

The pensioned of all nationalities seem to impose themselves on gentle Khmer residents. The retirees rub reddening shoulders with browned backpackers who click merrily away at large red vans bearing the legend “Coca Cola” - as if it were something unthinkable that the American brand should have reached the depths of South East Asia. A blonde patron, having finished her burger, fries and coke, beckons the waitress in the age old fashion of pretending to write a cheque in the air. She puts away her digital tablet ready to rejoin the alien throng on the streets where, no doubt, she would be hassled by the nearest tuk tuk drivers to the extent that she would eventually succumb to their proffering or, frazzled, walk briskly away.

The much photographed Siem Reap has all the appearance now, of a pleasure weary mistress who is a little heavier around her waist, and perhaps a little sadder around her mascaraed eyes too. Like a true pro she had partied until she dropped and then picked herself up, and partied some more. But, her hand woven cotton sampot reveals its, and her, wear and tear, and the lines around her eyes have become deeper with each tourist filled year. And still the tourists come, ready to use this aging maiden, laden with their weighty wallets and hefty telescopic lenses, expecting to be continuously entertained.

Reaching the Heights at the Hilton

It was another fine Kuala Lumpur morning only, this time, we were in the Hilton hotel watching a misty equatorial sun slowly rising.

We, my delectable wife and I, were twenty three floors up, without a mobile phone signal and experiencing the inconvenience of no free wifi. Everything in the Hilton was, of course, expensive. Even the bottled water (Tau), which it said on the label that you need to rehydrate, was expensive. RM33 (think the equivalent of £33 if you are in UK), and a mini tube of Mr Potato (Hot and Spicy) RM16 (£16).

Balanced against the luxury of the hotel room's bathroom suite,  which included an actual bath as well as a comfortable shower, the fact that I had to repair the toilet flush pales almost into insignificance, almost, but not quite. 

The was a brief moment of discomfiture, however,  when my wife wanted to exchange bath robes (brown and black batik), because her's was too big, and mine too small.  Having exchanged robes we discovered them to be the same size. The flip down seat in the shower was a nice idea, but I couldn't quite grasp the necessity for a mini television screen in the shaving mirror pedestal.

Breakfast cost a veritable arm and a gammy leg, but the international display of foods was worth it. My plate was a United Nations all on its own with Malaysian, Japanese, Chinese and Western fare clamouring for me to devour them, and I did.  The coffee was not so hot, both figuratively and in actuality, but passable.  The Hilton Kuala Lumpur seems not have have caught up with European hotels where coffee capsules ensure a fresher coffee taste and greater variety. My wife found blackberries, having only recently come across them in Port Lligat, Spain. All was well with the world until, of course, we had to pay.

It was a freebie. My wife's cousin sister, and yes there are such things in Chinese families, gave us a complimentary voucher so we could experience how the other half live, sans breakfast. And they live well,  believe me they do if the Hilton is anything to go by. Breakfast was more, much more than we would normally pay for diner, even when feeling flush at the beginning of the month.

As a slight aside, and as a an adjunct to my mini diatribe,the level of English grammar has sadly declined to a drastic level, in Malaysia.  Nowhere is this more evident than in the 5 star Hilton hotel we had stayed in. Over breakfast we encountered a number of food signs misspelled. Grilled Tomatoes was Grill Tomato,  whereas Scrambled Egg had become Scramble Egg. It is a small matter, but perhaps indicative of declining English language use in this now severely post-colonial country.

Of Fleas and Coconut houses

Dawn cracked almost audibly. Some previously somnolent, guilty, particle shocked my senses to wakefulness. I realised that we were already late. Superman or The Flash could not have shaved faster, and within minutes we were on the road to our early morning rendezvous, but still a little blur.

A sleek SUV journey later, and we were sneaking our way into the small streets of Melaka. The morning and most of the afternoon were taken with an important meeting, but there was a millisecond when I tumbled into an unexpected flea market, right there on Jonkers Street, one of the most desirous streets Melaka has to offer.

