Yay Cookbook!

Oh, I'm so sorry i abandoned you dearest Blog o' mine.
Turkey was way too awesome though and I will WILL WILL eventually get photos up, kay?
The shitty streamyx connection isn't helping (plus a ton of work and end-of-year syndrome!)

Anyway, let me kickstart you with a gloat.

Winning is fun =)

Jeannie wins cookbook through BookXcess blog competition!

And the winning delectably deliciously devoursome entry is as follows:

The best dessert I ever ate,
Was never served upon a plate;
Isn’t classified a cake,
Not even something you can bake.

But warm and rich, straight from the pot,
Slightly cooled and not too hot;
I’d lick off from mum’s wooden spoon,
The sweetness that would make me swoon.

Chocolate icing thick and oozy,
Chocolate high feels almost boozy;
Who wants icing on the cake?
The excess bits are what I’ll take!

For licking rights I’d fight my brother,
I love you, but go find another!
Thing to satisfy your craving,
Oh man… Now I’m left salivating.


I reckon poetry gives one brownie points. Especially when it's about chocolate!
And yes, true story. I did use to fight my brother for icing licking rights. He usually won the pot by virtue of being older (or was it 'cos I was fatter?) and I'd get to lick whatever i could scrape onto the big wooden spoon. (Still fine by me!)

ps: Winning is fun!

Tardy Thoughts and Turkey

Zomg!
No updates since Tok Woot!
Well, lots has happened and also not so much.
I hang out a lot more on weekends. No big, exciting plans but enough to keep busy. And that makes me happy.
I have become a book fair hound. I think i average 3 new books a week. Such a monster. But seriously, if you also suffer cheap book fetishes, definitely go check out the Pearson/Penguin book sale at Pearson Publishing House (off Jalan Templer which is the left turn off the Federal Highway after the Naza showroom, assuming you are driving AWAY from midvalley... meh. Google it!)
I love the fact that eddie is back! He calls and I feel wanted =) and occasionally he is breakfast buddy!
I tried for, heard back from and then was ignored by Mix FM. *Big sigh* Radio deejay-dom needs more work.
I've been playing badminton semi-regularly. That's a MAJOR change for me! (And less aching now!)
Liverpool is in 'shambolic' form. *sigh* But Torres is still leng chai as ever. For a female football fan, that is of course a pretty big priority.
Oh, and biggest news of all... FAMILY HOLIDAY!
I am quite excited over the fact I don't have to slug it out in hostels and figure out where I am by myself. But coaches and zooming over sites is a bit of a sad thing. We are staying 3 extra days in Istanbul on our own so I have been reading up quite a bit for Turkey. I promise those pictures I will share, okay? (Have been lazy with Rembang but to be honest there isn't much to see there)
The itinery consists of Istanbul (Grand Bazaar! Haga Sofia! Blue Mosque! Topkapi Palace! Bosphorus River!), Troy (Eric Bana and Brad Pitt and a big wooden horse!), Cappadocia (potentially a hot air balloon ride and caves where the Catholics used to hide from the Romans i think), Ankara (the current capital of Turkey but i don't know much else) and of course, YUMMY FOOD!

Things i have learned since a week ago about Turkey:

• There is OIL WRESTLING using extra virgin olive oil (less acidity so stings less) and has been source of homoerotic inspiration
• Troy is in Turkey (=S) Honestly, had no idea.
  
• The whirling dervishes perform a few times a week in the waiting room of a train station. When not totally touristy, they are actually quite mystical, as performers go into a trance-like state to do their spinning
• Topkapi palace was main venue of a film called Topkapi that my parents watched about 40 years ago.
  
• Topkapi palace is also the old palace of the sultans before administration moved from Istanbul (not Constantinople) to Ankara
• Edirne is site of oil-wrestling festival and also closest to the Greek border
• Turkey is actually pretty darn big... it looks like the size of Spain on the map.
  

I suppose I will learn more as I go along so, for Turkish enlightenment, do drop by in about 3 weeks. Yay Kebabs and Hummus!

Tok Wook and her 22 Husbands - a Malaysian Tale

Image sourced from this Star article

This sprightly 107-year-old lady is like the Hugh Hefner of women. I say Like because although she HAS had 22 husbands, i think they were all sequential, and so all legal. The article refrained from including particulars, but apparently she's thinking of getting her 23rd husband because she is lonely while her current 37-year-old hubby is checked into rehab.

