Lion city

Almost every time I travel for work, I transit through Singapore airport. It's probably the best airport in the world with its free power and WiFi, indoor gardens, dedicated areas for resting and shopping and watching movies, and unfailingly friendly staff. I was tired of seeing the airport but not the city, so this time I insisted on entering Singapore for a few days on the way home.

Singapore was always going to be a surprise, no matter what we expected. At first sight I described it as "the part of the West where they speak Chinese" (yes, I realise that's imprecise to the point of inaccuracy). It's difficult not to be reassured by Singapore - it's so safe, so advanced, so multicultural.

Reassured, then, we cut loose and enjoyed ourselves. We slept late and made no plans and ate good food (crab linguine, Hainanese chicken rice, sweet potato pastries, spam frites - don't knock it till you've tried it). We had lunch with a former colleague at a hawker centre and cocktails at the top of that building that looks like a ship. We counted brand stores on Orchard Road and went to the night safari zoo. We paid local prices for beer without complaining.

Singapore looks like a great place to be wealthy. It's very livable with tons of things to do and easy connections to the rest of the world. Wages are so high that taxi drivers and porters are snooty - they know they earn more than the tourists they serve. If the same attitude prevails in cafes and stores, it would be easy to feel isolated.

Wikipedia tells me there's high income inequality, but we saw very few poor people. Those that we did see were riding in the back of open trucks, eight or ten at a time. Our taxi driver told us they were Indian or Bangladeshi workers brought in for construction projects. He said the mandatory truck transport "allows us to monitor them. They go to work, they go home." He didn't seem to see any problem in these workers being denied full participation in Singaporean society. We looked down at the trucks of workers from our tour buses and wondered if they still had their passports.

That was the only real jarring note in our visit to Singapore. It's a great place to play, and stopping there inevitably breaks up a long trip between New Zealand and the rest of the world. There is something slightly creepy, though, about a city so safe and clean and attractive. I suppose it's difficult to get a crime rate that low without some cost in terms of civil liberties.

KK is More Than OK

Firstly the beach is excellent, but Kota Kinabalu was so interesting we didn't visit it.

Kota Kinabalu is universally called KK and it deserves to be a household name. Everything about the place screams fantastic holiday resort. The climate is resolutely warm and pleasant, the hotels cheap, the people lovely, and the views stunning.

KK society seems to be completely integrated and sorted. The people are 2/3 Bornean and, honestly, couldn't care less about race or creed. They're friendly, educated, talkative, and interesting. This is all anecdote but I saw no evidence that KK and Sabah had any problems that weren't from the Philippines.

KK itself is completely safe, but the east of Sabah has a reputation of raids from the Sulu Islands, part of the Philippines, by Islamic extremists targeting tourists for ransom. Malaysia is handling this international problem by beefing up the military and police presence. The Sabahan themselves aren't worried about it, so it's a very unlikely occurrence.

Within KK the only things that could worry you is the water-taxi touts charging a bit much or the laundry lady talking your ear off (I jest, she was lovely). The food is varied and interesting, there was even bacon, and the prices are fantastic. Everything we had was good stuff and we tried hotel, street, and bar food. There was one exception: wagyu beef is nice but horrendously overpriced.

Our hotel, Le Meridien, was the best we stayed at and it was the same price as a motel at home. The view was fabulous, the location central, the room enormous, and the shower excellent. Breakfast included 4 counters and continuous plungers of coffee. Seriously, every hotelier should go to Le Meridien to see a good hotel.

Even though we were shattered after climbing Mount Kinabalu, we still managed to enjoy a lovely walk along the esplanade. With water-taxis zipping between mainland and islands and local markets galore there was excellent strolling, even without a plan. If we'd been able to exceed 1kph we would have visited an island, probably the one with monitor lizards.

By the way, Mt Kinabalu is an awesome hike. Just do it over 3 days. We did it over 2 and everything was fine until we tried to walk out after summiting. If you take 3 days you'll get to enjoy your time on the mountain and the descent. As it was we were pleased to descend quickly but given the option I'd've loved to explore the other peaks. The rock climbing looks fabulous!

Back in KK there is scuba diving surpassed only by the east of Sabah. So whether you like heights or depths KK is your gateway to happiness.

Oh and the toastmasters are fun too :)

Heat

After 16 days in Malaysia and two in Singapore, we have learned something about handling the heat. It's been around 30 degrees most days here, with humidity pushing the perceived temperature up to 35. Nighttime temperatures fell as low as 22 one night in KL. It was all new to us and we had to adapt.

The first thing that had to change was my body image. Usually I don't like to show my legs, and in Wellington I have the option of going through life in trousers. Not so over here - skirts and even shorts are now comfortable for me, and I don't even care about people seeing the mosquito bites on my calves. Hooray!

The next change was our attitude to distance. In hot climates, distances stretch. It takes longer to get places and do things. You just adapt, leave more time, be less demanding. It's relaxing.

The other thing we had to get used to was air conditioning. It's a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it's amazing being able to duck into a mall any time you want a break from the heat. On the other hand, now you're in a mall. It's noisy and bright and you can't really relax, even if you find a nice coffee shop. It's cold too - if you plan to spend much time inside you have to carry a jacket, which is a ridiculous burden when out in the heat.

Using malls as accessways leads to intense disorientation when you get back outside. And air conditioning can be almost as tiring as heat - the air in malls is dry, and after a few hours inside you start to feel as slow and dehydrated as after a night's drinking.

You dehydrate outside too, of course. It's somehow more noticeable when you're hot and sweaty, so it's easier to deal with. We learned to buy juice or iced tea every few blocks when walking. Carrying a water bottle just isn't enough - especially in Malaysia where the tap water supposedly isn't potable, so you can't refill your bottle. Fortunately, in Malaysia, drinks (and food) are very cheap.

As for being sweaty, that's something else you get used to. You shower as soon as you get in, even if you're going out again. I don't know what office workers do in their hot business clothes. Maybe they stay inside for lunch; certainly those that I saw in bars after work looked comfortable enough, not as though they'd been in sweaty clothes all day.

We got used to the heat and, by the end, we preferred the warm humidity outside to the dry cool inside. Who knows what will happen to us when we return to the cool Spring weather of New Zealand tomorrow.

Chicken with everything

Before we left, when I told people we were going to Malaysia, there were two main reactions: "gosh, it'll be really hot" and "won't you have some lovely food!".

I'm not much of a foodie when I travel. Food is a necessity that shouldn't take up too much of my sightseeing time. As long as I get a little bit of protein every day, I don't care what I eat. (In Seoul I lived mostly on 5000-won fried rice, and in London it was, to my shame, sandwiches from the lunch chain Eat.)

However, the universal prediction that the food in Malaysia would be wonderful did have me a bit curious. More wonderful than the nasi goreng we get at home? And in what way? So much of the food I eat when I go out at home is either Malaysian or Chinese - it's hard to know what to expect when visiting a favourite dish's home country.

I think it would be fair to say that we were pretty consistently underwhelmed. In KL we had no time to find the good street food, so we ate in malls a lot. This meant we experienced a lot of different presentations of chicken with rice. In a nation that's 60 percent Muslim, pork is literally a dirty word. Sandwiches contain "turkey ham", and sausages are invariably chicken. For some reason beef is also hard to come by. In fried rice and noodles the meet is usually chicken - often, we found, diced but not deboned. Gross.

In Kuching we fared better. We had time to wander, and our wanderings were rewarded with good laksa, high-end Chinese food, many types of noodles and, unexpectedly, Italian. In KK we were back to time-short snacking - our one attempt at satay, which I love, left us both feeling ill, and the day after coming down the mountain we were so exhausted and tender we headed straight to a Tex-Mex bar and stayed there.

There have been moments of culinary brilliance. The "Borneo laksa" in Kuching was astonishing. Local soft drinks have essentially replaced our familar thirst-quenchers - chrysanthemum tea, soy milk and tamarind juice all taste so good out of a cold can on a hot day. Malaysian "kopi", intense and thick with condensed milk, is now a staple. And no breakfast is complete without mee (thin noodles).

