go dig a hole, go straight, don’t turn any corners, when you hit the earth’s core, you’d know you’re just about midway there.

so someone contacted me awhile back asking for advise of ecuador and how to get there. which is a nice surprise. i mean, how many malaysians think about going to a place like ecuador? hello! THE GALAPAGOS! THE AMAZON! one of funkiest airport landings / takeoff in the world! not to mention that it is at el medio del mundo!

now that you have a fine reason to go there, consider also that that part of south america might be just a little temperamental right about now. now don’t go around saying that i’m the one that made you buy the ticket and get onto the boat to this place, then blame me if you end up on a crossfire between the military and the police. go check the embassy, go google something. this is not a suggestion, i am telling you to do that. and then if you still want to go, remember to tell someone here about your details.

boy, i almost did not go pun because of the unrest and all. not that it put me off. too many people worried about me back home, and that is something i was not comfortable with. that worry on my shoulders, you know what i mean.

anyhoos, there are two ways to get to ecuador from malaysia and that is via europe or via north america. the cost should be almost exactly the same. or you could go downwards. that’s right, go dig a hole, go straight, don’t turn any corners, when you hit the earth’s core, you’d know you’re just about midway there.

it you want my suggestion, i would go via europe. i’m not exactly the biggest fan of any american carriers and iberia was nice to me. or do the round the world thing. go one way, come back the other. i did :)

you need to know some spanish. get a phasebook. it will some in very handy. people are nice. but they don’t speak english. diorang tak cakap melayu either. habla espanol.

in the first two to three days in quito, you will be hit by altitude sickness to some degree. drink lots of liquids. deep breaths. no jogging.

don’t walk around with a camera hanging around your neck. remember, unrest.

buy a poncho. buy a panama hat. yea, i know its called a panama hat, but it is made in ecuador.

so there you go. every reason to pecah tabung. even the only bling words for now is galapagos and amazon, give quito a chance. be careful, but yea, give quito a chance. i was quite happily surprised with what i found there.

 

Ecuadorian Dancers

 

i think they should have a barbie with a buzz cut. ~ellen degeneres

so yesterday i had the night off from work after spending the whole day at the construction site. and i thought, well lets try to soak in some latin culture because i’ve got like straight up work over the next few days and precious little time left to see the country and god knows when i;’m going to land in south america again.

i went to the local art cafe club and found out that a latin film festival is going on and i know everything is going to be in spanish anyway but what he heck, i bought a ticket for the next show, whatever is was. el lugar sin limites. as i was waiting for the show to start, sipping on my chocolate caliante con menta, i realised that i am attending a gay film festival. okay. cool.

the night was tributed to cortomentrajes documentales columbianos y ecuadorianos. short documentaries from columbia and ecuador. the theme: being gay. obviously. and really, i think the documentaries were actually quite well done. they were mostly indie. not professional film makers. but if you ask me, professional film makers might never be able to capture the intimacy and passion of the stories told by the people here. there are just some emotions of real people you could just not catch with all the million dollar equipment, you know. you can pay an actor, but it is just not the same. in some ways, that simple camcorder is the most intimate tool a person seeking humanity can have.

i think that people need to stop finding reasons to fight with each other. for whatever reason la. you don’t need to know spanish to understand that el lugar sin limites ad. just like even with my broken spanish, i was able to understand most of what the documentaries were about. because there is just something in the voice, in the expression, in the facial expressions that speak beyond any language. and this is something that speaks across any culture.

and the message i got was simply this: that people should just respect each other for whatever they are. and if you ask me, life is difficult enough without thinking of gender and sex. there are things bigger like that. like just trying to be who you are. and trying to figure out who you are in the firs place. and if we got so much problem now trying to explaining up to ourselves, they it is really stupid trying to go and define others and who they should be.

it was quite a night. and today, it is back to work again.