It begs the questions:
- what is her secret?
- what happened to the other 21 men?
- does this centenarian still get jiggy with it?

Apparently, Tok Wook has x number of children who are already old and dependent on their own children. Gosh.
I'd be really confused if i was invited to my great grandma's wedding.

Anyway, i'm not too certain if i'm proud or unsettled that there's at least one lady with her conquest of all these men.
What say you?
Kudos to the (great?) grandma being able to woo younger men
or
It's kinda icky please just stick to 22 and be happy?

And if you could live to 107... maybe the 22 husbands makes sense after all?

It's a Beautiful World (Now We're All Here)

I heard this song on the radio and I fell absolutely in love with it. Lyrics searches were becoming fruitless and then i thought, hey, it had a nice piano bit. Let's give this Jim Brickman video a shot. And it is amazing. With the full orchestra backing and Adam Crossley's lulling voice, this is just one of those feel-good songs that makes me feel like i'm floating in a happy sea =)

Jim Brickman feat Adam Crossley : Beautiful World (We're All Here)

I'm really grateful for BFM (89.9), making that drive home in the buka puasa jam that much better because there are great songs for me to discover. Business station? Definitely not what i'd think of as my type, but the music is awesome possum so if you're sick of the commercial mainstream crap, give it a shot.

Yay to good music! It's been a while...

Religious RandomThot - Clean or Unclean?

I know i've often spoke of how the three main monotheistic faiths are essentially the same thing evolved in different cultures. All religion ultimately just wants you to be good and do good, and that's what should matter.
It just struck me last night though, (thinking about these things as you do), that there are some pretty peculiar contrasts in religion, and the one that floated through my mind was:

Isn't it funny how Islam and Judaism tell you to refrain from eating swine, because it is a dirty meat? I've never quite understood the repulsion to pigs myself because those childhood viewings of Babe obviously affected me deep down inside. Plus they are so cute!

On the other hand, in Hinduism, beef is not eaten because cows are revered as a symbol of the sanctity of life. Givers of milk and hide, toilers in the field, and naturally... pissers.
No, really. Cow urine has been said to have untold health properties, which is why a group of people thought it was a good idea to turn it into a soft drink. Cow-ca Cola "has immense potential to cure various diseases."
Funny - i would've thought it would have the opposite effect.
It remains to be seen if the director of said cow urine venture had accurately predicted the latest in health fads:

"It will be a revolution of sorts. The acceptance of cow urine as a potent medicine is increasing day by day and once it comes as a cold drink, its demand will definitely increase. It will prove and justify the high stature accorded to a cow in Indian culture."

Oh, it'll be a revolution alright.

I'm sure everyone was just WAITING for a cow piss soft drink before snapping it up.

Anyway, I digress. It's just funny that on the one hand you don't consume it because it's pure; and on the other you don't because it's unclean.
So i guess you should stay in the middle way... and only eat the sort-of-dirty-but-clean-enough foods in between.

I Wish I Could Be a ... TAXI DRIVER ... for a Day

Have you ever wondered... yes you, sitting behind the computer, typing inanely... if you weren't a cubicle monkey, what other jobs you could have taken? I don't know if it's just me but i'm naive enough to think that non-desk jobs have the simple appeal of being AWAY from a desk.

True. People who aren't in desk jobs are probably cursing the cushiness of those of us who are.. but i often wonder if i would have the pluck for Another Job. So, onwards a new string of RandomThots filled with naive perceptions of what another occupation would be like. I dub thee:

'What I Might've Been If I'd Grown Up...' a.k.a 'I Wish I Could Be in These Shoes for a Day'

Today's occupation is none other than the street savvy, sharp-mouthed Taxi driver. Staple of all good sitcoms (particularly, i have in mind Ranjeet from HIMYM... gah aaron, you got me addicted), a key figure in action-packed movies (Driver, follow that car!), serendipitious tool in rom coms (the same taxi driver will help you realise, as you're talking to him, how perfect that girl really was for you) and often the guy who waves his fist in the air and curses as the hero runs recklessly across the street, chasing the girl of his dreams. (I watch too many movies, huh?)

