macau started with a game, but not a game in the casino, which you might expect if you are not familiar with my totally gamble free disposition. yet the game that hakim and i had to play to enter macau was the good old “good cop – bad cop” and we had to pay it in all earnest to win hakim's entry into the country.

as hakim holds a bangladeshi passport he needs a visa for pretty much any country he wants to travel to. macau seemed an easy option with both the immigration webpage and the chinese embassy in singapore assuring us that he can get a visa on arrival. yet on approaching the visa booth at the immigration checkpoint we found a young cantonese woman who looked as if she had gone through hard core communist training camp in a far corner of the mother country china. she refused to say any unnecessary word, especially not anything that could be classified as a polite greeting or a simple please or thanks, and she was certainly not going to be fooled into smiling at anybody, especially not a person that her culture would condemn as a black devil and whom she treated accordingly. hakim was, as usual, all politeness and handed over every document after it was demanded for in a sharp bark until she asked for cash money. we both asked in bewilderment what money she was referring to and she barked 5000 mop, an equivalent of 1000 sgd to which i naturally replied that this is the 21st century and that we are naturally travelling with a lovely little plastic card known by the name of master. the lady simply barked no good. i asked her why we need to show 5000 mop cash and her reply was “the rules” while handing hakim the document that indicated visa refused.

at this point i turned into bad cop and hissed at her that she can forget us signing this document and that she ought to show me the rule that she so happily quotes in writing, as it is neither on their official webpage nor was it mentioned by the chinese embassy. her english seemed inefficient to cope with such an array of vocabulary so i simply said i wanted to see her boss. her call to someone in which she yabbered on in cantonese about kuay po to someone produced two young officers who were certainly not the boss. they equally did not seem to deem it necessary to address the black devil and kuay po in any form and listened instead to the insistent yabbering of the hard core communist training camp girl blatantly ignoring my repetitive suggestions that if they want to go back to medieval ages i would be quite happy to produce the cash required as soon as they point me into the direction of any atm machine. instead the officers said that my money is irrelevant as hakim needs the money, i pointed out to them that we happened to be married and that my money therefore is everything to hakim. when they still referred to their unwritten rule i demanded in furious terms to see their real boss, nothing else would do.

finally the gate opened and we were asked to follow the two male officers - not that the used any words to communicate that information, they simply opened the gate, grunted and pointed along the corridor. when we finally reached the immigration office at the other end of the terminal the boss came out of the office to tell us that according to their rules hakim needs to show 5000 mop in cash and as he does not have them he is refused entry. his exact words were the money that your friend has does not count. then pointing at me he said “you can stay” and pointing at hakim he said “you go back to singpore”. at this moment i exploded, and had the so called officer in charge understood more english i am sure i would have been arrested for calling him a frontal lobotomised racist, but he did not, so i told him in no uncertain terms that i will not go anywhere without hakim who happens to be my husband, and that therefore my money is his money, and that unless he can show me a written copy of his so called rules that are neither stated on their very own immigration webpage, nor specified by the chinese embassy in singapore he can quite frankly stick them where the sun does not shine, as rules that are not put on paper do not exist. after this outburst the officer appeared a little less cocky saying that nobody had told him that we were married to which i replied that this is because he is too racist to listen to what people have to say, as we had highlighted the fact to every single officer, including himself, a million times. hakim, in his good cop role walked up to the officer in charge and asked him quietly “sir, just tell me how i can get the visa” to which he replied “there is one way, but please ask your wife to stop shouting at me”. hakim explained to the officer that i was very angry because i had gone through great length to get all the information on the visa requirements only to encounter trouble when arriving and that i would never enter macau without him, but that i could go to an atm to draw the missing money as i had offered to do a million times before. this time the officer in charge seemed a little more inclined to listen and eventually told hakim that he ought to hold on to my passport while i should follow his officer to the atm in the arrival hall. now can anybody explain to me why this ha not possible when i first suggested it half an hour earlier? so off we went, i drew the money from the atm, returned, showed it to the officer, the hardcore communist training girl got a bit of a talking to, hakim got his 10 day visa, and we all moved to to small talk pretending to be the best of friends while the minions stamped our passports. so much stress, just because some people cannot see beyond someone's skin colour and refuse to engage their brain. anyway at least, based on our characters, hakim and i fall naturally into our respective good cop bad cop roles, which helped to jostle the far to rigid immigration brains. maybe someone might even bother to including the so called important rules online after this.

