Turtle Wrangling: Science, Ethics, and Art

One of the things I do here is collect data on turtles captured accidentally by fishermen in the Setiu river. TCC has an arrangement with Ropi, a young local fisherman, who notifies other fishermen of when we would like to measure turtles. Then, any turtles that they catch, they bring to Ropi and he keeps them until we can come take their measurements. TCC pays him and the fishermen who catch the turtles a little something for their help, and we get mark-recapture data that helps us understand how the population is doing.

Measuring carapace width

Yesterday we went to Setiu to measure terrapins for the second time since I arrived. Each terrapin gets weighed on a scale, has its carapace (top shell) length and width measured with calipers, and gets scanned to determine whether it has a microchip ID tag (if we have already caught it previously). We also inject microchips into any turtle caught for the first time and cut small notches in the edge of its shell that allow us to identify the turtle without a scanner.

With Pelf and a river terrapin

It struck me again yesterday how cool it is that Pelf and I ended up working together before we even knew that we had both spent time at the Wetlands Institute, she as a visiting Asian Scholar in 2008, and I as an intern in 2007. Even though we were not there in the same year, it has meant that we have a set of common experiences, friends, and research skills right off the bat, and I could not be more grateful!

Weighing a little one

As I first discovered during my time at the Wetlands Institute, it is really quite fun to get to hold the turtles and measure them. Wrangling may be a bit over-dramatic as a descriptor, but the bigger ones especially can be quite tricky to work with. Their legs and necks are very strong as they try to flip themselves off the scale and they employ their sharp claws and wide feet to scrape annoying human hands off their shells.

Perhaps I am sentimental and anthropomorphizing too much, but I am sure the turtles do not particularly enjoy being weighed and measured and marked, so I try to remember to wish them good luck when I let them back into the river, and thank them for their contribution to science and the conservation of their species. If nothing else, it is a reminder to me of who I am really working for here, and the responsibility that we all have to help take care of creatures on the brink of extinction. I hope they understand, and I do hope and believe that the suffering they endure is worth it in the end. Each turtle who withstands the abuses of research is another reason that I want our conservation work to succeed.

Along those lines, I wrote this poem.

What must they think of us?

The subtle click and tap
of claws on sterile glass
and calipers on carapace

are seemingly but backdrop to
the tidy swish-and-kiss of Pen on Notebook Page
where Patterns murmur in the swelling queues
that wait to join some Noble and Eternal Grid.

And yet,
dramatic tales of each new notch-ed number
on a shell
would be told for generations
if any but the Pen were free to tell.

---

Finally, it is not often that one sees the practice of science depicted at all, much less artistically, so here is a contribution to the realm of Science in Art. This photo was taken by Pelf and edited by me.

I know, being in black and white does not automatically make it "art." I was interested in the mix of organic and geometric textures and shapes, so I ditched the colors.

Snails, whales, and fishermen's tales

Louis Armstrong predicted years ago what would happen if I moped around too much: the monsoon. I should have listened more attentively, because sure enough after all the grumping and bitterness I reported in my last post, the past few days have been mighty rainy. Then again, I have actually been enjoying the change of pace to mostly cloudy, somewhat cooler, off-and-on rainy weather. And at night there is a loud chorus of frogs that I did not notice before.

The ever-generous Pelf has been hosting me in KT at her place for the past week and a half or so, and I am trying to be helpful. TCC conducts Turtle Camp at schools in the region that serve communities near rivers. I have had the pleasure of attending the final three for this year. We spend two to three hours at each school with one grade, teaching them about turtles and how and why to protect them. Since my Malay is very limited, I mostly play a supporting role, but I have gotten to guide groups of kids in making origami turtles, which does not require too much talking, and is really quite fun! Here are some kids at the end of the penultimate camp.















