Thursday, July 30, 2009

Final Thoughts (but not really!)


"What was he doing during the trip? What was he thinking about? As in the morning, he saw the trees pass by, the thatched roofs, the cultivated fields, and the dissolving views of the country which change at every turn of the road. Such scenes are sometimes sufficient for the soul, and almost do away with thought. To see a thousand objects for the first and for the last time, what
can be deeper and more melancholy? To travel is to be born and die every instant."

Victor Hugo – Les Miserables


How is it possible to have any sort of definitive final reflection on a journey like we have experienced this past year? Like the journey of life there is no final period, for the journey continues to continue. For this we are grateful. If the past few months were it, that would be a little depressing and hard to deal with. As a true third culture kid, I have a foot planted very firmly in Asia but my passport (actually my passports!) say I belong in the “West” – wherever that is?! However, living in Thailand for the past few months made me realize that a huge part of me, maybe most of me just wants to be there – there is a deep resonation that I belong there even though it doesn’t look like I belong. This is the wrestling of any TCK (third culture kid). If we feel like we don’t completely fit anywhere, perhaps it makes more sense to be in the place where it looks like we shouldn’t fit as opposed to being in the place where based on our language and communication ability and sometimes the shade of our skin, most people assume we fit and belong there.


All this to say, I was not excited to return when a big chunk of my heart was staying in this place and with people I love greatly. As the quote states above – travel, good travel is birth and death all at the same time. Yet the journey we have chosen continues. A week ago we were in North Carolina looking for a place to live, getting a feel for the place, and taking care of some of the details surrounding Andrea beginning school. God has clearly provided a place for us to live and we continue to see his graciousness and kindness to us as he did so clearly throughout our travels. Without a doubt we come back knowing so clearly that God is watching over us and caring for us. That was our experience leading up to, throughout and even now as we return from our travels these past months. Just this week I called Del's Feed Supply where we buy the food for the chickens and asked the woman that answered if she knew anyone who might want four lovely hens. She immediately said she would - so despite great sadness at having to give up 'the ladies' after thirteen years of chicken raising here in the US, we know they are going to a good home - and it was clear again that God was looking after and providing for us.

Before we left Bangkok, Iven (one of our friends there), knowing how we were feeling about our impending move back to the US encouraged us to enjoy the good things that the US has to offer. So we have enjoyed a few things like…drinking straight out of the faucet/tap, not sweating continuously, not getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, fast internet (it only takes a couple seconds to load pictures onto the blog now – in our apartment in Bangkok sometimes we would wait 15 minutes!)

So 9 months later if anyone is keeping track…

63 beds we slept in
27 flights
11 or 13 countries (depending on how you count)
2 24 hour train journeys
1 apartment in Bangkok for 3 months
Countless taxis,
images of beauty and devastation,
faces and stories that have marked us for life…

And really it’s about the people we have met. Yes we have seen wonderful views and vistas but like the saying says – it’s about the people. New friends – Claudio and Grazia, Damien, Kagiso, Lilian and Thomas, Dave and Bella, Michiel, Leonie and Ottilie, Eak, Pi Fai, Pi O, and old friends we were reunited with – The Williams, Hedi, Lotte, Roy and Bonita, Iven and Kashmira, The Nichols, Pi Toi and Pi Lee and their families and all our friends and neighbors in the Maehongson area – all of whom mean the world.

So people, places and a peace knowing that we are not left alone in the world to struggle by ourselves. These are the highlights of the past year for which we are so grateful. We will continue to use the blog for thoughts and updates, although we're not sure that it will be quite as exciting as the past ten months, but you never know! On Monday, August 3, we start driving a 24 foot truck 3000 miles across the country while towing a car for a week which will surely warrant a posting or two.

We will be sending friends an email with our
new address and phone numbers soon as well. If you have been a regular reader, thank you so much for staying connected with us. Double thanks to those that commented or emailed us!

Duncan and Andrea

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

More Videos...

1. In the village of Pa Tyng, Gop (in white shirt, black shorts) plays Takraw with his friends. Any body part can be used (except the hands and arms) to get the rattan ball over the net.