So, why a taxi driver? Not so much that I see myself as the catalyst for all great movies, but for some pretty boring reasons actually.

1. Can you imagine the navigational skills you'd have after a week behind the wheel? Owh yeah, who needs a GPS when you have shortcuts tattooed in your brain?
2. I love talking. I love pretending i know how to psychoanalyse people. Imagine just sitting on your ass all day and ferrying people around while getting to pick their brains about what they are doing and why. Here's some insight from this news article:
   "You deal with 50 to 60 people a night, from drunks to drug users to NASA people to lawyers to drunk doctors," he said. "If you drive long enough, you'll meet every kind of person there is. You get people in here who think you're lower than them because you're driving a cab. You have to get them out of here quick or put them in their place quick. You never know who you'll meet in a cab." He said though he does not plan to drive a cab for much longer, he enjoys it now because of all the people and the experience. "Cab drivers are basically counselors, mobile bartenders," he said. "If we could serve drinks in here, we'd be rich."
3. A lot of cabs smell foul and look fouler. I'd like to be the car-proud cabbie who will go the extra mile by offering a wet wipe on a hot day. Plus, i'll get to brainwash people into liking my music. Come on, you know you've heard crappy music in cabs before, right?
   
4. This would probably be a good way to find out where the best everything is. "Oh, you are going there to eat satay? It's good huh? Should try someday. What else do you recommend?" There... food makes the world go round.
5. I also like imagining things. So imagine how much fun i'd have making up the life stories of the fares that I pick up? Until the day i REALLY get a serial killer in the cab...
   
6. You get to be on a radio all the time! *static buzz* Guys, you wanna catch a movie after this shift? Yeah? Meet me at the cinema at 8 *static out* Okay.. probably not, but if you were in a really liberal taxi company?
   
7. There's something cool about being part of a gang that extends throughout the city streets and whom you can catch up with at taxi stands? Good to know they got my back, man.
   
8. Changing scenery. ALL THE TIME.

Yea yea... probably more than a week in traffic and i'll want to tear my hair out. But one has got to dream that there are other things to do in life. So, even if it doesn't make you want to quit and take a different career path, at least you might be a bit more considerate the next time you hop in that iconic yellow car (well, red and white in KL i guess) and remember to tip your driver! (if he uses the meter that is).

If you'd like more insight into the cabbie life, i stumbled upon this blog which is pretty much just cabbies ranting about their days. Interesting peek into the taxi world.

Glorious Gloria Gaynor

The song 'I will Survive' has been stuck in my head for the last 3 hours.
This is fairly excruciating in a silent office where the clickety clack of the keyboard and the mini avalanche-like rumbling of the air-conditioner are all that keep me company.

Yes, Gloria Gaynor, in all her discotheque glory, is playing on repeat in my head. Especially this bit

- music roll-
go on now go
walk out the door
Just turn around now
'cause you're not welcome anymore

Yeah, actually the part that bugs me is WHY. Why is it stuck in my head? I definitely didn't hear it on the radio this morning.
So... is my brain trying to send some not-very-subtle encouragement? Maybe it wants me to know i will survive

• this stack of 4 reports that i have to write. All of them. At once. And i'm procrastinating on my blog.
• the prospect of another 4 months of long distance. And who knows how long more after that?
• the endless stream of workdays with no trips planned in the near future. Sitting, rotting, waiting for an excuse to bolt.
• pretending i know what i'm doing at work. I still feel bad being the inexperienced 22 year old fresh grad grilling people who have worked all their lives in development. I'm sorry. It's my job. Please know you guys are infinitely more knowledgeable!
  
• the rut. I think everyone past a year of working falls into it. I'm glad i'm in an out-of-the-mainstream job. Can you imagine seeing your whole life planned in front of you? Career-wife-kids-retirement-death. Gotta shake it up a bit.

Alternately, my brain could just have a penchant for cheesy disco music with faux-violins and eighties-style melodrama. Yeah. That's probably it.

But hey,

I will survive.