But my favourite would have to be the bacon. Pork-free bacon, made out of beef. Malaysia has proven the internet right: if bacon did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it.

Stoner Pistachios

Having claimed on Twitter that every fruit in Asia tastes like lychees, I have to retract/explain.

There does seem to be a lot of lychee-ish-ness happening, which is particularly strange since lychee isn't much of a flavour. It's kind of a watery coolness that is sweet but gentle, nice with custard, but hardly a shock to the senses. But, in the continent that produced kimchee, curry, fugu, and satay, I wasn't expecting subtle.

So I was disappointed when the first 3 fruits I was handed were 2 lychee-ish fruits and a green mandarin. Rambutan is exciting to look, a red ball with yellow strands like a small soft sea egg, and quite fun to open. The taste is nice, and I think might work at home, but it is very lychee like.

Longan is similar to lychee too but quite annoying to get into. Gael enjoys the longan and water drinks available in various places. My experience with a similar tamarind drink was more nuanced. It's a salty sour taste which was hard going. It looked like a sunset but was more difficult to appreciate. I was still tempted to acquire the taste though.

Much more yum though was mangosteen. Completely unlike a mango, mangosteen has a hard and resolutely red case with translucent white flesh (like a lychee :) within. The locals warn that the red will stain FOREVER, and some hotels have banned mangosteen for that reason. I didn't test it but after the first mangosteen I didn't care. It's like a tangy mandarin with a slight buttery flavour. They're very tasty and sweet, well worth the effort. Just, carefully, tear the shell off and eat the white flesh with gusto.

Dragonfruit manages to out lychee lychees while being obviously the most exciting fruit. It's covered in purple-red scales like a dragons egg, and seems about the right size. Cut it open like a small watermelon and you'll find flesh the most vivid purple you've ever seen. The colour is stunning, we literally stopped our meal to discuss the colour. The taste is also stunning: it doesn't have any at all. Seriously it's a visual spectacle with no substance. Watermelon is a taste explosion in comparison. However if you want to add a fantastic colour to something without changing the flavour, dragonfruit is your best friend.

Also reminding me of watermelon is ... Yellow watermelon. It's just like watermelon but yellow. It's also, in my opinion, slightly nicer so I'd like to see it at home.

We also tried guava slices. Guava turns up occasionally in drinks at home so we knew what to expect. However the thin 10cm and slightly dry slices were excellent. A pear with flavour, spicy and cedar-ish. They are green on one side and white and you just eat everything with a big smile.

Honey dew melon slices look similar but have a slightly crunchy centre like an apple or pear. They taste similar to the guava but not quite as good.

Papaya is a pastel orange eaten like a melon and relatively popular at home so it was a familiar friend to visit in Sabah. As were pineapples, oranges, and apples.

Durian was not. It's an angry pineapple on the outside, and a yellow kidney on the inside. The smell is simultaneously nutty and revolting. Sort of like some sort of pickled walnut but without the tang of vinegar. The taste loiters around like a stoner pistachio: never really nutty nor completely revolting. I like marmite so I understand acquired tastes and durian is definitely one of those.

So I take it back: fruits in Asia more interesting than lychees, and I'd love to see more of them at home.

"But Everest you can take days over"

The greatest phone call I've ever made would have to be the one I made yesterday morning to tell my family Gregory and I had just got engaged. We were on descent, about 30 minutes below the summit, when we stopped to rest on a shallow granite slope just above Sayat Sayat checkpoint. With the morning sun shining and the little fields and houses of Sabah spread out at our feet, we decided now was as good a time as any to make the calls. Mt Kinabalu has excellent cellphone reception, even at the summit. My mum was excited, wanted to see the ring; Gregory's dad texted "glad you both got altitude sickness together".

That was about the last bright point of the day. Gregory's sparkly rock on my finger definitely made for a distraction from the hellish descent, but nothing could have made it any easier.

It took us from 2.30 till 9.30am to make the round trip from Pendant Hut to the summit and back. By the time we got back to the hut we felt as if we'd done a full day of climbing already, which we had. It wasn't easy climbing either - there were ropes and steep faces, hundreds of steps, and large boulder piles to ascend hand over hand. Our toes were sore from being rammed into the front of our shoes, and our ankles were sore from balancing. We were glad we'd bailed on the via ferrata - although the locals are very proud of it, we were too tired to try it (and see Gregory's post for his concerns about the safety briefing).

There was little time to rest. After a cooked breakfast at the hut we toasted our engagement with arak (Sarawak rice spirit), stocked up on chocolate at the Laban Rata store, and started on the remainder of the descent around 11.30am.

We limped out of Timpohon Gate just before 5.30pm. Six kilometers in six hours - the same speed we had made going up. Because we were already fatigued, coming down was even harder. This was made worse by my idea that it would be easier below Layang Layang - but that only applies when you're going up - while stepping up thousands of steps is tiring, it's way easier than stepping down them.

Well before halfway we were seriously struggling. Our knees were too sore to take the steps properly, so we were going down crabwise, one step at a time. Our bruised toes made every step painful. My ankles and calves were too weak to balance, forcing me to grip the handrail with both hands to avoid falling. In the state we were in, it was a miracle that neither of us did fall and hurt ourselves.

We weren't the only people struggling. Apart from the local guides and porters, almost every climber we saw that day was in distress, from the summit to the exit. Fitness levels had nothing to do with it, nor nutrition, nor clothing; it was just that the task was too much for the majority of people up there. People were suffering on that mountain because it can't safely be climbed the way the tourist operators want you to climb it.

I don't know why they promote this two-day round trip, but it's madness. No one but the true mountaineers should be trying to descend on the same day they summit. To make the mountain accessible to the reasonably fit tourist - which is what they seem to want to do - the operators should instead be promoting an "in your own time" approach.

At the very minimum a standard trip should include two nights at Laban Rata with a daylight summit attempt in the middle. The 2.30am start for the summit is just exhausting people and making the trip more dangerous, and without the pressure to descend on the same day, it's unnecessary. Laban Rata has the infrastructure to handle many people at leisure - store, restaurant, books and games - and it would make so much more sense to have people relaxing there after they come down from the summit. Having them pack up and walk out immediately is dangerous and dumb.

One other thing I'd add to the standard package is a night at Kinabalu Park HQ after the descent. It's hard to know how necessary this would be if you'd taken the descent at a reasonable pace, but with our sore knees and ankles, we definitely didn't want to get straight in a van for the two-hour drive back to KK. If we'd booked in at the HQ we would have been able to go straight to sleep, and someone making better time would have had the option of exploring the trails around the base of the mountain, which look very inviting.

Mt Kinabalu should be a tourist attraction on par with Yosemite National Park, but the way they're selling it makes it a hazard up there with Aoraki. I got the title of this post from two fit climbers who passed us on descent, discussing whether Kinabalu is made harder than Everest by the schedule. This is madness; I say enough.

Everything is OK

The morning is crisp but not cold. I'm up promptly at 1AM after tossing and turning with anticipation and trepidation. The sky is black and crystal clear, but there is a whippy wind. Perfect weather for viewing, staying warm, and keeping cool.

Slowly everyone awakes, looking befuddled but ernest.

Not many had a good night's sleep but some of that disappointment was assuaged by the DeLonghi 4 slice toaster. A little bit of luxury goes a long way.

2:39 and we're on our way, with stars above and the lights of KK to the west. The path is an easy but steep mix of wooden steps and wet granite. We all have headlamps so even the darkness doesn't matter. I can even blog, albeit slowly, as I walk

We've passed 3.5km attitude and the steps are steeper. To our right the boulders have changed to walls of granite. The rock climbing here is fantastic with 100s of metres of slab  and excellent boulders long before you reach the pinnacles. The locals are justifiably proud of top-notch talent visiting and laying new routes.

