Environmentalism

Do you know how hard it is not to litter in India?

I have kind of been proud of the fact that I don't litter. No, maybe not 100%, but pretty darn close to it. Since I was a youngster and became aware of "nature" I have done my best to be environmentally conscious. At times it is a hard task, but back then, "Woodsy the Owl" was my pal.

I will actually carry trash around in my pockets until I get a chance to throw it in a garbage can. You don't know what a pain that can be in Korea where public garbage cans are few and far between. And I spent about ten years there.

I normally try to avoid pictures of trash.

In India, however, public trash cans are even more rare. The fact that there is already trash and litter everywhere makes it tempting to just drop your refuse anywhere. I just can't do that though. I usually end up carrying it until I get back to the hotel room (who knows where the garbage from my room will end up, though). Or, if I see an obvious trash pile, one that looks like it is destined to be cleaned up eventually, I'll drop my trash there.

In all the places I have traveled so far in India, I have come to the conclusion that environmental concern on the local level pretty much seems to be lip service. Yes there may be policies and promotions, signs and services, but to the individual citizen, they pretty much don't mean a thing. Whether in the oceans, rivers, forests, or streets, as soon as the trash leaves their hand, it is someone else's problem. And therein lies the real problem, no personal responsibility for the public commons.

Gone are the days when the oceans, rivers, and valleys would swallow up anything you could toss into them. The world has changed. The people need to change too. All the people.

Anyway ... I wrote previously about my room in Pondicherry. The city isn't much more exciting. The beach area, what there is of it, certainly isn't anything to write home about, but I guess it is good for a stroll. There is some interesting architecture left over from when the French were the residents in charge, but the buildings are only nice if they have been kept up.

Actually I am not sure if this is new or old.

There are a lot of churches, too.

One of the more colorful of several churches in Pondicherry.

I never knew there was a St. Roch. Perhaps he is the patron saint of skinned knees and delivery dogs.

From Pondi I took my first train ride in India this trip to Trichy (Trichirappalli) which is more of a temple town.

On the train.

The Temples there were kind of nice. From the "Rock Fort" you get a pretty nice view of the whole area.

You have to take your shoes to climb the steps to the temple.

One of the entrance gates to the big temple complex.

The big temple complex there is nice too, but a lot of it is closed off to non-Hindus. Have a look at what I saw.

Just Like Whooville. Without the singing

"Oh the noise, noise, noise, noise, noise!"

Let me rant a moment ... There are times here in India when I would like to just pack it all in and leave. Most of those times come while I am on a bus. It is not the bad road conditions; I have dealt with worse. It is not the crowded uncomfortable conditions; again I have dealt with worse. It is not even the dirt and dust. What makes the trips nearly unbearable is the incessant honking by the bus drivers.

In actuality, when driving in traffic, horns really don't do what you want them to do. No one is going to "Get out of the way, stupid," or "Speed up you slug," just because you honk your horn at them. They believe they have just as much right to be idiots on the road as you do. So I don't understand why in some countries, people use their horns so much. And I see absolutely no reason for laying on the horn for more than a second, let alone 30 seconds ( I kid you not, it has happened more than once here in India, and in moving traffic no less.)

I also don't understand why the bus drivers here take the chances they do. Passing on blind curves, with on coming traffic, and stopping at the last possible moment just because they think it will get them somewhere faster. Forgetting for a moment that they have the lives of a bus load of passengers in their hands (which is hard to do considering I am one of those passengers), don't they even care about their own lives? Do they have that much blind faith thinking their daily offerings at the temples and their icons and pictures of gods on the dashboard will actually protect them?

Even if they don't die, I am sure an accident won't do much for their career as a driver.

It is all really nearly incomprehensible to me.

I've Been Shat Upon

I think in my entire life, before now, I have been crapped on by birds once, maybe twice. But since I have been in India, I have been hit three times. Three, in India alone. What? Have I be declared persona non grata by the avian population of the country? Luckily, two of them were on my hat. But one wet juicy load landed on the barrel of my camera lens. Fortunately it wasn't extended, but it was still a pain in the butt to clean. So anyway, if my pictures turn out "shitty" from now on, it's the birds' fault.

The top of a temple gateway.

A small garden Ganesha.

For not being a religious person, I seem to be entering a lot of churches, temples and such here in India. I would have entered a synagogue, but I was wearing shorts that day. Apparently the gods of Jews and Hindus frown on people dressed "immodestly." Yet the Christian churches will let anyone in no matter how you are dressed. Interesting.

Anyway ... Upon entering the churches, a lot of memories and old habits come back to me. I reach for the holy water fount to cross myself; I genuflect when crossing in front of the alter; and I begin to remember some of the prayers and proceedings of the mass. Well I guess it is bound to happen seeing as I went to church, probably from birth, until I was 19-20 years old.