That abrupt find was but the beginning of the day’s surprises. The Nonya lunch was characteristically superb, but not the focus of this piece. Nor is the local gula melaka (brown palm sugar) we enthusiastically bought and ushered back home. No, the surprise came at a time when we were at our most tired. Lines etched into our faces and saggy bits sagging the most.

In the evening, after our return to Kuala Lumpur, we stopped by a gallery opening. The host

was a friend of ours, as were many of the visitors to that colourful exhibition. We smiled the best we could, and chatted with the last dregs of our energy until the pangs of hunger began to tie Easter Bread with our intestines. The art party broke up and we wandered back down to ground level to seek sustenance. My wife, being the well-connected individual she is, steered me towards Coconut House.

Meditating upon the name, I half-expected Coconut House to proffer perhaps Malay gulai (curry) laced with santan (coconut milk), or perhaps serve lesser known dishes from Penang - famous, or is that infamous, for its coconut trees and beaches. What I did not expect was an Italian restaurant. My heart sank. The very notion of yet more pseudo-Italian food dredged up by a cook who once read an Italian cookbook (but couldn’t understand it), filled my heart with such utter dread. It was with a very heavy heart that I dragged my poor weary, and aching, bones into that wood bedecked eatery filled to the brim with nattering Chinese eaters.

Zhuang Ruo (aka John Rock) had been an outstanding art writer and editor in a former life. His magazine was Coconut House, the name stuck and as he entered into the restaurant business, Coconut House seemed the obvious choice to name his Italian restaurant. We sat near a wall of cut logs. I could clearly see a wood oven, traditional for making authentic tasting pizzas, and my spirits rose. We read the menu, and eventually chose. We wanted something not too heavy and decided to share a pizza, a salad and soup accompanied by a cappuccino. The cappuccino arrived first.

Cappuccino is so very easy to get wrong, and most places in Malaysia, and indeed Southern Italy too, do so. I had some of the world’s worse cappuccinos in Sorrento and The Amalfi coast, and some pretty dire pizzas there too, so my hopes were not high, but one sip, just one sip, told me I was wrong. The cappuccino at Coconut House was good - more than good, that simple frothy coffee was bordering on the great. We had a second.

The soup was Roasted Pumpkin, timely as Halloween had just passed. It was a blend of onion, carrot, tomato, herbs and, I guess, pumpkin and slipped down nicely leaving a slight, very slight tang as it did so. It was an appetizer. The thin crust pizza - Company of Mushroom, with fresh mushrooms, thyme, mozzarella and parmesan cheeses arrived at the same time as the Giambotta (vegetable stew).

The Giambotta was drier than I had expected, but then it was advertised as a salad, not the usual stew. It contained no meat, but rather had the texture of a dry ratatouille and tasted divine. The pizza and the Giambotta was a great hit with us both, and I delighted in showing

the various herbs to my amazed wife. The only two things missing were a decent wine and a dessert. We had to forgo the wine as we had to drive home, but dessert was another matter altogether.

I confess to being a tiramisu aficionado. Like cappuccino, tiramisu is so easy not to get right. Malaysia, being a Muslim country, tends to eject the alcohol element from its tiramisu - that is a gastronomic crime in the highest magnitude, but when in an Italian restaurant.....

A wine glass held a soft tiramisu. You could see the patches of sponge all around like

pictures in some glass gallery. Chocolate was sprinkled on top. It was with trepidation, and anticipation, that I plunged the thin spoon into that soft mixture, almost regretting my choice in case it turned out like all the others I had eaten in 9 years in Malaysia. Remembering to breathe, I took a sample. OMG!!  It was as perfect as any tiramisu I have ever tasted, exclamation, exclamation, and with alcohol too, possibly marsala. Reluctantly, I left half for my wife, as agreed, and deeply regretted that decision. I wanted more. I wanted to gorge and gorge myself until I was sick, but didn’t.

I was on a high when I left Coconut House. The food had been wonderful, simply the best western food I had yet to encounter in Malaysia, and that includes the food that I prepare for friends and family. The ambience was a trifle noisy, but then it was Sunday and people were out enjoying good food in good atmosphere. I asked to take the dessert chef home with me, but she wouldn’t come. I told my wife. She smiled a knowing smile.

