1. July 21st, is celebrated as Racial Harmony day in Singapore. The toddler's school sent out a memo stating she needs to be dressed in traditional attire, befitting the 'race' she belongs to.
The overall intention was to propagate racial co-existence among the kids. Although this did bring up the highly complicated question as to "What really is the daughter's tradition?", given her parents do little or practically nothing to stick to theirs and her being a TCK (third culture kid) doesn't help simplify things either. Yet, it was easier to give these complications a miss. After all Singapore does serve as a great platform to uphold racial harmony, given the daily inter-racial amalgamation opportunities one is faced with here!
The daughter being the only student to fit within the pure 'Of Indian/ SE Asian descent' category in her class, went dressed in the rather stylishly designed 'parkar-polka', (The Maharashtrian equivalent of the chaniya-choli), that had been sent by her Maharashtrian grandma (The M-I-L) from Mumbai, over two years ago.
This is the last of her Indian traditional entourage that still fits her (Thank the tailor who intelligently stitched it to accommodate a broad range of baby-sizes, although the skirt has happily gone from being full-length to knee-length).
So off to school she went, wearing a scandalously revealing backless-string blouse and the matching skirt, much to the amusement of passers-by enroute. From what I heard and later saw in the pictures sent by the school, her only other classmates, who came traditionally dressed were her Chinese-Singaporean friend Daphne and the adorable l'ill French boy Machalo, while the British & Aussie children just wore their school uniforms. It is unfortunate that there is always at least that one parent who doesn't get the memo/ gets the memo but forgets about it, on these fun school-celebrations, thus responsible for the 'spoilers' in what could have made great photographic memories.
2. The weekend was spent yet again in Malaysia. We were visiting the country for the second time, having been to Melaka, in West Malaysia, (just North of the border across Singapore), a few weeks ago. Since our Europe/ US travel plans got moved out to late August/ early September, we figured we'd put our weekends to good use and go discover other parts of Asia.
This weekend we went to Kuching - the capital of the Sarawak region of Malaysia, situated on the island of Borneo and on the banks of the Sarawak river. It was originally part of the Sultanate of Brunei before it became a British Colony. Being located in East Malaysia means it is not connected by land to Singapore, unlike Melaka or KL.
The city gets its name from the Malay word - 'Kucing' literally meaning 'cat'. Among various cultural museums, including a cat museum, Kuching also has an Orangutan-sighting experience in their natural habitat reserves, lush rainforests all around to trek through, the lovely quaint Sarawak river to cruise along or cross the banks of, in order to savour the much-talked-about cake - the Kek Lapis Sarawak and a national park nearby, which is home to the World's largest flower - The Rafflesia.
That in a nutshell, was our weekend itinerary there.
3. Kuching serves as a great weekend retreat from Singapore. Not a very avid tourist spot this one, it largely garners the attention of nature-loving explorers. Unlike the touristy Melaka, which attracts local Malaysian and all other tourists alike on account of being a more urban, UN World Heritage site, Kuching can be found frequented by fewer locals.
The Orangutan feeding at the Semenggoh Wildlife Centre, excites adults and children alike. Small groups of 20-25 visitors are instructed to "hush" while walking through a forest-path to reach the main Orangutan feeding area, where forest-rangers simulate Tarzan-like wild-calls to invite the orangutans to breakfast. The reserve forest can only be visited at 9 am or 3 pm, i.e at the feeding times for the orangutans. Depending on their mood, the orangutans emerge out of nowhere (or not), to grab their bunch of bananas for breakfast. A sighting is not guaranteed, but if one does get to experience it, provides for much thrill and excitement among the crowds. Seeing the orangutans jump, climb, slide down ropes and navigate their way down trees, one branch at a time all the way to the feeding area, to pick up their bananas for breakfast can take a good 20 to 30 minutes. If your group consists of children (or annoying grown-ups) who can't stay hushed up for that long, be prepared to wait longer, since the orangutans may not necessarily oblige with noise around them. Seems like they've been taught well - to eat their meals in complete silence!
