Aruba

Last week was the week of our 36th wedding anniversary, and we spent it on the small island of Aruba located in the Caribbean which is drenched with sun, girded with glistening white sand beaches and subject to the constant blast of the trade winds. It was once a small jewel of a place which now is still nice, but is rapidly being built over with resorts like the Marriott Surf Club, which try to maximize their revenue by cramming them to the rafters with tourists – mainly parents dragging with them their loud, ill-behaved children or sullen teenagers. The resorts are on the west side of the island, or in the lea of the wind. This is the side that has the best beaches as on the windward or east side of the island, the surf just pounds the rocky shore line, sending spray dozens of feet into the air. Aruba is an arid place – not much in the way of lakes or rivers and so the water is supplied by a desalination plant on the south side of the island which is supposedly the world’s second largest. For a place with as much available sun and wind as Aruba has,  I found it odd there appeared to be no real solar or wind power being developed, as I would have thought it would be a natural fit.

Call me odd (heck – I’ve been called much worse by people that really meant it !), but each morning as I looked out at the acres of baking tourist bodies all parked on their lounges in the sun, I just could not stop thinking how pointless it all seemed. I personally can’t think of anything more wasteful than to travel thousands of miles to a place, with the express intent of just doing absolutely nothing. I also wondered just how much else if any of the island any of these people had bothered to take a look at, as there is actually much to be seen. We always make it a point to see as much of any place we visit as possible and so had rented a car for the week expressly for the purpose of doing some exploring. As on our first visit, we put the car to good use, and managed to see quite a bit, and yes we also did do some swimming and a little bit of sitting around as well. 

Of the many interesting places to visit in Aruba, one item of special, possibly macabre  interest is the pet cemetery on the south side of the island near Baby Beach – I frankly have never seen anything like it anywhere although I’m sure they must exist. East of Baby Beach in the dunes and scrub of the coast line, small crosses can be found which stretch for hundreds of feet – almost as far as the eye can see. Some have writing on them, some have small tokens of remembrance – a stuffed toy perhaps now bleached and faded in the sun.  Some are quite impressive, and others are just a couple of sticks stuck into the sand. There are literally tens of dozens or hundreds of these small marked graves and each is of a former family pet.  Its both a bit eerie, but also very touching at the same time. When I first saw this some years ago on our first Aruba visit, all I initially could think of was the book by Stephen King ! Unlike ‘people’ cemeteries which don’t bother me at all, I found this one to be slightly unsettling in a sorrowful kind of way. Conventional places of burial are structured and ordered with neat landscaping, markers and boundaries. There does not seem to be any real defined boundary at all  to Aruba’s pet cemetery, and there is certainly no real ‘order’ – it sort of starts at a road fork and then continues east on the south or seaward side of the coastal road.  It is not a ‘professional’ location such as exist in a few places in the US and possibly elsewhere – it has no neat rows or arrangement to it – it actually very much has the appearance of being the sort of impromptu thing a child would do, but on a scale which I think is amazing and which I think makes it quite special.

If you get a chance, its worth a look.

Kuala Lumpur

I’m just finishing up a four day trip to Malaysia, and am getting ready to pack and head for the airport. This is the fourth time here this year and again I stayed at the Marriott Putrajaya (see http://www.marriottputrajaya.com ), mainly because it is very close to where I work when I visit. The staff are very friendly, the service is very good and generally the rooms are very nice (although see the note further down the page). The slight down side is that it is some distance outside of Kuala Lumpur itself, so in the evening it is not generally all that convenient to head into town. Interestingly, evenings during the week here in the hotel usually are very quiet. In fact last night was really quiet – picture an area suitable for two or three hundred people almost totally empty (I could only see one person sitting at the bar), but the band hired for the evening was just playing away as if the place was packed, and sounding pretty good as well ! Finally – the only caution I’d offer to people planning to book here (or probably elsewhere in the area as well given the humid climate) is to check your room for mould – twice I’ve checked into a room and found mould growing on the ceiling around the air-conditioning vent or elsewhere in the room – this time the wall covering was hanging off the wall by the desk in the room, and a section of the wall was green with fuzz ! There is never any debate about being able to change rooms or get things cleaned up – its just something to be aware of.

While in KL during the daytime, there is lots to see and do, plenty of shopping and really great places to eat, but inevitably you will be drawn to the Petronas Towers which were were featured in the film ‘Entrapment’ and are genuinely spectacular as they dominate the skyline of the city. See this link for some detail on the building – photos do not do it justice, you really do need to actually see it. From the sky bridge joining the two towers, and if the weather cooperates, the view is really good and its well worth a visit – you’ll be glad you did. The other tall attraction is the Menara Kuala Lumpur, which is very similar in appearance to Toronto’s CN tower, and which also offers great views of KL, as well as dining (the world’s highest McDonalds !) and gifts etc. – more detail can be found at http://www.kiat.net/malaysia/KL/kltower.html. The city is an interesting mix of Asian and European architecture – and at this time of year there are even Christmas decorations, advertisements and shopping sales which seems a bit out of place considering its a predominantly Islamic country, but is consistent with the fairly relaxed and tolerant style you encounter.

If you do want to spend time in Kuala Lumpur (and I highly recommend it), and if you also elect to commute from an outlying hotel then you are possibly in for some excitement – the traffic can be quite heavy going into the city, and it seems everyone thinks they are in a formula one race with some really questionable lane position, high speeds and debatable overtaking ! Of course, the Petronas Malaysian F1 Grand Prix at the Sepang International Circuit (SIC) is held here every year just south of KL so possibly that explains it – people are just practicing ! For more info on the Grand Prix see www.malaysiangp.com.my. I think the hotel web site claims that its about 30 minutes into the city from the hotel, but early in the evening the traffic is often quite heavy, and when returning from the city frequently the drivers get lost trying to find the hotel at night, so I’ve yet to make the trip in much less than 45 minutes and sometimes longer.

One of my own more memorable taxi rides was on a trip back to the hotel from the city – it was only after we’d negotiated down the price and got in, that I realised that at one time the car must have been in an accident on the passenger side and the doors had been replaced, but the frame and floor pan not straightened. This was obvious as from the outside all looked well, but once in the car with the door closed and the driver barrelling down the highway, I became very aware of the one to two inch gap between the inside of the door and the edge of the floor pan, together with the fact I had to hold the door closed as we careened along the highway at 100+KM, getting lost in the dark – but it was a very good price and we did get back to the hotel in one piece !