Yesterday, after the last camp, we also conducted one River Survey in which TCC staff and volunteers meet with river fishermen from a village to interview them about their fishing habits, their encounters with turtles, and their consumption of turtle eggs. As it was just Pelf and me yesterday and I am not proficient enough in Malay to conduct interviews, she did the real work, but it was fun and inspiring to sit in a roadside food stall (more like an open-air restaurant) and talk to these fellows that fish the rivers.

Here they are, pretty tickled, I think, to take a picture with this orang putih (white person). The stall owner (second from left) asked us to come back and bring him a print.

















Oh yeah, I also gave myself a haircut a few days ago. Thanks for noticing ;) There I am in my official TCC shirt and new hairdo--yippee.

It came in handy to know the word for "white" when one of the fishermen was telling us how he once saw a turtle that was putih all over--an albino! Quite rare. They were all so welcoming and friendly to us and the village headman (above, far right) would not let us pay for our own drinks. Pelf says the headmen in general are very cooperative in arranging the meetings, and fishermen are almost always very open and forthcoming in the interviews. On the way home, she and I were discussing how in some ways, being friendly young women may be an advantage in this case, since we are less intimidating to the fishermen than would be people who are older, fiercer, or more...male.

The owner of the food stall had this GIANT fish in a tank at the back of his place. He said it came from the river. I estimate its length at about 0.5 meters. Anyone know what kind it is?











In between the school camp and the survey with the fishermen, we had time to check out the exhibits at two nearby government-run information centres: one on turtles and one on aquatic biodiversity in general. They had some pretty nice specimens, and it was a good escape from a couple of rather sudden and quite torrential downpours. The whale skeletons at the Galeri Biodiversity Akuatik put me in mind of childhood days in the NC Museum of Natural Sciences with Dad.








Most of the drive back to KT was along the coast, and Pelf agreed to stopping at a giant rock outcrop so we could take some photos. A huge snail was there to greet us when we headed down toward the water. Estimated length: 12 centimeters. Estimated speed: 6 meters per hour.













The coast is gorgeous, and there were also lots of wetlands and mangroves along the drive that I would have loved to explore, but that will probably have to wait until I have my own car and some good rubber boots--soon I hope!



Meg's Music Library Trivia No.2
To what line from what song does the first sentence of this post refer? (First correct answer gets a complimentary giant snail. You know you want one.)

"Then he took and he ate up all of my corn..."

For no apparent reason, today was the first time that I really just wanted to go home, call it quits, and pretend this all never happened. There was no big incident, I just feel worn out and grumpy and impatient with all the little things that make this whole adventure a challenge. I hope you will take the following for what it is: my reflections at a low point, not my pronouncement on the experience or the place in general.

In my journeys through the internet today I learned the oh-so-useful term “gaslighting” which refers to a relationship dynamic wherein someone habitually discounts your reality, eventually causing you to question your own sanity and ability to perceive things in the world. One specific form gaslighting can take is something which the term "mansplain" (a word I do not really approve of, although it is funny) has been coined to describe: instances when someone (often a man) feels he is entitled to self-importantly educate those around him (often women) on things he really does not know much about, and in which his audience is really quite expert. I think most women and some men will recognize the phenomenon. Rebecca Solnit describes it masterfully for those who are unfamiliar.

I have experienced “mansplanation” here in Malaysia occasionally with regards to the U.S.—people trying to explain to me how things in the U.S. are. I want to say, “Actually, no, that’s not at all how it is. I should know; I’m from there.” But everyone is really very well meaning, so unfortunately for my sanity I am not enough of a petty jerk to try to correct every innocent misstatement about my country just for the sake of accuracy. Similarly, I have not been able to discover a productive way of dealing with the open male stares and cries of “hello!” and “I love you; I miss you!” that I endure whenever I try to do something reassuring for myself, like walk down to the corner and buy something that I want, or go for a run. I am not actually afraid of these guys, but it is still very uncomfortable. Where and how to draw the line? I do not feel like I have ceased to trust my own perceptions of the world, but every time I allow my reality (i.e. I know about my home; there is nothing freakish about my body or habits; I do not deserve to be harassed) to be openly denied without retort, it becomes easier to do the next time, which is pretty scary.