India - there and back again

I'm Back! (Like, a week ago)
India was absolutely amazing. Maybe it's cos the reports left me quite anxious about what I would see. Maybe it's cos this is the first of MY PROJECT's that i've visited (the rest have sort of been carrying on stuff that's started before I joined, but this one I saw from the proposal stage so it's like my baby!) Anyway, i didn't get to fulfil my imaginings of bright spice pyramids and temples and elephants and old palaces but I'm not disappointed because Karaikal is nothing like the Mumbais and Delhis in my head. It was a lot like Aceh and Jogja in that there were small, poorer communities and they were tsunami-hit, so very much a work trip. So, India for tourism will definitely be on the cards in future.

Anyway, this was a great project to have seen. I didn't have much time to be a tourist but it was rewarding enough to keep me satisfied.

A brief summary: The project is run by a locally-based organisation that has been involved in this sort of work for 25 years. They set up child activity centres that offer supplementary education (think tuition class) for children from coastal area villages (the ones that were hit hardest by the tsunami) and also serves as a playing space and a place for them to learn about rights and for peer support.

It's amazing that in that simple building, where there is like one desk and 4 chairs (the children sit on the floor), there are these active, inquisitive, enthusiastic minds. They were asking questions, and really vocal, and just so hopeful about everything. I was really touched by some of the stories i heard. They face issues that we never had to deal with. Some kids pull out of school because they are going to get married, or they have to help their parents work, or they just feel demotivated because they were orphaned by the tsunami and don't have enough support.

The children really believed that education was important and they are all part of this children's club which is set up in the activity centre. So, when their friends cannot come to school (maybe they are made to join the work force or to get married) , they group together to approach the child's parents and tell them that their child is better off staying in school. They even collect money amongst themselves to buy school bags for those who can't afford them.

In one of the activity centres, the power kept cutting off so the children collect 2 rupees each a month to pay an electrician to make sure that the power supply stayed on.

I was just astounded to learn how progressive India is. And we like to think that we are developed and have it all figured out.

The Karaikal area was really badly hit by the tsunami five years ago as fishing villages lie all along the coastal area. Whole villages were demolished and we heard that there was one where only one concrete building remained of the 100s of houses in the village.
All the children we spoke to in the school had been hanging on for dear life or had scrambled up to higher ground.
The project also covers disaster preparedness training for 3 schools where the kids are taught basic first aid and what to do in case of disaster. Haha.. I MIGHT have learned that before in scouts, but those kids definitely would stand a better chance than i would of surviving a flood or an earthquake.

The third part of the project is a microcredit component where women are trained in alternate livelihoods and also how to manage their businesses. So, women who previously had no means of earning an income now can start their businesses on loans of 4,000 rupees (that's just under RM 300!) giving them an improved income of at least 500 Rupees. The women are taught accounting skills and cost/benefit analysis, etc... and are organised into little collectives for support and in the hopes of forming co-ops in future that are capable of taking loans from banks. From my limited experience, i really believe that microcredit is one of the best ways to get people out of poverty. In particular, microcredit targeting women.

Briefly, my other observations of India:
- food is good and cheap! I didn't get roadside stuff because Delhi belly is too notorious, but no tummy problems and lots of tasty food ala mamak.
- the driving is insane. Seriously. The car horn is a suggestion to get out of the way... But they really have a whole other type of instinct for traffic avoidance. Couldn't drive there, i think. And the honking goes on well into the night.
- Goats and cows are everywhere on the road.
- There's lots of temples everywhere too. Or maybe cos the area i was visiting is a pretty famous pilgrimage site for Christians and Hindus.
- All the ladies wear saris! They could be sitting in the dirt or straddled on motorbikes but they are wearing the most beautifully bright saris! *sigh* colourful after my own heart...

It was really a project-filled trip and no time for leisure so I am just so pumped with enthusiasm for this project.
So much so that i have a ton of reports to write up. *groan* This is the worst part of the trip. Catching up on work.
Will put up photos if and when i get to it, otherwise... they be here on my Facebook album.

Amazing India

Peruse and enjoy!

India for the Spiritually Unready

Oops.

Way too long since i wrote something.

The weeks have been filled with report-reading and then hassling for better reports (try it. 5 submitted all at once) and the not-so-successful India trip planning (yeah, Visas just beg to be forgotten until the very last moment), the demanding house guests and lots of time with Aaron.

Highlight being very respectable homemade Bogan Parma, pictures of which i've been meaning to put up but thus far has evaded me.

