Malang, Indonesia

While editing some of my interviews today at the office, I noticed that the photos I was adding were from "more than 7 weeks ago," which makes me wonder where the time has gone and feel a bit of guilt. (I wrote that before my recent two week trip to the US, so let's just round up to more than two months) After my conference in Kuching and stopover in Kuala Lumpur, I traveled to Malang, East Java to conduct a series of interviews with people involved with a vermicomposting network, which will be part of a larger series of case studies on "waste" recovery. It was a busy few days filled with culinary adventures.

First things first: there is krispy kreme in the Jakarta airport.

A taste of home, but with innovative varieties, like peanut butter and jelly!

My time in Malang was scheduled to the brim by my two student assistants from a local university, Dwi and Hana. They did a great job with the pre-interviews and tracking down people without addresses.

They wear Letterman-style jackets from their "Agritech Research and Study Club" and are currently in Japan on a research exchange.

I asked them to act like badass biker chicks next to their motos.

One of the many worm-growing groups who were gracious enough to talk to us about their experiences.

Such healthy worms. Perfect for turning into:

Food for baby shrimp,

Vitality Capsules,

Sports drinks (CHEERS!) and much more!

I was offered worms 4 times. I consumed them twice (sports drink and honey elixir), passed once (worm covered ginger), and brought one back to Switzerland (the capsules) for my friends to try. Two months of sitting on my desk and I have not had any takers, yet. 

Aside from the worms, I ate well. In addition to a stop at KFC in Anto's honor (an Indonesian friend from my master's program who introduced me to Indonesians' love for fried chicken and rice), I enjoyed bakso and other stews (kept and served hot).

A little hard to tell, but I love the presentation.

Also, I ate BRAINS at a Maskan Padang. So smooth!

Roti is basically an Indonesian (?) doughnut (baked, not fried). So good. On at least one occasion I just ate these for dinner after a long day in the field.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Most of the time I was flying to Kuala Lumpur from Kuching and walking around the city I had the song "Kuala Lumpur" by the North Carolina based band Bombadil stuck in my head. If you want to catch an earworm or have a more authentic representation of my experience on peninsular Malaysia, CLICK HERE, but be warned, the first five seconds of the video are not part of the song and a little vulgar (the link is cued up to start six seconds in).

I was not planning on spending time in KL, but in order to get from Kuching, Malaysia (where I had a conference) to Malang, Indonesia (where I was doing a field study for work), I needed to change planes in Kuala Lumpur and in Jakarta. Most of the connections I found had me spending very short nights in one of the airports - flight landing at 11 PM and then taking off the next morning at 8 or something similar. The office would of course pay for a hotel, but this didn't sound like much fun, so I decided to pick one of the capitals to spend more time in by creating a longer layover. Jakarta is notorious for its traffic, so I chose to spend an afternoon and night in KL - flying from Kuching in the morning (AirAsia, meal:Pak Nasser's Nasi Lemak - yummy, but I was thrown a bit by the fried anchovies), exploring a bit, and on the following morning flying to Jakarta and on to Malang (Air Garuda).

I love bathroom instruction signs. People take for garnted that toilet usage is obvious.

For less than the price of the airport hotel, I was able to by transit tickets to and around the city and book a night at the Tune Hotel - Downtown KL. Tune Hotels are run by the same guy who runs AirAsia, a low-cost airline. I was curious about how the hotel would be - can you imagine if RyanAir branched out into the hospitality industry? For twelve euros I got a small single hotel room with a bathroom, but had to purchase air conditioning and WiFi separately in twelve hour bundles (also towels, TV, breakfast, and soap/shampoo, which I didn't need).The hotel itself was quite chic, with a chain coffee shop, 7/11, and some meeting rooms on the first floor. 

The room had very little furniture - just the bed, a bedside table,
this fold-down  shelf under the TV and some hangers - no wardrobe.

After dropping my bag, I went to the train station to catch the commuter rail to the Batu Caves, which is a series of limestone caves north of KL, some of which have Hindu temples inside. Its most recognizable features are the 140 foot tall statue of Murugan, the Hindu god of war, and the over 270 steps that lead up to the entrance to the caves. I think we can all agree that my selfie game has improved since Singapore.