 

society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals ~ oscar wilde

ecuador is not exactly up there among the safest countries to travel right about now. in planing for this trip, i have had so many people waving red flags about the current fragile state of this country’s politics. but as RG told me, it seem like all south american countries experience some kind of unrest or another and it is perfectly normal. if fact, he adds that it is actually about time ecuador takes a turn because things have been boiling here for a tab too long.

anyway, this is a travelogue, not a news log. there are plenty of those going around if you like that topic. if susah sangat just wiki the place. or google has a pretty decent news stream. on with our regular programming…

there are both military and police personnel all over the city. with guns. and no, there don’t look like they’re on the friendliest relationships right about now. in fact, if you ask me, i think they’re on the lookout for what each other is up to.

i spoke to one of the police guys. actually, i was asking for directions. between his broken english and my broken spanish, we managed a decent conversation. when he told me that everywhere i wanted to see was close because its domingo, i asked him if it was doable to see the sights by myself, solo. and he said it is peligroso right now. dangerous to be walking the streets by myself. in lonely places, i risk being mugged. in crowded places, i risk being pick pocketed. the only consolation is that the boys in blue and green are in every corner for now and so crime rate is being controlled. still, the policeman told me that i should not be flashing my camera around. even on a tourist ticket taking pictures of their historic places. sigh.

the day generally ends pretty early here. i arrived in the evening yesterday and everything was already closed before dark. by the time it gets dark, like 6.30pm, the streets are almost empty and i am stuck in the hotel. i’d like to go about a bit, but maybe not right about now that i am still alone. maybe when the other committee members get here, i could score myself some bodyguards. for now, i guess i will explore the possibilities of in-hotel dining.

 

if i die, i forgive you. if i live, we shall see ~ spanish proverb

i found out by happy coincidence that quito is actually the world’s first UNESCO world heritage site. how absolutely sweet is that?

the weather this morning was COLD! 10 degrees celcius cold. i know plenty of people who would argue about how nice 10 degrees celcius is but my fingers were shivering yo! my work meeting starts tomorrow and i go back right after everything on friday so i kinda only got today to look around. so using jet lag as en excuse, i set out early walking from la mariscal to centro historico, where all the action is supposed to be.

what i discovered is that there are no walking tours, or any sort of tours going at all porque es domingo hoy. oh sigh. so domingo is suppose to be the say everyone rests, including the tour guides. so i am left wandering around el centro historico by myself, when suddenly, i come across la plaza grande where a gathering crowd was forming with some dancers in the centre.

as it turns out, it was a preview of next month’s latin dance festival that’s supposed to happen here in quito. so first we had the ecuadorian dancers (obviously), and then came the peruvian dancers, then the columbian dancers, then the brazillian dancers… there was also this spanish band which had this pan flute player which was quite stunning and this girl who sings and plays the drum at the same time which is pretty amazing. i could have sat there for the dancers from venuzuela and honduras too, but it started raining. it actually started raining since the columbians came on, but it just got heavier and heavier, that the whole preview got washed out. sayang kan?

so the weather is still gloomy right now and drizzling. i’m back at the hotel trying to fight the urge to take a nap because i know that if i do, i would not be able to sleep tonight and i’d be so dead for the meeting tomorrow. this particular meeting is sorta a big deal to me and i really really hope to make a good impression with the committee. let’s see… it’s exactly 4pm now. you’ll probably see another blog post from me in a bit.

 

if somebody thinks they’re a hedgehog, presumably you just give ‘em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves. ~ douglas adams

oh so here’s something cool, i got upgraded to business plus class on iberia today. well, its still today for me here, but it’s already yesterday to you. it’s the whole time zone thing. don’t try to figure it out. i don’t. i’ll probably do one of those time travel blog posts when the jet lag sets it. but for now, don’t scratch your head over it.

where was i… iberia. well, i actually had two flights on it today. the one from amsterdam to madrid was a middle seat in economy. which probably would not have been so bad if i was not sitting in between two enormously prosperous spanish men. they were giant. kesian aku terkepit in between them. to their credit, they respected the armrest limits of the their own seats la. tapi thethought of going to the lavatory was an impossibility for, well, all three of us.