So, just a short note. I'm alive and kicking. I have been OUT of my 1 week return from Melbourne quarantine. And, I am going to India TOMORROW.

It's great i get to go to India for work. But before you get jealous, i also have to grill them over their report and then write a report about what i found out on the trip.
And with a full schedule, i am hoping there is time for a bout of shopping (or temple hopping. i'd be a fan). Did i mention the 7.40 am flight time? (that means checking in 2 hours before which means leaving my house 4-ish IN THE MORNING)

Pictures of the trip to be up in time (of course, after i'm back and after i've taken them). Meanwhile, i shall grace these pages with a Holy Cow.

Well, you can't say you didn't expect that from me!

Hop, Skip and a Painful 8 Hour Flight to Melbourne

I went to Melbourne and back and took not nearly enough photos.. And they're up on Facebook. But here are things that stood out for me:

• Leaving a piece of luggage in the cab. Ah! Always check you have all your luggage before giving boyfriend a massive hug! If the nice cabby ever ever stumbles upon this, I am the girl who ran down Franklin St at midnight in my red coat and I would still like my bag back.
• Seeing Tulloch, Suggy, Bec, Nikki, Liz, James, Dani, Marissa - learning more about tall Paul and seagulls, a certain infatuation for a musician and EATING TIBA's again!
• Salt Pepper Chicken Ribs...
• Giant dinner with the most random of crowds: Vong? Mark Hoo? Grace? May Lin? Tas? Stephen? Prateek? Jon? Allen? ... you got to admit it's a strange mix to be in Taco Bills
• Yummy breakfast where i was told that i'm "lucky" to be allowed into the group. I MADE THE GROUP!!! (not over that yet)
• Perusing the NGV... art galleries are the new in, yo.
• An amazing double date day which involved lunch at my fave Pellegrini's, churches and the mesmerising Fitzroy Gardens
• Dali exhibition where i found out that Dali is a sick, twisted, erotic man
• Playing a few new games... It's lovely to not be pretentious and have to go out to be cool and have fun. What's wrong with good company and a gritty mental challenge?
• The fellowship of the fitball and the Ladder theory - most definitely a highlight!
• Watching all the goals in a Aus v Japan World Cup qualifier from near goalside. =D
• Lunch at the pizza place. More cute guys and awesome canneloni. (Thanks Maybelle)
• My favourite juice bar and the South American secret recipe juice...
• Emasculating Aaron and Parkes at Madame Brussels followed by THE BEST SIEW YUK in Anada Tapas restaurant.
• Cute Bartenders at Anada and Black n Pearl - skinny Robert Downey Jr.
• Reliving IH bar with peppermint patties *yum*
• Another AWESOME breakfast with the boys. Everyone must love English breakfasts!
• Chatting with Pushpy, KK, Adrian, Evan... was good times being back in 301! and the antics never end, although you feel like an ah ma
• Furious foursome Bang-ing after a nice home cooked meal in front of the tv at CC's place

Gosh, i miss melbourne already! Not least because there are no paranoid people screaming swine flu. A return is on the imaginary cards. Now to get over my fear of tiny uncomfortable Air Asia seats for long haul flights... Photos on FB

Chronicles of Aceh - Part Trois

Yay! Not a one week delay between day 2 and 3!
Sorry to burst your bubble but those drying nets there? Yeah, that's how your ikan bilis is made. Hahaha.. Not exactly the most hygienic of ways but 100% pure natural goodness! Also, probably a good reason to remember to wash any salted fish you buy!

This little old lady has been drying fish since ever. She was really cute and spunky! I dunno if i could stare at those little fish all day every day. And Indon culture lesson, ikan bilis is known as ikan tri.

This is probably my favourite picture the whole trip. Love the blue blue sky.

You will not believe how many nets of dried ikan bilis there were...

The restaurant and lodge from yesterday? This is a view of the "cliff" that it was on. To the left of the picture, there's a tree that sort of stands alone? They say the wave nearly covered the top of that during the tsunami.

Now this is Really, REALLY fresh fish.

Left the project site at Lhok Kruet and on the journey back. This is a piece of the bridge foundation for what used to be the main road. That got destroyed during the tsunami. The current road is about 2 km in, but there are still bits of it that are treachorously close to the water's edge.