Wipe Out

Of all the tunes, in all the malls, and they had to play The Shadows' Wipe Out in mine. I mean, come on - Wipe Out, really!

Wipe Out, and indeed The Shadows, were popular when I was still in short, grey, woolly shorts, praying the day would come when I would gravitate to the all-empowering long trousers. Those days, like The Queen Mother, seemed to last forever, but eventually passed. Then Wipe Out is surreally resurrected in this near deserted equatorial mall on the fringes of Kuala Lumpur which, despite the Small Faces ‘Rene’, has no coast.

A multitude of differently coloured faces abound, and shadows of colonialism continue to colour the ever vibrant hues of this once jungle land. They are new colours, new faces and a new colonialism. Colours of sand and colors of stars, with stripes, battle for hearts and minds in Kuala Lumpur. Mickey and Microsoft engage Mohammed and the mullahs in soft skirmishes. McDonald's and Burger King duke it out with kebabs and couscous, while Starbucks reigns supreme over the local mud coffee though, in predominantly Chinese areas, tea is making a comeback.

It is a wipe out, with signs (literally) of British colonialism being dismantled with street names, once English, ever changing into Malay. Colonial buildings are either being torn down, or left to rot, while mosques galore sprout turrets onto the ever Islamic skyline sharing space with the golden ‘M’. The world has to move on, this is true, and quite rightly too, I hear you say, in these post-colonial times, and that would be right too if Malaysia was not now being colonised, more insidiously, by two empires simultaneously - the Arab and the American. 

British English is rapidly being supplanted by American English, as more and more teachers of English hail from the USA, and more burka clad women assail our streets, viewing the equator through letterboxes. Wahhabism stalks the capitol’s streets where once spiritual Sufism danced and coffee shops, where all races rubbed shoulders and smiled together, have become divided between the halal and the non-halal and friends having to chose between their religious beliefs and the possibility of continuing friendships outside their race and religion.

It is not, however, a complete wipe out. There are more eateries featuring pork burgers now, as if in retaliation. More Chinese families are accepting English, or is that American, names and recently the dear old Union Jack has become a fashion accessory, and is plastered all over T-shirts, bags, mobile phone and even ipad covers. British colonialism is gone but not forgotten, even though it has been reduced to a item of fashion design, and ‘Mod’ scooters (of the 1960s) are cool and in shopfront displays. Rule Britannia!

Dies Horribilis

Some days we feel the pressure (of our years) more than others.

Yesterday was a bad day. It was one of those days that go down in blues songs, days that people are born on and spend the rest of their life in torment, or Clacton - it’s the same thing.

I should have stayed in bed where it was still warm from my wife’s body. The morning had held such great promise. A promise that the afternoon forbade. It all began when I was taking my ablutions. I rested on the white plastic seat and, while my body ejaculated the food it no longer needed, I started to write a quite promising cyberpunk story, based in Kuala Lumpur and London. I was into about 600 words, and gaining an oval indentation on my nether regions, when the tablet ap. crashed, taking my story with it. Of course, I had been quite intent on my writing, too intent to save as I went, not wanting to spoil that special flow of the very rare muse. And the story was flowing nicely, I thought. I felt crushed. The psychological wind had most definitely gone out of my metaphorical sails. I finished my ablutions and exited the bathroom feeling more than a little washed out.

Good, and bad things, come in threes, or so my superstitious old mother used to tell me. She was so right most of the time that my father often referred to her as an old witch. She objected to the word - old.

I was all excited. I had wanted to surprise the family by cooking lunch. I felt that it was about time that I did. I hadn't cooked for some weeks and, truthfully,  missed my own cooking too. In my wisdom, I had defrosted sleek, succulent chicken breasts. I carefully cut them into pairs, and made delicate inserts into each breast. Into each cut, I placed a dollop of chive flavoured soft cheese, and closed the gashes. The breasts were placed in a glass dish, which had been lightly brushed with a cheap virgin olive oil.

