August 11   11:05 am  Kota Kinabalu

Hi Everyone,

  Just a quick bunch of photos from my “luck and chance tours” with Valerie.  You’ll see why as I tell our story.

  Here are Stephen and Valerie.  We had just been to the State Mosque and were walking past these group of homes built over a canal.  They were quite poor but picturesque.  Not the best photo of Stephen and Valerie, but at least it is from the front.

  Stephen and Valerie were going to the Mosque and invited me along. Randal was doing boat things.  Unfortunately no photos were allowed inside.  Both Valerie and I had on our mid-shin pants and wraps.  Hers was a lovely, wispy  peach color and mine was my huge tie-dye green cotton sarong.  Stephen wore shorts and just offered to wait outside while Valerie and I went in to explore.  We left our shoes and walked on the cool tiled floor through the building. 

  We wandered around outside and inside and felt as if we weren’t getting much from our experience.  We found a small room with women praying wrapped head to toe in shawls and robes.  We didn’t want to interrupt and it was warm in that room wrapped in my green tie-dye.  But we also didn’t want to just leave.  So when the men started leaving their huge air-conditioned prayer hall, we asked if we could go peek inside.  We were answered with smiles and passed along until the exact right man told us that he was in charge of tourists and he would take us into the huge prayer room and explain about the prayers and mosque.  But first we had to put on tourist robes so that everyone would know we were tourists.  Valerie guessed the robes were there so tourists would be adequately covered.  I think she is right.  So I put on a huge robe that looks like a choir robe and then my huge green tie-die shawl over my head.  Rats, no photos since I’m sure that I looked a sight.  Valerie looked just fine in her wispy peach scarf tied perfectly over her head.  My bouncy hair wasn’t helping any, either.  But vanity aside, we walked back to the big prayer room, robes dragging behind,  and our guide showed us how Muslim prayer was performed and told us the 8 principals of the prayer.  He told us how men stand shoulder to shoulder and how they must not move around and disrupt their concentration. If they must move it is 2 small steps and then pause and 2 more if needed until they are where they need to be.  He showed us how they place their hands and feet and head when they pray.   He told us about the decorations in the hall and how many tons the giant chandelier weighed and why tourists aren’t allowed to stand under it, just in case. Most interesting to me was the hexagonal beehive symbols all around the wall.  Inside the hive, tilted a bit was a 6 pointed star which to me is a “Jewish star.”  Valerie asked him about the hexagonal design and he mentioned the beehive symbolism.  But he also mentioned the Star of David saying that the Jewish religion, like all religions had symbols and good points and should be respected.  I don’t know how we all thought before 9/11, but since then I wonder if we respect the Muslim religion as much as they seem to respect our religions and us as people.  I hope that Muslim women from Malaysia who wear head coverings are treated as well as I am here not wearing a head covering.  My Sox hat doesn’t count. 

Another day Valerie and I went to the State Library Reference Library

http://www.ssl.sabah.gov.my/  is the web address.  I had already been to the State Library lending library which I guess now is the City Library…..  But since this was the newer library, opened in 2004 I wanted to see it.  It isn’t on any of the maps so with just the street address we took a taxi and hoped for the best.  The helpful security guard and desk staff at the marina had told the taxi driver where it was and with only one small mistake we got there.  Luckily I had seen a picture on the web site.  I had been looking for the information about the library in town that I had visited and found this site and was really unsure what library was what since the sign outside the city library said State Library as did the map.  Old sign, old map…  But I recognized the pink building and in we went.  Needs have obviously expanded since 2004 because the library is building up to add more space. 

  Saturday and Sunday the library hours are 9 am until 2 pm.  But there is just a small staff and the front information desk isn’t staffed.

Guards took my backpack so I am not sure who uses the blue lockers on the left side of the photo.  But they are a good idea so you don’t have to worry about leaving your stuff unattended.  None of the signs offered any English translations.  But they do use Dewey Decimal System as our library at home, so I could find the art books.  And most of the books were written in English!

Lots of computer access but most students were using the paper materials available.  I recognized many titles that we have in our library and many paper sources like Facts On File that we no longer update in paper format and neither do they.

Where there is a library, there will be a library display!

  They had an up-to-date, varied, and interesting magazine collection.  Some written in English and some not. 