Far to the south lightning crackles as we finally reach a flat bit.

We emerge from the stunted bonsai tree onto an enormous diagonal slab. A series of white ropes zig-zag across the face and then turn straight up. Horror at the sheerness are overwhelmed by memories of batman and robin climbing much harder walls trivially easily. With "na-na-na" ringing in my head I bolted hand over hand to the top. I felt very chuffed with myself. The similar 3 rope climb later on slowed us down but was a fantastic effort. 

We've reached Sayat-Sayat checkpoint with 1/2 an hour to spare. Now for the summit.

Beyond Sayat-Sayat the route is a continuous 45° slab. The constant uphill balancing act got to Gael and she switched gecko mode. But our guide Byron used his hypnotic superpower to help her find her feet again. With his help we were able walk past the highest point in New Zealand holding hands.

Beyond the Mount Cook mark the mountain flattens to a granite slope that connects the many peaks. It was a relief, though Gael was feeling the altitude with every step. She got lightheaded every time she stood up. With my encouragement and Byron's expertise she continued on, rock by rock, step by step. The granite rose up toward the summit as the sunrise coloured the sky. When the first rays of sun touched the summit, we stood there together having conquered distance, uncertainty, rock, and tiredness together. It was the most romantic moment in my life.

So I asked Gael to marry me.

Everything's gonna be OK, Everything's gonna be OK...

Rock climbing is, supposedly, my sport. Unfortunately after over a dozen years I'm still not very good at it. Fortunately I'm gained a lot of experience which forced me to repeat Kwong's message, "everything's gonna be OK" at tonight's training.

Tomorrow we and 30 others are going to do the Via Ferrata on Mt Kinabalu. This involves dangling off ropes and harnesses while descending a cliff, or 2. We'll be roped together with people from at least 7 countries and if any of them makes a mistake we'll get the bad form of exciting.

Obviously the company has thought of this and there is lots of redundancy in the system. 2 carabiners hold us onto the wire rope, a dynamic line holds us to pigtail clips, and we are all roped together. Even if a tourist mucks up the first 3, they'll still be stopped by the next person in the line being pulled towards a pigtail clip.

This is fine, excellent even. I will be hard pressed to fall off this and Ifni knows I've managed everything else.

However...

Watching noobs from seven countries unhook everything and panic because the pigtail clip is facing away from them is terrifying.

The first was an inevitable mistake as they were practicing inside the hut but if the same guy does it on the wall there is going to be a big bang before he stops. And we'll struggle to get the gormless giant back onto the wire. The trainer didn't notice, and some guy had to correct him. To which he shrugged and went to sign his form. Training 30 people in 3sq metres of hut with 2 pigtail clips and 1 trainer is rushing it.

We, of course, were not helping. We were exhausted from climbing the mountain and grumpy because we hadn't had dinner. And finally we're getting up at 1AM.

So you can understand a little bit of panicking. But I was tired and hungry and these noobs were stopping me from eating while doing boneheaded mistakes that could bounce us around quite violently.

I dug deep into to my toastmasters and rock climbing experience and repeated "everything's gonna be ok". And it has been.

So far... 

Mount Kinabalu is not "accessible"

When you read about the Mt Kinabalu climb, it sounds quite accessible. Sometimes it's described with that exact word. You walk, say the books, for six hours uphill; then you sleep in the hut-settlement of Laban Rata till 1am; then you walk uphill for another two hours, and then you're at the highest point of South-East Asia. In time for sunrise, too.

Let me tell you something. They don't really mean "walk for six hours uphill". You don't walk, you climb, foot after foot, rock by rock, for almost the entire six hours. And it's not uphill. It's just straight up the side of the mountain. Tumbled sandstones and, later, granite boulders provide traction, but it's just vertical step after vertical step, on and on and on. It can take the best part of an hour to cover 200m; we were astonished to complete the 6km inside six hours.

When you pass the halfway marker the track is still a pretty familiar clay forest path. It's cool under the trees, ferns and vines fill the forest, and there's very little wildlife - all just like New Zealand. Large steps are cut into the track, and just like in New Zealand, the steps are too large to use without exhausting yourself. We quickly learned to minimise the vertical height of each step we took by using rocks and tree roots as intermediate steps. In this way we proceeded reasonably quickly to the lunch stop, a shelter named Layang Layang just below the 4km marker. On the face of it, we were 2/3 done.

It was those last 2km where things got gnarly. The clay path with steps was replaced by a long stream of tumbled boulders. Sometimes it was possible to traverse over a boulder using footholds, but other times it was impossible to avoid taking too large a step in order to reach the next section. An unhappy rhythm formed: small step, small step, small step, giant step, rest. Small step, small step, small step, giant step, rest. Each rest left us feeling a little worse than the previous one. It took us four hours to do the last 2km. I was in tears by the time we reached Laban Rata, and even Gregory was looking shellshocked when we finally sat down at Pendant Hut.

Amazingly, it took only two cups of sugary tea and a biscuit before we started to feel human again. The majestic slope of the mountain rising outside the window was suddenly a source of interest, not horror. Our fellow climbers were people to talk to, not incomprehensibly fit demi-gods. Best of all, dinner was coming, and in the morning we are promised two breakfasts (one each side of the summit). The prospect of summitting was still exciting, despite my genuine doubts about my fitness, and our local guide thought we could probably make it even after a whole day spent trailing us at snail's pace.

So what went wrong with our expectations? We forgot that this new mountain is unlikely to be like New Zealand. At home we have ample opportunity to walk for six hours uphill on bush tracks, but they do nothing to prepare you for the vertical flow of boulders we have here. At home, once you leave the treeline, you're mostly in ice and probably know what you're doing. Here it's too warm for ice, and a whole different set of challenges lie in wait beyond that too-accessible treeline. At home, huts are seldom more than four hours apart, creating a range of possible long and short walking legs. On Kinabalu you have no option - six hours of climbing, or you're out.

We made it through the six hours of climbing, so we're not out. And tomorrow we still plan to stand on the top of Borneo. Our expectations for tomorrow afternoon are pretty realistic, too, now - we're going to emerge from Timpohon Gate dead on our feet, and spend the next 24 hours, hopefully, off our feet entirely.

And we're off

In 24 hours, if all goes well, we'll be standing up there on top of Mt Kinabalu. Tonight we sleep at Laban Rata, a pretty fancy-looking mountain house about 800m below the summit. We're not sure what the cellphone coverage and power will be like, but we'll blog our day if we can (and if we can stay awake long enough - we have 6-8 hours of walking between then and now). Otherwise, next update Monday night.

Cool Change To Mountain Air

High in the mountains sprawls the village of Kundasang, home of Mount Kinabalu and Malaysia's main source of cool air.

We drove up from the lowland plains in the usual van but had to avoid a continuous stream of what looked like Fonterra milk tankers. Our driver explained that they were taking the cool air to KK's floating gas storage facility for transshipment to KL, Bangkok, and Jakarta. Apparently piped cool air is cheaper than air-conditioning. There is a downside though: they use raw unprocessed cool air in their malls, risking hypothermia. Certainly that was our experience at Avenue K and Suria KLCC. 

As we neared the village we were issued with canisters of cheap warm air, just in case. Fortunately we haven't needed them, the local oxygen supplies were sufficient. The cool air mine has decades of ore left.

A blowback at the main mine many years ago scattered the village amongst the valley walls. The effect is quite pleasant and no effort has been made to rearrange the homes. However a new law, the "Kansas Act", introduced safety regulations to prevent a repeat. A good thing too: some houses were hurled as far as Ozzie.

The mining industry seems to have brought low level prosperity with it. The markets are full of excellent vegetables and the accommodation is lovely. People seem wealthy and there is complementary Wi-Fi in the hotel.

