Keswick, Cumbria

I booked a little photography holiday in the Lakes. It happened to coincide with the most amazing week of weather: sharply cold starry nights and bright cloudless days, the morning sun quickly melting the frost.

The photography course was a farce – the tutor did no teaching whatsoever. But the other students were a great group so despite the lack of a course, I really enjoyed these four days. Much merriment and mirth, and if the butt of the humour was mostly the tutor, well… that was to be expected. He was a dithering idiot who only sprang into life when we got off the bus and he legged it off into the distance to take photos on his own. Evening sessions were painful as he tried to get his slideshows to work. After two days he succeeded – only to show us some pretty shoddy images. "The point is," he explained, "these photos aren’t of slideshow quality." Quite why we were looking at them then, we never found out, and he never discussed a single picture he showed. The pinnacle of evening entertainment came the night we slipped out one by one, each new escapee being greeted with applause, laughter and a drink in the bar.

Just so you are warned, this was an HF holiday and the tutor’s name was David White. Some of my fellow students told me that HF’s other tutors are much better, so don’t let me put you off too much – apparently this David guy is well known as a hiccup in the system and yes, a waste of space.

But for me, the week wasn’t a total waste. I learnt lots from other course participants and saw some bits of the Lakes I hadn’t seen before. I made friends with some great people and had a laugh. Tried some very good local beers in delightful pubs. Realized I had learned something – that I’m a better photographer than at least one professional. And when the four days of the course were over I found myself a B and B in Keswick and treated myself to three fabulous days of walking.

Walla Crags, Derwentwater and Skiddaw were all interesting and scenic. Skiddaw was a hell of a steep climb on a very uninteresting path and coming back down was agony on the old knees – I had a sit down and thought of waiting for snow in the hope that I’d be able to slide, but as I said, the weather was just too good.

But the most stunning walk I could have hoped for was Wythburn to Rosthwaite - a route I conjured up from a promising bit of map combined with a bus timetable. My path followed Wyth Burn, climbing steadily over long grass, frozen bogs and the open landscape of the wide valley, with not another person in sight. The burn was half frozen, icicles hanging from every little drop and fall while the water rushed over or behind them. The crust cracked on the ground where I trod, steps crunching into softness. Leaving the burn, a steeper climb took me to Greenup Ridge, where the views both behind and ahead down the other side were breathtaking. There were quite a few people about on the ridge, breaking up my perfect solitude and silence, but even so the route down Greenup Gill could hardly be described as busy. The burn was frozen here too, as was the path wherever the water poured motionlesslessly down it.

This was my last day, appropriately, as I would have been hard pressed to better that day’s walk. A stunner.

View back down Wyth Burn, looking towards the start of my walk. To see some more of my Lakes photos, go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/geckozo/sets/72157604140160557/ for a slideshow.

Winter in the Scottish Borders

The novelty of cold wears off fairly quickly, but not the novelty of frost or snow. What is it about snow that brings out the child in us? Or at least in me... and makes me rush to pull on boots and dash outside to kick through powdery piles of the stuff, scoop it into my mouth , take pleasure in leaving the first set of footprints.

We had a few good snowfalls over the new year and I enjoyed hours of peaceful solitude walking by the Tweed, listening to the tight brief creak of my own footsteps.

Leaving Malaysia

I fully expected it to be awful, but with the last minute rushes of packing, goodbyes and closing bank accounts I didn't have time to process the enormity of leaving. Equipped with enough hugs from Anna to protect me through the airport and beyond, I left KL. Even in Dubai I felt fine. Just travelling. That universal airport feeling, easy to associate it with good things.

But then, as the hours-to-go counted down on the in-flight info screen, the doom swelled heavily in my stomach. The hours trickled quickly into even more rapidly vanishing minutes. Heathrow in sight, I knew it wouldn't feel any worse if we were falling out of the sky with no engines or wings.

KL for Kids

Today I went to the launch of "KL for Kids" at Marmalade cafe in Bangsar. It was a friendly little affair and fairly well attended. The authors signed copies of the book and chatted to guests about their experience of making it.

This is an impressive book, not least due to the stunning photography of kids having fun in and around KL. It is easy to use and a pleasure to browse. The main places to go are given a lavishly illustrated double page spread, while other sections sum up lesser or more distant attractions and activities succinctly. The text is detailed in its information, both enthusiastic and realistic in its descriptions and hits the nail on the head with candid comments such as:

"It has some great flashes of genius coupled with a few dysfunctional gaps," (the National Science centre) and:

"Staff attitudes are a little haphazard," (Aquaria KLCC).

However, these are just points to be aware of - there's nothing in the book that the authors don't recommend. All the places who earned a
place in the book did so by providing children with an enjoyable experience.