Apologies that there is no way to flip the following two videos upright - tilt your head or your computer screen:-)

2. Grandpa Thii, keeps memories and culture alive in many ways including playing this traditional instrument.

3. Rocket festival, Rocket fired from a tree












Monday, July 27, 2009

Thoughts on a 90km stretch of road...

Maehongson, the most Northwestern province in Thailand, bordering Burma.







It was here (in four villages) on a 90 kilometer stretch of road that I was raised, from age 3-18, and it is this stretch of road that feels so much like home today. When my family arrived here in 1976 the main road wasn’t even paved all the way. Bridges were rough hewn logs anchored together by large metal spikes.

















Much has changed. No wood bridges these days and now even most of the villages off the main road are paved with concrete. The buffalo that were used to plow the fields are gone in most villages (fortunately not all!) In Dorpae, the second of the four villages we lived in, the village didn’t get electricity until I was in 5th grade. Now everyone has a cell phone – even internet in some village homes! Globalization has changed the landscape and the culture dramatically in the last 15 years.



When I graduated from high school 18 years ago and returned to the US, most people – men and women, still worked the land in some agrarian form – farming, gardening, cutting timber. Now many work in some sort of service industry – hotel housekeepers, the Toyota dealership, 7-11’s, this past month the first KFC opened up in Maehongson. (Photo to left, the view from our back porch in DorPae during my elementary school years. Below - Grandpa Thii keeps memories and traditions alive.)




Money flows. All those who work now get a monthly salary –three, four, or five thousand Baht a month. Is this better? Most of those who owned rice fields and land, still own their property and still count on the all important rice crop and secondary garlic, soy and sesame – but who will they pass these fields on to? Many of the older generation now have to or choose to hire laborers to do the field work. Agriculture knowledge is not being passed on to their children. Once this generation is gone who will care for the land and the fields?

School and education is continually emphasized with more and more able to attend college. This is a good thing as agriculture cannot provide work for everyone. But it is still eye opening and somewhat startling to have witnessed this transition from agrarian to service employment so rapidly. Something that took several generations in the US has happened overnight here. Kids who go off to school here in Maehongson (which now includes a university) riding off on their motorcycles, plugged into their cell phones and TV dramas are no different than their peers 1000 kilometers away in Bangkok. They know the same styles, news, and celebrities.



Many things have changed, yet some things don’t change – the rolling hills, the flowing rivers, the simmering heat, the cool shady valleys. Riding our borrowed motorcycle one day as we drove those 90 kilometers is something I wouldn’t trade for anything.







Duncan

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Assorted Videos

For your viewing pleasure...


1. Why you don't want to fall into the Bangkok Khlong, along with a Khlong boat in action


2. Another Khlong boat action shot...this ain't some slow boat to China!


3. Duncan 'plowing' a very boggy rice field in Napajat, near Maehongson Thailand










Saturday, July 25, 2009

Khlong Boat

Ahh, the khlong boat. Well this is our long promised blog on our favorite form of transportation around Bangkok and definitely something I will miss.

Having grown up in Seattle where little ferry boat key chains are sold as tourist trinkets and no snapshot of the city skyline is complete without a ferry stealthily maneuvering into the dock, I can really appreciate boats as a form of public transportation. As a kid going on a ferry meant we were going on a trip (actually it still means that). I associate boats with fun. Khlong boats in Bangkok reinforce this feeling.

One of the many great things about our apartment in Bangkok is that it was so close to the khlong (San Saeb) that runs East-West through the city. We have grown to appreciate the khlong and namely the boats that run on it because: 1) it is a cheap form of transportation, 2) it can bypass horrible traffic, and 3) I like boats (see above).

However, while khlong boats fit into the general description of public transportation boats, they are very different from any other boat I’ve experienced. Let me take you on a tour.

As you stand on the dock waiting for the boat you should take note of several things. 1) Please notice any place on the dock that is wet and proceed to move as far away from this spot as possible. This is because the boats come into the dock very fast and can splash water up and 2) the khlong water is of questionable cleanliness, well, okay not questionable, definitely not clean water. It is a grayish black with some trash floating in it, and some days it does not smell too great. However, if you’re lucky you might see 3) the trash collecting boat with about 3 or 4 collectors who have fish nets to scoop up trash and put it in their boat. Also notice the "life preservers" attached to the dock - usually fashioned out of empty plastic oil containers.

