Our Red-haired Cousins

Bukit Lawang

Orangutans are now found only in Sumatra and Borneo (Sarawak/Sabah provinces of Malaysia, and Kalimantan province of Indonesia). Orangutans are the world's largest arboreal mammal, but despite its size, they swing through the jungle canopy with grace and ease. The word orangutan is actually an example of a word in English that's been borrowed from the Melayu language. Orang means people, and utan means forest. Thus, our red cousins are people of the forest!

9 of us met in Medan on Friday evening. Marius flew in from Singapore, Alexa, Vi, and Tom came in from Jakarta, and Graeme, Greg, Marion, Anu, and I from Banda town. We met for a wonderful dinner at Sushi Tei. Most of us had an early night in preparation for the 6:30am departure on Saturday, but 2 boys stayed out until past 4am.

We drove for about 3.5 hours from Medan. The road was rather bumpy, but definitely better than I had imagined. We checked into the EcoLodge in Bukit Lawang and left for our jungle trek before 11:30. On our trek, we saw 5 orangutans, including one cute baby as well as a couple of other monkeys. The orangutans we saw were all female and they had all lived in the rehabilitation center at Bohorok which opened in 1973 to help orangutans readjust to the wild after captivity or displacement through land clearing. The apes were really friendly and we came within inches of them!

The hike included steep uphills and downhills and we had to trek down a slippery river bank for about 20 minutes. Luckily, the rain held until after we came out of the jungle! After a quick nasi goreng and pineapple lunch by the river bank, we hopped into inner tubes and cascaded down the river to where we started our hike. As we got into the river, the sky cracked open and rain poured down. I also got bitten by a large black ant which has left a big red welt on my forearm.

Click here for photos from the trip!

Club Mah Jong

Jewish grandmothers in Florida play it. Joy Luck Club brought it onto the radar screen of mainstream America. Aid workers in Banda town are now addicted to it.

3 sets of Mah Jong came back with us from Penang in November. Since then, I've hosted Mah Jong night at my house nearly once a week. Usually it's a Friday evening. Delivery pizza or homemade dinner at 7:30, followed by shouts of Pung! Chi! Hu! until about 11:00 and then on over to the WFP for a beer, or 2, or 3...

If we have enough people, there are usually 2 tables, one for the quiet/competitive type, the other for the yappy/social type. I'm sure you can guess which table I belong to. I've somehow been pegged as the really competitive girl, even though I totally am not! Well, I am a little, but not that much more than the normal person! Maybe it's because I've been surrounded by uber-competitive-over-achievers my entire life (GATE Program, GT and AP classes, tennis camp, living with pre-med kids in college and someone who is in the 99.9th %tile after college, and JPAs at the WB). Now that I'm in Banda and surrounded by chilled out aid workers, I guess I am competitive vis-a-vis my cohorts? Oh who knows. I like to win, but I have no problem with losing.

Anyway, back to Mah Jong...the game's caught on like wild fire. I think I've got about 5-6 friends who are now addicted and I know at least of 2 friends who bought sets over Christmas break and brought it home with them.

Anyone know how to keep score? I've played since I was 5 but have never learned how to keep score. I've looked around online but all of the systems are kind of lame.

Since there are always newbies joining. I made a little cheat sheet to help people remember.

The Great Pumpkin Experiment

I was uninspired to cook after I came back from the Philippines - maybe because I was porked out and was traumatized by the Balut. For a week, I was eating out nearly every lunch and dinner and I decided I had to snap out of it. A friend inspired me to make a pesto pasta with some roasted pumpkin for mahjong night. That idea somehow got transformed into pumpkin risotto since I had inherited a box of Arborio Rice from a friend who left Aceh. I bought this medium-sized pumpkin in the vegetable market. Mind that I've never purchased a pumpkin other than having the intend to carve it. I had made risotto once years ago in Berkeley and it's not high on my "meals to remember" list. I made way too much gummy rice goo that sat in the fridge until it went moldy because my 2 boy roommates were afraid to eat it or throw it out. But I decided 5 years was enough of a gap and I should give risotto another shot. Lesson #1, I only made one portion, Lesson #2, I watched the clock carefully not to overcook the starchy Arborio rice. I had full confidence that this was going to a successful pot of rice goo! With the help of my wonderful stirring partner Shirley, a lovely pot of risotto emerged from my kitchen and was promptly consumed!