That's the most astonishing thing about Kundasang: free Wi-Fi. To hear all the Kiwis talk, Sabah is unchanged since Conan got shipwrecked at Kota Marudu. In reality it is cosmopolitan, educated, engaged, and savvy. Our laundry lady, who was lovely, wanted to help people in "the third world". She was completely oblivious to the common opinion of her home island. This out of date attitude is maintained by the existence of exotic tropical diseases, and yet the only disease we've heard a local complain about was flu. We need to update our attitude and engage with Borneo.

Hell, the cool air mine hardly ever gets attacked by flying monkeys anymore!

Today's the day!

We woke this morning in Kota Kinabalu to a beautiful ocean vista - pink puffy clouds, calm waters around the islands, little boats zooming here and there. Tonight we'll be far away from the ocean, sleeping in a lodge at the foot of Mt Kinabalu, preparing to rise early for the first stage of the climb.

We are beginning to get travelled out. Our enthusiasm for crowds and new foods is waning. We've become so blasé, we forgot to remove knives and iPods before going through airport security. Our excursions out of the hotel are becoming results-oriented - get the laundry, find a pharmacy, find someone who can show us proboscis monkeys. Last night we couldn't even muster enthusiasm for the night market that surrounded the hotel on three sides (though we had an excellent view from our room of the market and the associated traffic chaos).

We won't get the chance to get to know KK the way we did Kuching. We've had just 24 hours from getting off the plane till our pickup for the mountain, and when we return from the mountain we'll have one more full day (on Tuesday). In view of that, we're not really bothering much with the city - no sooner had we arrived yesterday than we were arranging a ride to Lok Kawi wildlife park, half an hour out of town.

Lok Kawi is essentially a zoo. We aren't usually keen on zoos, but we don't have the time to seek out Bornean wildlife in the wild, and these animals often can't be seen in zoos at home. The enclosures seemed mostly big enough and the animals weren't stressed out (except the sun bears, who were pacing and clearly needed more trees to climb). The jewels of the zoo's collection - orangutans and proboscis monkeys - were lovingly cared for with large, stimulating enclosures full of games. I hope if I come back here that all the other animals will be treated as well.

I've never seen proboscis monkeys before. They're very graceful, have slow, thoughtful eyes, and of course the funny little probes on the end of their noses (for flowers, maybe?). We had the pleasure of seeing a young one with its mother, and watched it for a good 20 minutes as it tried to learn to climb a rope. It was exactly like watching a child figuring out a jungle gym (but a thousand times more agile). So cute!

On the way out we stopped to say hello to the otters. They were swimming around and around their moat, whistling soft messages to each other. As we stood there, the heavens opened, and the otters played together in the rain. There's no point trying to avoid a tropical rainstorm - who knows how long it could last - so we deployed raincoats and umbrellas and squelched back to the van.

A local passed us with two large palm leaves tented together as an umbrella. There's no substitute for local knowledge; we wouldn't even know how to cut a palm leaf. Tomorrow on the mountain we'll have to rely on our guide for that - especially if there is any actual Bornean wildlife around.

Still Searching For My People

Another early morning, another exciting adventure: Semenggok Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre and Orangutans. Since we're in Malaysia orangutans are the obvious attraction, and I was looking forward to meeting my fellow ginger primates.

Semenggok is a jungle area not far from Annah Rais dedicated to helping animals and returning them to the wild. Its minimalist in the conservationist way but nice enough. They do, however, have cells for the naughty crocodiles that come their way.

Naturally we went straight to the croco-prison. The first cell was empty but showed the lay-out: a concrete floor with inlaid rocks sloping down to the water filled bottom 4 meters. The second cell held a very grumpy log floating in the water. You could tell from the look in his eyes that 4m of water was not enough for a log of his size. Apparently he'd been very naughty and menaced villagers a long way away. He was being held until they could find a place for him.

The third cell held Sarawak national staring champion. A fantastic crocodile about 4m long, and completely determined to bore a hole in the cell using only his eyes. He lay diagonally across the dry part of the cell looking to long for it. I gingerly moved in front of him for a photo of that malevolent gaze, and felt sure that he was only waiting for the steel rebars to melt before devouring me. A single move from him would have scared me to death anyway.

We walked back to look at the pitcher plants and idly noticed a crocodile in the first cell. Problems with Bornean Travel #3: even when you can't see any logs, there are crocodiles.

The pitcher plants were cute and plentiful as they grow like carnivorous weeds in the park. We also saw a snake slide calmly through the jugs on its way to somewhere with more mice.

Finally we were called to the lectern and had the plan explained to us. The rangers gave the usual warning that these are wild animals and not to do anything that would leave us with fewer limbs. He also mentioned that the orang-utans make their own plans and we might not feature in their calendar. As he said this I took photos of a nearby gecko.

He led us a short way into the jungle on a track very much the same as the ones at home. We took pictures of trees and tried not to trip on the roots. 5 minutes later we stopped in a clearing across from a ranger and feeding platforms. Then we waited...

Naturally I got bored and I had a camera. I wandered away from the crowd to see if I could find and photograph the cause of the very noisy background sound. Photographs proved impossible as it was some kind of leaf roller high up in the trees. Malaysian squirrels were also impossible to photo as they move constantly. 

More amenable to photographs were the millions of ants trekking to a tree right beside the view platform. Literally millions, streaming from high up in the tree, guarded by soldier ants, and moving implacably. Bizarrely I felt horrified by and for the ants: they could be crushed easily but there were so many of them and so organised that Hollywood hyperbole seemed actually possible. 

The orangutans never did show up and I left Semenggoh a bit disappointed. It was an awesome place though and I felt it was well worth it. Meeting my tribe will have to wait for another day.

Cycling Kuching

On our last day in Kuching we finally get to see the city properly - on bikes. The lovely people at CPH Travel, who have organised everything we've done here, give us helmets and pretty little folding bikes and a guide named Richard, and off we go. Or off we would have gone, if not for a pause to pump up our own tyres, then two different stops in search of a helmet for Richard, whose boss hadn't left one out for him as promised.

"We're going to die, aren't we," I mutter to Gregory, eyeing the city traffic with trepidation as we adjust our helmets. Kuching traffic is an odd combination of laid-back and unregulated; operations like merging, giving way and changing lanes are done with more regard to the feelings and needs of other road users than to the road rules. While that's kind of sweet, it can be alarming at first. Being a pedestrian is very disconcerting when no one stops to let you cross - but the moment you take your life into your hands and step into the road, vehicles carefully steer around you as if they actually don't want you to die. Coming from Wellington, this is a revelation.

Pedaling grimly along the Kuching waterfront road, we quickly find that the same attitude applies to cyclists. The drivers share the road like gods. They make way and keep clear and let us go first at traffic lights. In this city where double-parking appears entirely legal, a driver alert for unexpected vehicles parked in his lane has no difficulty with an unexpected cyclist. They just drift calmly along behind, never even tooting, until we can get ourselves out of harm's way.

Once the question of traffic is settled I begin to relax and enjoy being on the move. It's 30 degrees and the sun comes and goes. In the heat, moving is better than not moving, but soaring along on a bike is best of all. The breeze of your progress makes the heat bearable and the changing vista keeps your mind off the discomfort.

We visit Kuching South City Hall, cycle across the western river bridge to visit a vegetable market, take in the stately buildings on the north shore - state legislature, state library, governor's residence. At every new sight we stop for photographs and Richard waits patiently. We wind up with a visit to an orchid garden before putting the bikes on a water taxi back to the south side.

The bikes are folding ones with small wheels and they fit easily under the low roof of the water taxi. As we'd discovered when we stopped earlier to adjust them for taller riders, they're designed with ease of use in mind - from the seat to the handlebars, everything is quick-release and slide-to-adjust, no spanners or hex keys necessary. I want one.

After a final sprint back along the waterfront, we leave the bikes in the van, folding their pedals up to make them fit better. Richard says goodbye - he has another job to do this afternoon. We put on hats against the heat and stroll, too slowly now, back to Chinatown for lunch. We are sore and sunburnt, but we feel so much more at home in Kuching for having soared through the streets like laid-back locals.