as the airport bus only takes exact change we opted for a taxi who took us into town, but did not know the san va hotel that we had booked. he dropped us inn the correct road and after much walking around we found the place only to be totally disappointed; when the hotel webpage said historic building do not compare they meant more like run down but do not judge. the run down aspect of the place was bearable, the fact that the historic substance of the hotel meant that the rooms were only separated from each other by a 2.5m high wooden partition, which grated zero privacy was bad, and the numerous bedbug bites i sported the next morning were unsupportable. hence our first act was to search for a new abode, which proved harder than expected; macau thrives largely on weekend tourists from hong kong and mainland china, thus lots of the hotels where still occupied when we visited them on sunday morning. the other problem was that the places were often either far too expensive for our liking or far too shabby. after checking virtually any pensoa, vila, and hotel in the area we finally settled for the vila universal in the same road. the place tastelessly decorated in glitzy china kitsch tiles, plastic ceiling boards and deco, but they gave us a fantastic deal by offering us a double room for less than the price of the single because we were staying for more than a week. in the end we agreed on a room rate of 200 mop for the week and 250 for the weekend, which was much more than we had intended to pay, but which gave us a big room with two windows and en suit bathroom. compared to the shared facility singe bedbug infested bed in san va for 120 this was heaven. sadly enough we had missed our check out time and thus had to spend a second night in bedbug hell which left me with 25 bedbug bites in total before we shifted first thing on monday morning!

the best thing about the extensive hotel hunt was our discovery of the lok kuan cafe in rua de ponte e horta, at the place with the same name, right next to the london hotel. this friendly little corner cafe that serves coffee, breads, cakes, and noodle soup till noon became our daily breakfast haunt. and for most of our stay we set off after breakfast to explore the numerous historic sites of macau. starting with the nearest we visited the ones immediately south of the rua da felicidade first; st joseph church, st augustine's square and my name sake st lourenco church. the next day saw us crossing the main road to explore the northern half of the centre around sendado square, cathedral place, st paul's ruins, mount fortress and na tcha temple where we witnessed the na tcha festival.

in the following days we ventured further afield to guia fort, the protestant cemetery, kun iam temple, lou lim ieoc garden, and mong ha fortress in the north and the moorish barracks, a-ma temple, and barra hill in the south. despite the frequent rain we had seen pretty much all of macau's historic sites and parks by the following friday as the island is small enough for per pedes exploration. my favourites were quite probably the a-ma temple for its setting and atmosphere, the mount fortress and guia fort for their views and lou lim ieoc gardens for its serenity. yet what really makes macau special is its european flair coupled with the many little alleys, the chance old building and fabulous mosaic paving, not to forget the nicest and cleanest free public toilets i have ever come across- for humans and for dogs (who happen to have to only dry water closets, aka wc, in the world).

with the majority of macau island visited and the sun showing itself at her best we ventured to new grounds on saturday and decided to explore the other half of macau, aka its little sister islands taipa and coloane. passing taipa on the bus to hac sa bay in the south-east of coloane we decided that the former is hardy worth a visit, as it is nothing more than an extension to macau's modern residential areas. the beach at hac sa is nicely situated, but the dirty waters failed to entice us to venture for a swim. but the 1.2km long coastal walk from hac sa to cheoc van beach is fantastic; an easy path that meanders through the rocks and boulders that form the coastline. from cheoc van we walked along the coastal road to coloane village which proved to be a further pleasant walk. the village itself is quaint, there is simply no better word for it, and it sports a lovely nata (portugese egg tart) bakery which offered a most welcome snack after our coastal walk.

