The Beauty of Wester Ross

Last week I took my work and a good friend to the north of Scotland. One day we drove over to the Northwest area of Wester Ross, through the central Highlands, because I'm always telling people to go there and no one ever does, so I thought I should maybe make sure that, given the chance to forcibly exhibit this region, I did so.

We were blessed with incredibly good weather in this unpredictable part of the world, especially at the start of autumn, so with minimal waffling I will share some of the wonderful views we enjoyed.

Below is the view over to Loch Broom, as we approach the West Coast.

A photo stop at the head of Little Loch Broom, due to spectacular views in brilliant sunshine.

There was still plenty of heather in bloom. I should note, however, that the picture below is somewhat artificial since we were holding our gathered heather in front of the camera!

Rounding a peninsula, a view over Loch Ewe.

Just before sunset, at Loch Maree.

Seriously. Go there.

The Streets of Singapore

Having spent a wonderful, riotous day with our friends in Singapore, we have one last full day to sample the diversity of Singapore. The urgency of our must-do list is heightened by the fact that the next evening we must board a plane taking us back to the English speaking "western" country of Australia, and while we are excited and curious we will miss the noise, colour and chaos of South East Asia. With all its challenges it has been a stimulating and refreshing adventure.

As you might expect from a tiny state with four official languages, Singapore defies easy definition. Its majority Chinese population co-exists with large Malay and Indian minorities in a city with a very visible British heritage, floating at the end of the Malaysian peninsula very close to the equator. One feels that it could be set adrift and not feel any more or less alien wherever it came to rest. At its best, it offers the most exciting aspects of its component cultures in food and the arts while reinventing both in a distinctly Singaporean fusion, and at its worst it blends beyond invention into a homogenous shopping mall that could be anywhere in the modern, wealthy world.

Having seen where all of Singapore comes to play, we decide to try out some of the culturally distinct areas in the daytime. We step off our train (beverage and durian free, I am happy to report) and wind our way across a series of bridges, through rather uninspiring concrete blocks housing uninspiring shops, until we descend with some relief into the more appealling, brightly-coloured part of Chinatown.

Here, the houses have wooden shutters and dangling lanterns wobble in a steam-powered dance. It feels like the perfect colonial vision of the Orient, except for the modern, commercial bustle that, despite the concrete, manages in a great feat of irony to prevent it feeling like a substandard theme-park version of itself. We spot a Tintin gift shop, across the street from a truly huge stone coin, which used to be placed outside someone's home purely to display their wealth - a bit like a pre-industrial sports car, and (much like the modern-day equivalent) too laden-down with luxury to make everyday use practicable. A hole drilled through the centre allowed for some movement, if one were willing to pay a few people to lift it on a large wooden pole, but as currency it was entirely impractical. 

After a couple of fairly restrained shopping stops, we arrive outside the local Hindu temple via its more discreet walls.

"Holy cow," says Tallulah. We have arrived.

The decorated roofs make the more kitsch excesses of (some) Latin American Catholicism look restrained. Many of the figures seem to be hanging out for a chat while visitors do the same below.

I venture just inside but decide not to go beyond the point where bare feet are mandatory due to  soreness. While Tallulah explores, I converse with and buy a kimono from an Indian man who used to live in Kilmarnock. This is Singapore.

After our explorations, we retire to an opium den (former, I should add - now a Thai restaurant, adding a sixth or seventh culture to our morning) to discuss our movements over a Coke. The outdoor tables are covered in plastic, but the plastic protects the world maps used as tablecloths underneath. We chart our journey so far, having travelled almost 1300 miles in less than three weeks. It's a real travel moment, a connection to the visceral experience of travel in the days before we were so desensitised by telecommunications and effortless intercontinental travel in a matter of hours, somewhere between a sudden stomach-plummeting glimpse at how far I am from home and the exhilaration of having achieved it.

We step onto an escalator in China and re-emerge in India.

Singapore's Little India is the area of all the places we visit that feels most authentically lived-in. Brightly coloured railings top buildings of manageable stature, the local shops and oil-leaking garages filled with customers wandering in a manner unmistakeably local. There are events being advertised here, too, but the most prominent announce a local food festival.