The church of St. Thome. A minor basilica.

I am no longer a religious person, but I have to say it was interesting to actually experience a bit of biblical history. In Chennai I visited the Church of Saint Thome, and his tomb. This is the tomb of the St. Thomas, the apostle. Doubting Thomas, the guy who supposedly wanted to stick his fingers through the holes in Christ's hands. Over the years he made his way to India and was eventually killed and buried near Chennai. And I visited his tomb. The same place Pope John Paul II did. The tomb itself wasn't really that impressive, but hey, I was there.

One of the windows inside his church.

Something a bit more impressive were the temples and structures carved out of the rock and boulders in and around Mamallapuram. Several of the carvings are very impressive and I guess that is why it was granted UNESCO World Heritage status. One interesting thing, instead of carving things and then hauling them around, most of the images or structures were carved in place making use of the natural rock surface or boulders present.

Apparently water flowed over the central crack originally.

Five boulders carved into five "chariots".

And finally, the beach in Mamallapuram was nice also. Though you are not supposed to swim there due to strong riptides, it is still a nice place for sitting, walking or wading. In fact, one night I remember watching the full moon glistening on the blackness of the ocean. Suddenly I could see the blackness rise as a wave began to grow and advance toward me, only to crash into a foamy whiteness as it broke upon the shore. The waves sometimes brought in little luminous spots on the beach that I could capture in my hand. I don't know what it was that was glowing, but whatever it was sure was small, and pretty, too.


A few of these pictures are missing geotags, but they are all from Chennai (Madras) and Mamallapuram. Hope you like them. Boredom warning, I think there are about 172 in total.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

From Merdeka Square. Now they let you walk around on it.

In contrast to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia was full of memories. Good memories, bad memories, and bittersweet memories.

I walked past one place and realized that was where I ate spilled potato chips off the ground because I was so hungry. I remembered the McDonald's where I would fill up my water bottle everyday because I didn't have money to buy a new bottle. And the initial cause of those two incidents, the place has changed some, but I still remembered the place where I got pick-pocketed.

I saw the place where I called home to have all my cards canceled and the stupid bank who wouldn't listen to me and ran my replacement credit card through the card reader causing it to be invalidated for a couple of days leaving me with no money again.

Some of the better memories include the park where I picked up some bright red seeds which I later made into a necklace for someone special. And all the places I visited and took photos with that someone special on a subsequent trip. All those picture spots happen to be the locations of the bittersweet memories, also. You can probably guess why.

Still, even though I remembered a lot of places, I would be in Kuala Lumpur for at least 5 days waiting for my India visa, so I decided I might as well make the best of it. One nice thing I did was visit the KanChing falls outside the city to try and find a geocache.

One of the may cascades at the falls.

I didn't find the cache, but the scenery of the falls more than made up for my failure. and the jungle was full of life. Lizards, termites, and leeches, oh my!

The first leech I found was on the ground, on the move. As soon as my leg swung close it stood still, pointing straight up. As I backed out of the way, it actually followed me. It must have sensed my body heat, or something. The second leech I found on my ankle. He was on the move too, north. Since he didn't have time to grab a hold of me very well, it only bled a little when I yanked him off.

The one who didn't suck my blood.

The falls were really beautiful, but at times rather high. I slipped once and nearly fell off as cliff, but I caught myself. That made me wonder how long my body would have lain there at the bottom of the falls until someone found it. The area I slipped was in a less climbed location of the falls. How long would it have been until some would wonder where I was and why I was out of contact? Months, maybe? And then they would have to try and find out where I was. The could have probably narrowed it down to the last city, but beyond that ...

I did find some other geocaches in Kuala Lumpur. One near the bird park, one in a nice park outside the downtown area, and one near the ASEAN sculpture garden. Geocaches can take you to some pretty interesting places.

I went up in the Petronas twin towers, but you can only go up to the sky-bridge, so it is really not that impressive. Still it is one more place where I can say, "Been there, done that."

At night from behind.

I ended up having to stay in Kuala Lumpur seven days. I think I pretty much did nearly every touristy thing possible, especially if it was free or cheap. By the time I left, I was certainly ready to go.

Have a look at what I saw around Kuala Lumpur.

Oh, by the way, these photos may not have geotags associated with them or may in fact have incorrect geotags. I had forgot to match the times in my camera and GPSr. Sorry.

Singapore

The symbol of Singapore. A mer-lion.

Singapore wasn't really meant to be a stop on this trip, but since I didn't really want to go back to HongKong on the round trip ticket, I figured I would break my flight there and pick up my visa for India. Easy peasy, right? No, not so.