I would heartily recommend the book to anyone with children, whether local, expat or tourists. It gives the details you can never quite track down elsewhere, such as prices, eating options and stroller access, along with the obviously necessary directions and opening hours. Best of all, through the lively text and fabulous photos it will inspire you to visit those places you've never quite got round to.

Pictured right: Lorien Holland (writer)

Pictured right: Kate Phillips (photographer)

"KL for Kids" goes on sale in local bookshops this week and is also available from http://www.amazon.co.uk/ and http://www.klforkids.com/

Things to do before you leave Malaysia

I began this list a long time ago with someone who was a friend, when I'd been ranting against the current abundance of 'things to do before you die' (when else?) books. I kept on adding to it and now that the time to leave draws near, I'm glad to say that I've done most of them, though maybe not often enough. The list is really just a mixture of favourite places, foods and things to do, along with places highly recommended by friends as well as some of the more amusing or frustrating things about life in Malaysia. Obviously this will all mean more to those of you who know Malaysia, but I thought I'd share it anyway.

• Eat fried fish from the fish man in Brickfields


• Ride a motorbike with your jacket on back to front


• Drive to Megamall on a Saturday afternoon, find a parking place and try to buy something in Jusco


• Visit Gunung Mulu national park


• Ask the bank to explain why foreigners aren’t allowed to make internet transfers from their Malaysian accounts to another Malaysian account


• In fact, ask anyone to explain a pointless rule they are enforcing


• Smell the rain before it comes, smell the streets afterwards


• Watch people contorting themselves in front of the Petronas towers in an attempt to fit the whole building into a photograph


• Eat roti canai


• Eat a huge Chinese meal with lots of Chinese friends who know the best things to order


• Hike Chiling river and jump in to cool off


• Visit KKB for small-town charm, old shophouses set on wide streets, great food, local walks, lakes and rivers, and cycle up to The Gap.


• Climb Bukit Kutu and marvel at the madness of the Englishman who built a house at the top. Only the fireplace remains, along with a well where you can still draw fresh water.


• Go to Cherating for a quaint no-longer-quite-happening beach experience – and have a drink at Muda’s café on the beach, while Muda himself folds and twists a palm leaf into a perfectly formed grasshopper.


• Ride the monorail from end to end for a quickly changing view of KL


• Learn and use as much Malay as you can


• Go rock climbing at Batu Caves


• Take a walk- or run - in Bukit Gasing


• Visit the rubber research institute and watch rubber tappers at work


• Try to explain to someone who is littering that this is not a good idea


• Make your own batik painting, for example at the Craft Centre in KL or in many touristy places countrywide


• Snorkel or dive Perhentian and eat beach barbecue for tea after soaking up the rays on the white sands.


• Take a dip in a hot spring. At Selayang the springs are a community bath where families go for a good wash. Throw scoops of breathtakingly hot water over yourself and your loved ones. At Sungkai in Perak it’s a more relaxing affair where you can choose from a number of pools for a good wallow.


• Learn to double park, or simply leave your car in the most inconvenient spot for other road users.


• Mountain bike the trails round Batu Dam


• Drink tea or Milo from a plastic bag


• Get lost in Putrajaya, and ask yourself, “What’s it all for?”


• Kayak Sungai Sungkai


• Eat banana leaf curry with your fingers


• Try to explain to a Malaysian that you won’t have a drink because you’re driving


• Watch a storm, feel the lightning rip the air


• Tag lah onto the end of sentences, but only tongue-in-cheek


• Sit round a table at a restaurant, stall or bar with a group of friends, being sure that each of you spends the entire time having an sms conversation with somebody not present


• Do the canopy walk at Taman Negara


• Eat something unidentifiable


• Dump your car in a busy Bangsar street at night and give the keys to any shady looking young man who approaches you


• Visit an Orang Asli village, introduce yourself to the headman and spend some time getting to know people. Watch toddlers leaping fearlessly into rivers, women carrying home baskets of jungle vegetables, men loafing around – or if you’re lucky returning from hunting with a wild boar.


• Try to explain to a Malaysian that your phone may sometimes be switched off, or that there may even be times when you choose not to answer it


• Dive Sipadan


• Have afternoon tea in the Smoke House in the Cameron Highlands, or at Carcosa in KL
  
• Visit a tea plantation


• Watch a movie in Gold Class – but take plenty of warm clothes. For a long film, a sleeping bag works well.


• Drink teh tarik. Preferably late at night on the pavement of a still-busy street


• Shop in a night market


• Visit the KL tower for unbeatable views of the city and its surrounds


• Watch faces gawp as you explain that yes, you are single, despite being a woman over thirty, and yes, you are travelling alone


• Run the KL marathon


• Eat durian fresh from the ground where it fell


• Pop into Brunei for a surreal day in BSB, where everyone seems to be somewhere else, petrol is a fraction of the price of water, and people are indescribably friendly and polite. Wander the water villages and take in the mosque.


