Hi All

  This morning Joy from Kelerin, Cliff from Icicle One and Ken from Panache  and I went into town for the Sunday morning market.  I didn’t take my camera because I knew I’d be loaded down with veggies and fruit (as well as a small bronze goat bell I just had to buy and a small basket woven from old magazines and shellacked that I couldn’t pass up.)  I bought lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, scallions, cucumber, 3 kiwi, 4 hard red apples, 2 loaves of bread and one very dense, dry cookie to go.  Sounds light but weighs a lot.  If I’d had my camera I’d have taken a photo of the grubs someone was selling in old water bottles.  (And then you’d have to look at it and I’ve been told that’s not everyone’s cup of tea by some of you.)  As it was I had to hold it for Joy to take a photo and it moved enough that it was yucky. 

   We walked around for about an hour and a half and then had a cold drink at a neat open cafe/regular old restaurant.  Randal and I had not come to this section of KK last time so it was neat to find a new area.  I also might have found an art teacher.  There was a booth of lovely watercolor paintings.  I asked the 3 people working the booth if they knew anyone who taught and the men pointed to the woman, Ms Asap.  We discussed the possibility of lessons and I will do it probably some time next week  Yippiee.  Randal was heroic and stayed on the boat and did boat chores.  Tonight we have the last Sail Malaysia Rally dinner.

   As for the Sox who I haven’t mentioned of late; not eveyone out there who reads this cares about the Red Sox;  or they their own team to cheer for.    But I have to tell you that when the Sox hit the skids after the All-Star break I pulled out and put on every lucky piece of thing I had ever bought (but not the big heavy red chunk of rock stuff I could have worn on a string around my neck,) and they lost worse.  So I took it all off and they won 3 in a row so I’m off the hook.  I still always wear a B hat, but that’s it.  Go Sox! 

  This attachment is our tour of the Water Village.  I still have to write about our river trip to the rainforest and the canopy walk and the “yellow rubber raft/mattress” float back down the river.  On the way there I tried to keep my sneakers dry so you can imagine what happened on the way back!  At least Martha can; who must be hysterical reading that last line given what happened to us on our rafting trip on the Colorado when we tried to keep our sneakers dry.  Who knew? 

  So that’s it from sunny Kota Kinabalu.

Ru

Kampung Ayer – Brunei Water Village Tour

“The rustic collective of 30 stilt villages on either side of Sungai Brunei is referred to as Kampung Ayer (Water Village.) It’s home to a population of around 32,000 who pursue a mostly traditional way of life, albeit in prefab dwellings with plumbing, electricity, and color TV.” Lonely Planet Guide

Apparently Malaysians and as I remember, Indonesians too, prefer to remain in the village of their birth. So if you are born in a water village that’s where you stay adding your own marriage family to the village. The water villages have schools, medical clinics, police and fire services; just as if they were land villages. Villagers travel by insanely speeding boats but have cars parked on land for land travel.

You can see the wake from our boat and how vast the other one was going but we saw no crashes!

We’ve gotten off the water taxi and will walk down the wooden walk way to visit a Water Village B & B.

The men in the background were flying kites.

The front of one home across from where we had our tea and snacks.

Allan leading us along.

The owner of the home serving tea to Jean-Marie, a French Canadian. Shoes are always left outside. If you have tie shoes that is much less convenient than flip flops or sandals. I wore my sandals; Randal his big walking boots.

During Hari Raya homes, especially the big front rooms, deck themselves out and are always prepared for visitors. Hari Raya is the celebrated at the end of the fasting season of Ramadan. Hari Raya lasts for a month but is mostly celebrated during the first 3 days…. I think.

Because this is a business as well as a home it is required to have photos of the sultan and his wife. The hallway leads back to other rooms including the kitchen which we visited. The hallway had 3 TV sets.

Another vies of the front room. There were snacks and tea set out on the long tables. The front door was in the middle and when you entered there were two halves of this very large room. You can see that we were there at 6 pm. The tour was supposed to be over about then, but we were an hour late getting started and we were just enjoying ourselves too much to speed it up.

Our host answers Gloria’s questions while the rest of us tour around the kitchen. There were 3 microwaves on one counter and a very small washing machine in one corner; the room itself was quite large.

This treat was so cool! It is all wrapped up and closed with a tiny bamboo peg. You unwrap it and have a sweet, slightly sticky, very dense, semi-solid jell-o like substance. It reminded me of taro or pandan or something I ate in the Philippines. I, of course liked it. But very very full of sugar! Maybe some rice flour in it? As Joesephine would say, “I’m a sucker for the wrapping.” I had to eat one just so I could unwrap it.

I know you can’t make heads or tails of this photo. You are looking through and opening in the kitchen floor at a beam and at the water below the village. There is where some of the biggest catfish in the world must live. Many families keep catfish in enclosures below the house and it eats anything that goes down there, food or human waste. The water villages don’t smell at all like waste though lots of it goes into the river. The river moves too fast apparently.