It was Deepavali, the Hindu festival of lights, when I was in Singapore.

But it was nice to be back in a "modern" city again. Yes, Hong Kong is pretty modern, but it still has that hectic feel that comes with Chinese culture. Singapore is a lot more laid back. In fact, on my first trip around the world, Singapore was the first place I visited where I thought to myself, "I can live here."

The arts center, sometimes called the durian by locals.

There wasn't a lot new to see, but I did visit a couple of places I missed the first time. First though, I had to visit the sight of my big break into show business- the filming location for "Bugis Street". It was completely different. It looked nothing like it did 12 years ago. New malls, new buildings, and even new streets. I guess it was a bit much to expect things to have remained the same. Though I read that most of the development was done to "improve" on the reputation that that location originally had.

I wandered around some places that I am sure I visited on that trip so long ago, but I was pretty hard pressed to remember anything I saw. Whether this is a failing of my memory or just the never ending march of time and development, who knows?

Since I didn't remember much of what I saw I thought I might as well visit some new places. So it was off to Sentosa island. It is a group of small islets just south of the island of Singapore that have pretty much been turned into a quasi-theme park with the theme being 'the beach'. It does feel a bit artificial at times, but who really cares since the reason you are going there is the beach, and that is what they give you.

Some nice beaches, actually.

The island is also where I found my first geocache on this trip. I had been looking since I set out, but was rather unlucky only finding locations with the cache missing or not being able to find the caches at all. If all you have is the Lat/Lon location, it is sometimes difficult to actually find the cache. For those of you who don't know what a geocache is but may be interested, go to geocaching.com and have a look.

Also here you can visit the southern most location of continental Asia. The place is a small islet just about a hundred meters south of Sentosa. Now if you are like me, you maybe be thinking, wait a minute, if it is an island, how can it be "continental Asia"? Well, apparently since Singapore is connected to mainland Malaysia by bridges, and Sentosa island is connected to Singapore by several bridges, and this little islet is connected to Sentosa by a foot bridge, that makes it part of continental Asia. Yeah, I don't buy their logic either, but I was there.

I also visited a jungle reserve/water catchment area north of the city that was rather nice. It is secondary jungle, but it is still nice to walk around in and see all the trees and such. You can see monkeys, birds, and even monitor lizards. They also have a canopy walk which is a bridge that allows you to walk through the forest at the top of the trees. It was a nice, but sweaty, day.

The reservoir with the jungle in the background.

The only other highlight of Singapore was that I got to meet an Internet friend I had been chatting with for a while. It is nice to actually see in person someone you have only talked with before.

There are not many photos from Singapore, but have a look. Hope you enjoy them.

Still of Cambodia

But no longer of Siem Reap. Phnom Phen was nice, but not quite ans memorable as the temples around Angkor.

Independence monument.

My visit to the "Killing Fields" was a rather somber experience, as was the prison where they kept some people before killing them. It is something rather hard to imagine, but rather hard to deny when you have the evidence right in front of you. It is sad that Cambodia now has that period as part of its history, but then all history seems to be filled with moments like that. It is too bad we seem so poor at learning from history.

Inside the monument at the Killing Fields.

Elsewhere there was the royal palace and associated temple, and a few other temples here and there, but I think maybe the best thing was just strolling along the riverside area and watching life go by.

Part of the royal palace.

The snacks and food were easy to come by, but I didn't take advantage of the fried crickets, tarantulas, cockroaches, bats, sparrows, and other things you would never imagine people would eat. The corn on the cob was certainly good though, as were the fruit shakes.

Food, glorious food. (?)

The Russian (tourist) market was OK to stroll around in for a while, but seeing as I rarely buy souvenirs, it didn't hold my interests for too long. Probably more interesting were the real markets with their crowds, oddities, and inevitable smells. And, man oh man, was it good to get iced sugarcane juice again. Pressed straight straight from the cane. I tried a packaged product once from a store but it was just not the same as fresh squeezed. If you have never had it before, it is kind of hard to describe. No water added, it tastes a bit like sugar-water but with flavor, kind of a planty flavor, maybe. Mmm, Mmm, good. True, I was breaking a cardinal rule of street food, but it is so much better when cold. Besides, with all the places I have been and things I have eaten, my digestive system has become pretty hardened. My stomach rarely rebels against me. The back end may go off due to something from time to time, but it rarely lasts too long.

Cambodia Part III

OK, here is the final set of photos from around Siem Reap.

I hope you saw something you liked in those photos.

I am not yet ready to move on to a new country yet. I have some photos of Phnom Phen to share with you next time. Here is a sample.

You know, I don't think this is something I would ever give to my child.

What size do you suppose this is, maybe "L"? Or the more important question, what device does it go into?