Bali, Indonesia

After the successful (I hope) field interviews on East Java, I caught a flight to Bali for a few days before returning to Switzerland. I didn't really know anything about it except that it was known for surfing and maybe something with yoga - I did not have much of a plan except to meet up with Julio, a friend from my masters program who has been living there while working for an energy efficiency company. I was initially looking into some diving-surfing-yoga-spearfishing packages, but did not book anything before I arrived. At least it was good to know that there were so many options.

The day after I arrived, Jules picked me up on his moto-scooter and we headed to Ubud, the sort of yoga-hippie capital of (possibly) the world, - thanks in part to the role it plays in Eat, Pray, Love. You can buy vegan ice cream flavored with healing frequencies. My mom said she wants to go to Bali, but minus some of the waves and sand, Asheville is basically the same.

We went to the coolest, most intimidating coffee shop that I have ever been to (including those in Seattle). They were serious about their roasts and had so many gadgets/methods for brewing, but I was mostly impressed by the decor:

That cup and saucer! That water cup! That dainty banana leaf wrapped snack!

Plastic chairs transformed into  rocking chairs!

By some famous Ubud rice paddies!

Ubud was unexpected. I mean, when I landed in Denpasar I was amazed at the density and level of construction, especially compared with Malang, but Ubud was full on culture shock: yoga-bros on macbooks, a monkey sanctuary, burritos, spas, raw food...

I found a dive tour operator who had space for me to go to Tulamben, in the north of the island, to use my new scuba skills to check out a shipwreck! During WWII, a US Naval ship was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine and then towed to shore (there were no casualties). It sat there for years, until 1963 when Mt Agung erupted and the lava carried the ship back into the water, but not too far.

Mt. Agung

To get to the wreck, we just walked in from the shore and saw a blue barracuda almost immediately upon going under the surface. On the first dive, I was so distracted and in awe of all the fish to my right, I did not notice the huge, coral-covered wreck to my left for a few minutes.

My first shipwreck and shore dive!
Blue water and lava rocks!

Near one of Bali's "sunset temples"
NB: The best shots weren't actually of the temple and the stairs that you have to receive a "blessing" to scale don't actually lead to the temple (or even a cooler view).

Back in Sanur, there were no fewer hippie options. Green smoothies and superfoods galore! Even opportunities to connect with the earth while inside.

These are grass mats that you can take with you into the restaurant to rest your bare feet on for at least 10 minutes. 

The instruction sheet for the grass mats reads:

benefits of earthing:

Going barefoot is grounding

Re-energizes you through the earth's natural electric currents

Clears your mind

Receive more Chi

Like a free reflexology session

Decreases anxiety & depression

Strengthen muscles & ligaments in your feet, ankles & calves

Decrease varicose veins.

POST your EARTHING MOMENTS share the (heart image)

#earthing

I caught a half day surf lesson on the morning of the day I flew out. It took a while, but I was able to stand up! It was really fun, but the aftermath was painful.  Despite what I thought was a through sunscreeening, the back of my legs got fried - so uncomfortable for the long flight home - and my hands and thighs were red and irritated from the board. 

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 :( 

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