the last day we spent more or less in kee whee's company. our flight was not until late at night and we had to check out at 12. from there we brought our belongings to his apartment, looked at macau from the 17th floor and finally walked through a yet unexplored part of the town via a fantastic dessert stall to the fortress where kee whee wanted to play with his new toy, which proved to be less sturdy than claimed on the packaging, resulting in the quality toy made in china to break seconds after its first take off.

and that was pretty much macau, a little spot of europe with a cantonese heart in which finding food - other than breakfast - presented us with a fair bit of a challenge,not because there was non to be had, but because most of it is full of meat and my cantonese is non existent. macau being a tourist centric country i expected a decent level of english spoken by its inhabitants, but little did i know that most only spoke cantonese, and to complicate things many coffeeshops do not have an english menu, or if they do have are unable to modify a dish by leaving the meat out when cooking vegetables. the bakeries with their mix of portugese and chinese fair are fantastic, the desert places – especially the ones offering warm ginger milk pudding are phenomenal, but when it comes to real cooked food it is best to come prepared with a decent vocabulary of cantonese, at least if you are vegetarian. the easiest option was hanging out with kee whee, who now living here, can at least speak some cantonese, or failing this can communicate in chinese if the other half is indeed able to understand this or if both fall through he is at least able to read a chinese menu. but looking for food also made us venture into many parts of the town that we might have otherwise have missed, finding architectural treasures, hidden temples, and nameless shrines. so much good came from that part. and of course the beer is so cheap here that a long evening traipsing around the area in the search of meatless food can always be concluded by sipping a bottle of tsing tao or san miguel while sitting on the stone benches of senado square watching the world go by.

my true love: HAKIM. have you seen the film 'the princess bride'? then you know exactly what true love is all about :P if not... go and get the film and watch it... now!

yet to explain why hakim is to explain my understanding of the world. hakim just simply is perfect for me. on first meeting him everybody, including myself, perceived him as shy, but if you have had the chance to get to know hakim better you know that he also has a wicked sense of humour and that he loves to laugh, to joke and to play. yet most importantly underneath his outward shyness lies a solid strength and a will that defies norms and conventions and enables him to follow his own mind and feelings. and it is this inner strength that made it possible for me to deeply fall in love with hakim, and even to marry him. the easiest thing to explain our feelings for each other is to post the speech that i wrote for our wedding solemnisation that took place on 21st march 2009 at terrace garden in telok blangah hill park, singapore. i feel that it captures the essence of our believes, so here it comes:
"we are here to celebrate love. by all outer appearances, hakim and patricia, are as dissimilar as yin and yang or the sun and the moon, yet love has brought them together. and when we think about the universe and observe day and night, we understand that the sun and the moon are part of the same cosmos, and that one needs the other, and that only together they create an entity.
what kind of love brings people together and makes them want to walk the path of life together? the classical greeks believed in the ancient oneness of the souls. to them our eternal quest for true love originated in the mythical history of mankind. in the beginning humans where hermaphrodites; being both man and woman united in one body gave humans extreme powers. observing this, the gods felt jealous. they understood that the strength of these humans lay in their togetherness and to weaken them they decided to split them into half, leaving men and women to wander through eternity in the search for the other half of their soul. it is the recognition of the soul’s other half that unites people in true love.
this mythical account of jealous gods and amalgamated humans is one explanation for love crossing time, borders, and conventions. today we have come together to witness two people who were born at different times, and in distant parts of the world, and yet they are here today to publicly declare their love."

well this is about it. i simply know that it feels right to be with hakim that is it. i knew that since the moment we kind of split up because our age and cultural differences made the relationship hard and then got back together because we simply missed each other far too much. this was about three months we had met and since then i know that hakim is the man i want to be with. so after this everything simply fell into place and the marriage was not only a natural progression from there, or as hakim put it "we married because we love each other so much". on a practical note the marriage was a necessity to give us the chance to finally live together. this might sound daft, but as long as hakim is on workpermit he has no freedom, including the freedom to live with me.