i got a free upgrade for the madrd – quito route which is nice. especially since it is a good twelve hour flight which delayed. come to think of it, all my flights delayed today because of some traffic congestion or another happening like everywhere.

anyway, iberia’s business plus was nice. bright, wide seats that opened almost flat. not quite flat but flatter than mas’s business seats. which is actually a big plus because i was quite beat by then. all the delayed flights means i was practically running through schipol and madrid airport. and because it is a european airline, it actually did feel like it was built for europeans. which means, this little asian found it very roomy indeed.

the food was just so-so. mostly mediterranean. grapes and cheese and olives and bread. well, i guess i can’t complaint. i got all the orange juice and european tea i could drink and real cutlery for my lamb shoulder, baked aubergine and candied lemon. kalau saya nak complaint pun, it would be that makanan mereka tak pedas, but oh well, memang bukan asian carrier pun.

the entertainment channels were limited. i know, i was throughly spoilt by mas. movies dia limited but oh, here was something i really really enjoyed – there was a film, well, not exactly film la, but a concert video of mika performing at koko. very cool. that would certainly be something i would like to see on mas. concert videos. very cool.

and so now, i find myself at exactly the opposite side of the planet from home. have i said that already? i forgot to bring my laptop mouse and the whole touch pad scroll thing feels funny now. friction after an almost 30-hour flight. does funky things to you. good news is, i get to blog from here. stay tune, lads.

 

whenever i feel envious about your IQ again, i’ll just conjure up an image of you sprawled out on a bed of live koi, weeping and desperately trying to revive that little plastic diver. ~ frasier crane

they tell me that ecuador is directly on the other side of the planet from malaysia. that it is immediately opposite where we are. that if you got one of those funky giant drilling equipment like the one in the movie where they dig a hole to blow up the asteriod or meteor that was going to collide with the earth and smash it to bits, and point it straight downwards right, and start drilling, you will come out on the other end and arrive in ecuador.

only problem one might encounter is that very small concern that it might get just a teensy weensy hot around the area of the earth’s core. but besides that, it would have saved a busload in air fares. but well, you know how caring people are about me, insisting that i take the flight rather than try to dig my way half way around the world.

 

the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. ~ marcel proust

the last few weeks have just been so insanely draining, it kinda even makes winter travel something to look forward to. okay, technically, it is not yet winter on the western side of the world. they tell me that south america is still like autumn. angin-angin sempoi bahasa saja. macam gi cameron highlands. only that it is like almost 3,000 meters above sea level. which is closer like gunung kinabalu than camerons. and temperature is a high of 18celcius and low of… well, just 9celcius. a light jacket will do, they tell me.

are you friggin’ kidding me? which part of sun kissed, beach bum wannabe asian do you not get about me?!

and so i spent the last few days packing. that is one thing about cold weather travel. packing kena awal because i need to relocate my gloves and wool socks and scarves and macam macam lagi keperluan winter out of under the pile of things i only use masa musim sejuk. and sure enough, i spent the last two days turning my closet inside out and i just can’t figure out where my pink wooly socks are, which is quite disappointing because my other one are these cream coloured ones that are quite worn out and looks more like a slip-on bandages instead of socks. and in the cold cold climate of winter experiencing places, one of my little pleasures is the comfort of warm feet in woolies.

yes, i take my socks quite seriously.

well, here’s a consolation, on this trip, i finally get to go a sorta round the world thing. my route is roughly malaysia – europe – south america – north america – malaysia. that’s like an into the future thing which someone told me could do some pretty funky things to my biology. i’ll tell you how it goes when i get back.

i fly out tomorrow. i don’t know how much internet i will get on this trip. i am crossing my fingers that i get put into one of those hotels with free internet. well, i guess you’ll find out next week if this blog gets updates. till then, stay dry and god bless.