So there should be no gap in our ablity to record our trip in pictures, generous parents stepped in and allowed us to replace our broken camera, a model which is no longer manufactured, with a Canon Powershot Pro S5 IS.

For the last couple of days, I've been having fun playing with some of the new features. Of course, a post about a new camera would be incomplete without pictures. So, using a feature aptly named super-macro, I photographed the face on a RM50 (in the Malay currency, a 50 bill; about $15) by placing it 0cm from the lens. No, that's not a typo, the bill is zero centimeters from the lens! (This only works because the face is transparent enough to be properly backlit with a lamp.)

But, I'm really pleased with the optics. Today on our way Islamic Arts Museum in KL, I shot this:

Tonight, we fly to Australia, and I'm sure there'll be more posts to come with pictures and also some S5 feature demonstrations.

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Before the camera quit, we did manage to take the following pictures in central Malaysia:

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What sounds better than a hot, steaming loaf of coffee bread? Last Sunday morning, we were reduced to eating coffee bread for breakfast, because our usual place that serves roti canai was closed. We had impulsively bought the bread the day before at a supermarket, and, as I munched bread that tasted like it was made from coffee grounds, I missed roti even more.

In India, Uma told us roti is a generic word for bread. A special type of roti , called parota (especially in the Indian state of Kerala), became a favorite for us. Phyllo-like dough is stretched thin, folded to form layers and slapped down on a griddle and served very hot. In Malaysia, the same food appears as roti or more accurately roti canai (pronouced: rowtee chanai). It's usually accompanied with a sauce made from potatoes, lentils and spices.

It's not only mouth watering, but the preparation can be fun to watch. I took a very brief video of one energized roti roti maker in Kangar, Malaysia:

Next I'd like to find a recipe--I can't think of a better souvenir!

Posted by David | Permalink

Since it is the holiday season, and we should all be thinking of others, I thought I'd point you to this site. It's one of the nifty "save the world without spending any of your own money" sites. This time the site is Bradt, the publisher of one of the better guidebooks, and one that we like because of their focus on conservation. Which is why you can choose from five animals to donate money to.

So, again, if you want to use your trigger finger and click to give, go here.

Happy holidays!

Posted by Leah | Permalink

With the camera on the fritz, I've been struggling to capture some of what we experience on the trip. For example, at Perlis State Park, we returned to our camp and discovered our trash scattered. And then, we spotted the culprits flaunting their opposable thumbs by leaping away through the trees. I wanted this be a clear picture of one of the gibbons:

Pretty fuzzy. Well, so you can at least hear them chatter to each other as they alternated between jumping and stopping to stare at us, I recorded this with a part of the camera in working order:
sopedestrian.com/audio/gibbons--perlis_state_park_malaysia.WAV

Posted by David | Permalink

Our camera has not aged gracefully. For years, and even as early as the beginning of the trip, it shot quickly and produced sharp images. But lately it has turned on reluctantly, making a sort of sigh noise as the lens pushes out. It has also tired of uploading pictures. It has days when it stubbornly refuses and just spends a lonely day in it's case--usually, working it's way to the bottom of the bag. It took a turn for the worse during the monsoon, here in Malaysia. When news came that many trekking trails were closed, its pictures were cloudy and had a careless quality to them. Two days ago, during a rain storm I noticed a drop of water running down from the electronic sensor. Yesterday, pictures even in full sun has a blurred quality to them. Is the camera experimenting with a Manet style? Minimalism? Abstraction? No, sadly I must face facts: the camera is bored with the trip and must be sent home. I can't change it's decision. Hopefully, it's replacement will be made of tougher stuff.

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While this is the place where I babble about films, I want to take a quick detour to discuss television. Never fear though, I'll wind my way back to films soon enough. It's quite likely, that with the exception of Leah and David, everyone is well aware of the writer's strike which has, and until resolved, will continue to affect television and film production. Which basically means we're starting to be inundated with a few mid-season replacement shows and a rather obscene number of reality and game shows. You can practically feel my excitement over this, can't you?

I've lately been hearing and reading about people's plans to deal with the lack of quality--or at least somewhat palatable shows. Most of these plans involve reading. As do mine, but I thought I would share specifics of my plan.

Continue reading "the thes/gert is named and then dies" »

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Irene recently mentioned her degree in film studies, but she neglected to tell you that she also has a masters in Moving Image Archiving and Preservation (MIAP!). But what really qualifies her to write about movies, which David and I nagged her to do for us for months, is the fact that she really, really loves movies.

