Indian hahas

With all respect due to the USA presidency, please enjoy this piece of joke I got from an (American) friend of mine, currently living in India, namely, Jayna:

“Donald Rumsfeld is briefing George Bush in the Oval Office.

‘Oh and finally, sir, three Brazilian soldiers were killed in Iraq today.’

Bush goes pale, his jaw hanging open in stunned disbelief. He buries his face in his hands, muttering ‘My God…My God.’

‘Mr. President,’ says Cheney, ‘we lose soldiers all the time, and it’s terrible. But I’ve never seen you so upset. What’s the matter?’

Bush looks up and says…’How many is a Brazilian?’”

-as seen in Eastern Panorama (January 2008), a monthly publication about North East India

The equation proving English a weird language

There it is! After years of research, worldwide experts came up with the complex equation proving English the weirdest language on Earth:

ghoti = fish

Yes, in English, the word "ghoti" is pronounced exactly the same as the word "fish", although both are spelled in very different ways. Let's prove the equation:

• "gh" like in enough (gh = f)
• "o" like in women (0 = i)
• "ti" like in station (ti = sh)

So, to wrap up: ghoti = fish !

Please, native English speakers, have some patience for us, bothering hard to master Shakespeare's language!

Sir, yes Sir!

Imagine you're lying on a deserted beach somewhere in Asia, let's say in Malaysia. Everything is so quiet, and you fully enjoy yourself. Aside from a tidal wave, what is the worth thing that could happen to you and spoil this very special moment?

--> an organized tour tidal wave...

Since I've spent quite some time on various Islands and touristic spots in Asia, I've noticed many of those groups of tourists traveling on an organized tour. And by "organized", I mean that each and every second of the day is organized.

You can't miss those groups if you go to the Perhentians Islands, they love this sea paradise. They are easy to spot: first they are numerous. Most of those tours gather at least 10 people. That kind of tourists likes to be surrounded by his fellows, he feels protected against all the dangers threatening him when he is so far away from home sweet home. Especially on the Perhentian Islands, this is really dangerous place. And they will always stay close to each other. It's like a school of sardines: strength lies in unity.

You can usually recognize them with their T-shirt: since they are very proud of belonging to the same tour, they make their travel a real event: they give themselves a name, they find a motto and they created a dedicated T-shirt for their group. It's mandatory for them that they wear it all the time. It's actually very clever: in the unlikely event that one of them get separated from the rest of the group, if you find him totally freaked out and lost, thanks to the name on the T-shirt, you can bring him back to his owner. You might get a reward for it.

Finally, since this is an "organized tour", well... it has to be organized, right? This is serious business. The captain of the group usually carries a loudspeaker to regularly give instructions to the group. Thanks to the captain, the tourists don't need to worry to much about what to do and where to go. The schedule is very detailed an a laminated hard copy is given to all the participants. They are told when to go to the bathroom. The captain is the master and his authority is respected: the only case when it's hard for him to keep control over the group is when it comes to food, especially when it's a buffet. In order to guarantee the ROI (Return On Investment), the participants will rush to the buffet and get as much as their plastic plate can carry. Who cares if they can't eat it all, as long as they consumed as much as possible. It's usually a real mess, and there might not be enough food for the weakers of them who couldn't reach the buffet on time. The captain is also in charge of telling jokes in the bus and of ordering them to watch through the window when the bus is passing a landmark. Gosh, a travel must be so boring without a good captain!

But the most funny part is that they don't swim without a bright orange life jacket and two large buoys around their arms. Yes, in the Perhentians. You know, this paradise tropical Island where the water is like 28°C , shallow, quiet, protected by coral reefs... I'm not kidding, that's for real!!!

As you can see, I'm not a big fan of those tours and I'm getting a bit mean. Echoing Nicolas' post (fr), I think that this type of tourism is more or less responsible for spoiling natural wonders...

Well, that said, believe it or not I was myself part of such kind event last weekend!!! Yep, I got enrolled in the Perhentian Island challenge 2007... I teamed up with sport addicted Louis and we both went through a great sport challenge in spite of the "organized tour" background.

The race consist in a mix of kayaking, running through the wild jungle, swimming (yes, with the bright orange life jacket geared up ;-), climbing steep hills. Four and a half hours of constant physical effort around noon, when the sun is the brightest and when the temperature reaches 35°C. It was really tiring but we were determined and we found the guts to finish the race and our rank is 10th out of 83 teams. We won a great medal and a money prize! There will be a one hour coverage on TV Tiga (Malaysian national TV channel 3) in October, I'll try to blog it if I can find it.

Thanks Louis!

Louis was too tall to fit in the kayak...













They didn't play La Marseillaise...

Colmar Tropical

A few year ago the prime minister's wife traveled to France over her summer vacation and had a chance to discover the charming town of Colmar, famous for its typical Alsace architecture. She actually loved it so much that she wanted to get the same back home in Malaysia.

The prime minister's wife desires are a serious issue in Malaysia, therefore it didn't take long to built a replica of Colmar's main street in the mountain area of Bukit Tinggi, 80km North of KL.

Not that I was that homesick, but I'm always open to any day trip outside of KL outskirt, especially when the bike ride is supposed to be nice, along a small path climbing up the mountains! And it was the occasion for Vincent to take his bike out of KL for the first time.