in case you are not familiar with this, but workpermit is basically a singaporean term for modern slavery. it is a visa that allows you to work, while taking away pretty much all your freedom. workpermit holders are exploited to the extreme, ill treated, and get virtually no respect from local people in return. the companies house them in appalling conditions and even confiscate their workers passports illegally. the list is endless, and as i said, it is a modern form of slavery, sanctioned by the state.

us marrying will not only make our love official, but also allow hakim to break out of this vicious circle of exploitation and give him the two things he desires most, his freedom and to live his life with me. so we are now both waiting for his dependant pass, which has been approved but not sent out to us yet, but as soon as he has this pass we can finally move in together rather than having a weekend-marriage. i miss hakim so very much. the loveliest moments for me are waking up next to him and to fall asleep in his arms and i really miss this... big big time ***

and before i forget it; as you can see from the few pictures that i posted here we celebrated in bollywood style and and that not only could we celebrate with our close friends, the entire universe celebrated with us; while is was raining cats and dogs virtually all over singapore, the universe send us the most beautiful sunset, casting the firmament in a golden glow and ornamenting it with two rainbows. as if the location itself was not beautiful enough, this simply made it perfect. and if this sounds enticing and wants you see more pictures then you can go to my picture blog or maybe you prefer to watch any of the videos that were taken on the day in which case you can go to my youtube site and check them out. have fun!

... it turned out that the MOM did approve the pass within 3 days but we did not get the notice until 3 weeks and 4 telephone calls later, as they managed to send it to a totally unrelated address twice! once we got it hakim told his employer about it and guess what happened? they freaked out! and guess why? because their 'slave' dared to break the cycle of dependency and exploitation, which they considered unbearable. so first they doubted that hakim could have gotten the pass, presuming he was lying, then they tried to say that it was illegal for him to change his pass which lead them to call the MOM to complain about it, only to be informed that hakim was in his rights and that they should simply cancel his workpermit online. all this resulted in a major showdown in the office of his employer right constructions when the boss refused to hand hakim his passport which they keep against international law under the pretext of safety. the entire confrontation was so bizarre that it bordered on the comical if it were not for the fact that the right construction people where driven by their utter disrespect for foreign workers in general and hakim in particular. anyway, hakim did get his pass, and the company was so offended by his strive for freedom that they refuse to employ him any longer. the only good thing that came from it was the benefits that all the other supervisors received in form of a pay-rise. so that left hakim the hero of his ex colleagues and free to find a decent job elsewhere.

sarawak; often planned, never visited, but after years in asia i finally travelled to there. the reason being that airasia started a new flight from singapore to kuching at exactly the same time that christiane and i were looking for a suitable holiday destination. consequently we booked a flight on the first possible day and set off to spend the holiday period in and around kuching. kuching is the capital of sarawak, and tuned out to be a sleepy little town a bit like a small, laid back penang. like its bigger west malaysian brother kuching has a nice little chinatown, but what it is lacking is the bustle of little india and with it the indian restaurants which makes the town a challenge for vegetarians. it seems that virtually all vegetarian restaurants that existed in the town had disappeared before i ever came here, which rendered kuching into a paradise for meet eaters and lovers of kolo mee, but leaves vegetarians to wander the streets in the search for local food options.

other than that the town is filled with guest houses and small hotel, which made it easy for us to find a room on arriving late at night. as the cheapest option, the anglican rest house was full, we ended up choosing a cheep guest house from the leaflets available at the airport which was centrally located but not necessarily a good choice in terms of rooms and facilities. yet it was ok for the first two night that we were to stay in kuching before visiting bako national park.

bako national park is the oldest national park in sarawak. its proximity to kuching make it an ideal place to visit, and bako is worth far more time than the couple of days that most people spend here. the park is full of natural beauty, with beautiful sandstone formations and a large biodiversity based on the varied habitat ranging from coastal mangroves, via tropical forest to arid sandstone uplands, and the best is that on a single walk through the park one can easily pass through all of these.