Now here comes your boat. If you’re on a dock that is not usually populated and no one currently on the boat wants to stop there you will have to indicate by sticking your arm out palm facing down that you would like the boat to stop. If you are the only one getting on, get ready. The boat may just slow down. Usually if the boat is packed (which it 90% of the time is) two of the boat attendants will hop off of the moving boat onto the dock and quickly circle their ropes around hitches on the dock while the driver throws the boat in reverse and slows the motor. This way the boat is almost completely against the dock which is usually slightly below the level of the boat sides.

Now here’s where it can get tricky depending mostly on your coordination and how full the boat is. You need to hop onto the edge of the still somewhat moving boat and then over the long plastic blue sheet that is stretched along both sides of the boat and then step down into the boat. These plastic sheets are raised up while 'cruising' along the khlong to keep the not so clean spray and waves from flying into your mouth, eyes, etc. We quickly learned that even though we usually wanted to see the view going by, it was best to do what most Thai people do and keep your head down. Inspite of the plastic sheets there were numerous times that we got more than a little splash! If the plastic sheets were not there, everyone would be drenched every ride as the wake from passing boats adds even more to the spray and chop of the water.

Once in the boat, you can either take a seat on the wood seats (holding about 150 total) or stay standing around the loud throbbing engine in the center of the boat. Most of the time, we would stand along with probably up to 70 or more of our closest friends. Rush hour is rush hour whatever the form of transportation. Sometimes it would be problematic as the docks along the side of the khlong are on different sides. So we might get on the boat on one side but then have to push our way through the crowd to get off on the other side of the boat if the dock was on the other side of the khlong.


Payment is made to the boat attendants who stand outside on the edge of the boat. You hand your money to them and shout your destination above the din and they give you a ticket. These guys (men and women) are simply amazing, often perched on the edge of the boat without even holding on as they collect money, jump on and off docks, and help people get on and off the boat! They all wear helmets as some of the bridges are so low that they have to duck as the boat goes under. Some of the bridges are so low that some of the boats have a retractable roof system that allows the driver to lower the entire roof to navigate safely under the bridge before raising it on the other side. Again, everyone standing leans forward and ducks their head. The first time the roof came down on our heads as we were not prepared for such ingenuity!

In spite of all the quirks and probably also because of them, this is a fascinating, cheap, safe and quick way to move from one side of the city to the other. We really miss it!

See Video of the Khlong boat in action in the next post!

Andrea

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Obama and Thailand

Depending on your viewpoint, there could be many reasons to be thankful for President Obama. One that probably isn’t mentioned very often is the fact that now many more people in Thailand know that African Americans exist other than what they see portrayed in the media. One day our Thai teacher thinking we must be bored or something (!) brought us a 6 in 1 DVD to watch. (Six movies – one disc – do they have such a thing elsewhere or is it just in the pirated goods capital of the world? As you can tell from looking at the titles (White Chicks, Norbit, Big Mamma 1 and 2 etc.), if this is what Thai people think is representative of the US and especially the African American community, this is not a good thing. Sadly, we have heard that many Thai people do think of African Americans as either comedians, thugs or athletes – all construed from the media they see. So even if you are a die hard conservative, having President Obama is a very good thing in this regard. (Apologies that we can't get the photo's to flip the right way!)

On another Obama note, I think we mentioned before that we witnessed the election results and Obama's speech while at the Paris airport as we were on our way to South Africa in November. We flew back from South Africa to the US on Inauguration day in January and we were in Malaysia (a largely Muslim country) when Obama gave his much publicized speech to the Muslim world from Egypt. There's no significance really in any of this, but it's been interesting to observe the the election, the man, and the president from a variety of places and perspectives outside of the US. We didn't feel as much Obama rejoicing while in Thailand (although even up in small villages in and around Maehongson, people thought Obama was a better deal than Bush) but certainly as Americans traveling in Europe and South Africa we were greeted much more enthusiastically upon his election.



Duncan

Monday, July 20, 2009

Return...Reality?

A few shots of our 'Red Tail' including one of us 'slumbering'upstairs...
















