Malaysia Memories

Birthday picnic at the top of Mount Brinchang

Satisfied Birthday hikers

Rainforest canopy walkway in Tanam Negara!

James looking not so big in front of this grandma rainforest tree

Typical view of a valley of tea plantations in the Malaysian Cameron Highlands

The Petrona Twin Towers in sprawling Kuala Lumpur

Typical Cameron Highlands view

My 31st birthday was passed pleasingly in the wilderness of the cool (by Malay standards) Cameron highlands. After a breakfast of my treasured home made granola, lovingly prepared before leaving Victoria, James and I were fueled up and packed some picnic lunch fixings for a hike up mount Brinchang. Our confused start didn't last long, as we soon found ourselves on a well marked trail through dense and mysterious jungle, full of plants only recognizable to me because they resemble some of my indoor house plants back home! We wandered our way for hours on a trail where we saw not another human, by where we continuously commented on the variety, abundance, and complexity of life in the Malaysian jungle. The forest floor is a mat of small and large roots from all the plants that create an intricate web of support for one another's existence. Because there is continuous leaf fall from the plants in tropical climates (instead of the autumnal leaf drop many of you are used to in more northern climates) the forest floor is continuously blanketed with organic matter-it is so thick that each footstep feels cushioned and you can see the floor rebound at the relief of your weight as you take your next step. If any forest is good for your joints, this is the one! And every forest is good for the soul. I felt so recharged as we trod through this forest-scape of thick vines, tropical big mama trees, banana an bamboo stands. It appears as though this forest grows from the ground up, and the sky down, as plants vining up others return down to re-root an start their journey skyward again. We passed over streams and waterways with sand and boulders being carved away by the sharpening action of the monsoon rains, with greenery creating little archways around said stream, it feels as though you are in a secret fairy garden. Like some magic forest creature will peak at you from around the next green dripping vine. As though the little fairy spirits live under the safety of the green canopy, and travel down the tunnel created by these plants to visit other forest spirits.

Ah yes, sweaty we were when we reached the top! We continued on our decent into the famous tea growing area of the Cameron highlands. The intricate plantings and prunings making all the hillsides appear as a honeycomb network from above. We wandered our way by the weekend traffic attempting to get to the tea shop to sample some tea, an we sat our weary bums down for a cup ourselves. Average tea I'd say, though I'm a bit of a green tea snob, so I'll admit I may be a bit tough on the Malay tea growers...

Our journey continued as we hitched a ride with a friendly couple back into town as the rain started to fall, hard, and we feasted on some tasty Indian food for birthday dinner (and at 6 Malay Ringet per plate, roughly $2CAD, we felt lucky and satisfied!) 

A super sweet day, spent just as I could have wished. 

We spent just one more day in the Cameron highlands and I so enjoyed witnessing James in his playful remembering of times past, and in his ceremonial letting go of that past, as we were staying at the boarding school where he lived out life for four years of his young life. I was regaled with stories of silly games, favourite play spots, characters that cared for him, what had changed, and what looked exactly the same, as we cherished our time in the little pocket of rainforest that left big impressions on a once young boy.

On wards! We journeyed to Tanam Negara - translating to National Park in Malay, it's a protected area roughly in the centre of peninsular Malaysia. Our journey was a bus boat combo, my favorite part for sure being the 2.5 hour long boat ride up the River Tembling, to a village called Kuala Tehan. We settled into the tiny village, with the abundance of squawking chickens, local vibes, and got ourselves some mega saucy rice noodles on a floating restaurant. We plotted our next day, another jungle hike, and a walk on the famous canopy walkway through the forest! Me oh my it was cool. I've never been that high in the forest, and it was magic to see these lungs of our earth from such a different vantage point. As we questioned the inspection standards and building codes of Malaysia, we strongly heeded the advice not to jump or sway on the suspended bridges and to always walk 10 meters away from anyone else. We did live to enjoy the high heights, and ate our picnic lunch with feel dangling well off the ground and pants tucked into socks--we'd been warned about the forest leeches ever excited to latch onto human ankles for a blood meal! Up we went to Bukit Teseren, to gaze out into the greenness of the precious remaining Malaysian jungle. I could almost see it breathing in and out, cleaning the air, and the vibrant life that it teems with. (I don't think I've mentioned anything yet about the endless roadside palm oil plantations, visible on every bus ride, and on the very border of the National Park. It is a highly unsustainable industry, if you haven't already learned about it look here, and also, remove palm oil from your diet, it is in most processed foods!) 