Wanting to give the preparation an Italian feel - the family like Western cooking, I made a tomato sauce with tomatoes, garlic, herbs, tomato paste, bacon, black and white pepper and the requisite amount of fluid. All was going well until the small bottle of olive oil I was using,  slipped from my oily fingers. It fell onto the waiting, hard-tiled surface. Of course it broke. I stopped what I was doing and had to clear precious virgin olive oil, and small amount of broken glass, from the work surface, and then get on with the cooking.

That was evidently not enough for Loki, prankster of the gods.

I finished the sauce and covered the waiting breasts. The uncooked meal, in a glass dish, finally found its way into our far from large oven. I set the timer, adjusted the heat, placed the glass lid on, and closed the oven door. A while later, anxious that the chicken breasts should not stick to the glass, I opened the oven door to stir the dish. That was my mistake.

Loki smiled a big mischievous smile. The largeness of the dish, and the smallness of the oven, combined to thwart my plans. The oven-hot dish stuck in the oven. I tugged. The dish's lid freed itself. It tumbled out of that steamy, punishingly hot oven and threatened to dash to the floor. At the same time, the glass dish lurched. I braced the hot dish with one oven glove and my shorts' top. Not a good idea.

The hot dish lid fell. Aha! I miraculously caught that burning hot object in my ungloved hand. Then rapidly dropped it too. Anything that comes out of an oven, cooking at 260 degrees, or thereabouts, will necessarily be, to coin a phrase - bloody hot. And it was.

I sorely burnt two fingers and my thumb, on my right hand. It had to be my right hand, because that is the hand I reserve for writing, cooking and catching extremely hot glass dish lids. The kitchen, the whole house and, quite possibly, the whole damn street resounded to a screamed Anglo Saxon word indicating base human copulation.

It was not my finest moment. I was surrounded with smashed glass and particles of hot tomato sauce. I just wanted to cry, but as there was no one around to witness my depths of upset, I resolved to just get on with it. What made it seem much worse was that I got glass in my foot. I left bloody footprints as I tried to cool burnt flesh, firstly with cold water, then with ice. Number one stepson came down the stairs. He saw my chaos and bloody foot prints, and went pale. He offered his help, but I felt too guilty and refused his kindly offer. I covered my hand in sensitive gum toothpaste - at the telephone recommendation of my absent wife, and set about clearing the kitchen, one-handed and in pain. It was a novel experience.

Saturday afternoon Writing Class was cancelled. My wife came home to a spouse sedated with painkillers, and whose right hand was thrust up like some hand double for The Mummy. I, being a man, on the arrival of my wife, immediately made the most of my injury and elicited as much sympathy as I possibly could all that evening. Copious amounts of toothpaste, then later antiseptic cream, seemed to do the job and minimalised the damage, so that I could write this today. But I have to be careful. Blisters have appeared as warning ‘hot spots’. I’ll probably not cook for a while. Cooking can be dangerous if in the wrong hands.

My dies horribilis is at an end. I was lucky not to have been born under bad sign.

A Night in Asgard

The Chua Brothers breakfast of fish ball noodle soup, yong tau foo and a bowl of three kinds of noodle, accompanied by thick Malaysian indigenous coffee was a far cry from Tiptree marmalade on toast, and Earl Grey tea in an aging English seaside. That fateful morn, stomach rumbling as breakfast was not included in our deal at the hotel, I was led into the bowels of Kuala Lumpur's China Town by my 'I don't do mornings' wife, who nevertheless did that morning.

This is the very same woman who, bright-eyed and not exactly bushy tailed, but nevertheless excited, had grasped my arm tightly, the previous night, and squealed when Thor, god of thunder, was beating up the bad guys attacking all he held dear at Times Square, near Bukit Bintang. It was the very same she who drooled at that thunder god's naked chest, asking in a seemingly casual way - ‘who was that actor playing Thor’.