We should know by now that every time we catch an early morning Northwest/Delta flight from Asia that requires us to be at the airport at 3AM, we never sleep even though we try. We just shouldn't try! However as posted on July 6, we were excited that I got upgraded to Business Class from Singapore to Tokyo. I let Andrea take this leg as I knew I would have it from Tokyo to LAX. However the exit row that Andrea was given from Tokyo to LA was not an exit seat at all but something even worse than a regular seat with a nervous flier on one side and obnoxious ones in front of her. Knowing that Andrea was not having a fun time in the back put a little damper on my experience up top. By the time we arrived in LA we had missed our connecting flight to Seattle and by the time we laid our heads to rest that evening we decided we had been 'up' for 51 hours!

We promptly both got nasty colds which laid us low and has been one of the reasons we are just catching up on the blog now. Haven't really had time to truly reflect and summarize this past year. Andrea wasted no time in starting to take care of the many details involved in starting grad school on the other side of the country. We both have been preparing for the move. We have uploaded a link to some of the photos from our time in Asia that seem to best summarize the past months there - so please enjoy them. And know that we do have a couple more posts coming including the ones we have promised but haven't posted yet - Obama, The Khlong Boat etc...

Duncan

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Back to Thailand June 6-29

Confession time…I would go back to Malaysia and Cambodia in a heartbeat but it was so great to arrive back in Thailand! We flew from Phnom Penh to Bangkok and then straight up to Chiang Mai for a couple nights before flying out to Maehongson again. (For earlier trip to Maehongson, click here)




(View of Pa Tyng, one of the villages where I grew up.)






We spent four nights in Pa Tyng and four nights in Napajat where I had stayed back in April. Many highlights – catching up with old friends, visiting a couple churches where my parents worked (photo below), sort of plowing a ricefield (see future video post), enjoying the freedom being on the back of a motorcycle riding through the fields and forests, getting my first haircut in nine months! – and not dying from being hit by lighting or being bit by a massive cobra! Oh you want more information on the last story?? There’s a hill/cliff on the other side of the river that runs by Pa Tyng. I had climbed up there before but wanted to return to get some digital pictures. It didn’t take long to reach the top but there was a huge storm coming along with licks of lightning and thunder reverberating through the hills. I thought I should probably hurry down and not be on the highest point around. So I’m hurrying and just before I reach the main path at the bottom I happen to see a very large six foot snake crossing the trail two feet in front of me. I instantly stopped and debated pulling out the camera and taking a picture or backing up – I chose the latter, but clearly it wasn’t my time to go yet! (Photo to left - Andrea and Grandfather Nan in Napajat)

We flew back to Chiangmai for another two nights where we were able to catch up with long time OMFers and former colleagues of my parents – Andrew Goodman and Hans and Beatrice Bar – so great to see them again before flying down to Bangkok and journeying south by bus for three hours to Huahin for three wonderful days at Veranda Lodge, one of our most favorite beach getaways. It was great to have these three days there as we came to the end of our trip.

This time we met the owner of the hotel who invited us to eat with her and her family one evening which was pretty cool in and of itself. As we were finishing eating in came an older gentleman who turned out to be a prince - the grandson of King Chulalungkorn (so he was the great grandson of the King in The King and I!) Totally random, kind of crazy and a fun night. He didn't realize how tall Andrea was until she stood up as we were leaving. He of course wanted a picture right away. Evidently the hotel owner decided she liked us as she offered to take us back to Bangkok in her car as she was going up there the same day we were leaving.

(Photo - With Hans and Beatrice Bar)

Friday, June 26 we were supposed to stay with Eak, my security guard friend from Union Tower. We had made plans that we would meet him at work at 6pm when he was finished with work and drive home with him. He had told us we were going to go camping in his yard. We weren't quite sure what this all meant but we were looking forward to it. Unfortunately, while we were still at the beach, he called from the hospital to tell us he had had another seizure. Eak has some form of epilepsy that only causes seizures when he is sleeping. He said he wasn't going to be released from the hospital until Friday. We decided that it wasn't the best idea to have us go stay with him the day he was released from hospital and that we would go visit him the following day instead. Who wants to be setting up a tent after being in hospital for three days?

Unfortunately, Andrea became very sick that Friday night and knew she wasn't going anywhere until she got better. I went and spent the day with Eak and some of his family.