The toddler enjoyed this experience, from what we could tell, although she seemed puzzled when the baby orangutan threw his banana-peels all over the place - an act that seemed to defy what she's been taught all along. (She can be a cleanliness-freak at times; mostly a good thing, but comes back to bite me, when we're getting down and dirty with nature-trekking) It was funny when she gushed in horror "Mamma, Mamma Look! Monkey throwing bananas everywhere"
Oh Dear! Seems like we're going to have to teach her the difference soon!
4. Trekking through the rainforest to discover the World's largest flower, in the Gunung Gading National Park is an unforgettable experience. Our guide on the forest-trek was excellent, as she went along taking several stops enroute, to educate us about the natives of the rain-forest. Among them were insects and trees (Yes, even trees) that emanate a fluorescent radiance around them, as a defense mechanism. She mentioned a night-trek through the forest is magical, just for this experience. Apparently one can go torch-less around these trees - that is how bright the light is, that they emit, upon being touched. And you thought that happened only in the movie Avatar! The forest was beautiful - full of lizards and chameleons and parasitic plants, flowers and larger-than-life leaves, trees, roots, creepers and trunks.
The Rafflesia is the World's largest flower, a parasitic flowering plant, that is found in the rain forests of SE Asia. It grows upto 3-1/2 to 4 feet in diameter and weighs in a healthy 10 kgs. The life-cycle of an endemic Rafflesia flower, found in Sarawak, Malaysia, is hardly a week-long, within which it blooms, emits a foul, rotten meat-like, odour to attract flies and other insects for pollination and dies a quick charred death, that makes it look burnt and black, eventually.
Protected by the government, this species of flower is vulnerable to deforestation and abuse by some locals, who use it's bud as traditional medicine to help women recover after child-birth. The plant is given a "Totally protected plant" status in Sarawak, which means even an act as simple as touching the flower, let alone plucking/ harming it, comes tagged with a huge monetary fine and is considered against the law.
To give you a good idea of how large the flower can be, here are a few fabulous pictures I came across, while doing a simple google search. And all those people in those pictures touching the flower, well, not a really good thing to do, you know! The humongous flower is indeed the most beautiful one I have ever seen, to date!
To quote our forest-ranger guide, "The flower is bigger than your daughter" Yup, no wonder then, she didn't take to it as excitedly as we did, possibly wondering if it was going to eat her up!
5. Malaysia has acres and acres of thick rain-forest adventures to offer and this trip was our first opportunity at trekking through some of that wilderness. While the toddler seems excited at the prospect of running in the wild, jumping and frolicking her way through fallen leaves, dead wildflowers, scurrying lizards and her balancing acts on loosely strung bridges over brooks, she is still far from being the complete happy-camper that I am hoping she will be, someday. Her innate sense of extreme cleanliness and order in everything around her (I wonder where she gets that from....Ahem!!) works against her enjoying the random vagrancies in nature, I think. She alternates between choosing to gush "Yuchh!!" (Her way of saying "Yuck") on being shown a dead Rafflesia flower for instance, which does appear quite unsightly honestly - black and burnt in appearance, but won't think twice before picking up stray, dead leaves off of the ground to caress her face with, a la diva-style or chasing a chameleon for that matter.
A first-time rainforest trekker on this trip, she traversed most of the forest path on foot, other than the times when she made the occasional "Mamma/ Papa, pick-up" requests, to ride on our shoulders or arms. Perhaps its time to start planning the camping trip with her soon?
Clearly, the Rain-forest has got to be one of nature's most magnanimous creations; with everything sized XXXL and magnified a gazillion times more than one can ever imagine it to be. To see nature on natural steroids, is an unbeatable high! The Malaysian Rain-forest is my third or fourth encounter with a rain-forest, yet it will always be a memorable one as it was my daughters initiation into her first. Someday perhaps, when she's old enough to know the difference between an Orangutan throwing banana peels around in his natural habitat and us humans 'littering' around doing the same, is when I hope to re-visit the Sarawak region again, with her!
On that rather hopeful note, I sign off this week's update. Next weekend sees us back again in Malaysia, for a hat-trick, this time to explore yet another facet of this dynamic Asian nation!