After a thorough leech check at the local swimming spot on the river, we carried on back to our newer more posh digs, complete with extremely cheeky monkeys, whom, caught me naked as he opened our window screen! I hooted and hollered as  I aimed to keep the monkey from running amuck in our bungalow, or stealing my sunglasses from the table. Feeling locked into our bungalow for fear of the mob of brave monkeys outside, we sheepishly called reception, told them of our predicament, and then I got to laugh my head off as James proceeded to open and close an umbrella multiple times, with much vim and vigour, as if it were a dangerous weapon! It totally worked, as the monkeys were scared away by the big black umbrella! We took the umbrella on our walk though there was nary a rain cloud in sight....

That night in the jungle we went for a night hike with a local guide. We saw green tree snakes, mega huntsman spiders, termites, oversized millipedes, and very loud cicadas. James tried, with the guides instruction to try and coax a scorpion out of its hole. He wasn't successful, but the guide certainly was, and a 10 centimeter long black scorpion came grasping out of its home! 

The dichotomy of where we bused to next was dramatic-off to Kuala Lumpur, a city of 1.5million but with buildings tall like its neighbours in Singapore. We got an AirBNB on the 31st floor of modern condominium in a posh neighbourhood, with the famous KL tower (the CN tower sister) viewed directly out the window. And beyond that we travelled onward to where I write to you from now, in the colourful, riverside Malaka. A smaller, cuter city just south by two hours bus from Kuala Lumpur, with a river running through this town, with hip cafes and restaurants along the river walkways and glitzy tacky trishaws to cart around backpackers and Malay tourists alike. James and I found some tasty banana leaf Indian eats and a funky hostel to lay our heads at before heading back to Singapore tomorrow, anticipating our flights to Australia. 

With a mosque around the corner, the call to prayer on the loudspeaker will likely wake us in the wee hours of the morning. Near the mosque is a Chinese temple (a Malay unique blend of Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism). And near that prayer and gathering place for the Chinese Malay, there is a Hindu temple, for the Indian Malay. Unlike any other country in Southeast Asia I've been to, I'm curious about the way these three main sub cultures of Malaysia coexist. The things I've read lead me to believe it's relatively harmonious, an amazing feat considering the religious and political climate of our strange strange world today.

On that note, I'll sleep. Until next time, when I'll likely be in another country, another culture...Thanks for reading.

First thoughts from this Malay foray

James and I at the bungalow, enjoying some Chinese food

The Beautiful sky in the Cameron Highlands

Feeling full--of gas. Asia as arrived in my belly; an all too familiar feeling from time here in the past. And I'm also full of other things. I'm full of emotion and full of love and full of physical warmth. 

It was a big lead up. Months in fact. I can't even recall when James and I came up with the idea to go on this large journey together. I do recall it feeling a bit early on in our relating to be making commitments to multi month adventures in far off places. But here I am in a very white room, with a strange pink quilt on a hard bed in an old English Tudor style bungalow, in the middle of the Malaysian highland jungle. The months of anticipating the journey have passed. And as we suspected, James and my connection has deepened as we live a sweet life of blessings and challenges in Victoria. Here we are on an epic journey with one another. One where we anticipated comfort zones being leapt  out of and where visits to places of our past may bring up some things to be processed...

Since arriving bleary eyed in Singapore after 30 some odd hours of travel (complete with an interesting cruise around Tokyo, our flight stop over spot), we have already seen lots of sights, cried some salty cathartic tears, felt various states of nausea, ate some tasty street food, and sunburned our noses. That was just 5 days ago that we arrived in Singapore! 

We had a couple solid days of exploring the freakishly futuristic megalopolis of Singapore, visiting the homes that James partially grew up in (on bicycle!) wandering strange and lush urban gardens, gawking at floating soccer fields, bizarrely tall skyscrapers, merlion statues, and highly skilled chefs working the wok. We were welcomed warmly by cousins of our friends, whose hospitality was ease-fully provided and gratefully received. We cruised the light rail transit in Singapore and then later in Kuala Lumpur confused by the reasons why many North American cities don't seem to have their act together when it comes to getting light rail operating. It works so well! And is totally used by the masses when it serves the widest area and is kept clean and functional...maybe the $40000 Singaporean tax on just registering a car also helps keep people on transit?!?

I digress. Yep we liked the public transit. We also found our bike butt callouses handy during our two days of long bus rides. 

Now here we are in the Cameron highlands. A landscape that was so formative for James, as he spent most of the first 10 years of his life between Singapore and these highland areas, where tourism and tea growing seem to reign supreme. We're staying at a big English style bungalow that once housed James' family of 9 at Christmas time. 

We had a silly bush wackin walk in the jungle today, one that I think we will continue tomorrow. Onwards the trip down nostalgia lame will continue, as we shift to Chefoo-the boarding school where James spent grades 1-4. 

The air is cooler here then in the lower regions of Malaysia, which makes it a great zone for food crops that require coolness by night. Tea plantations were set up here by the English colonizers and so it carries on as rolling hills of once jungle are cultivated for tea growing. 

