August 3   7:25 am Kota Kinabalu  (I will continue with the Romblon story later, but need to tell you about our new KK friends.)

Hi Everyone,

  Yesterday Randal and I had lunch at the Restoran Mars.  Having eaten there several times before, (it’s Randal’s favorite) I knew the “restroom” had a picture of a man outside the door.  One day I had gone looking for a door with a picture of a woman and was told, “only one toilet and everyone uses it.”  No problem.  It was the familiar Chinese squat toilet with a bucket of water and pail to flush and wash down the whole area.  So yesterday when I saw some women looking around, I told them that everyone used the “men’s room.”  The women had spoken to each other in sign language but I didn’t assume they were both deaf.  I did assume they were not particularly westernized since they were dressed in a more traditional Muslim style.  One of the women turned to me and in perfect English said, “Oh unisex.”  I did a total re-evaluation just from hearing that one modern slang term and I know I looked startled.  I know because Emilda told me later that evening when she and her team of architects came to visit us on Doramac.  They were in Kota Kinabalu at the request of the KK government to evaluate the accessibility of the waterfront area for disabled citizens, pregnant women, women with baby carriages, the elderly, foreign tourists, or anyone not able to negotiate all of the everyday architectural obstacles.  We got further acquainted as Emilda seemed to keep working her way to the end of the “restroom” line.  While waiting, she decided to take a chance and ask if we would answer some survey questions.  We said yes we would, so she sat down and we talked long enough for her to be left behind by her undergraduate assistants,  Ph.D advisor and several volunteers with different disabilities who were exploring the accessibility of the waterfront. When she left us we invited her to come visit us on the boat.  Happily she took us up on the offer.  

   Emilda is a lecturer and Ph.D candidate at the International Islamic University of Malaysia.  Dr. Fadzidah Abdullah is her advisor.  They and Che Rahim and Ahmat Zairh  undergraduates in architecture and Emilda’s great friend Sibyl who lives in K K and teaches high school English all came to visit us last night.  We had a wonderful evening and made more wonderful friends. 

Emilda with her arm around Sibyl.  They have been friends since childhood.  Though both had on the same blouse, Emilda is Muslim and Sibyl, Catholic explaining the difference in their dress.  Standing behind Sibyl is Fadzidah.  Fadzidah earned her undergraduate degree in Lubbock, Texas and her Ph.D in the UK.  She is Emilda’s Ph.D advisor.  Ahmat is standing and Che sitting.  They are both undergraduates who hope to go on to do graduate work. 

  Emilda worked as hard as she could to teach me how to play CONGKAK.  www.wikihow.com/Play-Congkak will do a much better job than I telling the rules.  Emilda was amazingly patient.  She explained and demonstrated; demonstrated and explained and finally, maybe I sort of kinda understand.  When I read the rules on wikihow this morning,  they did make sense so I must have learned something from Emilda’s patient efforts.  I vow to learn to play.  The white are small shells that are used as playing pieces.  It was a great gift!  When Emilda handed it to me wrapped up, she said, if we already had one she would take it back.  She was of course joking knowing no way would we already have one.    I could tell from the shape of it we didn’t already have one.  Now we do and it will be a wonderful reminder of a wonderful evening.  “Congkak is a game suitable for 2 players using a board which has several houses and 2 storehouses.  The object of the game is to gather as many congkak seeds into your storehouse.  It is a game played during one’s free time and is normally played by women, especially liked by youths.  The game, related to mancala, is commonly played in Indonesia, Borneo, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines.”   I do remember seeing the boards in the Philippines.  I was intrigued by it and asked a street vendor who had one what it was, but only know understand his answer!  Emilda brought one with shells rather than seeds because of our connection to the ocean.  The shells feel so nice in your hand.  Emilda loves to play and plays alone of with her daughter.  Both Fadzidah and Sibyl had some knowledge of the game.  The young men had no clue.  But they both knew how to use the timer on their cameras. 

Randal led the boat tours. 

We took lots of photos.  This was not only a research/ paid government project but also a chance for two friends to spend time together.

Fadzidah was quite an adventurer herself and had traveled in pursuit of her studies. She had to learn to understand Texas English and then British English.  I know I had problems just learning to understand Tallahassee English when I went to Florida State for my MLS. 

Group photo

Randal and I took turns posing in group and individual photos.  But you know what we look like.  And in those someone was always left out because I don’t yet know how to do the timer on my camera. 

They were great sports about the bandannas.

Fadzidah and Che wore them in the traditional Malay style.

They were such an interested and interesting group.  I would like to sit down and have hours to “interview” them individually.  And fun too!  I had made some brownies and Randal and I had loaded up on ice cream grocery shopping after lunch, so we had snacks after the tour.  Always snacks!