• Have a massage in Brickfields from a blind masseur


• Enjoy a beer and maybe a steak (bib provided) at the shabby Coliseum. Sadly they no longer do real bacon butties.


• Cycle Sabah, wallow in cool rivers


• Perfect at least one seriously dodgy traffic manoeuvre


• Eat mangosteen


• Make use of the KLIA express and the station check-in


• Get lost in your car. No shortage of places to try this one


• Enjoy a duty-free beer on the beach in Langkawi as the sun goes down over the sea


• Go to Kuala Selangor to see the fireflies


• Try to buy a bra with no padding or underwiring. For the brave, add to your request that it should be a sensible colour and contain at least some cotton


• Eat nasi lemak


• Attach as many electric blue lighting devices to your car as possible


• Visit Kuching and Bako National Park


• See the Thaipussam festival at Batu Caves


• Get a twelve minute, twelve ringgit haircut in a well designed shop where they even hoover your head afterwards. Some cutters may only have had twelve minutes training, but at that price, who cares?


• Eat wanton mee. And duck-leg soup. And roast duck. And mee mamak. And chicken rice and rendang and laksa and pumpkin curry. And roast pork with that crunchy salty fat layer all crispy round the side.


• Go for a ride with at least four people on one motorbike, preferably including at least two unhelmeted toddlers


• Baffle a supermarket checkout clerk by refusing any plastic bags


• Catch a taxi in the rain


• Go caving in Gua Tempurung, near Gopeng in Perak


• Wander the narrow streets of Melaka. Take a rickshaw ride in the prettiest, floweriest rickshaw you can find.


• Learn to make candid personal comments, eg: “You’re looking much fatter than last time I saw you”


• Visit Penang


• Fly a kite


• Eat nasi kerabu in Kelantan


• If you are a short-haired female, entertain yourself by explaining to the ladies’ toilet attendant that you are indeed a woman. This is best done in Malay while thrusting your breasts forward. However, this is not always enough…


• Climb Gunung Kinabalu


• Have a drink in the Luna Bar


• Stay in a longhouse in Sabah or Sarawak


• Stand still in Megamall and feel the building move beneath your feet


• Spend Chinese New Year in KL just for the pleasure of empty roads and limitless parking


• Eat in Jalan Alor


• Try foot reflexology


• Employ a guide for a jungle walk and learn about local wild food and traditional medicines as you go


• Did I mention Mulu National Park?

Motorbike Madness

What makes Malaysian motorcyclists so special is that they wear back-to-front jackets. This baffles visitors and newcomers, but I was given a perfectly logical explanation - the jacket protects the chest from windchill and squashed bugs while the open back allows ventilation in the hot sticky climate.

Of course, these mopeds weave in and out of traffic in an alarming manner. They are driven on either side of the road and also on pavements. They are immune to traffic lights. On motorways they use the hard shoulder, which is probably just as well as they rarely have rear lights. In the cities, adults wear helmets in accordance with the law, but the numerous children, toddlers and babies on board don't. In the countryside, helmets are fairly rare and it isn't uncommon to see boys as young as ten or twelve riding along village roads.

A small bike can carry anything up to four people, especially if small children are passengers. Loads can be large or interesting - chickens in big round baskets, stacks of newspapers that tower above the driver's head, milk churns. Some bikes have small fruit or drinks stalls attached like sidecars and vendors chug away from their pitches with large colourful umbrellas still up over the bike and stall. Bread bikes have loaves and packets hanging from racks and ice-cream bikes carry their cold bins on the back with bags of buns (instead of cones) hanging down by the rear wheel. Pictured right: ice delivery.

I love all this. But I was horrified recently to see, on a dual carriageway, two bikers overtaking us lying stomach-down on their seats, legs horizontal behind them. These guys were going fast, had no helmets and doubtless little control in the event of their needing it suddenly. Madness.

Many thanks to Kate for letting me use her photo. To see more of her fabulous work, visit http://www.katenorth.com/

Malaysian parking

On this street, double parking (eg red car and white truck) is common, as is the sound of 'horning', as those parked in lean on their horns until they are freed.

Better still is the parking right round the corner onto the other road.

Another good use of a spare corner. The owner of this car returned as I got out my camera, but at this point he hadn't yet moved.

Double-parking on this street is managed by the 'jockeys' - a couple of unlikely looking lads to whom owners of nice cars merrily toss their keys. These guys park your car and then juggle and rearrange cars as you return to collect yours. I met someone once who returned to find that the police had towed all the cars and confiscated the keys, but apart from the congestion it causes, the system is generally reliable. It's also a good way of alarming visitors when you hop out of your car in the middle of the road and give the keys to a total stranger.

