The Most Isolated City in the World

So, three barbecues in, I have now seen a little more of Perth itself and it doesn't feel that isolated. The Western Australian Museum is worth a visit for the exhibition on aborigines in Western Australia and for checking you know what all the poisonous spiders look like but not if you want to avoid school children. The Art Gallery of Western Australia was much more impressive, I quite liked the paintings of early Perth and Fremantle, but much smaller than I expected. (ie about the right size to walk around, as opposed to far too big to see properly). We also did some exploring of South Perth and spotted some black swans, the symbol for WA, and Guildford, an older suburb with good cafes! It's amazing how absolutely every older building is sign posted and pointed out.

We also paid a visit to the Caversham Wildlife Park just to ensure that I saw some Australian animals. We felt a little out of place with all the under tens but I got to stroke a koala, sit with a wallaby and feed kangaroos. An unexpected favourite may have been the Superb Fairy Wren though, as it is so familiar but completely bright blue! They also had quite a good farm show with lots of sheep shearing, a very impressive primary school teacher who learnt to whipcrack in two attempts and a bunch of kids that got pushed over and trampled on by hungry lambs. All quite good fun actually!

This weekend was then spent camping. Everybody I've met has tried to terrify me with snake/spider/shark stories, to varying degrees of success, and talks about camping a lot. Darren has a camper trailer so six of us went two and a bit hours north to near Jurien. Izzy and I were amused by the sign 'Lobster Fish Shack, Left Turn, 35 minutes', impressed by the expanse of scrub (quite pretty as we're at the end of spring) and less impressed by only seeing kangaroos that had already died... When we arrived we were staying right next to the beach that looked like this:

We were also staying with Darren's sister and husband who make camper trailers, as well as with a group of other campers nearby. Because Darren had brought Poms along (!), after a barbecue and discovering that you can talk about camper trailers just as much as you can about boats, it started raining which soon turned into an extremely impressive storm. Camper trailers move in the wind much less comfortably than boats! Sunday morning was then spent swimming, playing cricket and reading on the beach.

Then after packing up, we went to the Pinnacles.These are all over W A brochures and, essentially, are limestone formations that have appeared as the sand has eroded away. There are masses of them and they are quite impressive in their huge number. A good stop off on the way home! Off to Melbourne early tomorrow morning but back in W A in December!

Australia!

So, after an extremely uncomfortable flight from Singapore I finally arrived in Perth. First thing I thought when I arrived is 'wow, it is COLD in this country!'. Obviously, I have not been in the UK for a while as it was 11pm and about 17 degrees... It is the end of spring here, so evenings are still relatively cool but lovely clear cloudless days. I am currently staying with Izzy, a friend from university, and her boyfriend Darren. She rocked up to the airport in an enormous truck-like car, which everyone seems to have here. Living in Perth, they both work in the mines. This seems to involve using vulgar language (!) and a lot of red dirt. Izzy has not picked up an accent but she has picked up a few choice phrases. 'Giving you the sh*ts' does not mean the same thing in Australia, and they talk about 'capsicums' and strange things in the supermarket.

The first day was spent helping Izzy move (this is the girl who helped antifoul Flycatcher...) from the archetypal Australian house a bit in the country (not bush) to a very modern bugalow more in the suburbs. The first house is small bungalow with a big veranda and a LOT of land with scrubby trees that all just looked Australian. For example, we refreshed ourselves with grapefruits from the tree growing in the garden. Incidentally, moving furniture from houses and barns, as we were, is a lot more exciting in Australia; you constantly have to check for spiders, particularly red backs. (As Izzy had found out earlier! Not bitten but hadn't spotted it) Suffice to say, I was extremely brave but also extremely careful of everything...

Following this, we spent a day in the Swan Valley which has lots of wineries and, slightly bizarrely, chocolate factories. We did a lot of wine tasting which was actually really good fun. Izzy has the act of knowing what she's talking about down to an art, and we ended up coming away with a few bottles (I would recommend Lancaster's 'Shed Red'). Slightly embarrassingly, I did get ID'd and failed to have any, but fortunately they still let me have some. Besides, I put it down to Australians ageing early in the sun!

We then spent a slightly more touristy, historical day in Fremantle (or Freo, because you have to add an o to everything here). Started off with breakfast at Hillary's boat harbour and then we went on to Fremantle, starting with the Ship Galleries Museum. This was mostly to do with Dutch ships that were shipwrecked off the West coast, of which there were quite a few! Lots of surviving cargo that was on its way to Jakarta and some horror stories of Lord of the Flies like behaviour from the stranded Batavia crew. Also a very enthusiastic section on how the museum led the way on iron conservation and iron underwater from an engine brought up about twenty years ago. All round quite interesting, particularly to people like my father...