I love tea. And often feel like the green and black varieties that I enjoy are disconnected from my localized world view. In Myanmar, I really enjoyed meeting the real live tea plant and witnessing the tea processing. I look forward to exploring the Malaysian ways of tea growing tomorrow, after a big hike up to mount brinchang on the day of my 31st birthday. 

Pain and Connection

The 'mysterical' Oregon Coast

Summertime. The season that lifts my energy high, with seemingly endless sunlight, garden abundance, camping adventures, un-refuseable social gatherings; in my experience, I feel full and expansive in summer.

This summer has been a different one then what I've grown to expect in summers past (there's a lesson in releasing expectations in it for sure.) My summer months have been blanketed with the veil of familial pain. Real life shit. You have some of that in your own world too? We all do, and sometimes in that knowledge, I feel a small bit of comfort. In knowing that pain and suffering is part of the human experience. And while we all have our ways of processing, healing, or not healing that pain and suffering, I'm trying to discover the best way to do that, the way that makes most sense in my experience of this universe. I'm trying to feel all the pain, concern, worry, the anger, guilt, shame, and I'm really trying to not judge myself or my family. Trying. And so through that muddled path that life has past me, I'm swimming. Head above the life blood, I'm treading, slowly moving somewhere.

I've felt some real gratitude these past weeks. For the closeness of my immediate family, despite current and past challenges. The willingness of those blood relatives to bond together even though it seems that it would be wildly easier to ignore, leave, depart from all the challenges. I'm grateful that I have a community of people in Victoria whom I can speak openly to about mental health, whom make me feel normal in my experience and who leave judgement out of their story line. Remembering Kayla ten years ago, I wasn't in that type of community. And if I'm wrong and I was in that type of safe community, perhaps I was just a younger version of myself, unaware of common human experience, told a story by society that certain things are to remain private, that only I experience such things, and no one else would understand...

I'm glad that I have a community and a partner and a self awareness that allows me to be comforted in sharing the crappy parts of life, without fear that the sad or overwhelmed piece of myself will not be accepted, and that my most frequent disposition of joy, is paired with other states of being. And that's okay.
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Connection-a word I included in the title of this blog because I've felt connected in so many ways over these past months and especially over these past couple weeks. This connection has been varied: connection with my partner, connection with my garden, a symbol of the intricacies of life, connection to my siblings, connection to the Victoria dance community, connection to humans, to those struggling with transitions and mental health, connection to the divine source that glows or wants to glow, in each living being.

There are few experiences in life that are more special then connecting deeply with a romantic life partner. I feel so excited, so grateful that I have one of those connections continuing to blossom in my world. 

I've just experienced a very long extended date with my sweetie James. This, dear readers, is a type of connection I don't recall ever writing about in the history of Aurora Renews! I have had some very unique, intimate, and special connections with others in past, and I cherish those with such respect and honour. And now, I'm walking down a path of partnership with a dear man named James. And there is no better way to experiment with the potential strength of a relationship such as this then to go on a two week pedal powered adventure - where physical, mental and relational challenges abound!

Yep! Poppy has a new touring buddie!

Inspired by an interest to pedal to a yoga and music festival in the forest of Oregon, and experience an unusually full solar eclipse, we decided to bus, bike, ferry and train our bodies and gear to Cannon Beach, Oregon. Before even reaching Portland, our launch place, the first challenge arose. It arose in the form of a massive mangled framing square. Imagine: a piece of unique blue solid metal 'art', half a centimeter thick, placed so perfectly in my path on the side of a highway in Washington, as my cycling pal and I were pedaling our butts off, breakfast-less, in the wee hours of the misty morning. Without falling from my bike, I was ground to a halt as that blue 'art' work, incredibly mangled by bigger vehicles running it over, lodged itself into Poppy's derailleur and spokes. With an all to wobbly wheel, and a seriously bent derailleur, I managed to peddle to the train station, in Mount Vernon, Washington, concern growing like a mountain, that this had ruined all of our plans.

Luckily, I had James along with his problem solving practicality in tow, and his gluten free doughnut muffin procuring prowess. Fewf! Not all was lost! Sugar in my veins! Calls made to Portland bike shops...and Voila, Sunday night, we found the nice folks at Seven Corners Bicycle Shop, and Corey fixed Poppy all up real good. 

The journey was meant to continue. An early road block, feeling like an ending in my (over reactive) brain, was just a wee test for a couple attempting to journey together on a trip of adventure yes, and also, of connection. 

The connecting went on. We pedaled our way along the mysterical (made that word up accidentally and love it, mysterious and magical all rolled into one) Oregon Coast, with it's phenomenally wide and sandy beaches (were talking vertigo inducing, confusing sand dunes with numbered signs to prevent folks from losing themselves...like letters in those big airport parking lots). We camped at state parks, wandered on endless beaches, laughed over camp stove dinners...