By Saturday night/Sunday morning it was clear Andrea wasn't improving even though she had started taking antibiotics right away. Sunday night she developed a fever which made us more nervous, knowing that all the asian airports are equipped with thermal detectors to check out arriving passengers. (They don't mess around with H1N1 flu!) So we sent out an email to those who had been praying for us these past months. Thankfully and pretty miraculously (but should we really have been surprised given how we feel God has looked after us over and over again this trip) by the time we had to leave for the airport for our flight to Singapore at 2pm on Monday, June 29 Andrea had no fever and didn't have to run to the bathroom every hour! Upon arrival in Singapore we walked past the thermal detectors and were very grateful not to get pulled over. If you were praying...THANK YOU!




Duncan

Monday, July 13, 2009

Cambodia, June 6-11

We landed at Phnom Penh an hour after Fifi and Dave Rickards arrived on a flight from Bangkok. Fifi and I went all the way through Chefoo and Faith Academy together. At Chefoo she and I were often in competition to see who read the most books. Now she and her husband Dave (whom I finally got to meet after many years!) are the OMF Directors in Cambodia. It had been 18 years since we last saw each other. This was a visit a long time coming!


(Photo - Fifi, Dave and Andrea)

For a moment I wasn't sure we were going to meet as I was convinced as we came in to land that the plane had a big ‘L’ for Learner on the back and that the pilot had handed over the reigns to someone landing for the first time. It had been a bit of a turbulent ride already and as we came in for the final approach whoever was flying would give a burst of power, then slow it way down, give it another burst of power…Eventually he (or she) decided they weren’t going to be able to land it on the first time around so we roared off and circled around only to go through the whole routine again. While I sort of like flying, I can get a little nervous especially when something doesn’t seem quite right. Evidently this nervousness showed on my face as the even more nervous woman seated on the other side of Andrea saw my face and nearly panicked. Here were two wild eyed people looking at each other, neither helping the other one at all. I don’t know if you have ever been on a rough flight where the pilot does a great job and lands the plane well inspite of the weather conditions. Often (especially in Asia) all the passengers will applaud in gratitude and respect. Let’s just say, there was no applause on this flight. People were very nervous and clearly ready to get off. Andrea’s seatmate and I almost knocked each other over in our hurry to get off the plane! (All of our other Air Asia Flights have been just fine!)

(Photo -Fifi, Steve, Wilsons)

It was so great to catch up with Fifi after so many years and meet Dave and see how they are built so well for the job they are in. OMF has over 50 people working in Cambodia and it can still be a wild and wooly place to live. One of the nights we were there, they had to evacuate an entire family that had been struggling with dengue fever. We were also able to have several hours with Steve Hyde, a classmate of mine from Faith Academy. Steve has been in Cambodia since 1994 and has one amazing and crazy story after another to tell of his time there. It is so fascinating to see where people end up and how God is using them in incredible ways.

Fifi, Dave and Steve were definite highlights of our days there. The other highlight was our trip to Siem Reap and Angkor Wat. (Coincidentally Angkor Wat is also on the cover of National Geographic this month.) There is so much that could be said about this place. I, like many people, didn’t realize that what we were going to see was much more than just one temple but dozens and dozens of millennium old temple ruins that make up this World Heritage site that reveals so much about the Angkorian Khmer Empire and yet also still holds so many secrets and questions. It truly is astounding to walk through so much history and wonder at this lost civilization that ruled this part of the world while Europe was still in the dark ages. Our photos don't do justice to anything we saw.

We spent a day and another evening among the ruins. If you wanted you could spend an entire week – and you can buy a pass good for a week as well as day passes. Prices are reasonable. Accommodation, of which there is plenty, ranges from the opulent to rooms for just a couple dollars a night. (The US dollar is the preferred currency here!) We stayed at a nice place called the Palm Garden Lodge ($15 a night including pickup, breakfast etc. A driver to take us everywhere the next day was $35.)

Again so much could be said about what we saw both at the ruins but also throughout Cambodia including the Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh but perhaps at a later time. Fifi, Dave and Steve again were very helpful in answering so many of our questions.