When we were little, on weekend nights we would sneak upstairs into the TV room, after Mama and Papa had gone to bed, and watch old movies on AMC until the wee hours of the morning. Of course, this was back when AMC was still a good channel and actually showed classic movies, which apparently is doesn't do anymore. We watched most of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies, as well as Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn (sometimes together!), and lots of other great stars. Sometimes we were disappointed and had to sit through a boring Western until another musical, comedy or drama would come on, but usually we were lucky.

After a few years, though, I started staying up late reading and leaving Irene to watch movies by herself. Which she did, with impressive regularity. And she still does, because, did I mention this, she really loves movies ? And TV. So if you have any questions about old, new, obscure or box-office movies that you'd like answered, feel free to ask her. We always do.

UPDATE: Irene has informed me that part of the reason AMC sucks now, is that Turner bought out RKO's archive, simultaneously making Turner Classic Movies way cooler to watch, and AMC not at all.

Posted by Leah | Permalink

Reading this article in the Economist we bought for the flight to KL, I was reminded of what Martial, our guide, told us about the humpback whales that migrate up to Sainte Marie, Madagascar, to give birth. We were standing on the street in the one town on the island, telling him that we'd managed to see lots of whales while camped up on the west coast of the island. We'd been a little disturbed watching the tourist boats running around after the whales, but didn't think too much about it until Martial said that the calves have a hard time getting enough to eat. They need 600 liters of milk day, but they only nurse when their moms are still, or at least not fleeing before a horde of tourists, so as tourism increases, the calves are getting less milk than they need.

Something else to worry about.

Posted by Leah | Permalink

There's a great little snippet box in the guidebook we used for India, which is about the thriving film industry in Tamil Nadu, where, instead of the very pretty actors like those in Bollywood movies, the heroes are more realistic. And then the author of that box explains that by realistic, he means, "chubby and moustached." Which they are! It's hilarious, really, except, I imagine, if you're Tamil, since that's what the majority of the male population looks like. But since it was funny to us, I spent much of the trip giggling every time David would intone, "chubby, and moustached" after seeing someone who particularly fit the description. Naturally, David had to try his hand at the moustached bit, and this is the result:

I laughed uproariously and them immediately made him shave it off. It's just a little too icky looking. Besides, he's nowhere near chubby enough to really pull it off.

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When I saw this sign I translated it as, "No Dejected Cows!"

Anyone have an alternative?

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Picture it: A director has just informed an actor that the scene they will be shooting has the actor's character--who is, it turns out, not only mute, deaf AND blind BUT has also lost his feet and hands longing for his true love who is about to marry another. The actor, after almost giving himself whiplash with all the double takes over his character's disabilities states that he's sure the film will be a big critical hit, win tons of awards...and be a complete dud at the box office. The actor suggests putting in a song and dance number--obviously, he further explains, a fantasy sequence due to his character's above mentioned infirmities and states firmly that said number should revolve around disco.

Continue reading "pain of disco" »

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but in Malaysia they fall mainly on us.

Silly us, it turns out monsoon season is not the best time to visit southeast Asia if you want to go hiking and camping. And we did want to. But after two and a half water-logged days in Tamen Negara, we gave up. With the help of a park ranger in T.N., Mike, an Aussie restoration ecologist (how cool does that sound), and the very nice ticket seller at the train station in Jerentut, we ended up in Dabong. We were trying to go to Belum Forest, which is on the west side of the mountains and so, theoretically, protected from the northeast monsoon rains, but at this rate I don't think we'll make it. There's no public transport over the mountain range, so we ended up in Dabong on the advice of the train ticket seller because "the students go there to climb the waterfall." Unfortunately, the path is really dangerous because of the rains, so Uncle, the extremely nice mountain guide who works at the information shack, warned us not to go. Instead, because the village is so charming, we stayed for two days, just because we can. Who says you can't travel without a guidebook!

Dabong is a tiny little village that has a train line, which is how we got there, but no bus service. There's a cute little rest house with 2 or 3 rooms, all of which were filled with wedding guests, except ours, of course. There are a couple of "restaurants," although I use the word loosely, so we didn't have to worry about food. It was really quite relaxing, all things considered: there are definitely worse places to be stuck, which is good, because we were definitely stuck.

The train service was suspended most of the time we were in the village, first because a train went off the track due to the rain, which actually left us in Gua Musang, an hour south of Dabong, but that's another story. The next day, after we made it to Dabong on an early train, train service was suspended because a train hit a buffalo (poor thing!). Uncle told us that as the rains swell the rivers and they flood, the buffaloes move up to higher ground, which includes, in this case, the rail line. The following day the trains were suspended going south because of a mudslide onto the track about two hours south of Dabong. And then, Wednesday, when we decided to try to make it north, the train station master wasn't sure when they would be running. After waiting around all day, an overcrowded train showed up at 7:20 pm, and we hopped on for Tanah Merah, supposedly a two hour train ride. Since it was the first train in a few days, though, and the tracks still weren't completely clear, it took us three, but that's okay. We made it eventually. And it wasn't even raining when we got there.