It's who you know

So tonight we had dinner with Past International President John Lau and his wife Rebecca at the Sarawak Club (an old-school country club). We had a delightful evening talking of Toastmasters challenges and successes, and of course eating delicious Chinese food. But how on earth did this come about? Two ordinary Toastmasters from New Zealand, guests of a PIP in Borneo?

It comes down to the most basic thing in Toastmasters - communication, reaching out. We had a few days in Kuching after Convention and we figured, this being the home city of a PIP, it must be full of Toastmasters clubs. I very much enjoy visiting clubs when I travel. It can be a moment of familiarity in a foreign land (especially when traveling alone).

Looking for a club to visit while in Kuching, we hit the Club Finder, but we also got in touch with John Lau directly. If we wanted a club recommendation, who better to ask than the PIP in residence? I had his email address thanks to some reaching out of his own - while chairing a panel discussion in a very large room at Convention, John had taken questions by email, rather than try to run a mic around an audience of thousands. He'd used his personal email address for that, and so we used the same address to ask him about clubs in Kuching.

Instead, he came back with his personal cell phone number. When I called him, he invited us to dinner. It was that simple.

Over dinner we talked about contests (John is competing this year for the first time since he started his District leadership career in the late 90s); leadership ("a leader should serve with no title. Don't say I, say we"); club growth (District 72 is growing fast, District 87 slow, but facing similar challenges with empowering new leaders); and possibilities for the next Convention outside North America (maybe 2018?). It was a Toastmasters nerdfest. We had an awesome time.

Thanks, John and Rebecca! We'll never forget Sarawak hospitality.

Houses in the Jungle

An hour out of Kuching there is a Budiyah longhouse at Annah Rais.

A longhouse is the traditional, and very liveable, Bornean village construction. It's actually a series of pole houses connected by their porches. The effect is of a continuous hallway/atrium with rooms/houses opening to left and right.

With traditional societies it is easy to drop into stereotyping: either lazy savages or noble forest guardians. In reality the Budiyah are educated, productive members of society. They also have the option of living off the jungle which they are very proficient at.

However there are cracks showing in the bamboo decking. In the actual decking that's a feature but a problem for the  metaphorical floor under the Bidayuh. The first crack was revealed by Juicy, our Bidayuh guide. He commented that their jungle lore didn't help in the city so many Bidayuh turn to Catholicism in Kuching. You could tell by the expression on his face that, while it might work for the city Bidayuh, there was some thing wrong about it. That something more than what fruit to eat was being forgotten.

In Annah Rais, the community is built into the dwellings. Beyond the village, the community struggles to exist. Even when they return from the city they have lost something of the connection. Juicy showed us the house of a retired public servant who had returned: it stood alone, separated from all the others, not even raised off the ground. Obviously the owner loved his village but years in the city had changed his ideas of what home and community are.

The Bidayuh also have lots of land, enough to live off and some to farm as well. They've successfully planted rubber, cacao, pepper, and are moving into Palm but the capriciousness of global markets continues to blindside them. Juicy mentioned that Malaysia and the forest rewards hardworking people and the Bidayuh certainly are trying.

Unfortunately the tribe structure doesn't seem to be supporting them as well as they would like. Collectively they have an enormous amount of land. However each farms their own parcel of land individually and the farms are too small to attract government support. There seems to be no mechanism to enlarge the holding.

Time is not on their side anymore. 

The jungle provides everything they need, but now the hardwood timber needed can only be found south of the border. A growing population will strain the jungle more and more. Eventually they'll have to switch to modern alternatives because the original is gone. If nothing changes Borneans will become just another minority slowly fading into the Chinese and Malays.

While Juicy showed us the skulls collected by past generations in a room with a wi-fi router, I thought about all the troubles the Ngai Tahu Maori had had adjusting to the new Aotearoa. Those troubles seem, mostly, sorted these days. This is due, in part, to large compensation packages for historic grievances. But more importantly the tribes re-incorporated themselves in a modern way to successfully traverse the legal system. 

Perhaps my Ngai Tahu friends would be able to help the Bornean people upgrade their tribe to a modern institution and create a new powerful force in Malaysia and Indonesia. One that will leverage their numbers, knowledge, and resources successfully in the newly international Borneo. 

Hopefully one that can carry the longhouse's sense of community into the 22nd century.

Being delicious

Apparently my legs are delicious.

In a tropical jungle area you expect to encounter a certain number of biting critters. Despite what the guidebooks say, you can't really avoid being bitten. Today at Annah Rais longhouse, up in the steamy jungle, the heat was murderous; we dripped sweat on the bamboo floor as we toured around the village in shorts and t-shirts. Long pants to protect us from hungry visitors were completely out of the question. We had applied near-pure Deet before leaving, but that didn't seem to deter the ants and flies that roamed our ankles when we stood still for too long.

Later in Kuching it was the same story. Kuching from the air looks like this:

Clearly, with all those rivers, mosquitos are going to be a thing. We're both on antimalarial drugs, and dengue isn't known to be in this region, so we can treat the buzzing ones as an annoyance rather than a threat. Still, after every stroll by the river, my legs swell up a little more; the hard part is to avoid scratching. In the tropical climate even small skin damages are slow to heal.

City of cats

This evening we arrived in Borneo hot, tired and grumpy after six days of intense urban living in KL. As we stepped out of the Kuching airport terminal, a thunderclap had us scurrying to the waiting vehicle. "You brought it with you!" joked Bernard, our host from Destination Asia, as he expertly guided the minivan through rush-hour traffic, puddles the size of Wellington Harbour and the vertical ocean that is rain at the equator.

An hour later the rain had stopped and we were ready to venture out into the capital of Sarawak. This state of Malaysia is different from peninsula (west) Malaysia, but also different from the east Bornean state of Sabah. When we entered Malaysia in KL, we were stamped into "west Malaysia and Sabah". At Kuching airport we lined up at Immigration a second time and received a separate stamp for Sarawak. There seems to be a certain amount of independence here.

As we stroll along the waterfront road in Kuching city, Sarawak state flags appear at least as often as the Malaysian national flag. Souvenir shops abound, crowded with shirts and keyrings speaking of "Borneo", not "Malaysia". The vibe is different too - buskers along the riverside walkway play Bornean reggae on guitar and drums; hawkers sell all kinds of snack food; people make eye contact and smile. Walking by the river, we relax properly for the first time since leaving Wellington. The night is warm and a few stars are showing. Unlike KL, this city has an outdoors.

We stop for dinner at a bistro named for one of the first "White Rajahs" of Sarawak. It's open on three sides with a small garden sloping to the river. Cats stroll in and out as we eat - Kuching means "cat city" and I assume people feed these local icons. Dessert is cake and dragonfruit, a surprisingly tasteless, soft, melon-like fruit with brilliant red flesh. We amble back to our hotel via the souvenir shops, sellers of party pills dozing quietly at their stalls every dozen yards. We have no need of their wares to get happy - Kuching has done that for us already.

Trapped At Batu Caves!

Send help! We're trapped at the Batu Caves!

Our free day in KL start quietly, too quietly. My alarm hadn't gone off. So we slept in, which is fine: we're not missing anything at convention.

Also there was no more convention so I added 5 minutes of sulking time.

Eventually we got ready and, amazingly, left the airconditioned luxury of our room. The heat outside at noon assailed us mercilessly during the short walk to the mall. Acclimatisation has it's limits and 32°C is it for me.

An airconditioned bakery in the airconditioned mall provided yummy airconditioned Asian buns. We walked to the airconditioned LRT chomping our buns. Then rode it to another airconditioned mall. The greatest ever invention would have to be fire-making but cool-making is a close second today.

Another train ride took us to Batu Caves. We didn't have a map but didn't need it. Batu Cave station is the best located and named station in the world. It takes longer to get out of the train than it does to find the caves. They LOOM.