From their version of Glamour Magazine

Because it was Sunday, most staff were not there.  But I found that none who were there wanted to chat about libraries.  In China, in the Public Library and High School library, the librarians were very interested in exchanging ideas and answering my questions.  The library staff in the very small Olongapo library also responded when I said that I worked in a library in the U. S.  But in neither of the libraries here have any staff shown any interest discussing libraries with me.  So I can’t tell you any more than you see in the photos or the web site.  Sorry.  I will do another email about my trip to the City/State Library.

After the library Valerie and I walked back to the museum complex that we had visited previously.  The art gallery was having a water color exhibit.  It didn’t look so far away on the map so we walked.  We left the library and walked to the main road and took a left.  Should have taken a right.  We asked a man having his car repaired for help.  He offered to drive us and we both had no doubts that it was quite safe to agree.  So in about 10 minutes we were off to the Art Gallery.  We had to buy entry tickets to the museum, unfortunately.  There were about 30 paintings and I enjoyed seeing them.  They were all better than I could do, at least most of them.  But nothing made me go wow.  Too bad.  http://www.sabah.gov.my/artgallery/  is an interesting sight about current art in Malaysia

Since it was cheaper to get a taxi from the hospital down the small driveway from the museums, we walked there and saved 5 or so ringgits.  It would have cost more to have a taxi sent to the museums to get us as we found our last visit.  Though it was less than $3 US we still felt like a cheaper taxi down the drive made more sense.  We walked, got the taxi and returned to the marina.  Valerie came to Doramac for a cool drink and one last chat.  She and Stephen would be off to Sandakan for 3 days to visit Agnes Keith’s home, see the wildlife and other sights and wouldn’t be back till we had left.  Or we thought we would have left.  Now our lost package coming from Australia seems to be in West Malaysia.  If we can wait an extra day for it, we may so I’ll be able to hear all about their trip. 

August 11  6 pm Monday Kota Kinabalu

Back again to Romblon……..

After we left Tony’s house Avon drove us further along the coast.   During our lunch stop, I went snorkeling though the warning to watch out for the jelly fish, “but they won’t bother you,” made it a tad bit unenjoyable so I got out sooner rather than later.  We had a nice lunch and it was there that we met Toffy Padua.  He had kayaked over from his home.  Toffy and Avon were long-time friends from their school days in Manila.  Toffy invited us to his family’s compound to see his environmentally friendly sustainable tree home. 

We drove and he kayaked and we all got there at about the same time.

First the outside.  Toffy’s dad has his own house.  Toffy’s sister has her own house.  Toffy has his own house.  We didn’t see his dad’s but we did see both his and his sister’s.

The views

Ready to move in yet!  I was.

Toffy’s environmentally friendly/sustainable tree house with sleeping loft.  It isn’t very large.  But it is big enough for comfort with a sitting area open to those wonderful views and a sleeping loft up above.  There were bamboo shades to keep out sun and rain.

Toffy pulling down the ladder to the sleeping loft overhead                                                  Looking down from the loft                                                   The loft all open to those views!

A detail of the corner of the tree house.                                                         Toffy’s sister’s house up the path from his.                          Toffy serves tea and coffee.

I loved Toffy’s treehouse and his sister’s Zen like home.  Both Toffy and Avon would like to see Romblon develop in an environmentally friendly way.

http://touristsinmymind.blogspot.com/  is Toffy’s web site.  He seems a real creative guy.  He was a wonderful host who was willing to take his time to share ideas with us. 

After the visit with Toffy we went back to Romblon Town and Avon drove us around to find cases of Gatorade and then dropped us off at our dinghy.  We had taken much more of his time than we had contracted for, but he also enjoyed visiting friends.  With all of the visiting we didn’t make it to the local fort up behind the town.  Next time.  Romblon is a place we hope to revisit.

I also want to share the photos of our visit to the marble works.  But that will have to wait for another email.

August 11  6 pm Monday Kota Kinabalu

Back again to Romblon……..

After we left Tony’s house Avon drove us further along the coast.   During our lunch stop, I went snorkeling though the warning to watch out for the jelly fish, “but they won’t bother you,” made it a tad bit unenjoyable so I got out sooner rather than later.  We had a nice lunch and it was there that we met Toffy Padua.  He had kayaked over from his home.  Toffy and Avon were long-time friends from their school days in Manila.  Toffy invited us to his family’s compound to see his environmentally friendly sustainable tree home. 

We drove and he kayaked and we all got there at about the same time.