this being the rainy season christiane and i spent the first day lazying in our hammocks on the veranda of our bungalow. the second day was exceptionally dry and sunny for this season, so we went on a long walk to tajor waterfall and on to teluk tajor. the excessive rain meant that the tracks were muddy and often flooded, the conditions in which feed get wet and stay wet, which made our waterproof walking sandals the most suitable footwear imaginable. the walk was beautiful with an ever changing landscape, a large variety of pitcher pants and beautiful rainforest creeks along the way. a couple of times we saw the proboscis monkeys, the bizarre looking monkeys who are the basis for much of bako's fame. another striking inhabitant of the park are the green vipers, who are very stationary vipers, in looks and habits virtually identical to the eyelash viper of costa rica. these snakes sit motionless, often for weeks on the same spot waiting for pray. though being rather poisonous, due to their placid nature, they are of little danger to humans unless one insists on touching them, or carelessly stepping on them.

the following day saw us moving from the lodge type accommodation to the hostel style, meaning we now had to share the shower and toilet, which would not really have constituted a problem, had the entire place not been so run down, poorly maintained and covered in mould. the state of the accommodation on park reflects the inability of higher ranking park management to allocated funds appropriately and to build housing suitable to the climate and the environment. nevertheless bako is a jewel which the housing can hardly diminish.

the third day demonstrated the current daily weather pattern; after a night of heavy rain that continued into well into the morning the sky cleared up around 10 am bringing a partly cloudy and sunny day. for us this was perfect, leaving us time to wake up in the morning, going for breakfast and the leaving for a walk. the third day walk brought us to teluk pandan kecil and teluk pandan besar. on leaving the ranger station we stumbled across a group of grey legurs, some sweet agile local monkey, in size similar to the notorious macaques, but of totally different character; while the latter are invasive and dangerously aggressive, the grey legurs are the gentile little creatures. the proboscis monkeys were daily sightings on starting out on our walks, and so were the huge native bearded pigs that roam the ranger station. a steep descent brought us to telok pandan kecil, a small beach that is now covered in litter and organic debris washed ashore by the strong monsoon winds. the second beach is much larger, but it can only be seen from a viewpoint on top of the cliffs, but it is a most beautiful sight, with sandstone cliffs framing a large sandy beach and estuary. a steep descent brought us to telok pandan kecil, a small beach that is now covered in litter and organic debris washed ashore by the strong monsoon winds. the second beach is much larger, but it can only be seen from a viewpoint on top of the cliffs, but it is a most beautiful sight, with sandstone cliffs framing a large sandy beach and estuary.

christmas eve meant moving room again, but even though the room was as smelly, the shared facilities were nicer, which brightened christiane's mood greatly. after changing room again we decided to go for a real short walk and chose the pretty little path to the nearest beach, teluk paku. the path, so short is a real beauty, and we spend ages taking photos of our surroundings. had the accommodation been a bit more pleasant, or had we had the chance to stay in the semi-detached chalet we would have surely stayed another couple of days, but with the christmas holidays came more tourists, so we decided to return to kuching, which we did together with one of the chief rangers, a young malay, who was very knowledgeable and with whom i exchanged may a thought on the park. back at the pier in the village he showed me a large female python that the locals had caught. the poor animal was terrified in its net, and after sitting quietly next to it her eyes were pleading me to help. i begged the ranger that he should arrange her release in bako, as she was a most beautiful creature and of very good health. i am sure he will set her free.

back in kuching we discovered an interesting area to the east of the centre, along jalan padungan, full of wonderful coffeeshops and small shops and shophouses. the taiwanese porridge shop at number 91 turned out to be a heaven for vegetarians around lunchtime, and a couple of other coffeeshops fried up some meat-free fair for us at night. and with staying in the very nice john's place we decided that kuching is getting better by the minute. our rather long walk to the weekend or sunday market on saturday afternoon turned out to be rather entertaining, with buying lots of titbits and tasting a range of snacks as we walked through the maze of stalls, buying little but food and a wooden chopping board ;)