Haha.. really. Would you drive over that? It's held strong so far, though!

Here's a better view of the river 'ferry' service. 3 boats tied together with a platform on top. These engines were stronger than the earlier one as it was crossing the river mouth, nearer the sea. Inceidentally, rafts are called 'raket' in Indon (like 'rakit' in BM) but i was curious as to why they would name themselves a racket, which it really is. The 'raket' racket. Hur hur hur.. i am so funny with my puns (-_-")

Not just any lady using a parang (machete) to straighten a nail on a plank... She's actually sitting in one of a row of stalls that has popped up at either end of the 'raket' rackets. Whole communities actually exist on the traffic that uses the rafts! Hats off to them, i say. Anyway to earn a living.

So after a slightly scary journey on bad roads in a 4wd in the rain, we made it to our next project site called Krueng Tunoh. There's something about the air right after rain. So fresh, and makes for beautiful misty hills! And green somehow tends to look greener too.

The mangrove trees that we helped to fund. They're planted along the fringe of the ponds which are used to grow prawns. Beyond the pond, sort of where the hills converge? Just past that is the coastline, which is why the water came rushing in come tsunami.

You don't really get kampung food much more authentic than this. Note the lack of cutlery other than serving spoons. And the best kind of table mat - a floor mat!

Okay, looking back at this photo, i really wonder WHY i ate anything with sauce that looks like muddy water. But you know, all sense sort of escaped me. I have a STRONG suspicion that this is the dish that left me with debilitating food poisoning the next day.

The lady at the back is the kind host who cooked us that nice (- food poisoning crabs) meal. Her husband is on the right and the dude on the left works for our project partner. Anyway, story of being told off for not being pure enough. It was time for solat after the meal and when they asked if i wanted to, i said no. And i think being a predominantly Muslim country, this was pretty alien to them. The farmer (husband on right) said: "Oh, once upon a time in Aceh, EVERYONE had to pray. Now it's alright though. But they would have to cover their heads and make sure their clothes covered their wrists. Also, here, women who want to be married have to be able to read the Quran. *gulp* Back in the olden days, women had to have a white cloth lain under them on their wedding night." *double gulp* I couldn't help but feel that that was directed at sinful, immodest me.

Anyway, this is round the other side of earlier pictured ponds. At the base of the cliff you can spot a tiny bit of sea spray. Basically the sea formed a sort of pincer around a hill. And the village is right behind the hill. Water rushing in from all sides so that about 2 km of land got washed away

More mangroves...

Me posing in front of the pond. Hahaha... Look, i was already dressed decently okay? Just minus the headscarf. I don't think i deserved that lecture about the good wife!

This is Pak Wahab and, apart from being a bit too rigid Muslim for my liking, he is a real star. He lived in a small house next to the pond and was farming pre-tsunami. He had a wife and a few kids ranging from 5 months to 8 years. They were all at home when the tsunami came in and he remembers holding on to his 5 months old baby and trying to outrun the waves. Sadly, his whole family perished. In the following 3 months, he hand dug the ponds that you saw above. He's since remarried and has a daughter, and is a real champion for our project. It felt almost sadistic to hear his story, because he said you never forget about the family you lost. Especially on festive days, when there used to be so many people and they could share all the food together but now it's a lot quieter. We cannot even begin to imagine what some of the Aceh people have gone through.

On the way out of Krueng Tunoh, passed by this contraption which i found interesting. There's a fishing net underwater and at night, they switch on a light suspended in the middle to attract the fish. They then pull the net up and voila! Easy catch...

A visual for you to show the before, during and after tsunami photos. See the greenery that was lost? Not just that, but most of the soil is still salinated from the sea water and that means you can't grow anything on it til the salt's slowly gone out.

This is pretty much the same view as above. All those patches of sand were once covered in vegetation, if i'm not mistaken.

And here's a shot of that large USAID- funded American highway that runs through the Aceh towns. What a disconnect! I mean, they're blowing up hills and tearing down mangrove forests that were JUST PLANTED post-tsunami just to fit this monstrosity in! Plus, the project started 2 years ago, and with the state of portions of its road, I won't be surprised if it's not done 2 years down the line. Ggrrr... the amount of misused funds and abandoned projects!! So disheartening.