Monkey God stands proud and green above us as we leave the station. Behind him another, smaller, god has a chariot pulled by stallions by the entrance to the first cave.

Inside the flow stone. stalagtites, and boulders create a wonderland of natural architecture. Two streams combine in a magnificent waterfall to carve the rock even more. Truly a wonder of nature and so accessible to millions!

Only the unexplained Santa parade of Monkey God dioramas detracted from the experience. Even then the problem was not the displays but the lack of explanation. Probably there was a hawker somewhere with an excellent pamphlet but we didn't see him.

As it was I had fun making up stories based on my memories of The Journey To The West AKA Monkey starring Pigsy, Sandy, and Monkey.

Returning to the overground, we slowly and listlessly wandered towards the big cave and Lord Murugan. The heat smoked from the pavement and dripped down the walls. Even the monkeys had run from the merciless hammer blows of sun and wind. Only the spirit of Monkey was irrepressible*.

An ounce of shady plants provided enough respite for us to notice the coconut seller. He deftly sliced the top and bottom from the huge green nuts ready for opening. Above him an exhausted sign limply said "Coconut 4RM, CHILLED Coconut 5RM".

I moved as fast as I could and half an hour later we had our fibrous salvation and straw. It vanished in flurry of yum and in desperation I tore it open with my bare hands to get the last moist flesh. We could proceed into the heat again.

Time had only sharpened the knives of the heat. It slashed at our shirts and stabbed through our hats. Its constant slicing drove us into the tents of the hawkers

A kind Tamil book seller gave us shelter for only 38RM. And a trinket seller helped us for only 15RM. A beautiful koi pond provided some trees and a pleasant view. From there the steps to the caves and Lord Murugan himself were visible. There was only a hundred meters of baking hot cobbles to cross.

Salamanders shied away from the melting bricks. Arabs muttered darkly about The Nefud, as they extinguished their robes. Visions of Surtr and Muspellheim flickered into existence as a Phoenix made its nest. Only the fiery hands of Lord Murugan held back the blazing host.

As the celestial flame war threatened to erupted around us, we retreated to the only respite available: a cafe. 2 coffees and a couple of Nasi Gorengs and the scene outside had improved: the gods were discussing things over roasting marshmallows. Inside however the insidious temperature added heat to "discussions". Celestial war might have been averted but personal fireballs were set to explode. We needed a miracle and fast!

Flash! Crash! BOOM! The storm struck hard. Cobbles splinted as the cooling water splashed and sizzled. Surtr and efriti both reversed their strategies and fled to less humid climes. The heavens opened and gushed water upon the world.

So here we are trapped in a Malay kafe, pondering how to escape the deluge. Please contact the navy and tell them where we are. Hopefully they can reach us in time.

On message

The essence of inspirational speaking is the message delivered to the audience. I was interested to see the range of material that the nine World Championship finalists used to support their messages. For the most part, they drew on ordinary everyday experiences. That's something worth bearing in mind if you're ever preparing an International contest speech: it doesn't have to be about the lowest point of your life.

Let's take a look at the finalists in order.

Speaker 1: James Jeffley, California
"The greatest power"
Subject: Trying again after a miscarriage
Message: In adversity we find our superpower

Speaker 2: Kelly Sargeant, Texas
"Goodbye WiFi" (3rd place)
Subject: A phone-free holiday with family
Message: A human connection is more important than an Internet connection

Speaker 3: Kwong Yue Yang, China
"Four words" (2nd place)
Subject: A visit from parents
Message: Don't say "I told you so", say "everything's gonna be okay"

Speaker 4: Marc Williams, NYC
"Want"
Subject: Failing a college course and changing careers
Message: Realise what you really want may be different from what you think you want

Speaker 5: Alain Washnevsky, LA
"The Catalyst"
Subject: Looking after his boss's cat
Message: Take responsibility

Speaker 6: Eric Donaldson, Tennessee
"The medicine in your memory"
Subject: Rediscovering love after a miscarriage
Message: The memory of family support can get us through the tough times

Speaker 7: Dananjaya Hettiarachchi, Sri Lanka
"I see something" (1st place)
Subject: People who have mentored him
Message: There is something special in everyone

Speaker 8: Sharookh Daroowala, Vancouver
"Letter to a son"
Subject: His son leaving home
Message: Experience art as well as the internet

Speaker 9: Chris Woo, Brunei
"Imperfections"
Subject: Not having a speech ready
Message: Never quit when you have support

I've never seen an audience as supportive as the audience at the WCPS final. As you go up through the levels of contest, the support gets more and more enthusiastic, but the Convention audience took the cake. When a contestant asked us to sing, we sang; when they repeated their catchphrase at the end of their speech, we recited it with them; when Chris Woo concluded his speech with a sincere apology for not being ready, a few people in the balcony were on their feet for him. (See Gregory's post and its comments for more on Chris.) The winning speech drew actual screams and cheers, and when the results were announced, some in the audience were calling out "Dananjaya!" even before the contest chair. (Risky, that, by the way. Judging is a funny thing, and even if the judges were in agreement with the people's choice, what if Dan turned out to be the one DQ for time?)

Given what these people put themselves through to compete in the final, it's really uplifting to see them get so much love!

Wooing The Audience

The World Championship of Public Speaking far exceeded my expectations.

After 2 semifinals of extreme awesomeness, how could the final be better?  Undoubtedly it would be like the final if the Rugby or Football World Cup: emotional for the team and supporters but hardly the best the players have done.

The semifinal speeches have been honed within an inch of their lives. Their points are needles, their edges razors, and their curves smooth and so sexy. Emotions have been driven home so hard and often that they've popped out the other side. How can even toastmasters be expected to put so much into a speech at club, area, division, district, and semifinal level and then throw it away and  deliver another speech even better?

Chris Woo stood in front of 3000 and said this is more than I can endure, toastmasters deserve more than I can give today, all I can give is my apology for not being good enough.

And everyone in that great hall wanted to hug him. We've been there, we've felt it, we've lived it. During our icebreaker or at a competition maybe. For me it was Your Body Speaks" in the Compotent Communicator manual. It turned out better than I could have hoped, and so did Chris's speech.

His integrity, sincerity, and raw talent shone through the speech. Dananjaya delivered the best speech on the day, but Chris delivered the truest speech. He wooed the audience with his vulnerability, commitment, and bravery.

We're all looking foward to the second date Chris, please don't let us down.

Some of those amazing people

Love your audience

If it's Thursday it must be semifinals. The 91 Districts of Toastmasters International each send a contestant to the World Championship of Public Speaking, and they battle it out in nine enormous semifinal contests to find the top nine who will compete in the final on Saturday.

We attended two semifinals and they were exhausting. Semifinal 1 featured the luminous Kingi Biddle of Rotorua and we turned up in support, of course. Semifinal 7 included the new District 93, South Korea, who I visited when they were still undistricted and have fond memories of. After the contest I spoke to some of the Korean club members and was very happy to see an old friend again.

As I listened to those 20 speakers give their 20 inspirational speeches, I was vividly reminded of that morning's educational session, "Anatomy of a keynote" by Robin Sieger. Robin had delivered a keynote during the opening ceremony and now we got to find out how he does it. His message was sorted into 12 points, but came down to a single core principle: love your audience.

I noted down my interpretation of the 12 points. Here they are.
1. It's not about you, it's about the audience.
2. Love the audience.
3. Speak from the heart, with sincerity, as to a close friend.
4. Be the same person off the platform as on the platform.
5. Stay in the moment.
6. Make direct eye contact with the audience 95% of the time.
7. Think GIVE, not GET.
8. Tell your story fresh every time.
9. When the speech finishes, the keynote is not over for the audience.
10. Never forget you are telling a story, not preaching.
11. Get out of your own way. Be the messenger not the message.
12. Don't compare yourself with others. Learn from other speakers but do not imitate them.

