Kota Kinabalu + Kuching, Malaysia

After snorkeling in Haiti, I "resolved" to try to squeeze scuba into an upcoming trip and I was able to make it happen in Malaysia. I read somewhere online that Kota Kinabalu ("KK") wasn't the most amazing diving in Malysia, but had a good reputation for beginner diving. KK is on the same island as a research symposium that I attended in August, so I checked with a few diving schools there for availability, then enrolled in and completed the PADI eLearning  Open Water Diver course before I flew to Malaysia, so I could get the theoretical stuff out of the way and spend my time there in the water and not in a classroom. The eLearning took a bit longer than expected and contributed to some time-stress in preparing for three weeks away from home. The eLearning was very thorough and made me think about physics/engineering stuff I had not thought about since undergrad. There is so much going on with fluids and pressures. When one dives, in addition to the tank of air that people associate with scubaers, one also wears a vest that is connected to the air tank and a belt with weights. You add air to the vest when you want to float (when you get to the surface, you inflate it all the way and you can float) and release it when you want to sink, but it gets more complicated - as you go deeper, the pressure of the water on the vest compresses the air further, so it provides less buoyancy, so you also have to add air as you go deeper.  So maintaining  a constant position under water was somewhat difficult to get the hang of - to make things even more complicated, the amount of air in your lungs also affects your position, so breathing can also be used to manage where you are.

Weight belt. I usually started with 3kg, but
sometimes the instructor had to add more.
(as I lost weight from compressed air)

Flippers, air-vest (real name: buoyancy control
device -BCD), tank, and regulator.

The instruction from Sucba Junkie KK was great! The lessons were fun and safety was always clear. I only forgot to breathe once... One of the exercises involves swimming without a mask and with contacts in that meant my eyes were closed. It was such a strange sensation, I freaked out for a few seconds, but quickly remembered that not breathing was very dangerous, inhaled and continued the guided blind swim. After two days, I completed all the exercises and despite low visibility, saw lots of cool animals on the dives: a lionfish, some clownfish (Nemo), some itty-biddy crabs... I don't have my log book with me right now, so I cannot give you a full list. On the last dive of the course, we saw an enchanting sea turtle. She was hanging out around the corner of some coral and then after a minute or so, gracefully swam by our group. I think my favorite are the nudibranchs, which I can only describe as fierce (in the fashion sense) sea slugs:

Google Image Search for nudibrach. Such variety! 

After the course, I paid for an extra day of "fun diving" to get some more practice - I initially left this gap day in the the schedule in case weather prevented me from doing the course in two days or so I had the opportunity to try out some of the other action sports in the area (white water rafting, trekking...).

On the dive boat off the coast of an national park island rain forest. 

I had planned to work in the evenings after diving (my presentation was not finished), but I pretty much fell asleep straight away. The first night I was asleep before I even took a shower. Luckily I woke up just in time to grab some food from a nearby convenience store before it closed. 

I did not see much of KK, although I don't know how much there is to see. I think it is like a port,, but touristically/culturally it is more of a gateway to Mt Kinabalu (on the Sabah state flag below) and rain forest activities. I was able to go through the fish market and sample a range of sweets from the night market.

Sabah Flag

Direction and distance to nearest public toilet on the main drag in KK.

Local dish: Bakso or meatballs. Super tasty and I love how nicely everything was arranged in the bowl

Coconut coated, green ball with some sort of fruit filling. Not the best.

Pancake with peanuts - nice!

Cupcake made with Sprite.

The next morning I worked from the hostel, since the airport bus stopped across the street and the wifi was pretty good. At the airport I searching in vain for stamps to mail some postcards that I had written (If you want one from an upcoming trip, email/message/carrier pigeon me your address!!!), but had to settle for some ice cream style dessert instead.

Yam flavored coconut milk "soft desert." Different from then Yam Ice cream G-ma and I made once, but quite yummy.

I flew AirAsia, a Malaysian low-cost airline, sort of similar to easyJet, to Kuching. The basic ticket would have been less than $25, but since I needed to check a bag I opted for their PremiumFlex ticket, which was still under fifty, but included a meal, seat reservation (with more leg room), separate check-in counter, and the freedom to change the ticket until two hours before the flight, if needed.