It's really astonishing to walk along this replica's streets: it's like France, but surrounded by jungle and in a 35 C moist atmosphere... It feels fake, though. It's a bit like Eurodisney's castles!

Of course there are French restaurants, and yes, it is possible to order a choucroute! Now the real challenge is: can you decently enjoy a choucroute by 35 degrees???

Health First!

Last weekend I couldn't postpone it anymore, I had to do the boring chore of grocery shopping. While in the supermarket I saw a nice and cheap made in China juice extractor. As I don't have very healthy eating habits those days, I thought I could compensate with a daily freshly squeezed fruit juice. I also brought about 10 kg of fresh fruits (mangoes, pineapple, papaya, banana, kiwi, lime, manggis, oranges, coconut milk, you name it)





To celebrate this new purchase I had some friends coming over. One of them brought plenty of cheap Philippines' Rhum... It all begun with fresh home-made Piña Colada. It ended up with exotic experiments... I'm not sure about the target completion regarding the healthy thing, but at least we had fun ;-)

Impossible Mission

- we need to catch a plane to Penang leaving at 21:30 tonight
- therefore we need to be at the airport (KUL - LCCT) at 21:10, no latter
- she leaves office at 20:00 at Jalan Tun Razzak and Jalan Ampang
- Kuala Lumpur is highly jammed at this time, no way to make it by cab

Your mission if you choose to accept it: pick her up with your bike when she leaves the office. Make it to the airport in less than one hour and ten minutes. (as a reminder: 85 km to be covered on jammed highways with crazy Malaysian drivers rushing home for the weekend).

If you don't get any news before Monday, it will mean that we mad it :-)

If you don't get any news at all, it means that we crashed onto a car :-(

(just kiddin' Mom lah, safety first: I can make it any time to Penang anyway, if not this weekend)

Edit: did it, was nice to discover Penang, especially the old Georgetown and the West coast.

There is not such thing as a free meal...

... as the proverb says. However tonight in Changkat Bukit Bintang street I had the best free meal ever!!

A new restaurant had its opening tonight just down my condo. For the connoisseurs, it replaces former Copper Chimney but it is managed by the same owner. Marie and I got invitation as loyal customers. The Moghul House serves typical North Indian Food. And tonight, everything was free!...

In a nutshell: I'm stuffed! I'm full! I enjoyed excellent Indian food from 8 to 1am! I never ate so much tasty food in one meal. I think I now understand what a Roman orgy could be... My jaw is still hurting, I don't know if it's due to chewing or laughing!

Shall I also mention that there was an open bar for beer too? Needless to mention how high I am now...

Beyond that, the menu is great, the food is good and the prices are reasonable for Changkat Bukit Bintang. I'm glad to find out that the substitute for the lovely Copper Chimney will keep the same spirit.

Huh, what's that? How, yes, I forgot: I got to wake up in 5 hours to go climb the Taman Melawati : a quartz ridge at the edge of the Klang Valley (WWF classified). A long hike which includes several steps along the way where it really becomes about climbing... Hopefully I will sleep my beer off by the time I will hang with one hand above a 20 ft deep gap :-)

Haze-ardous!

What's going on in KL? The whole city is covered with a thick fog smelling just like a charcoal barbecue before you drop the meat on the grill... What's that? Oh, I know: the haze is back in KL :'-( Cough, cough!! What is the haze? It's easy as a pie: farmers in Indonesia (especially on the neighboring island of Sumatra) burn the forest in order to clear off fields for cultivation. This generates huge amount of smoke. Depending on the wind, those clouds of smoke make their journey over the Melacca sea and end up reaching Malaysia West coast.

See "before" and "after" pictures of KL:

Sometimes, when the smoke is too thick, schools are closed, as well as some industry manufactures and offices. This is bad for productivity. And needless to mention the health hazard... But to me the most surprising thing about it is the Malaysians reaction: obviously some of them are very concerned about the above mentioned troubles. But others are pretty happy about it because during haze attack the sun can't reach KL and the temperature drops from a few degrees!!

Malaysian government urged Indonesia for collaboration in chasing those illegal forest fires. Indonesia sent some officers in Sumatra jungle. They caught several fire criminals and deported them towards Malaysia... because they were Malays!! Yes, some Malay people setup business among the pyromaniacs... An excellent way for Indonesia to tell Malaysia: "See, the criminals are from your country, all this is your fault so now stop boring us with this smoke story and let our farmers burn forest if they want to"...

I bet you, we are not gonna see blue sky in KL before pigs fly.

Small world...

Last Friday I had a great dinner at a colleague's place, with home made crepes enjoyed while chitchatting. Really great time!

The funny thing is that his girlfriend happens to be the best friend of my brother's former classmate... How small is the world!

Guru

The Bahasa Melayu word for teacher is... Guru! Sorry you probably don't give a sh... but it just cracked me up! It made my day!
Guru... hahaha!

Where the hell is Matt?

I wish I was Matt! So does my colleague Sam who spends 10 min steering at this video every morning since a week. What Sam, don't you like seating at your desk?...

Call mom

In order to reduce cost, my company implemented a gateway to pass international calls over its own network. As a result, when I call my mother, I got to dial:

0320560827P820033495298713
(some digits randomly changed)

Gosh, I got to love her!