We need lunch, and crave Indian food, so we walk up and down Buffalo Road, the main street, until we settle on a restaurant that we cannot resist, knowing that the food may be overpriced and less flavoursome than its rivals, but swayed by the fact that it's hard to pass up a restaurant where the façade features a giant papier mache elephant eyeing a giant papier mache giraffe with suspicion.

Inside, it looks like the owner decided that what the Hard Rock Cafe needed was more wildlife. The result is a genuinely bizarre menagerie, Tarzan swinging through the jungle interior being the least of the credibility problems. Waiters dress like Rudyard Kipling having an eccentric day, there's a polar bear observing customers from the jungle canopy and halfway up the tree under which we are dining is a very British looking garden squirrel. Across the restaurant sits a grumpy gorilla sporting pince-nez.

We take a taxi back to the hotel to recover.

The evening begins with a refreshed couple of budget travellers getting all fancy and respectable-smelling for our number one site in Singapore: Raffles Hotel.

We follow the poshest-looking people from the train and find ourselves in the ultimate colonial paradise. Despite all the baggage of empire, this is an aesthetic that I appreciate, and on a warm early evening it provided a welcome respite from the noise of the city. The gardens are beautiful but tame, and the shop is expensive but rewarding. Yes, I am trying to justify my purchases. Shut up.

We gravitate, as most tourists do, to the Long Bar, where the famous Singapore Sling was invented. Tallulah has one, while I enjoy a $15 apple juice, then enjoys it so much she has a second. For the results of this, see the next post on the ensuing Night Safari hijinks.

Meanwhile, I enjoy the transgressive but officially-sanctioned pleasure of the Long Bar's peanut policy, whereby customers can enjoy a bottomless pot of unshelled peanuts and are encouraged to throw the shells on the floor.

The Sebastian Chronicles: Golden Brown All Over

Yo.

Life as a beach bum bear is pretty snazzy. Having returned to the suitcase for the remainder of the journey to Koh Samui I was starting to get a bit worried about ever seeing daylight again.

The ladies didn't take me to the beach at first, and they were overrun by lizards and shark-type slime fish. Coincidence? They learned from this (despite Trixie's claims that she likes lizards, I will break their evil spell soon).

A life of leisure suits me. A bit of sunbathing does one the world of good.

I also bought myself a new shirt, pointedly involving elephants to remind Tallulah that I'm still the cute one on this island. I especially like that it has an elephant bum on the back of the T-shirt.

I declined the offer of sunblock because of the stickiness issue, but may have had a bit too much sun. I started to go a bit crispy, but with every faith that it would fade into an attractive freckle pattern later.

Sure enough, now you can read me like a Magic Eye picture.

Cosmopolitan KL

Kuala Lumpur was a surprise highlight. With our late evening arrival after thirty-two hours of travel by taxi, ferry, coach, songthaew and two trains, we were glad to be back on the pavements of a non-undulating city, and after a short outing for some late-night food at a nearby Middle Eastern restaurant we concluded that we liked the laid-back atmosphere. Stepping out the next morning, we were also struck by the diversity of the city and the surprising number of green patches.

Keen to continue our culinary tour of the Malaysian melting pot, we had a late breakfast in Little India where we followed our noses into a Jain veggie restaurant and our waiter cut through the overwhelming menu and recommended a thali plate.

We expressed our individuality with identical mango lassis and stood by as an incredible variety of foodstuffs paraded past. Between soup and fruit salad with ice cream we tackled the thali plate, a deceptively dense selection of curries with biryani, poppadoms and a chapati.

We wandered through this part of KL towards Mederka Square, the colonial heart and the place where Malaysia declared its independence from Britain. Actually, we didn't wander so much as walk purposefully, but the intense sunshine and heat made it look much like wandering. Mederka Square did not disappoint, with its impressive colonial buildings and unexpected greenness. It used to be used as a cricket ground by the British, which explains both its grassy centre and the obvious cricket pavilions alongside.