Fremantle has slightly older, colonial buildings and a bit more history. The buildings, despite being older, all look super clean and therefore newer, I'm not sure if this is the result of the weather, or if they just look after them properly! The most significant building is the prison, which we visited. It was deemed uninhabitable in 1899 but continued in use for nearly another hundred years, until frequent revolts in the prison led to its closure. There were some fairly harrowing details about the high proportion of aboriginal prisoners, but it was very well done.

Izzy and I then went into Perth itself, which is surprisingly small. It is evident that it has grown up quickly - there are endless amounts of suburbs that are all laid out with a bit of green, then a shopping centre, then a load of bungalows. No corner shops, two storey houses nor terraced houses at all. The city centre is extremely modern and reminded me slightly of the skyscrapers of KL or Singapore. However, Perth has King's Park which is an enormous and stunning park with botanical gardens. There is a vast boab tree (see picture) that was trucked 4,200 km from the north of WA down to the garden, as well as lots of other plants native to WA (but not necessarily Perth). I'm lucky enough to have caught the end of spring, so people still have roses in their gardens and there are lots of wildflowers, including in the gardens. Plus there is still green, apparently this will disappear! Mostly, though, it was nice to sit high up in Perth and get some good views and eat a picnic. Hopefully will have a chance to see an outdoor film there, too.

Finally (we've been busy, but I hope the pictures help), Izzy and I went down the coast a little to Rockingham. It has a very shallow bay so marine life flourishes there and we saw an awful lot of terns (crested and something else, bigger than the arctic ones), an awful lot of loud gulls and some Australian pelicans. These were huge and I found very exciting. We caught the ferry over to Penguin Island, as well, which has the largest population of Little Penguins anywhere. They are tiny, only about 30cm high or so. We saw the rescued, unfit for the wild ones being fed, and then we saw two more in the wild hiding in a cave! Very pleased with ourselves, as you don't always spot that. The rescued ones are so unfit for the wild that they get fed dead fish; when they were fed live ones only two were brave enough to go in the water with them and those two got chased by the fish! Beautiful weather, although extremely windy off the Indian Ocean, so lots of lovely views and turquoise water.

Canary Wharf writ large...

Before I arrived I had heard that Singapore was like a big western city. This may be the case, but certainly not one that I have been to! Quite a lot of it is like a really big Canary Wharf. Not a bad thing, but it is very surreal. To make it more so, the whole city is covered in tacky Christmas decorations, including fake snow and Christmas songs, very incongruous with the 30 degree temperature. The food and hotels are amazing though, right down from the lowliest backpacker hostel. I've quite enjoyed my kaya toast and coffee for breakfast.

It is also weirdly clean and efficient - even the escalators seem to move more quickly than anywhere else I've been! The MRT (tube equivalent) warns you which side you are going to get off at in advance and directs people to stand where they are getting on/off. I have spent a lot more time trying to cross roads using the underpass through an MRT station that actually using it, my sense of direction seems to disappear underground.

To be fair, there are more lived in bits and Canary Wharf doesn't have lots of Chinese buildings or Hindu temples, nor a cricket pitch surrounded by colonial buildings. Though given that most of these buildings were surrounded in scaffolding, they slightly lost their impact. I'm also pretty sure there aren't many restaurants in Canary wharf where you bump into the waitress carrying live crabs. There is also a good botanical garden, although equally efficient and organised as the rest of Singapore.

Singapore also has a good selection of museums. I went to the Asian Civilizations Museum, which was extremely well done and absolutely vast. I concentrated on just the S E Asian bits, as I couldn't manage all of it and, despite having spent two months here and thinking that I had a pretty good idea about its history, I got completely confused and frustrated trying to keep track. There has been so much movement of cultures and it's such a diverse area. Still, I definitely know more than I did.

Surprisingly good museum was in Raffles Hotel. I didn't have a Singapore Sling here, as it would cost more than a third of my daily budget, but the hotel itself and the museum were hysterical! All the stereotypes of British colonialism were there and the museum was full of china/uniforms/photographs of the hotel's past and included Noel Coward's mention of it in his autobiography.

Anyway, I am off to Perth this afternoon and my Asian part of the trip is complete! All round very successful. Particularly the crocs purchase. Good call Phili and Jo.

More of Malaysia...