Sibyl and Emilda had gone out on the bow to do “Titanic” poses. 

Emilda especially was hoping “Captain Jack” Depp would show up rather than Leonardo DiCaprio. 

When we said good night, I felt as if we had all known each other for much longer than one short visit.  They wanted to know us and we wanted to know them.  Hopefully our paths will cross again. 

Hopefully I haven’t made too many errors in telling this story.  If I had, I do hope someone sends me corrections!

August 3  6:43 pm Kota Kinabalu

Here we are back in Romblon again.  Our first full morning in Romblon was with the visiting kids.  But we had made a plan to meet Chris and Myline for lunch.  We then spent most of the afternoon with them.

Myline and Chris during lunch at the Romblon Deli!  Our table is marble.  Food was quite good.  Chris spent many years as a commercial fisherman in Australia.  Myline is Filipino.  She is also an accomplished sailor. 

Their home is up a mountain with lots of lovely jungle all around.  Randal and I had the fun of sitting in the back of the truck during our drive through town and up the mountain.

  The view from the kitchen sink window.  Who would mind doing dishes here! 

Much of the land seen from the window is theirs.

They had 2 very large rooms that were light and airy and cool.  Chris has bought this house for Myline. 

A marble table on the front porch.  A great place to swing away on the hammock.

The road past their home.

  While we were having lunch at the Romblon Deli, Chris called a friend, Avon Romero, who does local tours and sells real estate and is into lots of things and knows about everyone it seemed.  Avon introduced us to both Tony Parkinson and Toffy Romero.  The people we met on Romblon were the best part of Romblon.

Next email, Tony Parkinson

5:30 pm

Hi Everyone,

  About 5 boats down from us is a sail boat.  Brits, Stephen and Valerie are the owners.  I don’t know the boat’s name or their last name.  But I like Stephen and Valerie very much and their boat is quite nice too. They lived 5 years in Hong Kong, some of it in Sai Kung and they kept a boat in Hebe Haven where we stayed.   Stephen is retired.  Valerie works in an elementary school with children aged 7 to 11.  When teachers need help or will be away from the classroom Valerie takes over.  She works part time and loves it; especially teaching art and physical education.  Valerie doesn’t love cruising so much so Stephen recruits crew and goes off and Valerie joins him during summer and other school vacations. 

  Valerie and I went off one afternoon to the wet market and the next morning to the different local museums. 

Valerie in the white hat buying a pineapple.  Just after this photo we each went our separate ways and then spent most of the time trying to find each other again.  We each tried staying put and then decided the other was doing the same thing.  Her comment that the vendors were probably as anxious for us to find each other as we were to find each other was quite funny.  I guess it was pretty obvious that the two of us were looking for each other. 

Local fashion statements. 

Islam is the state religion though other than the clothing women wear, and the price of beer and wine,  you don’t really feel its influence as a tourist especially here at the marina/hotel complex where most of the guests are Asian. 

I bought mangoes and lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber , avocado and cilantro.  

The next morning Valerie and I went off to the local museums.  They had exhibits, but no tours or explanatory literature, so it was too hard to take much in. 

The part we liked the most was the Sabah Museum Heritage Village which has replicas of traditional homes of different indigenous groups around Sabah.  Again, there was little literature and no one there to tell you anything, so not so educational.  http://www.mzm.sabah.gov.my/intro.htm  is the website for the museum complex.

One day I’ll have a photo of Valerie from the front.  She was in pink and white and the lady in the distance was in pink and white and the water lillies were pink and white.

This “ethnic village” looks much like some of the villages that we saw cruising the islands in the Philippines and the small islands in Malaysia.

Inside one hut.  I kept waiting to fall through the floor.

  The big sign says no smoking.  The small one in small print says, remove your shoes.  I had spent so much time looking for a “do not enter” sign that I missed the one that said it was ok if you took off your shoes.  But I only went into one and no one saw me but Valerie and she was quite diplomatic about it.  I told her about going into a hut and she said she hadn’t wanted to remove her shoes.  I said, “huh?”  It needed to be in big letters like the No Smoking sign you can’t miss.  I guess matches are far worse than shoes with grass huts.

While we were there they were filming some costumed dancers.  We could have waited and taken photos with them, but it was too hot and we had more museum to see

It was lovely and fluid.  Music was provided by a cd and boombox.

We also went to The Sabah Islamic Civilization Museum since all of the museums are together.  Again too much stuff and no overall explanation or introduction.  But now I know the difference between Muslims who follow Islam and Hindus who don’t. I guess if I had really thought about it, but since I hadn’t, Valerie explained that to me.  Helps to go around with an elementary school teacher. Helps to have a public library which there isn’t.   I would imagine as we travel around Malaysia and Indonesia I’ll learn more about Muslims and the Islamic religion.  It will be interesting.  Valerie has been to Indonesia and found it hard to watch women appear to have much less freedom than men.  We’ll see come September when we start to tour Indonesia.