For me, this all means one thing: a powerful speaker *gives* the audience something and really cares about them getting it. This came back to me during the semifinals because it was so clear which speakers cared sincerely about the audience and which were still focused on themselves.

The semifinalists were all tremendous speakers. They had trained and studied every tool in the speakers' toolbox, and they used them with all the great skill that had taken them to their District contests and beyond. It's a huge honour to speak on the International stage. Every one of the contestants worked hard and poured themselves into their speech and were in every way worthy of that honour. I hope they're all proud of their achievement; they should be.

The speakers covered many diverse topics, and, as is often the case in inspirational speaking, some of the topics were... heavy. Serious. Upsetting. The speakers talked about domestic violence and armed robbery, war and cancer, HIV and genocide, bullying and isolation. They shared with us their deepest personal experiences. We were honoured by their sharing.

But as well as honoured, we were exhausted. It wasn't just the heavy subject matter - it was what the speakers did with it. Simply sharing a story is not enough and they knew it. They worked hard to find messages for us in their stories, and they all succeeded. We learned to say thank you to the people in our lives, to hold onto our dreams, to reach out to others, to make wishes, to put things in perspective. It was all good stuff.

The difference between the speakers lay in what they did with their messages, having found them. The very best came to us with their message as a gift and their tragedy as the packaging - just enough to make the message real and important and relevant. Others gave us their pain and suffering in its entirety and then, when we were hurting with them, attached the message. I can't fault them for it - the strength they showed in sharing their stories was phenomenal, and I understand that it's not always possible to make a pretty parcel out of your real pain (at least not on demand for a speech contest). As a phase in the healing process, that comes pretty darn late in the piece.

But that was the difference between advancing and not. The best speakers wanted the audience to get their message and built their whole speech around that desire. Others wanted to share their stories, almost regardless of the audience's needs, and that was what became the centre of their speech - the speaker's story, not the message for the audience.

And that difference is something you could call love. Those who were ready to show love to the audience via the gift of their heartfelt message will compete again on Saturday. Those who weren't - who were too deep in their story to hold their audience tuly at heart - won't.

I have never entered the International speech contest. Not even at club level, not once, ever in my 12 years as a Toastmaster - even though I've entered the other three contests many times and been District champion in one. I've just never felt ready to speak from the heart in the way that's needed in an International contest speech. My journey as a speaker has taken me through 50ish speeches and nearly to my DTM, but I know I still don't know how to sincerely put my audience first.

This week's semifinalists have helped me to understand how important it is to care about the audience. I'm humbled to be able to learn this lesson from the greatest. I look up with the greatest respect to everyone who has had the courage and skill to take the International stage this week. When I try in a few weeks to give my first real inspirational speech at my club, I will be indebted to those people for a large part of its preparation.

Meeting Amazing People

Inspiring speeches, fantastic educationals, and impressive awards are the obvious benefits of convention. However the greatest benefit is meeting the amazing people.

Everyday we bump into someone new and learn a little bit more. Everyone here has a story and has come a long way, even the Singaporeans apparently :-D

The Malays are wonderful, calm, and efficient. They've done their nation very proud and I want to give all of them a big hug. I helped with a district convention and it was a emotional and physical marathon, my heart goes out to everyone that worked on this monumental endeavour.

My personal squee moment was bumping into Rick from Speak at the dessert table. I get worried that he'll have a heart attack every time I see the movie. But was very pleased to see that he is slimmed down and smiling these days. Speak helped him a lot and he's still competing but now it's an excuse to go to convention.  (Gael was rather annoyed that I met Rick but didn't get a photo, she's a much better groupie than me)

We've also talked to Zimbabweans, had an argument with a Nigerian and apologised profusely to her saint of a husband, and been mobbed by a friendly horde of Singaporeans. We even managed to get to the pub with some Kiwis!

When we sat down for breakfast in an underground mall 1/2 a kilometre from KLCC, Coen from Singapore introduced himself as a Toastmaster and advised us on breakfast, Singaporean economics, and Malaysian milo. He's working hard at becoming a professional speaker and doing amazingly well. Very inspiring seeing someone focussed so clearly on their dream.

At the other end of the journey, I had a quick chat with Douglas Kruger, an actual professional speaker. He was lovely, outgoing, and honest. He openly admitted that the merch is occasionally a nice sideline but mostly marketing. It only took him 4 years to become a pro-speaker but he's still learning and improving.

Oops, there's the 2013 champion, got to go...

Chilli, bureaucracy and a huge audience

KL in early morning, after last night's storm, was clean and blue and beautiful. But already smoke was rising from the utilities building in KLCC, and once the sun rose the heat began its relentless attack on sanity. Before the day was through I would have been conquered by chicken soup, awestruck by an audience of 1500 and enthralled by Asian bureaucratic efficiency.

Our Convention began at 2pm. Before that we strolled through KLCC garden, where the grass is not grass but some kind of broadleaf, and explored the underground mall that connects together many of the buildings near Petronas. In the mall we discovered yam frozen yogurt (delicious!) and bought a camera, a smallish Canon, for under RM800 (around $300). We ate lunch in a small seedy mall with plastic tables near our hotel, where a dish named Nasi Paprik, a soup made of chicken, beans and 1000 chillis, nearly made me cry. There was no time to recover as we rushed to change into business clothes and return to Convention.

I spent the first hour listening to a panel on the International leadership roles. The panel of International directors and officers provided some real food for thought - their main message seemed to be: leadership is not campaigning and it is not having power; leadership is service, at all levels of the organisation, and an effective leader comes to their role ready to learn. It was surprising and reassuring to hear this simple principle being applied even at International level.

The gathering of first-time Convention attendees blew my mind. 60 percent of the 3000 attendees gathered in one room to be welcomed by the International President and CEO. The welcome didn't go on long, though, before the CEO brought a roving mic into the audience for a spot of Table Topics. Of the many things I'd thought might happen to me at Convention, an impromptu speech before thousands was very far from my mind, but that was what ended up occurring. Not being "in the zone" and mentally prepared to speak, this former District champion couldn't muster more than 30 seconds of introduction before escaping back to my seat. Of course, with Toastmasters being a mutually supportive learning environment, I copped no stick at all from the other Kiwis for being so nervous, and everyone who did tease came up with a constructive recommendation as well. Yeah right.

The day wrapped up with the official opening ceremony. It was a huge event with many parts, but by far the best part was past IP Jana Barnhill's opening keynote. In simple and relatable terms, she shared how far Toastmasters had brought her and some of the hard lessons she had learnt along the way. It was almost exactly the type of keynote I'm hoping to deliver at Te Aro when I get back. I was inspired.

The very last thing we did tonight was collect our voting credentials for the International business meeting on Saturday. I'm carrying votes for four clubs and excited to be a part of the official business. The credentials process was extraordinarily efficient, well thought out, and warm and friendly to boot. We were in and out inside 20 minutes, which just goes to show that you can't believe everything you hear in New Zealand. No one should be surprised that our Malaysian organisers, with so much to prove, have put together a credentials system that puts previous Conventions to shame. Well done to them!

Start With Challenge & Support

What goes on convention stays on convention?

Nah! Where is the fun in that?

For instance right at the moment you're missing a fantastic display of Malay drumming and dance. Drum solos are a bit naff but 7 person drumming is an art :)

A pretty good means of communicating too :-D

My first event at the convention was with a pretty good communicator too: Lance Miller, World Champion of Public Speaking. Apparently he is also an Awesome VPE as well.

He had an excellent, open, and honest talk about real life Toastmasters executive. He talked about the problems with aiming to be a top ten club and the benefits to the members. Impressively he expressed dissatisfaction with the DCP and encouraged executives to move beyond it.

His experience with raising a club to 95 members (he was a little embarrassed by that) while aiming for every member to complete a communication level every year was incredible. As in literally unbelievable. Fortunately he explained that the club organised 6 speeches a meeting, multiple meeting times, speechathons, and special events to ensure that members could achieve their goals.