I ended up going straight from the Cameron Highlands to the Malaysian equivalent of TF's offices and then on to their Institute. Unlike when I did TF, in its seventh year, they are in their second year of participants or 'fellows' and there are only fifty of them. It was actually very exciting to see an equivalent organisation at such early stages and there was much more of a sense of community and drive, as I suppose is more likely in a smaller company. They were also much better linked to and more aware of the global 'teach for...' network; they had a presentation on it and I met someone from the Philippines which is in its very early stages. There was a really enthusiastic bunch of people and it was really fun to see.

I also got to go and visit two schools where they encourage pupils to attend a school holiday camp which the fellows use as part of their training. A big insight into teaching in Malaysia - the world's longest assemblies and one teacher deliberately stamping on a child who was not wearing the right type of shoes... The organisation also fits into the state education system a little differently to TF, which makes quite a lot of difference. All round very interesting to learn about and really nice to see such a keen organisation!

Their institute is a little outside KL in the Genting highlands, so I went back to KL to meet Emma and one of her friends who had popped over from Vietnam for the weekend (as one does...). Unfortunately I don't think I got them quite as enthusiastic about KL as I am but we had a good time. We went out to the Batu caves where there is an Indian temple inside a huge cave. I think it was particularly busy and colourful as Deepavali is imminent. This was followed by going up the KL tower and getting some good views of the imminent rain approaching... I also showed them around Chinatown, Little India and the colonial district, before we explored the Golden Triangle, which is the wealthy shopping/business district where Emma and Hannah were able to buy some normal person size clothes (!).

We finished off with drinks in a swish hotel's rooftop bar not quite looking out over the Petronas Towers, but close enough, followed by one of the world's best Indians. The towers are quite amazing in the dark - they sort of glow!

 





From KL E and H made their way back to HCMC and I moved on to Melaka. Melaka is renowned for being attractive and beautiful to Malaysians and not just Western tourists, so I was very much looking forward to it. Unfortunately, as the school holidays have just started and there are two public holidays this week, a lot of Malaysians had had the same idea, which only slightly tempered my enthusiasm.

Again, it is just a fun place to wander around as there are such a mixture of cultures. It was part of the British Straits Settlements along with Penang and Singapore and the colonial history is very evident with a big red town hall built by the Dutch and then painted red by the British, called the Stadthuys. There is also an old Portuguese Church that the British turned into a lighthouse and gunpowder store (why not?) which has great views over the Straits of Melaka. Lots and lots of Chinese buildings and temples and, more weirdly, cyclos that have been covered in Indian style colourful flowers and play music really loudly out the back! Lots of bursts of 'Gangnam style' as you walk around an otherwise relatively peaceful town...

 

I'm now off to Singapore, hopefully less mosquito-y than here - Malaysia definitely has had the most mozzies.

Back to Malaysia!

I have to admit that my first impressions of KL were not good... This is partly because I arrived late and in the middle of a storm which then (unlike Brunei storms) continued into rain all the next day and partly because it took me a while to find a decent breakfast the first day. However, after an awful lot of walking around, I've decided that KL is GREAT and everybody should try and find an opportunity to come here and just walk around it if nothing else!

I am staying in Chinatown, which means lots of markets, temples, Chinese tea and streets with lanterns. I am also quite close to Little India, which means lots of Indian food, material and flowers. I am also quite close to Medeka Square, which means colonial buildings, a mock Tudor country club and what used to be a cricket pitch (and is now Independence Square). Also close by is the National Mosque and Islamic Museum. All of this is surrounded by masses of skyscrapers, big chunks of forest and the odd monkey. I have never seen so many skyscrapers, this city has some of the tallest buildings in the world in it, and most of the time you can't see them at all. It is such a mixture of things and I really like it. This was apparent in the Textile Museum which I went into to avoid the rain and 'Malaysian' dress involves so many different cultures all at once, from Murut people in Borneo to some very Westernised outfits. They also have every holiday of each religion/culture as a public holiday, they are currently in the lead up to Deepavali.

I spent a couple of days in KL mostly walking around the areas described and eating, as well as finding the Petronas Towers and the swankier part of the city. I visited the bird park as well, I don't know how it compares to the Singapore one, but it was quite good fun.

I included Malaysia and KL in order to visit the Malaysian equivalent of TF and, having organised to see them later in the week, made my way to the Cameron Highlands. My original plan there was to do some walking around and be at a more comfortable temperature. The first person I met here is Malaysian but studied in Newcastle and came 'because she misses autumn'. It is MUCH more like British summer, but it is comfortable! However, after I arrived I decided that actually I'd much rather sit around and enjoy the tea plantations than the jungle, which I did very happily! I braved the local bus and had a walk through the bright green plantations which I had virtually to myself. Extremely beautiful. It is also the only place they grow strawberries, so there are lots of red strawberry cushions, plus lots of very European looking houses...