Thanks for reading & virtually travelling with me!
Love,
Shweyta
The overall intention was to propagate racial co-existence among the kids. Although this did bring up the highly complicated question as to "What really is the daughter's tradition?", given her parents do little or practically nothing to stick to theirs and her being a TCK (third culture kid) doesn't help simplify things either. Yet, it was easier to give these complications a miss. After all Singapore does serve as a great platform to uphold racial harmony, given the daily inter-racial amalgamation opportunities one is faced with here!
The daughter being the only student to fit within the pure 'Of Indian/ SE Asian descent' category in her class, went dressed in the rather stylishly designed 'parkar-polka', (The Maharashtrian equivalent of the chaniya-choli), that had been sent by her Maharashtrian grandma (The M-I-L) from Mumbai, over two years ago.
This is the last of her Indian traditional entourage that still fits her (Thank the tailor who intelligently stitched it to accommodate a broad range of baby-sizes, although the skirt has happily gone from being full-length to knee-length).
So off to school she went, wearing a scandalously revealing backless-string blouse and the matching skirt, much to the amusement of passers-by enroute. From what I heard and later saw in the pictures sent by the school, her only other classmates, who came traditionally dressed were her Chinese-Singaporean friend Daphne and the adorable l'ill French boy Machalo, while the British & Aussie children just wore their school uniforms. It is unfortunate that there is always at least that one parent who doesn't get the memo/ gets the memo but forgets about it, on these fun school-celebrations, thus responsible for the 'spoilers' in what could have made great photographic memories.
2. The weekend was spent yet again in Malaysia. We were visiting the country for the second time, having been to Melaka, in West Malaysia, (just North of the border across Singapore), a few weeks ago. Since our Europe/ US travel plans got moved out to late August/ early September, we figured we'd put our weekends to good use and go discover other parts of Asia.
This weekend we went to Kuching - the capital of the Sarawak region of Malaysia, situated on the island of Borneo and on the banks of the Sarawak river. It was originally part of the Sultanate of Brunei before it became a British Colony. Being located in East Malaysia means it is not connected by land to Singapore, unlike Melaka or KL.
The city gets its name from the Malay word - 'Kucing' literally meaning 'cat'. Among various cultural museums, including a cat museum, Kuching also has an Orangutan-sighting experience in their natural habitat reserves, lush rainforests all around to trek through, the lovely quaint Sarawak river to cruise along or cross the banks of, in order to savour the much-talked-about cake - the Kek Lapis Sarawak and a national park nearby, which is home to the World's largest flower - The Rafflesia.
That in a nutshell, was our weekend itinerary there.
3. Kuching serves as a great weekend retreat from Singapore. Not a very avid tourist spot this one, it largely garners the attention of nature-loving explorers. Unlike the touristy Melaka, which attracts local Malaysian and all other tourists alike on account of being a more urban, UN World Heritage site, Kuching can be found frequented by fewer locals.
The Orangutan feeding at the Semenggoh Wildlife Centre, excites adults and children alike. Small groups of 20-25 visitors are instructed to "hush" while walking through a forest-path to reach the main Orangutan feeding area, where forest-rangers simulate Tarzan-like wild-calls to invite the orangutans to breakfast. The reserve forest can only be visited at 9 am or 3 pm, i.e at the feeding times for the orangutans. Depending on their mood, the orangutans emerge out of nowhere (or not), to grab their bunch of bananas for breakfast. A sighting is not guaranteed, but if one does get to experience it, provides for much thrill and excitement among the crowds. Seeing the orangutans jump, climb, slide down ropes and navigate their way down trees, one branch at a time all the way to the feeding area, to pick up their bananas for breakfast can take a good 20 to 30 minutes. If your group consists of children (or annoying grown-ups) who can't stay hushed up for that long, be prepared to wait longer, since the orangutans may not necessarily oblige with noise around them. Seems like they've been taught well - to eat their meals in complete silence!