U turns

Some time ago, a British friend commented that a traffic system that relied on U-turns as an essential means of getting from A to B was quite ludicrous. Like anything else, I have got used to the idea that U-turning could be a legitimate and essential manoeuvre. Gone are the days of UK driving where U-turning is rarely legal and often thought of as an amusing way to duck out of a navigational cock-up. Here in Malaysia, U-turn spots are signed all over the place, road signs are adorned with the hitherto humorous symbol of the big U. However, I don’t think I will ever get over the incredulity that hits me every time I come across the great highway U turns that I am obliged to use – or react swiftly to avoid – around KL.

For the uninitiated, let me explain. Sometimes when travelling on a three-lane carriageway, a U-turn is the only way to reach a destination accessible only from the opposite carriageway. Occasionally, someone may have thoughtfully built a special U-turn bridge, linking inside lane to inside lane. More excitingly though, you may find that the outside lane suddenly becomes a turning lane. Yes, the fast lane. So as you slow down or join the queue for the turn you are kept on the edge of your seat by the prospect of another fast moving vehicle piling into the back of your car. Best of all, having squeezed through the gap and made the turn, where do you find yourself? In the fast lane, of course, offering your rear end to unsuspecting high-speed traffic.

My friend's real mistake was in thinking that there was a traffic system at all.

The Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur

Iconic of the city, the Petronas Towers are stunning beyond belief. For a few years they enjoyed a reign as the world's tallest towers, but no more. But it really doesn't matter whether they top the world or not. There is no structure this tall that is so breathtaking.

The design is strongly Islamic, the floorplan of each tower being based on the eight-pointed star used so much in Islamic art. Each tower rises in five teirs, honouring the five pillars of Islam. There are numerous interesting features which I'm sure you can read about elsewhere. I once watched a television programme about the building of the towers and was delighted to learn that the project had encountered some very Malaysian problems, such as a poor survey which meant that while one tower was to be built on rock, the other was due to be founded on a muddy bog. The high speed lifts, designed I think by an American company, had to be slowed because Malaysians don't like to move so quickly!

One of my favourite pastimes in the vicinity of the towers is to watch people trying to photograph them. They don't fit easily into the average viewfinder, so people lie on the ground, or set the camera on the ground then contort themselves in order to see what's on the screen.

At night - that is, a clear night - their lights rise over the city. In the daytime their glass and metal gleam blue and silver with a shocking brightness. I like them best of all at twilight, when their faces can still be seen but the lights are already on against a deepening blue sky. I never would have thought I'd feel a moment of excitement looking at a skyscraper, but in this case I do. Frequently.

Demonstration for fair elections

At the weekend there was a large rally in Kuala Lumpur. 10 to 30 thousand people took to the streets in a peaceful demonstration demanding fair elections. The rally had been banned by the police (the constitution here forbids gatherings of more than five people without government permission), who had promised to arrest anyone taking part. Obviously it wasn't possible to arrest so many people, but tear gas and water cannons were used to break up the rally.

There have been recent occasions when rallies have been allowed to go ahead, for example anti-war demonstrations in the wake of the attacks on Iraq. So clearly, the government is capable of granting permission when it sees fit. So what message are they sending to their people and the world by banning this one? Malaysia claims that its elections are free and fair, so wouldn't it be better to let it go ahead and state that the demonstrators' concerns are being investigated?

I've talked to a few locals, such as friends and random taxi drivers, about their views. One thing I was told (and I have not investigated the truth of it) is that groups such as the police and armed forces do not get individual votes but are 'block voted' by the authorities. What most non-Malays will really want to talk about is racial discrimination. It is well-known that the various ethnic groups that make up Malaysia have different rights. If you are of Indian or Chinese origin, despite being 5th or 10th generation Malaysian nationals, you do not have the same chances, rights or financial support as the ethnic Malays. Malays get tax breaks, housing benefits, and need lower grades to enter universities, as well as being something of a 'chosen people' when it comes to promotions, selection for teams and so on. Coming from the UK, one of the most ethnically diverse countries around, this is hard to fathom and quite outrageous. Malaysians divide themselves up by race and often seem to have no concept of national identity. They call themselves Malay or Chinese or whatever, not Malaysian. Yet somehow, despite this, at street level there seems to be very little inter-racial tension and different groups work and socialize happily together.

Back to the election, there are plentiful allegations of multiple voting, uncounted votes and so on. The organisers of the protest stated that their goal is a change in the electoral process in order to prevent fraud. If the government really believes that their elections are fair, they should want to ensure that they are. They should want to show the people that they care about this. They definitely want the world to see the country as a forward thinking democracy, but their response to this demonstration has had people likening Malaysia to Burma.