Back home I have often thought about how difficult it must be for immigrants who leave professional positions in their own countries to take up work in the U.S. for which they are wholly overqualified, but for language and cultural barriers. My experience is nowhere close to that, but I do feel I am getting a taste of the discouragement, demoralization, and silent shame of not being able to speak or function as the independent educated adult that one knows oneself to be. It is humbling at best.

Speaking of educated, I also ran across an interview with the host of a show called Dirty Jobs, which echoed something I have been saying for years: not everyone should go to college. Time was, there used to be a whole array of skills that were valued in a person: mechanical, physical, intellectual, creative. These days one could easily draw the conclusion, as Sir Ken Robinson has so delightfully pointed out, that the whole purpose of the U.S. education system is to produce university professors. Which is not a bad thing, it is just insufficient to perpetuate a functional society, because, as so many of us hypereducated 20-somethings are discovering, society really only needs a few university professors. Especially in this economic climate, most PhDs are going to have to find some other way to put local fair trade organic granola in their cereal bowls.

Living in Mangkok has opened my eyes to just how excessively educated I already am. And it is bizarre to realize that at times I am essentially an Agent of the West: introducing people to gmail and facebook and laptops and all that they imply. It is not that I have attempted (in my all-too-limited Malay) to talk about things like “self efficacy” and “personal freedoms” and “rights and responsibilities” and all the other jargony concepts that are (for better or worse) deeply embedded in my very-American person, but I am aware that the ways I behave differently from those around me are sometimes outgrowths of unstated cultural assumptions that I hold subconsciously. I think this confusion and heightened self-awareness and general discomfort is what the jargonists like to call “cultural exchange.” Goody.



P.S. Ten points to the first person who can ID the song lyric in the title from memory--no googling! Whee!

Malaysian Faces

Malaysia Poems 1

I just came to town yesterday from Kampung Mangkok en route to Kuala Lampur for the weekend. A typical day recently has involved fixing myself oatmeal for breakfast, walking over to TCC to feed the turtles, checking email and doing some research reading, chatting with KakSu and neighbors, eating lunch at home (rice, roasted or curried fish, stir fry veggies, etc.), a quick nap on the porch, studying Malay and/or teaching English, returning to TCC to change water and feed turtles again, supper at home with the family, and then reading and hanging out with family all evening until I get sleepy--with about three showers scattered in among all those things whenever I get too sweaty to think. Though I am still far from being able to carry on a real conversation, I am getting comfortable enough with Malay to start forming relationships of my own with folks in the village, which is exciting and makes me feel much more a part of everything.

I have added a few pictures to the facebook album and written a poem...

To Settle In

On new ground:
sharp waves of early morning sound
barely break the stillnesses of dreams;
even tangled in the nets of sleep
I know
I am at home.

This: my window.
This?
My favorite napping spot.
I gather home around me.

Language, a family, palm trees, goats.
My clothes are hanging on the line.
Neighbors, friends, and little habits.
So many new and old things: mine.

Or so I like to say.

But when, by chance, I turn my head too quickly,
it often happens that some foreign dust
shakes down
to plant the host of ghosts upon my shoulders:
of other rooms, and friends, and lands
I’ve gathered in and loved.
And each is mine
as much as this—or more.

Pastiche and Collage

I can sometimes tell a great deal about how my subconscious is handling a situation by the things that I dream. When I first arrived in Malaysia, I dreamed only about people and places back home in the U.S., and every morning I was confused about where I was when I woke up, but in the past few days that has shifted. Now I am dreaming about a strangely integrated world in which people from home are here with me! Last night I dreamed about being very excited to take my mom to an Indian restaurant in KT that I like. I take this as a sign that I am getting more psychologically settled in.