Anyway, another mandatory sunset snap. In my defence, most of these pictures were taken from the car so they're not perfect.

Another snap of those lovely dried fish. Not very good but you can see they hang the fish/sotong from the roof to dry. This lady's just collecting them as the sun sets. But it's really quaint - they're flattened out so they all look like pomphrets! (incidentally my fave sort of fried fish)

You can just about see the tiny fishing vessel here. It's called a 'bagan' and is a large net in the middle with a small boat attached so that you can leave the bagan out while ferrying yourself and hired help back and forth from land. (Plus the catch too)

And there, the sun set on day 3. This is probably the last photo-heavy day and I would have loved to have some more free time the next day, but the muddy-water sauced crabs decided to strike. And it was food poisoning of the throwing up sort. Ew.

Chronicles of Aceh - Part Deux

Righty-o. A week later and continuing where i left off. It may take me a while to complete these chronicles of Aceh.
This is the view from inside the car on top of a raft crossing the river. Those planks on the riverbank then get attached to the raft for the car to drive onto land. It costs about 20,000 Rupiah to cross (USD 2) and whole economies of the raft sort have popped up since the tsunami washed out bridges (and they either haven't been rebuilt or makeshift bridges get washed away with the next big flood). Anyway, raft ferries - definitely an experience!

The headless survivors of the tsunami. You can see the waves went way over the treetops. And that stretch of water between the rocks and the trees? That used to be beach. But the water never quite subsided so a lot of the coastline has been lost to the waves.

Parts of a bridge that was destroyed in the tsunami. 4 years on and left to rust. (That wouldn't happen in Malaysia - they'd have taken the metal for scrap! But this is about 3 hours drive from the city...)

Just one of the temporary houses that were given in the immediate post-tsunami. Apparently they pack neatly into a box - sorta like an Ikea house. Some people are STILL living in these houses. Others have sold them to be used as shops while some have just connected them to their new permanent houses for an extra wing in the house!

This is what remains of a restaurant and lodge situated on a cliff. It got hit pretty hard as this was the furthermost point of the coast so it took a pretty bad beating. The cliff isn't too short, either.

View from the cliff. Even now the waters look scary. This is meant to be the calm period in between monsoons!

Fish cages that we helped to fund. Each little hut connects to cages that can house about 1,000 fish! See the planks? We were told upon arrival to walk along the sides as the middle bits were old and crumbly. Now imagine bow-legged walking in fear of dropping down. Quite funny.

This is an improvised fish hatchery. One of the fish cage culture people decided he didn't have to wait for fish hatchlings from outside and took it upon himself to breed his own little fish hatchlings. I wish i was full of the same initiative.

Just so you know i'm not talking about empty pools of water. See? Fish hatchlings!

Pak Abu - he of the indomitable spirit. He is such a champion. One of the driving forces of the fish culture project, he was there when the tsunami hit. He lost all 8 of his family members and was only saved because he had been up in the forest collecting wood. Of the 8, he only found the body of his younger brother. But now he's married, has kids and has learned to move on.

The mandatory sunset shot.

The more unusual cows on the beach at sunset shot.

Shoo shoo! Home with you cows. But apparently they sleep by the beach. What a life!

Some of the kids in the tiny village. How sinful did I feel when even the little children said 'I have to go home now. It's time for Solat!' Not being Muslim in Aceh is a little discriminatory. I felt like a harlot for not covering my head and saying my prayers. (i was told off - but more on that in the next set of photos)

And this i was very amused by. Aren't these the most gorgeous dried sotong you've ever seen? Hahaha.. a row of them could work as beaded curtains almost!

Here are some of the crabs from our project. Very much alive in the morning.

But not so much later on that night. Now this is kampung cooking at its best. Kuali over a wood fire outside the house.

Largest crab i had ever eaten. I could only manage 1 half (the one with the giant claw, of course!) hahaha. The masak lemak sauce was TOOO tasty! If we were at a restaurant, i'd definitely tapau.

And that's the end of day 2. No nightlife in the kampung so nothing to it but to retire to my pretty pink mosquito-netted mattress. Fit for a kampung princess! I am definitely not suited to the life. No a/c is alright, but no fan either! Just the noises of the cicadas, people chatting outside and goats. Yeah. Goats.