Posted by Leah | Permalink

Starting before dawn on December 10th, we travelled from Gua Musang to a village of less than 300, called Dabong (don't worry: you only giggle the first few times you say this aloud.)

Grabbed a breakfast of roti from a family-run stand.

Wandered down streets, through backyards (inadvertently), and along village lanes.

Continue reading "picture a day: dabong, malaysia" »

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David does. He's managed to create terrific holes in two pairs, now. He's such a show-off!

The first hole was really quite spectacular: he was playing soccer with the kids we were tutoring in Majunga, Madagascar, tried to steal the ball from someone else, fell, and split the left knee of his pants wide open. We mailed them home because we have great hopes of me learning to sew and he really likes the cut of that particular pair of pants, so if the stars all align properly, he may get a new pair. And if not, well, pants don't weigh very much and we had to send a box home, anyway.

The second pair of pants is currently at the tailors. We think. We actually dropped it off at a clothing store we'd stopped in to ask directions to a tailors, but one of the women there seemed to know what she was doing, and after confirming we wouldn't mind if the color of the patch didn't match the color of the pants, a dull gray, she told us to come back in an hour. This tear is across the upper thigh, and David managed it by sitting down. Ha! In fairness, we were both soaking wet after walking around in the monsoon and he was starting to sit down with his pants plastered to his skin when we saw them slowly edge open just above another seam. You'd think they'd make clothes last longer than three years of hard wear, but I guess not. In the meantime, I can't wait to see what color the patch is. I'm hoping for neon fuchsia.

Posted by Leah | Permalink | Comments (1)

It should be no secret by now that I love movies--films--moving pictures--cinema--motion pictures--photoplays--whatever you prefer to call them. If I am going to see a film in the theater, I generally prefer to see more than one. I usually limit myself to two or three in one day, but I recently set a new record for myself. 5! Five films in a row. The first started at 10:50am and the last one ended around 10:10pm. I was pretty pleased with myself--and some of the motion pictures as well. Not all of them, but some.

What might be less known is that I have rules for when I watch a moving picture in the theater. These often have to be amended when I watch with a friend or family member, but I tend to stick to them fairly consistently when watching talking pictures alone.

Continue reading "rules to watch by" »

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"But I'm not going to Uzbekistan," I said, in Delhi's international airport as a woman from airport security handed me the wrong carry-on luggage tag.

She shrugged and told me it didn't matter.

And it didn't matter. The airport was so chaotic, so poorly designed and so incompetently staffed that nobody cared. I slept for all but a few minutes of the flight and woke in Malaysia--thankful for many things, but in particular that I had my carry-on bag.

The city of Kuala Lumpur, KL, is big, modern and Western. Traffic is orderly, confined to lanes and almost never honks. People are cosmopolitan, polite and helpful. The city mixes Malay, Indian and Chinese cultures, and is chockful of American chain stores. While nominally Muslim, the massive shopping malls have the biggest Christmas trees I've ever seen. In the local language, Malay, Kuala Lumpur literally means "muddy confluence".

The last several days have been in this mix. We've toured the city: to the tallest building in the world, the twin towers of Petronas; to the biggest aquarium in the world; to the largest walk-in free-flight aviary in world, to a massive butterfly park; to huge shopping malls; to big bookstores; to restaurants; and so on. And, we took pictures:

KL

Restlessly, we are now off to the Tamen Negara, which yes, means "national park" in Malay. After not hiking or camping for two months, we're going to soak ourselves in both over the next two weeks. And since it's the season for the northeast monsoon, soak may be the appropriate word. Or maybe, the word should be muddy.

Posted by David | Permalink

We were wandering around the KL convention center food court after oohing at the sharks, fishes and what-not in the aquarium, when we came across a Starbucks. Seeing one wasn't too surprising (they really are everywhere), but I noticed on their specials board they were touting holidays drinks and I turned to tell David that I thought it was hilarious they were so out of touch with their local establishments as to try to sell winter holiday drinks in July. But just as I was opening my mouth I realized it is not, in fact, the middle of summer.

It's so warm here (and humid), and traveling leaves me feeling so out of touch with any sort of everyday life, that I've lost all sense of time outside how long it takes us to get from one place to another. Even after the Starbucks incident, I was surprised to see an enormous white christmas tree standing in the center court of the very fancy, very large mall we stumbled across yesterday.

And for all the wrong reasons: I should be surprised by the tree because Malaysia is predominantly Muslim.

Posted by Leah | Permalink