TCC has a small booth at the Chinese Lantern Festival on the new KT waterfront this weekend, with which I have been helping out. Snapshots of interest from the Chinese Lantern Festival so far have included: several dozen middle aged Chinese ladies performing line dances to Latin music, a man missing both hands who does beautiful Chinese calligraphy, the mysterious descent to Earth of a hot-air-balloon style lantern that had been launched near the exact same spot 24 hours before, loudspeakers blasting Lady Gaga followed immediately by Cotton-eyed Joe, and a VERY long shadow puppet show, the dialog of which was completely unintelligible to everyone in attendance (I did get to go behind the scenes and see the musicians and the puppeteer at work, though!). The ways that Western, Chinese, and Malay cultures do and do not mix here continue to catch me off guard.

The mixing of languages in particular provides endless puzzlement and hilarity. For example, yesterday Pelf, Euson (a University of Malaysia Terengganu student) and I were returning from the Lantern Festival, and Pelf and Euson were speaking in Chinese, which I don’t understand at all. But there were enough names of people and places I knew and English words like “hospital” that I could tell what they were talking about. I chimed in with some additional information in English without even thinking about the fact that they had been speaking Chinese. We were all surprised! I guess I am developing a heightened sensitivity to context clues.

I also created some confusion at McDonalds last night when I stepped up to order chicken rice porridge (probably the best thing I have ever eaten at McDonalds) and milkshakes for the three of us, and said “Helo!” to the woman behind the counter. She assumed I only spoke English and went to get someone who could take my order in English. I then proceeded to place my order in Malay, which cracked up all the ladies working the other registers. Despite my ability to order food in Malay, I still cannot remember the Malay words for Men and Women, so I was lucky that McDonald’s bathrooms had little “Man” and “Woman” pictures on their restroom doors!

A note about McDonald’s: I NEVER go to McDonald’s in the states. Ever. But here I have already been several times. They have pretty much all the same things that they do in the U.S., except it is halal, and they also have things like the amazing chicken rice porridge (which an American would probably call chicken rice soup).

Something I miss from home is cheese. I have not eaten cheese in several weeks, which is kind of unbelievable. I might have to go to the Pizza Hut downtown and remedy that situation at some point soon. However it seems a little silly to complain about the lack of cheese with such a huge variety of new foods from which to choose a substitute. I have recently tried the following: fried squid balls (that is, balls made of squid), black bean dumpling (practically a dessert), deep fried honey-dipped jackfruit (much better than fresh jackfruit), keropok lekor (fried fish sausage), dragonfruit/pineapple juice, and some very addictive plain buttery buns sold out of the back door of someone’s house in Chinatown. Durian flavored cake is one of only two things I have tried so far that I REALLY did not like. The other was a supposedly plum flavored, but somehow extremely salty drink.

I see this has devolved into another post about food. There is just so much to report on that subject! I have actually been doing some scientific things related to turtles in between meals and snacks, so I will be able to post something sciencey soon.

I am headed back to the Kampung in the next couple of days, where my broadband connection is much more dicey, but I should still be able to check my email, and I am looking forward to being by the sea and part of a family again.

Sips from the waterfall

You can see photos here--I'm having trouble uploading them to the blog itself.

When I am staying in Mangkok, I wake up to the sounds of many roosters crowing, goats and sheep maaaing and the mother and grandmother of the family out in the kitchen making the pre-dawn meal to be eaten before the Ramadhan fast begins at sunrise. The food is great: lots of curries, spicy fish, and stir-fried vegetables all eaten with rice and followed by various kinds of very sweet sweets. Luckily I was schooled at an early age in the art of eating rice with my hands (thanks Mom!) so I jumped right into that with no problem. Locals boil their water, but almost never drink it plain. It is made into tea (often VERY sweet, even by Southern U.S. standards) or mixed with fruity syrups in alarming colors, but it is liquid, so I am happy. Everyone in Mangkok has been warm and welcoming to me. They ask how old I am and if I am married and are very curious to know about my family. They are surprised when they learn that I will be staying in the village so long, and they seem pleased that I love to wear sarongs and t-shirts like everybody else does. The kids have already accepted me and will often wave and ask where I am going as I walk by. They call me Kak Meg. Kak is short for kakak, which means “older sister” and is used as a respectful form of address for young women—something like “miss” in Southern U.S. usage.