My meal choice was Vegetarian Chicken with Fried Ginger Rice, which I selected mostly because I wanted to see what vegetarian chicken was. turns out it is like a sheet of soy rolled into the shape of a chicken breast. It was actually really good.

Upon arrival in Kuching, I checked into my fancy hotel. My room looked like it had been decorated by Aunt Beth and there was a yoga mat and weights in the closet. I checked out the gym and pool situation, to gauge if they were worth using. The gym had some nice equipment, but I never made it back - no surprise. I wouldn't meet any conference folks until the next say so I went to the riverfront to get some food. I had bakso again, as the Sarawak Laksa (what Anthony Bourdain eats when he is in town) was finished for the day, accompanied by this Air Bandung lychee:

Rose syrup and fruit with (condensed?) milk

I saw several stands that make these fancy juice+fruit cocktails, which I assume exist in place of bars, since as a predominately Muslim country, there are few bars. I saw even saw them putting canned, possibly creamed, corn into one of the drinks!

Now we get to the real reason I came to Malaysia: a Service Research Research Symposium,, where I presented on sanitation services in low-income countries. I received some good feedback about different theoretical lenses I could use to examine my extensive data set and was able to see what other researchers are up to.

The conference concluded with a cultural dinner with dances and songs from all of the tribes in Sarawak. All of the Malaysians at my table were very helpful with explaining the Chinese style food - there were eight courses (because 8 is lucky), one of which was fish head soup!

Finally able to track down some Laksa Sarawak, albeit at the breakfast buffet of my five star hotel.

"preloved clothing from the USA" in the mall that was attached to my hotel

Haiti

I was in Haiti in April to help run an innovation workshop for a sanitation NGO and look at their operations in two Haitian cities. To learn more you will just have to wait for my dissertation to come out in a few years.

Post-its and ideas galore!

Poop-compost with an ocean view.
To get to this site, we drove through the city dump - basically a DREAM COME TRUE!
(not the way the dump worked, but seeing it first hand)

They are doing some experiments to determine what sort of benefits
come from using their soil additive. 

After all that intense learning and research, there was time for a day at the beach. A thirty minute moto ride from the city where I was staying + another 20 on a boat landed my friends and I on a picturesque beach. As we approached the shore, several fishermen paddled up in kayaks with their catch, which we could then have cooked on the beach. My friends had been there before several times and knew one of the cooks, so they had him negotiate with the fishermen for us. There was time for relaxing on the shore, volleyball, and  snorkeling. I saw coral and so many fish! I had sort of given up on finding a time to go scuba diving, but now I am resolved to make it happen.

Type of boat that took us the last stretch.

Yum :)

My list of sea-life that I saw. I will try to match up the descriptions to images later.
(My google search for "fish that look like pickles" yielded no useful results.)

The beach itself was kind of strange. For the past few years, Haiti has been added as a stop on one of the big cruise lines (rumor has it that they just tell passengers that they are going to Hispaniola Island). Basically the passengers have to stay in an enclosed area with a water slide, zip-line, jet skis and inflatables, but can pay extra to be taken to the nice beach where we hung out. They let non-cruise people go there on days when there is no cruise ship.

You an see the the huge water slide in the cruise stop area.

With a productive workshop, interesting field visits, and a surreal beach experience under my belt, I flew back to the US for some quality family time.

Window seat!

Vietnam

My time in Vietnam was split between work and play. I was able to spend time in Hanoi, Hai Phong, and Ninh Binh province. I was there for the third international fecal sludge management conference. You might chuckle, but there were over 500 participants! Sanitation is becoming a hot topic - we even have our own Sesame Street character!

I got a lot out of the conference because it is mostly focused on what happens after you use the toilet, whereas the other conferences I have been to concentrate on water and getting people to use toilets with little attention paid to what happens next. Don't get me wrong: getting a toilet built and actually used is difficult, but the whole sanitation chain must be considered. This is one of my fears concerning India's 100+ million toilet goal.