Over breakfast, in that backwater Malaysian Chinese eatery, I watched one elderly chap peeling those tiny, salty, dried fish called ikan bilis. Meticulously he disposed of the tiny silvery heads and black innards, then he bagged the remainder up ready to be fried or used as a flavoring in soup/congee. Noodles were being blanched all around as a tall, young, Chinese beggar, all crinkled long dark hair and raggedy clothes, encouraged diners to give him a hand out. None did. Not five feet from where that disheveled outcaste was standing, begging, offerings of oranges and red coloured bread (pau) lay on the more blatantly red Taoist alter. This led me to two rash assumptions, 1) beggars become invisible in Malaysia, and 2) Malaysian Psychiatric care is patchy.

The daily November rain had held off, but Kuala Lumpur's humidity drenched my Cambodian cotton shirt anyway, just to prove a point to this son of another soil. Exiting that noodle house, we took the long way round, back to the hotel, and back to the sleepy son who could not rise for breakfast. The night’s stay was a one off. It was a chance for those in the family who enjoyed swimming, to swim, and for those who preferred a reasonably good (e)book, to watch.

The Swiss garden Hotel was comfortable enough, but a tad far from the fun of China Town that, and the inconvenience of having to wander the hotel finding what’s what, as that incarnation of Swiss Gardens International has two towers and numerous confounding exits. 

Our Wild Day Out

The Chinese Hokkien restaurant - Restoran kuan hwa kuala selangor sat adjacent to the River Selangor, in Selangor state, Malaysia, and specialised in sea and river food. 

It was a bright Sunday during the Hindu celebration of Diwali. We travelled in convoy around Kuala Lumpur, stopping briefly for a rest-stop at Aunty Foo's Cafe, to enjoy a clean restroom environment and shudder at her prices for dark local nectar.

A constant, welcome, breeze wafted from a river the colour of tea and, surprisingly, there was only the scent of food cooking, not mud. While mud-dwelling crabs carried one large claw aloft, skitting on the approach of birds, our cut coconuts arrived sloshing with watery goodness. I reluctantly drew my attention away from the engaging mud crustaceans and refocussed on my hosts, family and the meal to come.

The meal was to be a treat. And the day, a relaxing one, eating and soaking up the chilling vibes, while being adjacent to the rice-paddy wilds of Selangor - the Malaysian state closest to Kuala Lumpur. If time permitted, we were to buy fish at the local fishing village and go on to buy rice direct from the buildings concerned with its production in the middle of the rice growing paddy fields.

A brusque waitress hurried small bowls of diced garlic and finely chopped green chillies - condiments. An oval plate of fried lettuce appeared next, and who says you can’t fry lettuce, they do it all the time here. The veg is the quickest to cook, hence coming first. It was quickly followed by another oval dish, this time of Bamboo clams (aka Atlantic Jackknife clams) looking for all the world like the hand-piece to a cut-throat razor. The meat was long, like pale worms, but the chili sauce with dried chillies and spring onions helped it along. My wife stayed clear of this one, claiming it to be unappetizing (by looks alone).

Next came tiny crispy fried squid, which were exactly that, and none more that an inch-and-a-half long. More veggies followed - a

gracious mixture of green beans, okra, aubergine and that pungent Malaysian favourite - petai. Petai is the vegetable equivalent of the Durian fruit. That is to say petai makes you fragrant, in the worse possible way. After eating that pungent bean your bodily discharges have a peculiar scent, this can last a few days and it is all with thanks to 1,2,4-trithiolane with a little help from hydrogen sulfide, ethanol and acetaldhyde, apparently. Petai is also called ‘stink bean’ for a very good reason.

The meal’s fish dish was a little disappointing. It was cutlets of fish unable to swim in a brown sauce loaded, as it was, with garlic. Of the dishes tasted that day, the fish was the least flavoursome. However, the meal’s crowning glory arrived in short shrift. Two more dishes - first a sweet and sour mud-crab, then Malaysia’s famous ‘chili crab’. The former was

balanced so perfectly that neither the sweet nor the sour dominated, but worked in perfect harmony. The latter was caressed with curry leaves as well as black pepper and other spices to make that crab rich and a little dry and sour in taste - no doubt because of the tamarind used. Deep fried ‘man tou’ buns lay crisply brown on the platter, and were perfect for scooping up the sauces of both crabs, The buns disappeared extremely quickly, once placed on our Arthurian round table. The Tom Yum (prawn) soup came in another coconut. This tom yum was

crammed with good sized prawns, and was traditionally spicy but, thankfully, not as sweet as some I’ve tasted.

