Indonesia Day..one's special day

Indonesia always fascinates my inner curiosity,its cultural diversity and the people's resilience are great attributes of this colourful nation.
Pity that most Malaysians viewed Indonesia as a provider of maids and workers,what a wrongly perceived view.
Indonesia is an oasis of Malay culture that transcends beyond the Malacca Sultanate. The Majapahit and Vijaya empires for those that lived in those days must be imbued with great traditions which some we still behold and practice.
I have been to numerous places in Indonesia..Pontianak, Balikpapan, Samarinda, Jakarta(obviously), Bandung, Surabaya,Jogjakarta,Solo, Medan and the unforgettable Bali.

Each place has its own uniqueness;Bandung for its small designer outlets,Jogja for its Sultanate place, Solo ,the mosque i went for Friday prayers was old but beautiful and Bali with its preserved culture that is different from the other dominant Muslim parts of Indonesia

But the one that intrigues me most is Samarinda..it was like a trip to the twilight zone. Its main (and possibly only access) is via a rural road from Balikpapan where along the way generally surrounded by rubber trees. Then lo and behold out of the meandering road trip through these rubber plantations Samarinda beckons.
It has all the usual trappings of a modern Indonesian city with its Matahari supermarket but it is a place that still retained its traditions, who doesn't know of the 'kain samarinda?"
Oh ya why is Indonesia has a special place for me? Well Indonesia Day(17.08.) also happens to be my birthday.
It is indeed a warm thought whenever i have my birthday knowing that more than 200 millions Indonesians are also celebrating with me,ha beat that!!

Please cry for Mustapha and his country

The only Palestinian that i knew as a friend was a guy called Mustapha and even then i only got acquainted with him only during my brief time doing my A levels in Yorkshire UK. Those days at my college there was this motley crew of Palestinian students ,actual fact all exiled in Jordan and frankly i was not impressed with most of them. They were there only for the fun, smooching around with working class Yorkshire girls whose language is literally littered with the f...k" word.

But Mustapha ? He was different, then was the first time i was acutely aware of the pitiful plight of the Palestinians.I recalled his anger and frustration of being a boy who has no country to call home and possibly with his families always living on the edge of danger and annihilation from the Zionist regime.
Now as i read the news and watched TV in horror at this continuing mindless atrocity against Palestinian civilians, i remembered my dear friend Mustapha.
30 years has since gone and the sufferings of his people has not abated.The silence of the West was most disheartening.
There was a time when Mustapha invited us to his house for a simple Arabic meal (biryani in a big big plate shared by all!!!!) that i recalled then as Malaysians we were looking forward to a secured future later when we went back and helped out possibly in the nation building process of our beloved country ,Malaysia but Mustapha?
There is no nation building for him to look forward to.
Dear Mustapha i used to wonder where you are now, are you still alive? Or have you migrated to the Western world and build up your life there?
Whatever it is one thing i know for sure..you will still cry for your beloved Palestine.

The Azzuris..viva Italia

Who can remember that great goal poacher,Paolo Rossi? The World Cup only comes into our lives every four years but what impact it has to the great populace of the world..from Timbuktu to Nepal they all got glued to the TV watching the World Cup. Which team did i support? England?(obviously being a bit an Anglophile myself) but somehow my heart is greatly attached to the Azzuris ,yes Viva Italia ever since Paolo Rossi heroics in the 1982 World Cup.
That is one great world cup tournament, an emerging Maradona and of course every one's favourites, Brazil.
My love for the Italian football team has never ebbed since then and i love their football, their great technical skills and nuance.
My all time favourite Italian player is Franco Baressi, an elegant but non compromising defender.
So every 4 years since that great win in 1982 i was always hopeful that the Azzuris will repeat their triumph..they came close in 1994 which was best remembered by Baggio's penalty kick miss against Brazil.
Thus my elation and joy when they won the 2006 World Cup, inspired by Totti and the lingering image was Grosso's celebrations after scoring that opening goal against Germany in the semis....ya a deja vu feeling reminiscent of Tardelli's celebration in defeating that same opponents in 1982.
Oh ya..what does Azzuri means....it simply means Blue hmmm great team great colour !!!

wuthering heights in passing.. Borneo

I spent 2 years as a young student in Halifax, Yorkshire many many years ago(now just a vague but wonderful memory). Halifax is straddled within the Pennines and the Yorkshire moors is the famous setting for Emily Bronte's only novel,the Wuthering Heights. Its brooding atmosphere bodes well for any dark stories setting i presume. Why this sudden remembrance of such a place that can bring such a real melancholy feeling?
Well i was earlier in this makeshift bus or truck that went up the Borneo Heights that is straddled within the Penrissen range. As the dark clouds descends on us, a brooding outlook appears within sight as the truck made its way up the steep hill and somehow Wuthering Heights comes to my mind. Ha of course Borneo Heights is a far cry from the Yorkshire Moors but hey the place will certainly make one good setting for a Sarawakian epic novel.
This was the second time i came to this place and surprisingly i have noted many good changes and it certainly has very positive vibes. It can never be as serenely beautiful as the Yorkshire Mooors but am sure with more upgrades on its various walks ,Borneo Heights will create and enhance its own charm.