So many steps. There were Chinese tourist ladies climbing in high-heeled sandals!

At the top!

What the entrance looks like (partially)

I actually climbed twice. When I travel, I try to get snow domes from the capital cities that I visit. NOTE: Not snow globes! These are sort of half circles (not spheres) and usually plastic. This is a question of aesthetics, fun (they often have movable parts!), transportability, tradition, no music, and spending a lot of time on "the search." Well, there was a stand at the top that had a pretty cool one with the golden statue in it, but it was one of the pen holder ones, which have never made sense to me - why have an object that is begging to be shook, as the vessel for other objects. Thinking that there would be others at the stores at the bottom for less money, I passed on it.  I was wrong. The downhill stores had globes that lit up, were made of glass,were more expensive, and did not have the Batu Caves, in favor of having the Petronas towers, which I knew I probably would not visit. So, I climbed back up! Good thing too, because I went to go see what the deal was with a side cave that had guided tours and got this great view:

View from entrance to the Dark Cave. Not the clearest of days, but you can make out the Petronas Twin Towers (to the left of the long, leafless twig) and the KL Tower (between that twig and the lone, dangling leaf).

This is a neighboring green shrine to Hanuman, a Hindu deity (in the form of a monkey?) who is revered for his strength.
Check out those quads! 

I sprung for the iced (read: from the refrigerator) coconut as a reward for climbing all those stairs (extra 20 cents). 

I sat in the ladies' carriage on the train.
 Women. Women with children. No couples. No men.

I spent the rest of the afternoon ambling through the city. Trying to navigate by sight to the KL Tower, I found some cool street art:

 KL Tower was pretty cool and I am glad that I paid extra to go to the open upper deck, it was much less crowded than the observation deck and not glassed in, so the photos could be much better. I just wish I had a tripod with me. As I am writing this, I only have access to the images from my phone, but I took some nice panoramas with my "real camera"

KL Tower from the hill that it is on after my visit, BLING! one of the ceilings in the elevator waiting area, view of the Petronas towers from the Open Deck.

I found my hotel from the KL Tower by following the monorail line.
It is the short building with the red lights, just after the curve in the brown line. 

My durian popsicle and the skyline. Oddly smelling, but surprisingly good. 

My flight was kind of early - I had to take a taxi to the train station in order to catch the airport express, because the monorail was not running yet, but I made my flight with plenty of time to spare. I was a little worried about changing planes in Jakarta, so quickly, but it worked out fine, with time to enjoy some american style doughnuts while I waited:

Doughnuts = Da bomb! Coffee = Nescafe :( 

Singapore, Singapore (long layover on the way to Malaysia)

I flew Singapore Airlines to Malaysia and had a nine hour layover in Singapore. In addition to having extensive comfort and shopping options in the airport, they have different city bus tours that you can take for free, if you have a long enough layover. After the twelve hour flight, which arrived at 6 AM, I signed up for the tour at a desk directly outside of my gate, grabbed a doughnut and a coffee, and met up with other tour-goers about an hour late to go through customs and get on the bus.

I happened to be there on the extra day off that most people were granted because it was the celebration of Singapore's 50th anniversary. Nevertheless, the tour guide was cheerful and  full of good facts about how Singapore is a wonderful multi-cultural place to visit or live ("Please come back and stay for longer than the bus tour").

Part of the skyline from the highway into the city.

The tour had two stops, but I would split it into three parts. The drive to the city, when we learned about the history of Singapore, the high proportion of public housing (85%), the dense public transit system, and where to get a good meal "very cheap". Almost every balcony of all of the high apartment buildings that we passed was sporting a Singaporean flag.

After passing by some colonial buildings and the Formula 1 track, we stopped near the financial district to look at the Merlion - a creature that has the body of a fish and the head of a lion. It symbolizes the city's origins as a fishing village and the roots of its name, which comes from "lion city" (someone probably got confused with a tiger, according to the tour guide).

Of course I joined in with the selfie-frenzy, with pretty poor results.  

On the way to the next stop w passed some buildings that evidenced the diversity in the city: 

"We even have the Jews!" - tour-guide

Not the best shot of a Hindu temple, but check out the color and detail + the national symbols celebrating the birthday.