But then I had the problem of figuring out what to do with the 3/4 of the remaining pumpkin. I hate to throw things out, ingredients or leftovers. Shirley and I decided to experiment with pumpkin. We decided to cook up some curried pumpkin soup and more of that yummy rice goo. So last night, for dinner we had the soup, the risotto and tossed in a pumpkin pie as well.

Yay the pumpkin is finally gone! I think I'll be able to face another pumpkin in about 3 months. Anyone's got any good pumpkin recipes? Pumpkin bread? Pumpkin muffins? Pumpkin pasta?

My Sweet Bike

I've had my bike for nearly 4 months now! The other night, the odometer passed 1000! Well...that's 1000 kilometers, not miles. I'm still smitten with my bike. It's great to just take it out for a spin. Hop on it to go to the beach for a run. Cruise down to the market to pick up fruits. It's great! I love not having to rely on drivers anymore! Plus I can stay out as late as I want to!!!

Thrilla in Manila

Happy New Year!

I spent nearly 2 weeks traveling through Philippines with my college roommate Lillian and her boyfriend Chuck.

Dapitan

This was our first stop. Dapitan is located on the northwestern shore of Mindanao island in the Southern Philippines. This town of 50,000’s claim to fame was that the Filipino national hero Jose Rizal – leader during the Filipino independence from Spain – was exiled there for four years. Lillian’s mother’s family is from the town. Her grandfather and uncle acted as mayor and her aunt is currently the congresswoman from the district. We went to a family wedding, where everyone there was a cousin of Lillian’s. Her parents built a sprawling retirement home here two years ago, although the zen energy of the house is disrupted nightly by the sound of (bad) karaoke from a nearby restaurant and noisy roosters from their neighbor - who raises fighting cocks.

Boracay

We rang in 2007 on Boracay, a tiny island famed for its powdery white sand, located about 1 hour south of Manila (via a Dash 7). Papaw (traditional bamboo sailboats) dot the shore line waiting to take tourists out island hopping, fishing, and snorkeling. The beach is flanked by rows of coconut trees, which also act as a barrier to the hotels, restaurants, and bars that follow most of the 2 mile stretch of White Beach (what a creative name!) On new year’s eve, we bar hopped our way down the beach and eventually ended up lounging on bean bags on the beach listening to live bands reggae-fying classics. It was funny to hear a Filipino with dreadlocks singing “I’m an Englishman in New York.” Talk about cultural hodge-podge!

Banaue and Sagada

We traveled 8 hours north of Manila to Banaue, located deep in the Cordillera Mountains of Central Luzon. Banaue is famous for its 2,000-year-old rice terraces and irrigation system built by the native Ifugao tribe. We did a half day hike in the misty rain, often performing a balancing act – walking on a slippery 20cm wide rock ledge with muddy irrigation canal to one side and steep drop off to the terrace below on the other. It was good to have a low center of gravity! Although we all ended up with wet and muddy shoes! We passed countless waterfalls and meandered through small villages where inhabitants carved wooden masks that are sold in curio shops around town.

In Sagada, we explored an underground cave (with a guide and his kerosene lamp, of course!) I had been in caves before, but they’ve all been “touristfied” complete with stairs, rails, and unnatural colored lights illuminating the formations. This one, was pretty basic when it came to caving amenities! We crawled on all fours, waded through chest-level pools of freezing water, and contorted our bodies to squeezed and shimmy through tight crevasses. I definitely put my headlamp to good use!

Photos from the trip are now at http://picasaweb.google.com/sharonzhao/ThePhilippines