as much as we love kuching we wanted to explore a few other places and not being a fan of organised longhouse tours, which turn local dayak and iban pretty much into performing zoo animals we decided to venture to sri aman, to figur out an option to go on one of the many rivers of the batang ai region unguided. taking a bus to sri aman was easy enough, and on arrival we found a decent room in the tiara inn, took a stroll to the picturesque river front, and went for dinner in a local coffeeshop. yet it turned out that the local bus to lubok antu had halted its operations, which let us to nearly give up on our idea to go to the village in search for a boat, when a hotel employee told us that he had found a friend who would give us a lift to the place the next morning. so off we went to lubok antu, only to find the village as void of rentable boats as sri aman itself. the reason for this phenomenon lies in the active discouragement of any traveller to venture on the rivers without a guided and pre-booked tour. thus virtually all individual travellers bypass the area these days, which leads to the lack of available public transport. sadly enough do the local minibus drivers not understand that ripping off the odd traveller instead of charging a fair price is killing any budding or remaining form of unguided tourism, as nothing but negative reports will follow, rather than praise of the area and the cooperation of the locals.

as the young guy who took us to lubok antu fell into that category we decided to decline his offer to take us back for another 40rm, to let him return with an empty car, to stay in the village despite the lack of possible boating excursions in sight, and to take the bus back to kuching the following day. on asking around in the kedai kopi coffeeshop in lubok antu we learned that even here it is difficult to organise a long boat or even a decently priced mode of transport to the boat landing at the batang ai reservoir.

thus we decided to stay one single night in the rather spartan inn and on the following day to return by bus to kuching. the owner of the coffeeshop was a very helpful man, offering us to stay in his local church and to drive us to the dam after closing his shop in the later parts of the afternoon. strangely enough we were of the opinion that we had accepted the kind offer, while he seemed convinced that we had declined it and thus dropped us off at the hotel after our tour de dam. a classic example of misunderstanding, like the batang ai dam project is a classic example of foolish mega projects. the dam build in the early 80's forcefully dislocated the inhabitants of at least 30 longhouses by simply flooding the entire area. furthermore as the dammed water flooded the entire valley, including forest, houses and cemeteries, the water is still unsuitable for consumption. yet despite such problems showing up in all damming projects throughout the world governments still decide to build them, disregarding the social and environmental implications. one ought to think that human beings are capable of learning from their mistakes, but it seems that people are more inclined to repeat their previous mistakes on a larger scale, just like the malaysian government does by constructing a further dam, about 10 times the sice of batang ai, in sarawak's heartland.

the trip back in the morning went smoothly even though there is no direct bus to kuching. we simply took the 9am bus to sibu to the junction at the main road, and there flagged down a bus to kuching, where we transferred to the damai shuttle bus and arrived at the nanga damai at santubong before sundown. the place labelled luxory homestay is a wonderful place, located at the edge of the rainforest, comprising an old wooden cottage, a modern building with a huge veranda, and a small pool. christiane and i had booked ourselves into a room in the traditional wallace cottage where we could see the coastal sunset through the large bathroom windows overlook the coastal sunset before being lulled to sleep by the gurgling of the mountain stream running right beside the cottage.

considering that the next two days were dry and sunny they were spent more or less lounging on the deck chairs next to the nanga damai pool. it was wonderful to do nothing and to simply enjoy the quiet atmosphere of the nature around us. thus new year's eve passed in such a peaceful way, by going with karen, the only other guest in the homestay to a local seafood restaurant nearby before sitting and musing over a few beers on the terrace. the three nights stay was well worth its money, even though we neither climbed the santubong mountain, nor did we do any other walk in the area.

returning to kuching we had only one day left on which we intended to visit the boarder market in serikin, where indonesians come to sell their fair. the way to serikin was easy enough; we took the bus #2 the terminal in bau. bau is a little town mainy known for the nearby wind cave and fairy cave, which we did not visit. instead we took the next bus to serikin. the serikin market turned out to be rather repetitive in terms of goods offered, yet i really enjoyed its atmosphere. the market is really just a long road on both sides of which are stalls that sell traditional and modern clothe, spices, fruit, dried food, coffee, wicker furniture and produce, sleeping mats, beadwork, and all at lower prices than in kuching. without buying an awful lot the market it still made for a great day trip.

and that was pretty much it, the next day it was time to say good bye to kuching... for now at least.