Since they were really the only image we had of KL before arriving, we had to have a good look at the Petronas Towers. We had decided not to go up due to the brevity of the allocated visiting time and the fact that you can't see the towers from inside, and instead planned to visit the KL tower. However, we wanted to get close so we had a wander through the posh mall underneath before popping outside to enjoy the public spaces.

As we had foregone the opportunity to visit the very expensive aquarium in Bangkok we were excited to find a much more affordable option in the basement of the convention centre. Overexcited, perhaps, so let me share a photo of even more excited children on a school outing for perspective.

The next day's breakfast came from the food court in the Berjaya Times Square mall, where we ducked in to use the post office. I loved the system here. You visit the cashier, give them cash that you think will be plenty to cover your meal, and they give you a plastic card with credit on it. You are then free to wander around and choose whatever you wish from any of the stalls or booths, where they swipe your card (I suspect it saves time when there's a queue, not having to fuss about with change) and your food catches up with you in due course. You then return to the cashier on the way out to return the card and receive your refund of the remaining credit.

The vista from the KL Tower is spectacular, and highlights even more the greenness of Kuala Lumpur's city centre.

Nearby there's a cultural village, easily missed but worth seeing, which demonstrates the traditional styles of houses across Malaysia.

The Islamic Art Museum was a long, lunch rush hour taxi ride away. We're going to tell you about our wonderful driver in a separate post, as he is one of the favourite people we met on the whole trip! The museum itself is a model of modern arts display, with engaging and air-conditioned exhibitions, including one on the batik collection of Ann Dunham (Barack Obama's mother) with insight into the importance of batik crafting for the empowerment of women across South East Asia and the world.

"Engaging" and "air-conditioned". These are of equal importance when visiting on a day like ours. We don't know how hot is was during the day, as I only bought my exciting thermometer pen at the museum, but it reached 40 degrees while we were waiting to visit the National Mosque at 6pm. That's 104 Fahrenheit, and we were melting.

Donning the complimentary purple robe and hijab to go inside didn't cool us off, but it did let us see the modern and interesting interior. By the sanctuary, a nice man in a nifty outfit was doing some hard-sell evangelism with glossy pamphlets and explained how the Malaysian Muslim community is diverse. He didn't think it was necessary for women to veil their faces, but explained that many Arabs thought that a woman should save her special face for her special husband. Tallulah was itching to ask if men didn't have a special face, too. I wanted to know what it meant for Malaysian Muslims to have a national mosque at the centre of national life, but our guide didn't really have much of an interest in the non-theological!

We washed down the tranquility of the mosque with a chaser of chaotic Chinatown - and I mean chaotic. KL's Chinatown is, by far, one of the most claustrophobic main streets that I've ever seen, even though it was also heady and atmospheric, with tightly packed stalls leaving only a narrow passageway down the centre of Petaling Street and sellers pouncing on the slightest glance as an indication of interest and a cue for the sales pitch.

We ducked out of the chaos to buy Tallulah a backpack and found a food court to gather our thoughts over a drink (and an opportunity to try some lychee juice for me). This offered a surreal blend of morose country music and the occasional rat darting out from under one of the stalls to startle a tourist. Funnily enough, we decided not to eat there.

Kuala Lumpur was good to us, and it's sad that we didn't have more time to explore, but what we saw was an engaging and easy-going city with all the benefits of its diversity and, for us, a budget ticket to some much appreciated comfort!

Our Tropical Island (and Thailand's Toilets)

The monsoon rains caught up with us on Koh Samui.

We took a first-class train from Bangkok to Surat Thani, arriving at 5.30 am (after an hour's delay), well before dawn. Without the luxury of pickiness, we paid up for the most convenient bus/ferry package and parked ourselves and our luggage in the only open cafe for an exceptionally long breakfast.

