Cambodia And Malaysia: Bits And Bobs

I’m thinking about a lot of stuff lately—well, Egypt, obviously, and #dearjohn, and this huge hurricane in Queensland, and all sorts of other things happening in my friend groups in all hemispheres everywhere. I just signed up for a circus class and I’m going to be a maid of honour for the sixth time in like six weeks AND ALSO my mom is coming to visit for our birthdays in March and I have to get this house ready for winter and speaking of, it’s supposed to be summer right now in Wellington BUT NO, although I guess I shouldn’t complain when all of North America, according to my Facebook feed, is under like eight feet of snow.

I am thinking about all these things, but I am not writing about any of these things, because I feel, perversely, that I have to get the rest of these trip pictures up. There’s a reason you’re supposed to get your holiday snaps up within a week of coming home, you see, and that’s because when it’s been like a month and you’re back at work and you need to make some Louise cake for a party tomorrow and the power company just upped your rates and you’re trying to figure out if you can make it to Australia this year, the idea of having nothing to do that fight with Air Asia about your flight to Kota Kinabalu seems only a dim memory. Which is why you put them online in the first place, so you can remember what you looked like before you got this weird short haircut that makes you look like the lead singer in a third-rate New Wave cover band. But…onward! (Or backwards, I guess, and THEN we can go onward. In time, I mean, or more like in the story of my life that I’m telling in real time, sort of. Is anyone even reading this anymore? Well whatever, let’s look—in no particular order–at pictures that didn’t fit anywhere else).

Here’s this funny European bakery (Kat’s favourite, because they sell wholewheat bread) on the way to Kep. We ate lunch there once and got several loaves of bread and these funny gingery cookies that were perfect with iced coffee. Also this is where I learned the Khmer word for ‘cat’ (pronounced, near as I can figure, ‘ch-mat’) because there were several very friendly ones that insisted on climbing up into the wheel wells of Kat’s car when we wanted to leave.

The cover of one of the magazines I flipped through at the salon in Phnom Penh where we got our hair washed and I bought this silicone-based hair product that has resulted in some pretty exciting ringlets in my new uber-short hair cut.

This is a very blurry shot of my legs and Ed’s legs, as we dangle them into a ground-level aquarium and allow flesh-eating fish to nibble away at the dead skin on our feet. It was totally gross—seriously, germophobes, this is not for you—but also totally awesome and we thought it would be awesome to bring such a franchise to Wellington. Bonus—you don’t have to buy fish food!

At the train station on my way to the airport. In Wellington, I either have to take a cab to the airport or the one single (expensive) bus that goes there—and let’s not even discuss what getting to the airport is like in Miami or even Seattle. In Kuala Lumpur, you take the LRT to the KL Sentral Station, and then you go to the special high-speed airport train that deposits you literally within the terminal, right after you check your bags for the plane at the train station. Can you believe it? I couldn’t believe it! It was so convenient and cheap—almost as if Malaysia had invested seriously in a public transport system. I was agog, I tell you what.

Here’s Ed and I lounging about in Malay housewear. The batik I’m wearing was a gift from Ed’s grandmother; you can imagine how honoured I was to receive it. Ed’s auntie showed me how to wrap it and I topped it off with one of her oversize t-shirts.

Slightly better view of the batik. I put it on backwards and upside down (at the same time) at first.

Here is my amazing Khmer nail art, thanks to a nail salon Kat frequents that a) has a bakery downstairs and b) provides vocational training to former sex trafficking victims. I always have my toes painted but usually don’t do the little ones since my pinkie toes are sort of warped and weird and not really there at all, but the girl doing my nails was like, “Are you SURE?” This was also a good opportunity for me to try to learn to count to five in Khmer again, with limited success. (I can remember every number but four, for some reason).

Rather blurry shot of a “No Smoking Please” sign one of Ed’s cousins made in the KL house.

And–slightly different feel–a sign at my hotel in Siem Reap.

Here are some bikes along the coast at Kep.

And here Ed picks up a toothbrush at Carrefour, which reminded me a lot of Target in the US and of the Warehouse in New Zealand.

Chinese New Year’s sale!

Here is an example of written bahasa Malaysia, from the dive site off Kota Kinabalu. When we were in Melaka I amused Ed (right?) with reading aloud informational placards in Malay. He was kind enough to say I had a decent accent—and I tell you what, you know what’s really useful to learn, in terms of languages and pronouncing things? (At least in this part of the world?) Italian. That’s right—the vowels and the rolled R are the same in te reo Maori and in Samoan and Tongan and pretty similar in Malay as well. Grazie mille, Italiano!

On the ceiling of my room in the backpackers’ in Kota Kinabalu. The arrow indicates which way to face Mecca for Muslim prayers.

KL graffiti.

This from the butterfly garden in Kuala Lumpur, where I went after visiting the national mosque and the Islamic arts centre. After you wandered around looking at the butterflies and whatnot, you had to exit through this room that was full of live and dead insects, most of which were HUGE, like these stick insects seriously the length of my arm and this humungous gigantor katydids. Anyway there were some more informational placards, and you know how I love informational placards.

Fashion show in a row!

The hotel soap in Siem Reap.

And, finally, finally, coming home to Wellington.