The toddler enjoyed this experience, from what we could tell, although she seemed puzzled when the baby orangutan threw his banana-peels all over the place - an act that seemed to defy what she's been taught all along. (She can be a cleanliness-freak at times; mostly a good thing, but comes back to bite me, when we're getting down and dirty with nature-trekking) It was funny when she gushed in horror "Mamma, Mamma Look! Monkey throwing bananas everywhere"
Oh Dear! Seems like we're going to have to teach her the difference soon!
4. Trekking through the rainforest to discover the World's largest flower, in the Gunung Gading National Park is an unforgettable experience. Our guide on the forest-trek was excellent, as she went along taking several stops enroute, to educate us about the natives of the rain-forest. Among them were insects and trees (Yes, even trees) that emanate a fluorescent radiance around them, as a defense mechanism. She mentioned a night-trek through the forest is magical, just for this experience. Apparently one can go torch-less around these trees - that is how bright the light is, that they emit, upon being touched. And you thought that happened only in the movie Avatar! The forest was beautiful - full of lizards and chameleons and parasitic plants, flowers and larger-than-life leaves, trees, roots, creepers and trunks.
The Rafflesia is the World's largest flower, a parasitic flowering plant, that is found in the rain forests of SE Asia. It grows upto 3-1/2 to 4 feet in diameter and weighs in a healthy 10 kgs. The life-cycle of an endemic Rafflesia flower, found in Sarawak, Malaysia, is hardly a week-long, within which it blooms, emits a foul, rotten meat-like, odour to attract flies and other insects for pollination and dies a quick charred death, that makes it look burnt and black, eventually.
Protected by the government, this species of flower is vulnerable to deforestation and abuse by some locals, who use it's bud as traditional medicine to help women recover after child-birth. The plant is given a "Totally protected plant" status in Sarawak, which means even an act as simple as touching the flower, let alone plucking/ harming it, comes tagged with a huge monetary fine and is considered against the law.
To give you a good idea of how large the flower can be, here are a few fabulous pictures I came across, while doing a simple google search. And all those people in those pictures touching the flower, well, not a really good thing to do, you know! The humongous flower is indeed the most beautiful one I have ever seen, to date!
To quote our forest-ranger guide, "The flower is bigger than your daughter" Yup, no wonder then, she didn't take to it as excitedly as we did, possibly wondering if it was going to eat her up!
5. Malaysia has acres and acres of thick rain-forest adventures to offer and this trip was our first opportunity at trekking through some of that wilderness. While the toddler seems excited at the prospect of running in the wild, jumping and frolicking her way through fallen leaves, dead wildflowers, scurrying lizards and her balancing acts on loosely strung bridges over brooks, she is still far from being the complete happy-camper that I am hoping she will be, someday. Her innate sense of extreme cleanliness and order in everything around her (I wonder where she gets that from....Ahem!!) works against her enjoying the random vagrancies in nature, I think. She alternates between choosing to gush "Yuchh!!" (Her way of saying "Yuck") on being shown a dead Rafflesia flower for instance, which does appear quite unsightly honestly - black and burnt in appearance, but won't think twice before picking up stray, dead leaves off of the ground to caress her face with, a la diva-style or chasing a chameleon for that matter.
A first-time rainforest trekker on this trip, she traversed most of the forest path on foot, other than the times when she made the occasional "Mamma/ Papa, pick-up" requests, to ride on our shoulders or arms. Perhaps its time to start planning the camping trip with her soon?
Clearly, the Rain-forest has got to be one of nature's most magnanimous creations; with everything sized XXXL and magnified a gazillion times more than one can ever imagine it to be. To see nature on natural steroids, is an unbeatable high! The Malaysian Rain-forest is my third or fourth encounter with a rain-forest, yet it will always be a memorable one as it was my daughters initiation into her first. Someday perhaps, when she's old enough to know the difference between an Orangutan throwing banana peels around in his natural habitat and us humans 'littering' around doing the same, is when I hope to re-visit the Sarawak region again, with her!
On that rather hopeful note, I sign off this week's update. Next weekend sees us back again in Malaysia, for a hat-trick, this time to explore yet another facet of this dynamic Asian nation!
Thanks for reading & virtually travelling with me!
Love,
Shweyta
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