Duncan

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Pangkor Island and KL, June 1-5




Leaving the Cameron Highlands, we took a bus to the coast and then a ferry to Pangkor Island, which I visited nine years ago. If you want a real jungle island where the jungle literally runs into beautiful often deserted beaches and ocean, this might be the place for you. Nine years ago I stayed at a place called Khoo’s which was the popular place at the time for many I knew. Not any more. Khoo sold it and it has changed hands and management several times in the past few years. Don’t go there. When I was initially calling them to see if they had availability everything was going fine until they asked where I was from...United States – “Oh sorry sir, we are all full.” But when we got there, and I checked they had all sorts of availability! Instead, try Havana Beach Resort where we stayed. It’s right across from the beach, helpful, friendly, and a great deal. (Photo to right - the view from our room at Havana Beach Resort.)


The only sad change to report about this island from nine years ago is that where before we could literally swim off the beach and see great coral and fish, it is now all gone. You can still get a quick cheap five minute boat ride to another island just off shore, where fish can be seen, but even this place will soon be gone. For snorkeling definitely go somewhere else! But the island is beautiful. Monkeys and hornbills are overhead in the trees. The beaches are nice and the swimming is good. Feels very much like a family place and like the rest of Malaysia, just a cultural, ethnic melting pot – Interesting to see Muslim women swimming in their hijab's.

I really like Malaysia, I really like KL (Kuala Lumpur – the capital city) but KL didn’t really see the best side of me. We had scheduled two days there hoping to see a few sights and also connect with a board member from Youth Compass who we had met at the conference back in Meina, Italy, who now lives in KL. Unfortunately I arrived in KL sick from something I ate or inadvertently put in my mouth, and with high expectations that we would quickly navigate our way around the city like locals. Nope, not to be. Instead KL saw one generally tired, fussy, grumpy and unprepared guy who then affects the girl he’s with.

So we didn’t do much, didn’t meet up with our YouthCompass friend and weren’t the happiest campers as we dealt with various frustrations that kept cropping up – but I really like KL and would readily return. We did go see the Petronas Towers and I wandered up the hill that the KL Tower is on. Word to anyone wanting to come to KL though – taxi’s are expensive – ok, maybe it was just a reaction to the price difference compared to Thailand but really 80 Malay Ringgit to the airport!! (which is an hour away – also not the easiest thing) That’s 800 Baht – you can do a lot with 800 Baht – yet it’s only 20+ US dollars. It’s all about perspective…Our taxi to the airport cost as much as our flight to Cambodia on Air Asia!!



(Photos to the right - Andrea in front of a Lego model of the Petronas Towers and Duncan in front of the real thing.)



Here’s a plug for Air Asia, the low cost carrier that has taken over Asia and also now flies from KL to London. It is possible to get deal after deal with them. This past month, 90 percent of our flights within Asia have been with them. They dinged us a little with excess baggage fees when we had all our belongings on our final flight to Singapore before returning to the US but we knew it was coming...














Duncan

Friday, July 10, 2009

Cameron Highlands and Chefoo, May 27-31 Part 3

The good news - fortunately some things don't change...






















Cameron Highlands and Chefoo, May 27-31 Part 2

Photos revealing some of the 'bad news' from the previous post about development and sprawl in the Cameron Highlands.

What it looks like to cut a road through pristine jungle...urban and agricultural sprawl in the Cameron Highlands and Brinchang.












































Thursday, July 9, 2009

Cameron Highlands and Chefoo, May 27-31

(Apologies...there may be far too much detail in the following post for anyone who hasn't been to the Cameron Highlands, but I know a few folks wanted a few more details on this portion of the trip! There are two additional posts with additional Cameron Highlands photos that illustrate the good news and the bad news written about here.)

I attended Chefoo School in Malaysia from first to sixth grade and it remains one of the most amazing and magical places I have lived. It is a nature lover's paradise, high in the hills, surrounded by jungle, tea estates, waterfalls, orchids and Monkey Cups (pitcher plants). It is much cooler than many places in SE Asia and thus used to be the mountain getaway for the British back in the colonial days. It was literally 20 degrees cooler for us coming from Bangkok – 66 degrees when we woke up in the morning instead of 86! Back when I was in school there were few tourists and it was almost like the 70-100 of us students had the run of an entire jungle kingdom along with the Malay, Chinese and Indian locals that lived in the surrounding towns– many of them in the vegetable farming business due to the cool temperatures. Unfortunately word of this charming place continued to spread and now it is overrun by tourists much of the time. Busloads of tourists from the lowland come seeking the cooler climate. With them has come rampant development and sprawl – not just of buildings to accommodate them but also increased vegetable farming and deforestation. This combination has caused the temperature to begin to rise and fewer nighttime fires are lit in the cozy hillside bungalows these days.