You probably aren't here to read my opinions on poo policy, so here are some glimpses into the rest of my time in Vietnam (more photos here):

Luckily, someone on sabbatical at work has lived in Vietnam, so he took us to a great restaurant and ordered up a feast that included morning glory (garlicky "water spinach"), fried tofu, salad, some buns, plus seafood hotpot and:

... fermented sausage (wrapped in like a banana leaf or something).

Before the conference I went to the Ho Chi Minh museum. This photo is from the part where it is supposed to be like you are walking through his brain. Admittedly, I didn't know much about this part of history or the world so it was difficult to know what to trust. There was one really trippy part where a video was shown in which the Challenger explosion morphs into a nuclear mushroom cloud.

nice mosaic-y lotus fountain

Super coffee drinks. This one is iced condensed milk and coconut milk with coffee on top.

After the official conference was over, there was a day of workshops. During the session on resource recovery I was pretty much convinced that worm farming is the future. Luckily, I should be writing a case study on a growing worm concern later this year. The following day was for field trips. I went to a sewage composting plant in Hai Phong.  

You should have seen  those sanitation researchers sprint to check out this vacuum truck.
It is my understanding that the sludge stays in these stabilization ponds before it is moved to windrows for composting.

After the field trip, I headed to Tam Coc province with a co-worker. This is an area about two hours away from Hanoi that is known for some cool rock formations.  

We took the train

first class or "soft seats" there were also TVs and a ticket checker, who fell asleep and snored incredibly the whole trip.

Vietnamese-style coffee. The silver disc acts as a filter. Vietnam produces quite a bit of coffee, but it is used mostly to make instant coffee. I really enjoyed the vanilla aroma of the coffee. I brought some beans and two of these filter contraptions back to Switzerland and am looking forward to trying them out.

The thing most people do when they come to this area is the three caves boat trip. Basically, water flows under some of the rock formations and you can have someone from the boat-guide association row you to all of them. Our guide rowed most of the way with her feet.

I'm usually really good with boats. This one was near impossible to steer or propel.
It took some convincing for her to let me try with the real oars. There were some token paddle for the tourists, but they were flimsy tin attached to about two feet of wood. 

 I think the boat trip went on for a bit too long. It was pretty far and you can really just sit there enjoying the scenery and making awkward faces at the other tourists who are on their way back. One cave probably would have been enough, but the most impressive one was the last one. The hotel had free loaner bikes, so we explored the area for the rest of the afternoon. They were very helpful and provided a map with some points of interest.  It was so nice to be back on a bike (freedom!) and out of the hectic city. I got the hang of it eventually, but crossing the street in Hanoi usually felt like a bit of a gamble. Plus the air quality in town is rather poor.

That is a goat on an almost vertical rock face. I bought a similar (okay much clearer) postcard at the natural history museum in London a few years back when pops and I were there for soccer watching

Click the above photo for a 360+ degree view.

The karst landscape almost masks the encroaching industry. 

The next day, we went to Cuc Phuong National Park, which is a rain forest. The park opened during the war and was so important to Ho Chi Min that he took time away from leading the army to attend the ribbon cutting.  You can get a sense of what it was like to be in the forest here.

The trash receptacles were carefully molded/sculpted to look like stumps. 

Conservation sign. I did not see any tigers or monkeys.

This was pretty much the only wildlife I saw. There were lots of bird noises.

The park is know for its allegedly 1000 year old tree, but this other (younger) tree was much more interesting. 

The park also has a turtle and primate rehabilitation centers, which I did not visit, because I was fairly certain it would just make me sad. I did go by the gift shop of the monkey center, because all the others were closed and it actually seemed pretty legit. The next day there was time for a smidge more sightseeing before heading back to the city. 

So hip.

Obligatory Southeast Asia rice paddy photo. For a photosphere that includes a boatload of stairs that lead to some sort of temple click here.

The best fried tofu of the trip. So fluffy. With a nice, slightly grainy, chili sauce for dipping and surprise herbs/leaves.  

On the way back we rode second class or "hard seats"

The second class windows were just grates, not glass.

Once back in Hanoi I stayed at a hotel with ants and spent my last day at the Hoa Lo prison and catching up on work while drinking more of those delicious coffee concoctions - one even had rice in it, before flying to the Philippines.

In the international departures terminal in Hanoi-
Watch out capitalism is on its way!