Malaysian Reflections

Bribes
This country is full of interesting people and different cultures. Things are different here.
Especially when you look at a country rich in colonial history and immigration

After having a drink or two with a meal in a group of ex-pats we discussed the local drinking and driving laws. Nobody could tell me what the allowed blood alcohol level was. So we had to do some research. We asked some locals and none of them knew what the allowable blood alcohol limit was. These were the answers I collected:

"Normally when you are talking on the phone, it is 20 or 30 Rm bribe"
"What is the allowable limit? Umm, 50 Rm"
"Depends how drunk you are, normally 50 Rm though"
and,
"Oh, that is very serious... you must pay a 50 ringgit bribe."

So in short I have discovered that the allowable blood alcohol level is 50 Ringgit.

Foolishly, I wondered that night why I have been here for almost 9 months and not been asked for a bribe. The Law of Attraction states quite simply "You get what you wish for."

The next day was pulled over for some complete bullshit reason but had to drop him a bribe 'cause he could find some dirt on me if he wanted to badly enough. I only had a 5 and a bunch of 50's on me. The normal bribe for something like this is about 20-30 Ringgit, I couldn't offend him with the 5, so instead I offered him the 50. He pretended to think about it for a few seconds and then said "Ok, I think better not I write you a summons. Good day."

Snipped
Just yesterday I was at the pool with a friend. After swimming, I went to the change room to get changed and rinse the chlorine off with a hot shower. When I got in there were two people, a little Southern Indian guy and a Malay woman. They were the janitors and doing some end of the night cleaning. She saw me and split fast realising I must have wanted to get changed. He however, stayed in and kept cleaning.
I took my towel into the shower and rinsed off when I came back to the locker and dried off and started to get changed. The little Indian dude called from the end of the room.

"Hello! You from where?" (a question I get a lot).
I told him Canada.
He said "Ohhhhh, You are Muslim?" and he pointed to Claudius Jr.
"No,I am christian"
"Ohhhh! Christian same like Muslim" This this time I was understanding that he was talking about the fact that I am circumcised (I gathered this by his snip snip gesture)

For me it was a little more than a little awkward but I realised that it was more a cultural learning thing for this guy and by no means a pick up attempt. Regardless, I got dressed as quickly as I could to avoid further gawking and to minimise my discomfort.

The conversation never finished there either. I got into the rest of my clothes and he came closer and asked me, "So how long in Malaysia?" and "How much, one plane ticket your country?" Then he asked me again if all Christians are snipped. I told him the truth. In North America it is very rare not to be snipped but it isn't a rule for Christians.
I have heard of people getting it done when they are teenagers and into early adulthood in Canada. Ticking it off after years of teasing and self consciousness.

We used to say "Helmet or Tuque?" (It is pronounced Took)
I said goodbye.
He pointed at my and gave me a thumbs up and a big smile.
"Nice"

Let's transplant this situation back to Canada. I could never imagine looking at a random dude and yelling "Nice!" from across the room and gesturing at his "cash and prizes." You would probably get beat up. Cultural learnings... What the hell Lets try it just for the sake of Learning.

It was necessary for me to talk about this with my friends over drinks later.
There aren't many tuques out there in N.A. But in Malaysia it is only the Muslims who are snipped every one else is a Tuque. Now we had most continents represented at the table with Europe represented along along with Indian-Malaysians and Chinese-Malaysians present as well. Pretty much every dude in Europe (Jews and Muslims aside I guess), is a tuque and Girls there have no preference. I am not sure what people in N.A. think anymore. Have we started to open up to the concept of going Natural or is it totally ingrained into our thinking or is it up for debate again?

Thai Reflections

Well now that a few months have passed and I have gained a bit of time off and some travel stories I think it is high time for a travel update.

Upon receiving news that I had a week of pending leave that had to be used up, I simultaneously got an email from Kristen Wurtele declaring her arrival onto the peninsula. She and Patty were hanging in Tonsai, Krabi, Thailand for a climbing vacation. I bought my Ticket and flew out right away to join them. They were in amazing shape after climbing for a weeks already and even training a bit back in Canadia. I however had a bit of a tough time catching up to them but still managed to break through a couple personal bests. I kranked out a couple of the stiff leads rating in at 6c/7a in the French system which is a 5.11b/c By YDS standards. I was sooo stoked, and in great shape when I came back to Thailand. Some of us were doing better than others...

Kristin somehow managed to crank up a 7a "onsite" which means she climbed it clean, on the fist try. Her climbing blew both me and Pat away. She went into everything saying "Unnnhhhhh. I don't think I can do that one" and then climbed them clean again and again.

Patty had a bit of a fever for most of the time I was there. It didn't seem to get in the way much of his climbing too much but sometimes when you are down the world likes to just keep throwing low blows at you. Which can be pretty funny when you aren't the person it is happening to, but it is especially when we are talking about Patty who can make you laugh until you are sore with his self deprecation and his tales of bad luck. While belaying K up a pretty tough climb he managed to pick up a hitchhiker that tagged along all the way up with him to the top of the climb. Pat finished setting up the top anchor and got ready to lower. All at once he started screaming and yelling, "S#!t, F#@K, Lemme Down! Lemme Down!" While he punched his leg and convulsed. "S#!t,S#!t,S#!t" K was on the Catch and dropped him super fast, he scraped against the rock and bounced off it a couple times then hit the ground with a thud. Immediately upon hitting the ground he pulled off his harness and pants. He looked on the ground and found the little bastard that climbed into his pants and started stinging him when he sat down in his harness at the top of the climb. We took pictures of the scorpion for identification sake but it is too blurry to post. (sorry)

The next day we sat in at a table at a bar on the beach that a week prior, a man was seated there had a large snake fall out of a tree onto him. Patty predicted the future a bit when he said, "If a snake fall today, it will land on me. That type of shit always happens to me." Only a few moments into our pineapple chicken salad a big Scorpion crawled out of his salad and onto his plate. "Scorpion!" he states matter of factley as if he knew all along it was going to happen. "See?"

The next night, I walked out into the forest for a funny Photo-op of K Posing on a toilet and I stepped on a nice rusty old nail. Thought of Tetanus and gangrene quickly came front of mind. Patty with his E.M.T. experience and his rapid bandaging and cleaning skills, managed to get me doctored up and ready to climb after only one rest day. It poured blood and was super gross.

A couple of days later while in the bathroom I found a little gecko. They are remarkably quick and not so easy to catch. I did my best but was still only able to catch it's tail. Their tails by the way come off as an defense mechanism something like a distraction. The tail keeps twitching after it falls off. No need to worry though. The tail grows back in a couple weeks. We showed this video to the local Thai guys and they told us that they eat them listing the regenerative properties in the tail as a good source of the magic juice of life that keeps people looking young. I have no idea if they were just pulling our chains or not but I got the impression that people really did eat them.