Surprise Thaipusam in Kuala Lumpur

Each year, when the moon is full during the Tamil month of Thai and the star Pusam is at its highest point in the night sky, Tamil Hindus pay penance to the lord Murugan in a festival that is aptly named Thaipusam. It was at this time that Claire and I arrived in Kuala Lumpur, two nights before the peak of the festival, and the celebrations had already begun. We spent our first night in KL exploring Chinatown, where we first discovered what all the hype about the food in Malaysia is all about. Trying to make it back to our hostel, we were swallowed up by thousands of people taking part in what we later learned was a procession leading 15 km from a temple in the city centre to a system of caves on the outskirts of the city called Batu Caves, where Thaipusam is celebrated in KL. Feeling pretty lucky, we decided to stick around KL for the festival and get a bit of a dose of local culture.

The following morning (February 2, 2015), the Super Bowl was playing at 6:30 a.m. (it was still Feb. 1st back home). Having been told by the hostel's barman the previous night that they would be showing the game in the morning, I woke up early ready for a little bit of good old American football. When I got to the reception area I found two Australian guys in absolute despair trying to explain to the hostel's staff what the Super Bowl actually was. "How can you not know what the Super Bowl is, mate? It's only the most watched sporting event on the face of planet Earth!" They were pretty upset. Apparently in the whole city of Kuala Lumpur, the only bar that was showing the Super Bowl was on one of the far fringes of town, around 20 km away from the hostel. The guys invited me to come, but I declined because Claire had yet to get herself out of bed. "She's holdin' ya back, mate." Well that's what they had to say about that.

We spent the 2nd and 3rd of February exploring the festival site at Batu Caves, getting blessed by holy men, getting ash rubbed onto our foreheads, getting my ears pierced, witnessing some pilgrimages and Kavadi rituals, and of course doing a healthy dose of shopping, which is Claire's favourite pastime here in Asia. Below are pictures of Thaipusam 2015.

The stairs to the temple, February 2, 2015. The statue is of lord Murugan, who the festival commemorates. 

The temple inside the cave.

The staircase February 3, 2015.

Some Kavadi.

Boracay

What can I say about Boracay? This island is simultaneously easy to love and easy to hate, and it has taken some distance from it to muster up the ability to write in a balanced way about my experience there. My parents visited Boracay many years ago when the island was a quiet retreat from the bustle of city life, devoid of electricity, with an unsurmountable beauty and peacefulness. Having heard descriptions of this island all my life, it has attained a legendary status in my imagination. In many ways what my parents' stories of Boracay have fuelled the fire that is my desire to travel, to visit places in which time stands still and the earth seems a simple place. Unfortunately, whatever quiet retreat Boracay may have once been, it has since become a kind of Frankenstein resort town, the peak of tourism in the Philippines. Whatever secret there once was about Boracay there is no longer, and people have come from all over the country, and all over the world, to get their slice of paradise and make some money from it. The famous white beach is now full of package tourists from Korea, China, Russia, and many other places. The crystal clear azure waters now filled with boats operating sunset sailing, parasailing, "banana-boating," and a myriad of other activities that are fiercely advertised by solicitors on the beach walkway. Yet there are places on this island that still retain some charm, where at night you can forget the flashing lights and blaring bass of the clubs up-beach, and sometimes you can feel like you have gone back in time, if only for a short while. 

White beach, packed with resort- and store-fronts and crowded with tourists and solicitors alike.

Still beautiful, though. (especially all the pale flabby dudes in Speedos)

Some local kids building sand castles trying to get tourists to pay to have their names "engraved" at the bottom of the castle. Getting into the family business from a young age.

Boracay's sunsets are famous world-wide. This is the scene on white beach each evening as the sun sinks behind the horizon.

Boracay's sunset scene.

 For a bit of a quieter experience we headed to the windward side of the island, this beach is called Ilig-Iligan. We had heard that there are bat caves near by, but when we enquired with the locals we were informed that the land on which the caves sit are being contested between the island and the federal government and were therefore closed off.

Claire's favorite pastime: drawing beautiful mandalas on a beautiful beach.

Some cool, semi-traditional-looking hotels north of White beach.

Claire holding a young buko on Ilig-Iligan.

This beach, on the windward side of the island, is full of kite-boarders and wind-surfers, and this Korean man wearing a floppy hat and riding a mountain bike. 

So there's Boracay for you. It was a little upscale for my taste, and where tourists go so go high prices and "tourist police" trying to scam you out of what they can with their "beach regulations," but it had its sweeter moments. Almost wherever you go you can find that quiet place to relax, that laid-back bar that has the right vibe, or you can rise to the occasion and party hard with the vacationers. Boracay isn't what I felt like I wanted at the time because it wasn't anything close to what I had expected of it, but some of our greatest qualities as human beings are those abilities to make the most of the situations that are presented before us, to stay true to ourselves, and to enjoy our time on earth.