Great Hikes

Some of you have heard me mention the ‘drinking club with a running problem’ that we sometimes run with over here. The concept started with some expats working overseas who found themselves drinking too much beer and not exercizing enough so they formed a running club. Basically, a chosen member of the club goes out before the run and sets the trail by putting paper markers through the jungle, or where ever the run is that day. Then the rest of the group comes and follows the trail, usually getting lost several times. The runs are not that easy, they usually go over very rough terrain and take over an hour to complete. It is a good way to stay in shape and also to meet people when working overseas.
The name ‘Hash House Harriers’ comes from the pub where the concept first started I guess, but it has nothing to do with what most Americans think of when they hear the word ‘hash’. This refers to some sort of English food I think.
Anyway, here are some photos from a run and the socializing afterwards.

Going through the jungle.

Good view.

Goofing around.

I forgot to put up pictures from our trip to Malacca, where we got a personalized tour of the restored Chinese temple by Josephine, resident expert and cousin to Yuen Ching. Here are the photos from that trip.

Gary, Yuen Ching, and Dave at the Malacca temple.

Dave, me, and Gary.

Josephine, her son, and Yuen Ching.

Last Tuesday was a holiday here in Malaysia so we took Monday off and made it a four day weekend. We rented a car and drove north to an island called Penang where we spent a couple days relaxing beach/poolside and a couple days touring around town visiting historical sites and temples.
Here are some pictures from there.

Cool statue at a temple in Penang.

Nice relaxing beach.

Another cool temple.

The view from the hill.

Although we’d already been to Singapore since we’ve been here in KL we suddenly realized that Dave’s tourist visa would be expiring in a few days so we had to leave the country and re-enter! After looking on the internet for cheap last minute airfare and not finding anything we decided to take the bus to Singapore again. It’s not bad, it’s a 5 hour ride but the bus is nice, they feed you and play movies so it’s a pleasant ride. Here are some more photos from Singapore.
Other than that we havn’t done much interesting lately but need to start taking more weekend trips, we have only 5 weekends left in Malaysia! We are counting the days!

I think the spitting lion is so cool!

Mt. Kinabalu is the highest mountain in Malaysia, the highest in Borneo and claims to be the highest in Southeast Asia, although this depends on if you consider Myanmar part of SE Asia (I’m not sure why you wouldn’t).
The view is beautiful from the top, you can see all the way to the ocean and beyond on a clear day. The hike is usually planned so you arrive at the summit just at sunrise for really spectacular views.
It’s not that hard of a hike if you look at the statistics. You’ve got 2 days to do 20 kilometers and the elevation is just over 13,000 feet. Not too bad. The problem is, the entire trail is like a staircase. Going up we did great, made good time. Coming down, I was in a world of trouble with my knees. I’m sure it would have been OK if I had trained for it, I should have been spending 2 hours a day on the stair climber. As it was, my legs a pretty much ceased to function properly by the time we got to the bottom.

A view of the mountain peeking out from behind the clouds, taken near the trail head.

The sun is just starting to come up over a formation known as ‘donkey’s ears’.

Here we are at the summit. At that elevation, it can be chilly even here.

The view down the moutain into the valley.

We visited the orangutan rehabilitation center at Sepilok. Basically, oragnutans that are orphaned or injured end up here and are cared for and gradually re-introduced into the wild. They have a ‘feeding time’ twice a day where orangutans that have been released can come and supplement the food they find in the wild with bananas and milk. Mostly the young orangutans return, as they get older they don’t like the human contact so much and are finding plenty of food in the wild.

These are pretty big for Sepilok, they are probably teenagers.

Just hanging around.

We stayed at this cool ‘junge resort’ near Sepilok. The plants are just amazing.

Our holiday in Sabah was fantastic! Sipidan Island was all we had heard it would be. As far as big animals, half the group saw hammerhead sharks, half the group saw a manta ray, it just depended which way you were looking. I happened to see the hammerheads while Dave saw the manta!
The small stuff was really cool as well and the drop-off at Sipidan is amazing. The water depth goes from about 3 feet to probably 999 feet immediately. Absolutely incredible.

The village we stayed in a house on Mabul Island, about 20 minutes by boat from Sipidan.

A friendly local.

Sipidan Island at sunset.

Nemo!

Some men fishing around Mabul Island. They call these people ‘sea gypies’. I guess they spend most of their lives living on the boats you see in the background and take the smaller boats out fishing. They go from island to island, whole families living on each boats.

Ok, I warned you guys that this is a different kind of festival. Western minds just do not understand it at all, and I’ll try and explain but I’m sure many people will come away shaking their heads. I’m still shaking mine, and I was there.
I had previously said the Tamil Hindus do this as a form of pennance, but that is not really true. This is thanksgiving for prayers answered, or in hope that future favors will be granted. Now, not everyone who participates pierce themselves or carries a kavadi. Many simply carry an offering of milk or flowers but some get quite extreme. The newspaper here even billed Thaipusam as ‘the world’s most extreme Thanksgiving’. The devotees are making offerings to Lord Murugan who is the son of Shiva.
Two more points I guess I’ll make about the festival and then get to posting some pictures. First, the people participating in these rituals are not from a remote tribe in the hinterlands. These people are engineers, doctors, lawyers, and students. Yes, students. Many young people participate and many are giving thanks for good grades and getting into a good university!
The second point is that the kavadi bearers are said not to experience pain during this as they are in a kind of religous trance. This is true, they definitely appeared to be in a trace but I did see some scars that I assume were from previous years.
Oh, a third note on Thaipusam: I read that it is celebrated mainly by Tamil Hindus outside of India. In fact, the celebration at Batu caves is the biggest of it’s kind with over a million devotees and curious onlookers. I don’t know why it is not celebrated as much by Hindus in India.

Here are the throngs of devotees headed up the steps into Batu Caves. We got caught in the crowd and and went up also, once you are in the throng you can’t get out.

Here is one of the elaborate kavadis. You can’t see the guy carrying this one but you can imagine how heavy they are.

Pretty crowded at the bottom of the stairs. This is not a place for people who have a fear of crowds and being trampled.

This is one of the kavadi carriers. Quite an elaborate burden.

Now for the mortification of the flesh photos. If you are interested in seeing people with hooks in their bodies click and check ’em out.
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