For our Thanksgiving weekend get away we took a one day road trip into Malaysia. We drove out to Desaru which is a beach side town on the east coast of Malaysia. We kept our expectations low because we are now greatly familiar with the trashy-ness and general lack of up-keep around Malaysia. It worked – we had a great time! The beach was one of the best we have found within driving distance! And, tho the resort we spent the day at was typically 20 years out of date and in complete disrepair, we were happy!

Welcome to Desaru:

The day was very very windy and the waves were coming from every direction and HUGE but we loved it! Not a tanker in sight! What a refreshing change from Singapore beaches! And, ironically, although Singapore is incredibly clean, the beaches are littered with debris from the tankers. Malaysia is generally very littered but this beach was spotless! A wonderful surprise!

At one point during the afternoon, Dave, Ben and Nicky started to play some stick ball. Soon enough 4 Bangladesh-y guys were lingering around the game. Dave was too engaged in his time with the boys to notice but I pointed it out to him. He invited the 4 guys in. Next time I looked, there must have been 10 guys playing with them! Dave said they kept wanting to “bowl” the ball as you would do in cricket. Ben really wanted to play baseball so Dave was desparately trying to teach these guys the difference. They were very good natured and had lots of fun. Don’t know who won and as quickly as they all appeared, they left!

Dave’s been working a ton. So, it was really nice to get this time with him.

I also collected some of the nicest shells to date:

We had a day pass at a dilapidated resort and got to enjoy the pool and some food. We were surely the only Amercians there (which meant no chance of sneaking in – not that we would ever do that! )

And on the way home, we stopped at a fruit farm. Dave is into Agro Tourism:

And I kind of enjoy freakishly large fruits:

We ordered our Turkey from the school. They sell to a lot of the neighborhood families. Here’s how I picked it up:

Unfortunately, I didn’t like the turkey too much. It was way to game-y. I have learned that SG gets all it’s chickens (turkey, too?) from an island off of SG that is designated for chicken farming. Now, the chicken we eat here tastes fine. This turkey was sketchy. So, who knows. Next year (and, yes, there will be a next year) I will cook my own turkey in our tiny oven. I guess I’ll do a trial run sometime soon to see if grocery store turkeys have the game-y taste. Last year’s turkey was from the Raffles Hotel (Dave was still trying to sell us all on being here!) and it was fantastic.

In any case, Thanksgiving was nice. We had a few neighbors over. I baked three pies in one day. Not one of them was apple which left Ben in tears for hours. We ate and ate and ate.

Now on to Xmas. I’m having a much harder time this year than last year believing in Xmas in this heat. Maybe it’ll be easier once we put up our fake tree. Wish me luck.

Dave, Ben, Nicky and I are thrilled with our new home in Singapore. Without a doubt, in this climate, it’s a blessing to have a pool. We’ve been envious of others and now we’re making good use of our own. Getting past that, it’s also really nice to have more space. For the first time in my entire life, I don’t have to cram things into kitchen cabinets, I can see all the food that we have, the boys have empty drawers! However, our container is coming from the US – all this will change. I am planning the mother of all garage sales.

Here are a few highlights:




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Fish Pond

More pictures to come. For now, here’s a picture of the boys enjoying the pool at our new home. What a delight to have a pool

I think the durian is late this year (or maybe it was just early last year). I know the sale tables outside 7-11 were up in August/September. I’m just starting to smell the welcoming aroma as I approach the grocery store now this month. Whatever the timing, the durian is back!!

Durian for sale!

In other seasonal news, we are experiencing our first Singapore camp out and first camp out EVER for Ben! The Cub Scouts are doing their Fall camp out on the northern most corner of this island (no, that does not make it any cooler!). Nicky and I spent the day enjoying the scouting activities but opted not to spend the night. Dave and Ben are going to camp. Undoubtably the most challenging part of this entire experience is going to be sleeping without air con. Good luck to Dave and Ben and the entire Singapore Pack 3017!

Cub Scout Camp Out - Tent Up - No Problem

The floating village showed us that there are some very friendly snakes around!

Passing boat - she may have just caught this one

Nicky meets a snake

Dave wears a snake!

And this girl owns this snake....a dollar to hold it!

And very clever kids…check out their boats…

Here she comes!

Mini boats

After our time at Ankor Watt, we returned to our hotel for lunch. We stayed at the Victoria. We first discovered Victoria hotels last spring in the remote river wilderness of the Mekong Delta region in Vietnam. It was an amazing discovery. I liken the Victoria hotels to the way the Singapore Raffles Hotel must have been back in the days of Joseph Conrad. There is a feel of authenticity that is so rarely plausible in today’s hotel facades. So, we enjoyed our second Victoria in Siem Reap. There are 6 more Victoria hotels in the property portfolio and we hope to visit them all!

After our lunch we ventured out by Tuk-Tuk to the Adventure Tours group on a pot-holed side road in Siem Reap. There we met our guide and picked up two ATV vehicles. Dave and Ben on one and Nick and I on another first tentatively and then boldly bounded thru full puddles and pits into the remote countryside. We saw cows and chickens, rivers and swimmers, and best of all friendly little children who ran to the roadside to wave to us. We arrived at an orphanage/school over an hour later. We saw three classrooms in action. These classrooms are more like outdoor picnic pavilions. Each was crammed with at least 40 or 50 kids. Most are local children who come for the schooling. Some are children who no longer have families and will grow up at this orphanage.

Tuk-Tuk ride thru muddy street

Cow-bodia

Nicky arrives at the school/orphanage after a long ride

One outdoor classroom, white board hanging on left

Stopping for a snack, here we all are in our muddy glory!

Fried snake anyone?

Lotus flower in the village (can you see the big bug under the leaf?)

beautiful countryside

On our first day in Cambodia, it stormed, thundered, and lightening’ed. There were huge streaks of lightening cracking over the ancient temples. I tried to catch a photo of the lightening – it was that frequent that I’d even try. But, no luck. This was a trip of many Firsts for Nicky. The first First was that he braved the lightening storm and walked thru the temples bravely. Anyone who has seen Nicky during a thunderstorm will know that this was a huge step for him. So, we saw much of Ankor Watt in our $1.50 plastic rain cover ups. Those helped tremendously. And, near the end, the storm stopped, the sun came out and the wet temples and full ponds were just glistening in the sun.

Rainy day at Ankor Watt

The length of Ankor Watt

Windows

Library and Pond Reflection

All of us!

My friend Karen asked what you do with a Jackfruit.  Since I happen to have some pretty good pictures of a chopped up Jackfruit from the wet market at Little India, I thought I’d post them:

Jackfruit up close

Cut up fruit

Ben tastes the Jackfruit.