Got back to the boat about 2:30 and made myself a mango/avocado/strawberry yogurt shake.  Tasted healthy and not bad, but the yogurt made it too tart and the mango wasn’t quite ripe.  But it was ok.

July 25th Friday:  5:13 pm

I went out for a walk this afternoon.  I seem to have a case of the blahs and am just tired.  “Could be the heat, or maybe it’s fleas!” as the song in West Side Story sang.  We’ll I don’t have fleas, but I’m finding the heat very heavy especially after our island cruising where, on some mornings, I wore my long-sleeve Red Sox shirt.  And life in a big city is “big.”  I will try to get to the museums and mosque and those things should be interesting.  People are certainly very friendly here and quite energetic, more like China than Olongapo. Funny, that I’m always ready to leave somewhere, and then miss it.  Hmmm

Anyway, I just walked around the hotels here in the Sutera Harbor complex; but I took my camera.  I was really glad I did so I could capture this group of young women.  I don’t know why I didn’t talk with them more; I felt like I was interrupting and they seemed hesitant in English    Now I wish I had found out more about them.  Maybe I will see them again.

I saw them in the distance and tried to zoom.  Then I just walked faster to catch up and snuck some photos.

I just liked the “hands on the hip” action. The man was one of two who were accompanying the women.

They sat down to have their photo taken by one of the women and I walked over and asked if I could take a photo too.  They smiled and said yes.

  They make the peace sign, just the everyone else anywhere else who poses for me.

Any you knew this would happen.  I had offered to take their camera and take a photo of the group so all the women could be in it.  But they made the men take the photo so I could be in it too!  At least I have my head covered! 

Ru

July 21  12:44pm

Hi Everyone,

   “I loved the diversity of the city and the huge wet market.”  That’s how our friend Jamie Fritsch described the center of Kota Kinabalu.  It’s true.  You feel like you are in China and India at the same time.  The women in their saris are just so colorful.  I’ll try to get some photos of them.  But here are just a few photos to get you oriented to Kota Kinabalu.  We have lots of boat work to do and the best “natural attractions” are inland, so I think we might miss them. The mall has Starbucks and Body Shop but the upscale shops of Hong Kong or Makati.  Our friends Bob and Audrey, from Subic Bay, are here for a too short long weekend.  They went off with Randal to do boat stuff today.  I just don’t feel great enough.  So I’m having a quiet day catching up on some email and watching the Sox lose their 3rd game to LA. 

We will probably be here for another 2 weeks.  Of course that’s what we said about Subic.  But we have to be done to make it to Indonesia to meet the Indonesia Rally in the beginning of September.  Randal and Bob were looking at possible routes this morning.  Bob and Audrey have their own growing business in Subic so just hanging out here is a relaxing vacation for them. 

http://www.sabahtourism.com/en/home/  is a site for Sabah which is the specific area of East Malaysia where we are now.  Malaysia is two islands in the South China Sea.  East Malaysia is on the north tip of Borneo. 

Here we are at the Sutera Harbor Marina.  We are next to this sailboat owned by an American.  The owner isn’t here now.

The Pacific Hotel just next to the Marina.  The Magellan Hotel is on the other side of the Marina. Lots of families with kids here. Lots of golfers.  Lots of upscale prices.  Wine in the Magellan gift shop was 138 ringgits.  That’s $46.  We took a pass. (Randal and I are the $5-$10 per bottle wine drinkers.)  A small (two bite) Hagan Das was about $7.  We did buy some wine in the supermarket for 36 ringgits, $12.  It was the cheapest one they had, but not bad.  Alcohol is way more expensive, some food is more expensive, but clothing maybe not.

There is a guarded gate onto the docks.  The Marina building has several restaurants, a chart room “library” with chairs and tables and magazines.  Looks a bit like Subic but kept up with very helpful staff.

City center.  Randal in the backpack leads the way; Audrey with the braid.  Bob took the photo.  This is one of the main streets in the commercial center of KK.  The first impression is very modern, the secondary roads are more “foreign” so more interesting.

My old umbrella is a rusted mess.  I bought this one for 7.9 ringgits.  3 ringgits make a dollar.  We’ll see how long it lasts since it sort of opens cockeyed.  But it was the first small fold up one that I saw so it will fit in the side pocket of my back pack.  Bob’s photo

  A trimmings and buttons and beads shop.  I would say 70% of the women here wear head coverings.  About 30% wear a full sari.  They sell all of the shiny things you see sewn onto clothes from India.

A woman at the fish market. Men were eager to pose, but women were more shy.  I did ask first if it was ok to take the photo.