I had witnessed this development eight years ago in 2001 (when the school closed and they held a grand celebration/reunion/decommissioning which was my first visit back to Malaysia since 1984) but it is sadly even more apparent now. The small village of Brinchang, five to ten minutes walk from the school is now almost unrecognizable and grotesque from this over development. The Hotel Rosa Passadena, which perhaps was the largest and most shocking of the new hotels in the town is now being dwarfed by buildings the size of the Equatorial Resort further up the road. Infrastructure wise there just doesn't seem to have been too much planning or control and I don't know how much more the area can handle. Interestingly, Tanah Rata (another town close by) seems to have done a better job in planning and retaining its aesthetic value – which ironically I wouldn't have said it had much of 20 years ago. Now I would pick TR over Brinchang to stay in any day! Roads are often clogged – it can take five minutes to cross the road that leads from Brinchang down to TR past the golf course – and parking is often tight, especially on weekends and holidays. (It took us almost 40 minutes to get from Brinchang to Kampong Raja past the Boh tea estates (a distance of not very many kilometers) due to the traffic one day.

The other significant change to the entire region, which is also largely responsible for the flood of tourism and development is the completion of the new road cutting through the mountains from Ipoh. Where before you took the long and windy road up from Tapah (which is still possible) most buses now go through Ipoh and the new road from the west. So now you come down through Kampong Rajah into Brinchang first and then onto Tanah Rata. It cuts down on time, twists, and turns and as mentioned already allows most of Malaysia and Singapore in for the weekend! Wish this hadn't happened – if anyone is planning a trip here, do it soon and don't do it on a weekend especially during any sort of public or school holiday.

That's the bad news for anyone familiar with this place. The good news...in spite of all this, if you get away from the towns and walk the roads and trails through the jungle, you wouldn't know too much has changed – yes there are new houses and bungalows, but it still passes for the Cameron Highlands we grew up in.

And Chefoo...is largely unchanged. Most Chefoosians know that the school was sold to the Methodist Church which now uses it as a retreat center. We arrived to discover it in a massive state of construction as they renovate the entire property. It has been well used but everything internally needs to be updated to accommodate the many visitors. Evidently retreat goers don't like using sinks that only come up to their knees! So all the buildings have been gutted as new plumbing and wiring is installed. All the dorms, classrooms and sadly even the teacher houses have been divided up into smaller rooms to house guests. The assembly hall (was that its name?) dorm one and two (or whatever it was called at the end (the big L shaped building) had the roof off as they were raising the whole building a little. The good news is that the footprint and exterior of the school will remain largely the same. - Although the swimming pool is now a fish pond and the jungle is encroaching on the ironically named Adventure Playground. Only four posts of the Pony Hut remain sticking out of the jungle. It truly is amazing to see how nature will take over again.

The OMF Bungalow also remains largely the same now run by Mrs. Chye and her family. It is still open to guests, so after 30 years or so, I was finally able to experience what so many others have experienced down through the years. Can I just say what a nice piece of real estate this is!? OMF had better not let it go! Food is also fantastic! If you need peace and quiet, this is a great place to be. One caveat though, the booking process (you have to book with another person who then lets the bungalow know you are coming) and the communication between the booking agent and the bungalow is not good at all. Won't go into all the details but it is definitely something that needs to be taken care of. If you want more info get hold of us, we can let you know details.

It was great to be here and just walk the roads and smell the Cameron Highlands smell. Two walking highlights – one day we walked from the bungalow to TR past Parit falls and a large green parrot swooped down right in front of us in the trees. Kind of cool. Another morning I got up early and walked from the bungalow to Sunlight cottage. Kept going and came to Moonlight cottage completely empty and front door unlocked and wide open. What a great place!


Duncan