Next, it was time to head inland to the Beloved Festival. The best way to describe this festival is beauty. Loving touches of poetry, art and nature spread through the forest in which the festival was set. Reusable bamboo dishes, composting toilets, nature mandalas and mossy nature relaxation nooks with gorgeous altars of intricate nature artwork. There was a magic fairy pond, lit up creatively at night, a roster of beautiful world music, all night Kirtan, and conscious electronic music to dance to. The yoga pavilion in the forest captivated much of my attention as I ecstatic danced, practiced yoga alongside famous teachers and singers, and bathed in healing sound.

Soon it came time to ride on, and pedal on we did...down the steep hill we had struggled up, stopping to top containers up with blackberries on our descent. We cruised into Corvallis, staying with a lovely bicycle passionate couple, and being entirely amazed by the extent of the Corvallis Food Co-op. In fact, I've been impressed by Portland's Food Co-op, Newport's Food Co-op too. Picture this: extensive bulk selection, that makes a sustainability nut like me, stoked. Fill your own re-usable containers with everything from kimchi to frozen peas, apple cider vinegar to fresh ground flour, capers to mayonnaise, bocconcini to tofu. All in bulk! It was a dreamy place - a full service grocery store, with reasonable prices, focus on local products and conscious thought around which products they carry. They make it easy to choose package free foods, had a hot food bar, as well as cold salad bar, and it was all cooperatively owned by community members in the town. It left me curious - why does Victoria, BC, not have a food co-op like this?! Surprised and disappointed, I'm how I could help make this happen, and what's happened before, in Victoria. 

After a few more campy nights in the warm Willamette Valley, cycling through mono-culture big agriculture, cooking ourselves good food, drinking good drinks, having great laughs, watching the ups and downs of the blood sugar coursing through our veins, sometimes in uneven proportion (!) we arrived in Portland. Feeling ever more connected to this person, with whom I'd never gone on a long bicycle trip, I was pleased. Happy, that even after some hard days of riding, some ups and downs of decision making and energy, little conflicts arising, and being dealt with...our connection was growing, getting stronger, solidifying. 

And Oh Portland! How you never disappoint. I hadn't been to Portland since 2011, which you can read about here. I keep sharing with folks that ask about how we had "such a Portland time in Portland". Here are some summary words to get you visualizing what I mean: Taco food trucks, amazing bicycle infrastructure bonanza, collective house living, yoga, Cascadia gluten free bakery (delicious is the understatement of the year), picnics in the park with cello and sitar in the air, co-op bath house visits for sauna and hot tub time, farmers markets, soap box derby, local cider tastings, live music, City Repair projects, meeting James' long time friends, streets closed for day long active bike-y park enjoying festivals. The list could go on. We had a super fun, jam packed, activity filled weekend in Portland. And it was all topped off by a solar eclipse that had been talked about for months by Oregonians...and was truly a special experience. In Portland, the sun was 99.6% covered by our moon. We saw the sky go dark, the strange shadows cast on the garden, the moon seeming to eat up the sun like it was a cookie treat, through our fancy glasses. 

To celebrate the eclipse, James and I cooked up a big pancake breakfast for three of our lovely host friends. We ate pancakes topped with local peaches and maple syrup on the porch with eclipse glasses on as the sunlight faded. In the strangest way, we observed the crows begin to think it was their evening roosting time, the foliage cast crescent moon shadows on our skin. And at the time of 99.6% coverage, we observed indescribable dancing shadows that appeared on the road, as we stood sidewalk side excitedly experiencing the dimming light.

As eclipses can be a time of manifestation, our breakfast crew took a good pause to speak aloud intentions that we had. Things we wanted to see play out in our lives, in this world. I spoke aloud my desire for harmony and peace. Among the hearts of my family, among the souls that are oppressed in the US and everywhere. Harmony and Peace. I pray for that, I hope for that, I want to manifest that. At eclipse time and every time...Harmony and Peace. 

Summer flows on. This rich warm time of year continues. I'm grateful for my community in Victoria, for the continuing growth of my partnership. I'm so grateful for visits from friends from Ontario, and continuing connections with folks who feel like home in a province that no longer does. I'm grateful for the beautiful food I get to cook each day. I'm grateful for my body that is able to carry me so far on bicycle. Grateful for my ability to cross borders and move freely in this world without discrimination. I'm grateful that my family bond still exists. I am grateful to be alive. 

Lovely food at the beautiful Beloved

Eclipse gazers at breakfast!

Blueberry mint gluten free pie at Cascadia in Portland

Bicycle buddies unite!