Touristing in Brunei

Finally I had a couple of days spare to be a tourist in Brunei (schools are closed on Fridays). First of all this involved a trip to the Royal Regalia Museum. This was actually very  impressive, so much gold! It was mostly filled with presents other leaders of countries had given to him on his coronation or jubilee, plus some pictures of him playing polo in the UK and a lot of British Army uniforms to show his time at Sandhurst. For future reference, what you could buy someone who has 257 bathrooms and 5 swimming pools in his palace:
- a big glass bowl with acorns and your own name on it (Elizabeth II)
- a massive stone sculpture of a walrus (Canada)
- a rather nice green ceramic bowl (New Zealand)
- a big wooden sculpture of a lion (Senegal)
- a silver model of Angkor Wat (Cambodia)
- some very nice laquer wood with inlaid mother of pearl (Vietnam)
- two HUGE elephant tusks (some Thai rice company)
- some model boats, either in silver if you're a very wealthy company, or rather naff if you're a small Bruneian town.
He is clearly very popular here. Some say that he is getting increasingly conservative (he has just introduced a rule that all businesses must be closed between 12 and 2pm on Fridays) as he gets a bit older..

Other than this, I also did a boat tour which goes around the water village, past the palace with the 257 bathrooms and into the jungle. This included two crocodiles, fortunately much smaller as I felt quite vulnerable sitting in a smaller boat closer to the water (!), a monitor lizard, lots of eagles, a stunning kingfisher (I think), lots of heron/bitterns/storks/egrets, a macaque monkey very close up (not normally a good thing) and some proboscis monkeys, which was great! They are pot bellied with really ugly noses, very gentle and very endearing. It was quite fun to go around the water village as well and see the power station, police station, petrol station and schools that all function there. It is the oldest and largest community on stilts on water, and there was a little museum about its trading significance plus British reactions on discovering it.

Anyway, I am now back in Malaysia in KL for a week or so. I very much enjoyed Brunei and saw quite a lot. Whilst I can see why it does not normally fall on the backpacking route, I would very much recommend to anyone who's nearby...

Athenians and telling the time...

So after observing the teaching of English to adults at SPO, I spent the next couple of days observing in schools and staying with very generous employers of SPO. This was quite fun as it meant that I got to hang out with children and dogs without fearing rabies, and I appear to have gained a whole load of offers of places to stay/people to pick me up from the airport etc in New Zealand, which can only be a good thing...

The first day was spent in one of the international schools in Brunei. An eye opener in many ways, as most of it was spent in the primary section. Watching primary kids learn Maths was not only useful (they were learning to tell the time, something I failed to teach some of my year nines who did not yet know...) but also a big insight into how proactively some kids learn at primary. It gave me a whole load of ideas and was a big contrast to the secondary Maths lesson I observed that was somewhat... dry. Unlike the kids I'd met in Vietnam, Maths did not appear 'cool' in this international school, presumably the result of a higher proportion of NZ/Aus/UK kids, as opposed to South Korea/Vietnam/China. It also reminded me that the GCSE syllabus I'd got accustomed to teaching is a lot easier than some!

The British curriculum was not overly popular with NZ teachers in the international school, as they felt it was pretty proscriptive, although I'm pretty sure this was the school's interpretation of it. It was quite strange watching a play on Athens and Sparta performed by Bruneian eight year olds. Favourite (unscripted) line 'Democracy, what does democracy include then?' 'Votes' 'Government' 'Taxes!!' Unlike Brunei, incidentally...

The second day was spent in the Temburong region visiting the SPO teachers in their primary schools. Temburong is the untouched rainforest part of Brunei and is extremely green and beautiful. The schools  were very small but really quite impressive. Lots of children keen to shout 'good morning' at you and practice their English, as well as lots of displays celebrating the ASEAN culture, not just Brunei. The head teachers (or BG's as they're called...) were clearly pretty keen on SPO teachers as well.

MOST importantly though, on the way to Temburong, you have to get a boat and on the way I saw two crocodiles, one absolutely ginormous, cooling down with its mouth open. Then I saw another one next to one of the schools (!) which was much bigger, and a fourth swimming when we were on the boat back. Suffice to say I played it very cool but I may have shuddered slightly...