 The next stop was near a big mosque, in an area full of adorable cafes like these, which were mostly closed:  

Has a nutella sea salt tart

Even a Swedish one 

Rich and Good Cake Shop. This building style is called a shophouse
because there is a shop on the bottom floor that people live above. 

Beancurd City! Actually not in that exact area, but we
passed it on the way and I love the name, colors, and mascot.

Recreation opportunities for all ages:

Fun exercise options for seniors!

 And reminders of the birthday everywhere: 

I didn't really have may expectations about the city, but was so surprised at how many massive buildings there were. The tour did a great job of selling the city as a livable/workable space, although I do not think it would be that interesting as a vacation destination.

Burkina Faso

I was just in Burkina Faso for work. I took my pink messenger bag that I used the last time I was in the country seven years ago (before this blog)!

Two weeks of clothes, field gear and (of course) cleats (for a tournament I went to straight from the airport when I got back to Europe).

We spent a few days in Ouagadougo meeting with government and international development actors and stakeholders. There were also other folks from the institute (past and present) around town, which was neat. Then the team headed to a town a few hours away from the capital, which is known for being the place that the buses stop between Burkina's two largest cities. We used it as a base for accessing the other towns and villages that are part of the project.

Checking out a brand new, never been used, ventilated double pit latrine.

I have over 600 photos from the trip - mostly of toilets and their buildings, but also of residences, water and waste systems, interviews, and workshops. I'll spare you the bulk of them. This was a challenging, but rewarding trip (+ no one I was with got malaria this time!): everything was in French, and it was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit every day, but I think we got solid data and a great grasp of the project elements we were studying.

One of the interviews was with the proprietor of a dolo (millet beer) home-brewery/bar. I didn't see any bottles of StarSan, but the women did comment that things were much cleaner since they had a sink basin installed through the program we were evaluating. 

There was no official work on Sunday, so my colleague and I tried to take advantage of the nearby Deux Bales National Park. With hopes of  catching a glimpse of elephants or hippos, we set off after lunch to meet our guide. We did spot some illegal cattle, some flowers, a few birds, lots of termite mounds and something very large in the antelope family running away.

An elephant had been there in the recent past - the guide guessed the day before we were there.

Cool trashcan. The bin is hinged, so the waste can be easily tipped out, but can be covered from rain and some vectors. These were fairly common in the town, but had JICA logos on them. The waste was collected by donkey driven carts, but unfortunately I could not get a photo - I did take a video of what might have been a transfer station, but have not gone through the movies yet.

The coolest paint job of the houses we visited.

A newly built EcoSan toilet. You squat with your rear over the big hole, peeing into the center hexagon, which drains through a hole in one of the corners. This allows the liquids and "solids" to be separated - meaning less smell, theoretically easier hygieneization, and the potential for nutrient recovery.

CLT+AVL, USA

Since I was in the proper earth-quadrant, I passed through North Carolina. Good thing I had this detour planned, because my parents are moving out of their house where quite a bit of my stuff has been living. I got rid of a lot of stuff, but can not bring everything to Europe with me. (Thanks for the continual storage space, folks!) I spent some time in the mountains fly fishing with my dad, then we headed to Charlotte for a few days of cleaning and hanging out with the whole family - the little sister was also in town. I was also fortunate enough to see my Grandma and an Aunt and Uncle - I didn't have time to make it to Raleigh, but will *knock on wood* be there in Autumn.

Asheville might be known for its beer, but the food that comes with it is pretty dope!

mole-mint lamb meatballs with cucumbers

Honestly, I ordered "the glutton" for the novelty value.
Fried chicken on a brioche doughnut with Gruyere and something maple. 

Back in Charlotte, I was forced to get a manicure with my Auntie B (Thanks! The "Game of Chromes" gel color I got to-go works great and I've gotten lots of compliments on it.) and was able to do some US American things like watching baseball and going to a bridal shower.

Family at the new-to-me downtown baseball stadium. So urban.

Technology can be difficult for the newly retired.

The lil'sis and me at her BFF's bridal shower.
Congrats, Emma! Sorry that I can't make it back for the wedding.

Gma aka my (probably) number one blog-reader.

Two sets of sisters. It  was great seeing all of you.