There was practical advise about subtle and blatant ways to encourage members to complete the goal. His rationale also made this epic attitude reasonable. The analogy was with going to the gym: if you only go once every 6 month you feel pain every time and gain any benefit. Similarly speeches and their lessons fade with time and only by repeated hard work can we build big speaking skills that will last.

The bug message was not "build a big club" but "challenge your members and work together" and the big club will just happen.

I'm looking forward to taking these ideas back to Hutt City Toastmasters.

Transit

We arrived in KL over 12 hours ago, but it still feels like we're in transit.

Entering Malaysia at KLIA was the easiest airport experience either of us has ever had. Immigration - not even an arrival card to fill in (apparently Malaysia doesn't collect overseas visitor statistics). Baggage claim - intuitive and right next to the exit. Customs - apparently on a tea break when we came through. Airport train - an express, easy to find, comfortable and easy ticketing.

Gregory keeps saying the world has changed since he last travelled in 2003. I'm not sure what he's referring to, exactly, but I suppose some security requirements are new (they didn't deprive you of your water bottle at security in 2003), and some have disappeared (they no longer care about what's in your checked baggage). For me the travel is very familiar, especially transiting through Singapore. Changi airport is as lovely as ever, although I couldn't get the WiFi to work for me this time. Instead I showered and changed into hot-weather clothes.

After arriving at KL Sentral station on the airport train we had to switch to the local network, LRT. It wasn't signposted so we followed the crowds. Riding the LRT is in many ways like riding the Tube - ticket vending machines, ticket-operated gates, color coded lines, lists of stops so you can work out which way you're going, standing room only, women in headscarves. The main difference is the single-use ticket - it's a round plastic token with an RFID inside, not a card, and seems to be the main form of ticket used by the locals. Reusable cards can't be purchased or topped up by machine, but require queuing at two different counters.

The heat started on the airport train (the air conditioning was broken) and intensified as we ascended from the LRT station toward street level inside a building called Avenue K. Nothing quite prepares you for that first step outside into tropical air. It's like stepping into a steamy bathroom. The sky was grey was smog, which smelled vaguely sulferous. I was glad of my light silk dress in the two minutes we were outside before reaching the hotel. (And finally saw some non-Muslim women in short dresses, making me feel less obvious for my outfit.)

At the hotel we made all sorts of plans to go for a walk in the park at KLCC, but then a tropical thunderstorm started, so we fell asleep... till midnight.

In the morning our transit will finally end and we'll get to see how the city looks post-storm. Till then we have a view from our room of one of the Petronas towers (and Avenue K) to satisfy our need for sightseeing.

Last Day in Godzone

Only 14 hours to go and so much to do.

First the presentation for my University paper. The team have put a lot of good work into the project and we need to show it off. Being a Toastmaster means I should be the best person to present and at 4-5 minutes it should be easy. Hopefully I'll remember how to do it :-D

Gael is organising the last thing for our Tequila party in October and getting emergency backup food for Trouble. Which will involve a little bit of climbing hills, so good practice for Mount Kinabalu .

Then both of us get to continue the frantic cleaning, rearranging, and discarding we've been doing all weekend. We'll be exhausted by airport time.

Fortunately we have 2 sets of parents, and possibly a crazed Iranian, to see us off. Everyone has been so happy that we're going on holiday, and sad to see us go, that we feel like the most loved couple in the world.

Finally we'll finish the day by flying to Auckland and across the pacific...

Horrendous Housework Has Hurt Harmony

A strange new experience for me is the house-sitter.

You go away for a wee while and someone moves into your house and uses all your stuff should be the premise for a creepy movie, not the actual plan

Still, Trouble needs someone to sleep on, and our friends, Amandrew, need a transition place. So it just seems like a good idea.

Until all the details become obvious. Like where are they going to park, how do we fit 4 people's clothes into a 1.5 bedroom house, how can they live with our idiosyncratic entertainment setup?
Most importantly, why is the place suddenly messy? It was fine just a minute ago but now that we have a house-sitter EVERYTHING needs washed, sanded, repainted, and replaced, probably twice!

...

So we spent large parts of today cleaning and packing and re-arranging innocent piles of stuff frantically. The "office" has never looked so good and the plants are gleaming. Having someone over is both terrifying and productive.

Thus our housework was both gratifying and grumpy. Which is annoying but still we scowled and muttered through without any big problems. It helps that Gael is so cuddly :)

If you're getting a house-sitter, my advice is get a teenager with his own x-box: you won't need to tidy at all.

Got currency?

Notice how the camera flash has brought out the security feature on the RM50 note.

WCPS number crunching

If a World Champion of Public Speaking comes from outside the US, they're more likely to be from Australia or New Zealand than anywhere else.

Other intriguing factoids:

• The first non-US World Champion was Glenn Carroll of Canada, in 1960 (assuming the winners with no locations listed are all from the US).
• The first World Champion from outside North America was Kenneth Bernard of Australia, in 1982.
• The last (and only) time a World Champion came from anywhere other than North America, Australia or New Zealand was 1985, when Marie Pyne of Ireland was the winner.
• Judging from first names only, there have been only six female World Champions. The latest of these was (of course) LaShunda Rundles of Texas, in 2008, star of the documentary Speak.

Source: http://www.toastmasters.org/Members/MemberExperience/Contests/WorldChampionsofPublicSpeaking.aspx

Social media

Hey, look! What's that over there in the sidebar?

That's right, it's a live feed of tweets on the official Toastmasters convention hashtag. So you can follow on Twitter without having to follow on Twitter :) (Sorry, the feed won't show up if you're reading this on your phone.)

Expect to see lots and lots of activity on that hashtag around about 1pm (NZST) on August 23, as the final of the World Championship of Public Speaking kicks off. Will they let us blog from the auditorium? Time will tell.

Successfully Immunised

I had my final shots tonight, and I'm now immunised against rabies, typhoid, and both the heps.  I've also got anti-malarials and antibiotics.

Malaysia seems to be an exciting place to be a germ, but rather scarier for people.  Fortunately modern cities are pushing back the mosquitos, and there are all these immunisations available. I'm fairly certain I wouldn't be going if all that was defending me from malaria was a Gin & Tonic, even if it was Bombay Sapphire & Schweppes.

Of course we're heading for the exciting, beautiful, and only-slightly-urban Borneo, rather than just touring the cities and tourist beaches of south-east Asia.  Arguably we're doing it wrong - Asia has cities unlike NZ, or indeed, anywhere - but how can you go to Malaysia and not see orang-utans?  That would be like going to Wellington and not riding the cable car, or London and not riding the tube, or New York and not getting mugged.

The beaches will be beautiful, and sunny, and relaxing and I don't begrudge them to anyone.  We'll have a beach in Kota Kinabalu amongst all the pole houses and hopefully we'll be able to cram 3 weeks of relaxing into that one day :-D

However I do get itchy feet and I like to have something specific, like orangu-tans, that I can tell people I went for.  Particularly when they don't believe I did it to laugh at all the tropical diseases.

Oh, by the way, I didn't get mugged in New York ;-)

Where are we going?

Malaysia is an odd-shaped country made up of two distinct bits. Here's a map to help get a handle on where we will actually be.

18-19 August - Wellington to Kuala Lumpur
19-25 August - Kuala Lumpur
20-23 August - Toastmasters International convention
25-29 August - Kuching, Sarawak
29 August to 3 September - Kota Kinabalu, Sabah
30 August to 1 September - climb Mt Kinabalu
3-5 September - Singapore
5-6 September - Singapore to Wellington

First Challenge Overcome!

The first challenge has been faced and defeated!

That's right, I can now write blog post :)

Obviously this is very simple but I'm a software engineer so I tend to over-think things a bit.  Fortunately doing everything about 4 times eventually got it to work.

Now to set up post by e-mail ...

Three weeks to go...

We've been reading up on Mt Kinabalu. Excited!!!