January 15th.
Somehow breakfast was not included with our room this time but we had the buffet anyway. Then we took the elevated train to what was supposed to be an area with colonial archetecture but we didn’t find much. Nearby was Central Market which was air conditioned and felt great and which sold lots of tourist stuff that I enjoyed looking at. Petaling Street was another shopping area which they were smart enough to shade. I bought a pair of white Vans tennis shoes which cost $10 and which lasted only until the end of our trip. It was really hot so we came back to our hotel to sit by the pool. Sitting by the pool and looking at all of the buildings, I had the deja vu feeling of being in Las Calinas, a development in Texas near Irving as many of the buildings were in the same style.
When evening came we walked over to the famous nearby twin towers which soar high above. We discovered a huge mall underneath the tower packed with people. Dinner was actually from a Californa Pizza Kichen. Hard to believe how many American establishments are here. There was a wonderful area behind the twin towers complex with a lake, fountains and a light show with spouting water with steps around it to sit on.
Malaysia is very different from Thailand. I think the native people here originally came from Indonesia and so they don’t look like those from Thailand. There are many Indians and many women with head coverings being, I guess, hindu or muslim. We’ve seen some women all dressed in black robes with only their eyes showing.
January 16
We booked a tour to take us to some nearby caves. Inside are Hindu temples in which are wildly, brightly painted sculptures of hindu gods or fairy tale figures. The lime stone walls soar up to a hole up above. There were monkeys everywhere and it was very smelly in places as we climbed the 272 steps to get to the top. A huge giant yellow god is in the process of being built at the base of the stairs. The caves and stairs weren’t very clean which made us wonder why the holy men manning the temples didn’t spend some of their time cleaning up the place. Maurice thought it was a bad reflection on Hinduism and he really didn’t enjoy it although I found the brightly painted figures all around fascinating.
Our tour guide was a nice guy, a former banker who retired early and then got bored. We had to stop at several places, always parts of tours, where they expect tourists to buy things. I don’t like that part of it but I did like the Batik place and we bought a beautiful scarf to frame for a wall when we return. Our guide told us that he was Catholic-10% of Malaysia is, in fact. The Chinese were brought here by the English to work in the tin mines and the Indians to work on the rubber plantations which went out of business when synthetic rubber was invented. There seems to be a good relationship between the various nationalities although the paper told of some racial incidents. It is also a very religious society, much more in some ways than America. Any nudity on TV is not shown. I noticed this in a movie on TV we watched that I had seen before where a sex scene was cut out. There was a photo of a nude statue in the paper-from the back-and his bottom was shadowed over. It seems like Malaysia is about 20 years behind the States. I wonder if that will change in time?

Some of the lovely batik we saw, hand painted onto silk using wax outlines to control the flow.

The stairs we had to climb to get to the top where the temples were.

Some gods to great you on a gate at the entry to the cave.

The steps were numbered. I don’t know if this helped or not.

One of the colorful gods inside.

There were monkeys everywhere. They came for the food, mostly bananas and coconuts that were offered to the gods.

The twin towers from underneath showing the bridge between the two.

The Twin Towers at night all lit up in silver and gold.

January 13th
We spent a lazy morning walking a little, checking e-mail and then getting to the airport. I had heard that Air Asia could be late or cancel flights so when our flight was first delyaed, I wasn’t surprised. When it became three hours worth of delay, I was realy upset. It turned out that the Thai air force was practicing in Bangkok, our destination, for an air show and it closed the air space around the airport. Then, when we finally got on our way, we had to circle the Bangkok airport for thirty minutes because there was such a back log of planes waiting to land. So, there went our evening in Bangkok.
Our hotel, the Swissotel le Concorde (just taken over by Raffles) was huge and very grand. We had a buffet dinner downstairs that looked better than it tasted. We decided to never again eat a buffet meal, other than breakfast, as it is almost always disappointing. There is something about food sitting over heat for a long time that takes the taste out. After a drink in the bar with some music we were in bed for our six AM wake-up call. I didn’t see much of the area that the hotel was in but it looked rather industrial but there was a huge Carrefour down the street. There is usually a little security at hotels but this is the first one I’ve ever been to where the underneath of the car, even a taxi, is checked with a mirror.
January 14th
Up early to the airport. being a Saturday morning, we didn’t need to pay for the toll road as traffic was light. As we approached the airport the fog was very thick and low on the ground leading me to wonder if we will take off on time. Sure enough, I was right. We were about an hour late, probably because of the fog. We took a train into what is called Central Market in Kuala Lumpur (I will now call it KL), then a taxi to our hotel. KL looks very clean and very modern with skyscrapers everywhere although there are colonial style buildings left here from when it was an English colony. It got its independence in 1957. we are staying at the Crown Plaza which is very nice and we have a huge corner room. It started pouring rain in the afternoon and, being on the 23rd floor, we seemed to be close to the thunder and lightening. The temperatures are very high-90’s-as is the humidity. As it stopped raining, we headed for a lively part of the city with malls everywhere. In this heat it seems a good idea as they have a/c. We found in internet cafe, had a drink and were back to the hotel and in bed early.