If you'll forgive me an aside about toilets: Tallulah's rant about the unsuitability of squat toilets for women is detailed but well-argued. This is especially true when one is on a moving train, when they are just disgusting. Thankfully, we never found ourselves on a long-distance train without an alternative, but we each had occasions on which we were forced to give into the wobbling, insanitary cubicle. For anyone with any joint-related conditions, these can be difficult and unpleasant indeed. These experiences will haunt us, along with a friend's even more detailed explanation some years ago in a Parisian church of how squat toilets greatly increase the frequency of urinary tract infections in women. For more info on this... well, Google it. Don't ask me. Anyway, I was encouraged to find that this cafe had the kind of toilet that I can work with. Simple, yes, but involving a toilet seat. You flush it with water from a tiled, built-in basin ferried over with a plastic bowl, a process closely resembling methods employed by my flatmate and me during a tough plumbing winter.

Anyway, around 8.45 our coach arrived for our 90 minute ride to Donsak, where we boarded a catamaran for a fairly dull ride to Koh Samui. The exotic, lush islands and outcrops were barely visible through the salt-encrusted windows, sadly. The ferry company offered a good taxi fare so we took them up on it, though I slightly regretted it when the driver turned around with a grin and welcomed us to the island with, "So, you're going to give me a BIG tip, yes?"

A medium-sized tip later (received in good grace), we got to check into our hotel early and hit the beach. Bo Phut was beautiful. We sweltered under our beach umbrellas for a while, me spraying Tallulah with SPF 50 every fifty minutes, when she fell into a tropical island slumber, and lazily watching a lizard weave in and out of the wooden parasol mechanism. As we relaxed - reading simply too much hard work - we watched the monsoon moving in across the island.

On one side there were bright skies, on the other dark, brooding clouds threatening a downpour. It took at least an hour before the temperature dropped even a little and the winds finally made us move indoors. As we closed the door to our bungalow, the heavens opened.

Not a bad place to be stuck.

We stayed indoors and listened to the rain, apart from our brief and wet outing to the restaurant when we heard the sounds of the monsoon - large frogs croaking in pots and other unidentifiable amphibian noises.

In the morning, drying off, we toured the island and saw its many natural wonders.

One stop was at the temple of the mummified monk. He is a revered character around the island and it's probably a testimony to his popularity that people still use the temple even while surrounded by "impolitely" dressed tourists. In the 1960s the monk, having predicted that his death was imminent, duly shuffled off while meditating one day and was left to become mummified as he was, complete with sunglasses. Our guide showed us how to use all the fortune-telling apparatus lying around, though we thought that under the circumstances we would be better not knowing about any great misfortunes that may assault us on our travels, as fellow tourists snap-snap-snapped photos of the late mystic. We declined to follow as it felt a bit ghoulish.

Something that was definitely not ghoulish was our newfound love for elephants. We had met an elephant at Siam Niramit in Bangkok but had yet to learn much about them. I was a bit uncomfortable with the idea of wild animals being captured and trained for human convenience, but I was told that the domestic elephant has been bred this way for centuries and they do not do well without humans, which makes me feel better. On Koh Samui we heard about the special relationship between these elephants and their mahouts who are responsible for them for life - theirs or the elephant's. When Tallulah boarded her elephant her mahout decided he would like a special relationship with her, too. He wove her an engagement ring and other accessories from coconut leaves as they lurched about the forest.

Tallulah took to the Gulf of Thailand the next day in one of the hotel kayaks, as I lay and watched with my new friend Amina, who was thrilled that she had sold me one of her lovely floating shirts and sat down for a chat. I explained that I was checking that my friend hadn't drowned, and Amina yelled some encouraging platitudes such as, "Come on, Lala! You can do it!" then helped Tallulah drag the kayak back up the beach. Swimming came next, until something suspicious brushed up against her. Lala doesn't like fish on her plate or on her legs, it seems.

Activity for Trixie didn't involve much more than chewing cashew nuts and waddling down to the massage booth. We decided to go for a foot scrub without thinking about our mutual ticklishness, so the twenty minutes or so was torture. I think we each chewed through a few layers of skin getting through it without yelling and kicking, which may have seemed impolite.

A final surprise - having accidentally left a bag in that taxi on the way to the hotel, we were surprised (to say the least) to find our taxi driver at the door to our bungalow returning it. What a public spirited young man, we thought. He grinned and rubbed his fingers together. "Tip for taxi?"