First the outside.  Toffy’s dad has his own house.  Toffy’s sister has her own house.  Toffy has his own house.  We didn’t see his dad’s but we did see both his and his sister’s.

The views

Ready to move in yet!  I was.

Toffy’s environmentally friendly/sustainable tree house with sleeping loft.  It isn’t very large.  But it is big enough for comfort with a sitting area open to those wonderful views and a sleeping loft up above.  There were bamboo shades to keep out sun and rain.

Toffy pulling down the ladder to the sleeping loft overhead                                                  Looking down from the loft                                                   The loft all open to those views!

A detail of the corner of the tree house.                                                         Toffy’s sister’s house up the path from his.                          Toffy serves tea and coffee.

I loved Toffy’s treehouse and his sister’s Zen like home.  Both Toffy and Avon would like to see Romblon develop in an environmentally friendly way.

http://touristsinmymind.blogspot.com/  is Toffy’s web site.  He seems a real creative guy.  He was a wonderful host who was willing to take his time to share ideas with us. 

After the visit with Toffy we went back to Romblon Town and Avon drove us around to find cases of Gatorade and then dropped us off at our dinghy.  We had taken much more of his time than we had contracted for, but he also enjoyed visiting friends.  With all of the visiting we didn’t make it to the local fort up behind the town.  Next time.  Romblon is a place we hope to revisit.

I also want to share the photos of our visit to the marble works.  But that will have to wait for another email.

August 11   7:28 am  Monday Kota Kinabalu

Hi Everyone,

  It never fails.  I get itchy to leave, then get to know the place better, make friends, and then, just at that point, it’s time to go.  In this case, because we have signed up for Sail Indonesia we have no choice.  Actually we should have left a week ago, but computer issues that are partly resolved, got in the way.  We think we will leave tomorrow.  I am sending an excel file of our stops, but we may change that as we go.  We have several overnight passages which eliminates the need to negotiate shallow anchorages and lets us cover more ocean more quickly. 

  Our sailmail may or may not work.  Our cell phone will stop working when we leave Malaysian waters and cell towers.  So for the 2 or 3 weeks we are traveling you probably won’t hear from us.  Don’t worry.  I will joke and say our EPERB will save us if the boat sinks or in a dire emergency I guess we could stick it in water and the coast guard would come.  But that would have to be a terrible emergency and that won’t happen.  We can also speak with passing ships on our vhf.  Actually, our sailmail had stopped working between the Philippines and K K and we had no problem.  We anticipate no problems this time.  We have fuel, lots of fruit and veggies, fresh and canned, and our chart plotter and autopilot to help.  We’ll be fine.

  Our British friends Valerie and Stephen are off to Sandakan and won’t be back until we have left so we said our good-byes Saturday. Valerie, always up for an adventure, had gone with me to the other State Library and then to the Sabah Art Gallery in the museum complex where there was a small water color exhibit.  I’ll write about these adventures, but just now I’ll say that Valerie is a kindred spirit and between the 2 of us we made the only possible wrong turn walking to the gallery from the library so were driven there by a kind Chinese man.  We had stopped to ask directions from a man having his car fixed at an engine repair shop.  He was kind, told us we had gone left when we had needed to go right.  He said his car would be done in 10 minutes and he would drive us.  His car was done in 10 minutes! and he drove us to the gallery!  It was nice having someone to explore with.  Sort of like when Sallie came to visit in China.  It’s touring by luck and chance.  When we go with Carol there is planning and organization and we see way more than we would have.  If we’re lucky and get to Thailand when Carol can join us, we’ll get some great touring there too!  While we still have phone connection I will text Carol and she will email Harriet and Harriet can email all of you.  Great system in a pinch. 

  Last time I lost contact with the Red Sox they jumped in the standings.  Hopefully that will happen again.

When you look at the excel file, there is no place called Dog Nose.  It is just shaped like a dog’s nose below his ear.  The ear is near Teluk Sumangat and the nose is near Tangung Sugut.  Teluk Balesang is our first location in Indonesia.

All of this is on paper and in the chart plotter, but we might make changes on the way. 

So I’ll send this now.  I will try to send some email with photos of here before I leave. 

Ru

August 6th  3 pm Kota Kinabalu

I am sharing the lovely email from Emilda for two reasons.  One is so you can see her bubbly personality come through her words.  The other is to correct the names of the young men.  I hope I will learn from my mistake of not checking with them while they were here.  Badri was the one with glasses. 

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.