The flag of Malaysia resembling the American flag, I thought.

One of the Colonial buildings left from English rule.

Malaysia is famous for these towers, once the highest in the world and seen in a movie where the hero and heroine in a bank heist, were hanging from the bridge connecting the two. Most on these towers later.

The gate to the China Town there which, in my opinion, was the most interesting, real, non-western place in the city. KL is so modern and western that it doesn’t have it’s own “feel”. The Muslims are in the majority here and they don’t build the type of temples that this tourist likes to see and visit as in Thailand. I was disappointed, on the whole, in Malaysia.

January 12th
Up early and found it too cool to eat outside. Chiang Mai is at a higher elevation so it cools down at night which is very refreshing. The days are still hot but not as hot and humid as Bangkok. We booked an all day tour that started at an elephant camp. We first saw a baby elephant just a few months old when we arrived. We fed it and some others bananas. The baby had to have its banana peeled and put in its nouth but the older ones ate the banana whole. They would even take a whole bunch in their mouths then use their trunk to delicately remove the string from their mouth. We watched them perform, one paint a picture and then some bathed in the river coming back with their trunks full of water blow on the tourists. Next we boarded them, a driver in front on the neck, Maurice and I in a little seat on the back. It was fairly smooth but lots of rocking. When the elephant started downhill it felt like we were going to slide off and the driver said in falsetto, “Oh my God!”. He must hear it alot. We went up to a village where the villagers had built elephant high huts to sell thing to us. Dismounting wer were then led to bamboo rafts and floated down the river to small carts fulled by zebus which was a very rough ride with wooden wheels and no shock system. Then a pretty good light buffet lunch although most was too hot for me. The total waste of time was going to a monkey farm to watch a very short performance. I was not impressed. A short stop then at an orchid/betterfly place which we finished in ten minutes so, really, it would have been best to end with lunch.
We spent the rest of the afternoon by the pool and even slept on the loungers a little. We walked back to the area around the night market and had hamburgers at a corner cafe called le Bistro. They tasted fabulous. I’m just not into Thai food-don’t like lemon grass. We then walked down the street and found a book store as my supply is getting low and stopped at an internet cafe, then bought some t-shirts for the kids.
Traffic here is incredibly heavy and there are few stop lights. Cars and cycles just sort of pull into the line of traffic as they will. There was an interesting pedestrian crossing at the gate of the entrance into the old city which gave you 11 seconds on a clock and it counted down the time making you nervously hurry across the street before it got down to zero. The cars speed across as soon as you are out of their way.
The gates and walls which are left in sections here and there are made of brick and I wonder if they were once covered with plaster like the wats. There is a moat all around the old city limits. I think it must be fed by the nearby river which I imagine led to flooding last year.
Thailand is such a great country called the land of smiles and it certainly seems to be. The people seem kind and gentle as does their language.

The sweet little baby with his mother. I can’t tell you how many photos I took of the elephants. Everything they did was cute and incredible.

An elephant painting a flower, with some help from his trainer.

This is what the elephant ride looked like.

A little tableau by a trio.

I was warned that the elephants were going to hose us down with water so couldn’t get a good photo as I didn’t want to get my camera wet.

A brightly colored orchid from the orchid/butterfly farm.

It is hard not to take photos when you see the Louvre. The pyramid can be a shock at first as it is so modern next to the Louvre but I like it now and love photographing it.

The fountains haven’t been working for about a year. It adds alot to photos.

Chiang Mai

January 11th
After a good buffet breakfast we walked into the old city to use an internet cafe then took a tuktuk to the river for a short cruise to a “farm”. It wasn’t really a total rip off but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. It was nice to get on the water but the shore wasn’t very pretty and they had dregged the river leaving big hills of dirt in many places. This area had a huge flood last year and you could see the dirty line left-mostly on homes-where the water level had risen. Some foundations had given away and I’m sure ground floors were flooded. The farm was really just a garden with various Thai plants and some old farm implements. We got a little plate of fruit and some juice and then came back. The boat lands at an interesting wat, very old and much visited. We had a good lunch at a place callled The Good Earth. It had a beautiful garden with giant trees giving welcome shade. We ate upstairs on a veranda make of teak and had to remove our shoes to go up. We went to the night market again where I met a friend who has been to Thailand before. She does tours there with women. She showed me some of what she considers good buys there.
Yesterday we walked by an old wat and saw a sign for massages, some of which would even help heat problems and arthritis. I went in and had a massage for one hour for the equivalent of a couple of dollars. An older man did the massage and it felt really wonderful. Maurice had one later at the market for his neck and shoulders but he wasn’t that impressed with it. The area is thick with massage places and mostly girls hanging out front like prostitutes to offer their services.