Travel....to be or not to be a travel writer?

I love travelling not because of the glamour of the places that one gets to visit but to imbibe in the culture and atmosphere of places one visit. I still remembered well my forays of travelling in the summer as a young student way back in late 70's and early 80's in particular as customary with most young students in Europe....just buy a month euro rail pass and travel as you please .
With practically little money in your pocket and with a backpack you just trudged around,staying at youth hostels, on the trains and even in a park(i did that in Rome).
What did i actually remember of those trips(or sojourns.hmm). Nothing much except the constant hunger and tiredness which was always enlightened whenever one arrived at the desired destination, to me Venice is still one of the most beautiful places on earth even it was now overly trundled with tourists flagging US dollars.
Thus my admiration for those travel writers(that's what they called themselves possibly) for having the innate ability o describe their travels with such clarity and poignancy that you felt so engrossed as you read through their observations and happenings during their travels.

Sir VS Naipaul really stands out for me as the most imminent of the lot. Paul Theroux is another favourite travel writer of mine, now in the midst of reading his latest,"Ghost train to the Eastern Star", bit disappointed though that just a brief mention of Malaysia, more so on Singapore which he described as a "social laboratory"..but the most absorbing part of his account was his time in Cambodia ,you can feel the chill in your bones when he related the killing fields and talking to some of the survivors.

So? Can we relate our travels the way these people do?
Besides that early bone crunching walkabout in Europe in my teen years ,travel lately is always been about shopping "walkabouts" in the malls,bazaars and markets.
A trip to Bali, Phuket, more so Singapore and Dubai is more a trip of paying homages to the various shopping outlets in its many forms. Can one really stop for a while and try to savour the place that one visits ,learn a bit more of the people, their stories and if one is lucky can even come up with a nice story that even Theroux can be proud of!! Humbug will be the possible reply from Naipaul(he's well known for his arrogance but cant slight the man for his genius in writing good stories)
Oh by the way Rehman Reshid book, "The Malaysian journey" is a great read but was written almost 25 years ago, will be good if he can come with a new book,come on Rehman do it, please!!
Lastly, my home town Kuching is still one of the best places on this planet earth(trust me..)

Diabetes...a silent killer

What does a Monday,Wednesday and Friday means to my mum? It is dialysis day when she has to endure the routine of dialysis process at the Normah Hospital for this what befalls most diabetics..a strict routine.
Diabetics is aptly viewed as a silent killer,it's not like cancer or a heart attack.
Diabetics eats into you, you noticed that you are a diabetic when suddenly the frequency of visits to the toilet has increased, ants seemed to be in abundance at the toilet boil.
I admired her endurance in facing this demoralising but life saving routine, a routine that can left one's in depressive mood as sometimes the body just cant take it.

For a diabetic the early signs sometimes is not easily detected and this spells more why we must have routine check ups. Once you are diagnosed as one, it will start with the usual dosage of pills and later insulin and finally as the ravages of diabetics take its toll, one will then be confined to a dialysis machine on a routine basis.

I wrote earlier in this blog, "my mum and her important nothings" and it did surprise me when the local paper ,the Borneo Post published it..it's not a publicity stunt but it is my honest rendition of my feelings and views as i see my mum slowly ailing and fading away as the ravages of diabetic takes its toll.
The eyes slowly failing, the minor wounds becoming life threatening even and the "yo yo" blood pressure and sugar levels makes her one moment happy and one moment sad and depressed.

Her sufferings is a constant reminder to me that diabetics is indeed a silent killer and one must do one's calling in having the self discipline to control the body's sugar level and adopt a healthy life style.

Why did i say that?
Because i am also a diabetic(even at early stage ..) but this will be another story to tell.

Countdown 2009

The new year we decided to hold a small party at our abode(house i mean..) with some very good and close friends and family. It just shows you can really have a good time,middle age standards of course by just celebrating the countdown at home and not at hotels with crowd of strangers. The GBAT gang we call ourselves, a group of well meaning friends with no airs and sometimes we just talk nonsense(honestly!!) even among us we had a YB. Maybe that's what people in their late 40's and early 50's do.
The evening started with a simple meal of Ba Ku teh (Malay style) ,fish head curry and "rojak tambi".
Ha ha what a combination, and nothing is complete nowadays at a Sarawakian household gathering without the "cake lapis" ( layered cake , does this explain it well? i doubt it ,it sounds more like a Daniel Craig movie title!!!).
The evening got more interesting with some rendition of karaoke, we do have some fantastic singers(count me out though..), the best of our lot though was not around , we called him Mike Halim(he never pass the mike to anyone once he started his singing) .
The wives decide to repeat their family day dance routine performance, real fun and hilarious and if the steps are out of sync who cares? Because obviously the audience(i mean the husbands) wont dare to criticise.
The night went by without us noticing the time and as we listened to songs reminiscent of our youth we don't really feel that the new year is just another reminder of a year of getting older.
So adios 2008 and what better way to welcome 2009 with a group of close and real friends , a real treat for us all that our last guest finally left around 3 am..