We had forgotten that it was the first day in the Chinese lunar month. The (Chinese) fisherman had not fished. There were no fish to purchase at the fishing village. Instead, some sketched and some wrote, whiling away the time and letting that superb Hokkien meal digest. Cats, anxious for fish, walked away disappointed. My eyes were getting heavy. The meal, slowly digesting, was bringing on the afternoon lethargy. I was feeling like some gigantic anaconda after swallowing a goat, though to my knowledge there were no anacondas nearby and the goats had been already swallowed up by humans - at a previous religious festival.

Then we were off. My wife drove. The two boys and I let Hypnos blanket us with sleep as we were taken away from the fishing village, and out towards the rice paddies. It was still hot outside, and still bright. We could feel the heat of the sun trying to penetrate the air-conditioning. It was a struggle, but the car’s internal temperature eventually won out.

It had seemed like a thousand years ago, that I landed at Penang airport, and was transported, at the break of day, through my first ever paddy fields (in Keddah state, Malaysia). I had been in awe. I had never seen rice growing before. Wheat and corn yes, even barley but never rice and, at that very moment, the complete otherness of Malaysia had hit me. As I awoke from my partial Selangor slumber, the car stopped. We were on a small road running through fields of growing rice. The sky was a perfect blue. The clouds grouped as if for photographs, and the rice paddy was green. It was a brief idyll. Echoes of Lou Reed ran through my head.

The next stop was at Cap Asas (Basic Brand) PLS - the rice producer’s Sunday rice market, which was surrounded by their rice fields, and accessible only by those small roads. Rice was being sold in 5kg and 10kg plastic bags. Posher (pearl) rice, white or brown, was in briquettes of 2kg. It was a veritable hive of activity. Bags of rice seemed to fly from their stacks and into waiting cars, SUVs etc. The day was beginning to get overly long. We forsook the offer of yet more food, and a beach, and began to wander back to home and hearth, if we had a hearth but, in Malaysia, hearths are redundant. We slept. It was another lazy Sunday behind us, without rainbows. Our wild day out had been tamed and put back in its cage. 

Climbing Tiger Mountain without strategy

I had dallied for two long years. Finally, girding my ancient loins, I braved the walk. My intrepid wife led me up a rather steep path and into the Malaysian jungle. I had been assured that it would be a walk, not a climb. I am far too unfit for climbs. We rounded a bushy corner,  replying to greetings given by returning walkers, and there it was. It was, to all intents and purposes, a climb, but to my wife merely a walk. True we were walking, but uphill,  using knee power to transport our bodies upward, now I call that a climb.

I had no problem at all watching my wife's superbly shaped buttocks as she climbed, sorry walked. The problem came when I was trying to watch them and climb at the same time. Heaven on earth had to be deferred to ensure that I didn't reach actual Heaven long before I was ready.

We trudged on for some time, manoeuvring over rusty chalk and, occasionally,  marble. Green and sometimes purple ferns watched as we traversed that mountain. It was no Tiger Mountain,  though there were plenty of Chinese. All kinds of young, and not so young, uphill strollers, strolled uphill, but this strategic Tiger Mountain contained no Brian Eno, or opera.

Sunbeams lit lazy mist somewhere half way. A bird let rip with a hearty halloween trill, and scared me half to death. Leeches were conspicuous by their absence,  which was a blessing, but the humidity was relentless within that shady forest. I was out of breath. I had 'good morninged' far to many climbers,  and forgot to save some breath for myself.

I received some strange looks by fellow yet indigenous travellers. One nearly fell of the mountain as she gave a double-take. Then I remembered the legend of Jim Thompson, the American who disappeared into the Malaysian jungle, in Cameron Highlands. She must of thought I were he.

I survived. My dear, fit, wife informed me that we had only gone half way, and that next time we could go all the way. Next time, I thought, there would be a next time, head slap.