Bird as a Monk

My friend and I (thanks for the pics Laura!) got invited to a monk initiation ceremony for our friend Bird. Young men often do stints as monks, for a week up to a couple years.

Kuala Lumpur: 80s design nightmare

So I went to Malaysia for a visa-run, visiting the capital Kuala Lumpur for three days. Let me say, KL is an 80s design nightmare. My friend and I (Laura...thanks for the pics!!) thought it would be cool...maybe even more of a scene than Bangkok. You know, maybe we'll go to a bar and people will actually throw their hands in the air!! (Bangkok Thais are so conservative and self conscious that dancing is practically like pulling teeth).

But KL turned out to be BLA! It was stuck in a weird middle zone, sorta like Cambridge, Ontario. Too small to have a local vibrant culture, but not big enough to have strength in diversity. I think KL had an economic boom in the 80s, which flattened out thereafter...leaving the city stuck in a brutal time warp. I thought I might have been lost at the Toronto zoo, circa 1996.

One good thing though, after coming from Bangkok, was that there was a some ethnic diversity going on...a mash of South Asians, Chinese and Malays (which are a historic mash anyway). I liked being in an Islamic city as well.