This was the entry lobby of our hotel. Very luxurious but not expensive. Once we left Thailand and Malaysia, the luxury ended and the prices went up.

A rather human looking buddha.

Me getting a massage fully clothed. I was having gall bladder pain from, I think, my malaria medicine and I asked for some sort of reflexology massage but wasn’t understood. At the end of an hour, the pain was gone and I felt great.

A photo of Sacre Coeur which sits atop Montmartre overlooking Paris. This photo was taken in the summer. If I had taken it today, the skies would have been gray.

Bangkok to Chiang Mai

We flew Thai Asia Air while in Thailand which is rather like the Southwest Airlines of this country, cheaper, lots of flights and packed with people carrying hand luggage. After paying for over-weight luggage each time, we understood why. Sometimes we were charged full price for over weight bags, sometimes part, once nothing. It just depended on the people checking us in.
While waiting for our flight-which would only take an hour-I jotted down some opinions about Bangkok.
It is almost impossible to get a taxi driver to turn on the meter. Even the one from the airport wouldn’t do it, he just gave us a flat fee. By the time we realized it wasn’t on we were out of the airport. The airport is supposed to be the one place the taxi will use the meter. The driver just laughed, gave us his fee and kept going. It wasn’t alot of money, just irritating. We couldn’t get the driver to turn on the meter on the way back to the airport either. I think part of it was lack of understanding of our English. We also had to pay a small fee to use the toll road which saves at least an hour of travel time.
Many people approached us, as warned, that a temple was closed when, in fact, it wasn’t. They wanted to take us to another temple or entry, for a fee. We also passed the many hawkers when getting on the river boat selling boat tours, making you think you had to buy tickets from them but, thanks to Trip Advisor, we walked right past them down to the boat and paid there.
Hint: Wear shoes easily removed and put back on as you will have to remove them anytime you enter a temple. My socks, btw, became filthy this way. I also had to remove my hat along with the men.
Not many people spoke English except in hotels or restaurants.
There are turkish toilets in public areas, usually without any toilet paper.
There were many american places to eat such as, McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway, Dairy Queen, 7-11 and more.
Our hotel, the Chiang Mai Plaze, had that “wow!” factor when you walked in the front door into the enormous lobby with a long rug leading up to the front desk, marble everywehre, silk covered couches and chairs and Tahi archetecture everywhere. Our room was fairly large and clean with a regular bathroom. The people working there were very nice and helpful.
Maurice made an interesting remark comparing the Chinese language that we saw and heard in Hong Kong with that in Thailand. The Chinese language sounds much harsher and the writing is sharp and angular while the Thai language sounded softer and rounder and their alphabet reflected this. The hard part is that the alphabet isn’t based on Latin so there was no way to guess what a word was as I can with French.
After lunch at the hotel we walked to the old walled city section of Chiang Mai. It was much larger than I expected. There are as many Wats here as there are in the much larger Bangkok. Chiang Mai is 700 years old and they know not only the day and year it was founded by a former ruler but the time of day. There were many huge photos around of the King looking age 30, not his real age of 76. The photos often had offerings of flowers and food in front of them. Chiang Mai semmed to be the “Austin” of Thailand, very funky with a college town feel. One million people live here and it seemed like everyone of them was on the roads roaring by on motorbikes, car or in the tuktuks, small 3 wheeled open vehicles. There were internet cafes everywhere and with very low rates. In Bangkok we couldn’t get into an internet cafe at night as they were all taken by young men playing computer video type games. We enjoyed walking around the city and then by night, the famous night market was open full of any type of item you could think of. It is huge and packed with people. It turned out to have the best buys of any place we would visit in the weeks to come-wish I had known that before.

Here is Maurice entering one of the gates into the old city of Chiang Mai.

A dragon guarding one of the stairways into a temple. I imagine it is similar to gargoyles on churches, keeping out evil spirits.

The King of Thailand.

A tuktuk. There were fun to ride in and very reasonable but I wouldn’t want to be stuck in traffic in one in the heavy afternoon heat. We only took one once in the cooler morning.

I am writing this from NYC, a city I truly love. We are on the last leg of our around the world trip, tired of living out of a suitcase and ready to go home tomorrow. We are seeing a Broadway play tonight, having a last taste of New York steak and getting that last taste of the States that will have to last me until I return, probably around Thanksgiving.

I like the shadows being cast as this man walks through Place des Vosges.

A Victory Angel in the Marais.

Love this door!