In the daytime I have often been occupied helping with craft projects that the kids are doing at TCC. They are making lanterns for the upcoming Chinese Lantern Festival. We also have several clutches of young turtles for which we collect morphometric data (weight, length and width) periodically. They are so cute!

Wherever I go I am usually the only white lady around, so people are very interested in my appearance. Four or five people have complemented me on my “tall” nose, the kids are very curious about the fact that I have hair on my arms, and lots of people want to take my picture. I am flattered and rather amused.

This past week we hosted Debbie and Marilyn, two Australian ladies who visited TCC as part of a six-week tour of various river turtle conservation projects around the world. They are involved in the conservation of the Mary River Turtle in Queensland, which was only discovered in 1996, and is endemic to (only exists in) the Mary River. It was great to get to know them, and helping to show someone else around made me feel a bit more confident myself. They stayed at a small family run resort not far from TCC, which would be a great place to stay if you ever think about coming to visit me here.

Earlier this week our Aussie friends accompanied Pelf and me on a little Setiu River reconnaissance mission. We scoped out various points along the river where I may be able to take water samples from land rather than having to hire a boat. It was great to get out in the field and explore the back roads along the river. I saw rice paddies, small oil palm and rubber tree plantations, sand mining, grazing land, and lots of beautiful birds and flowers. On our way back to Mangkok I spotted a monitor lizard just walking along the side of the road. These lizards are SO BIG--close to 2 meters in length--but apparently they are scared of people so they are not dangerous. Phew!

We also got Malek, one of my neighbors in Mangkok, to take us out in his boat at night to see the famous synchronized fireflies. I tried to take a picture, but it just came out black. Perhaps you can imagine…Pelf, Marilyn, Debbie, my host family’s eldest daughter Atikah, and me are all piled into a little flat-bottomed boat with jolly Malek manning the motor and a generous dusting of unfamiliar stars overhead. It is very dark and still on the river. I cannot tell exactly where we are because the bank is obscured by the complete blackness of the tall mangrove palms and their mirror image in the water. Here and there I can see lights on houses blinking through the trees to the East. We move farther upriver. There are a few fireflies in some tall trees that we pass, but Malek says, this is nothing. Finally we are just about to turn around, thinking it is not a good night for fireflies, when we come upon some low bushes right at the bank that are absolutely FILLED with them! The tiny beetles give off a faint greenish yellow light and they all blink together like a much more beautiful version of Christmas lights. It looks like a crowd of stars have gotten tangled in the shrubbery and are trying to signal a rescue by flashing in unison. We cannot stop saying “Wow!” Malek brings us right up to the bushes so that we can hold the fireflies in our hands, and I am trying to soak up the magic of being surrounded by these little creatures. On the way back to the dock, I am wide-eyed and grinning in the breezy darkness. Malek is singing Hari Raya songs and announces happily that there are only two more days of fasting left in Ramadhan. As we all walk back into Mangkok by flashlight, he makes me laugh by telling me that I look like a fisherman with my pants rolled up and my sarong-turned-purse holding my camera across my shoulder. Marvelous.

Ramadhan, the Muslim fasting month, ended on Thursday evening. Pelf and I tried fasting for the second time on Thursday. It was easier the second time around than it had been when I tried it a few days before—probably because I made a point of drinking a lot of water before dawn. Thirst is definitely harder to endure than hunger. We broke our fast at “my” house and later let the kids play with the lanterns they had made. Turns out the main activity with lanterns is relighting them when the candles blow out, but I think they had a lot of fun with it. At some point in the evening we got a call from Zam, one of the guys who runs the WWF sea turtle hatchery down the road, saying that many green sea turtle hatchlings were emerging. We dashed out, piled about ten kids into our two cars, and drove down to watch the release of the baby turtles. I had never seen sea turtles in the wild before! It really does look like the sand is boiling with baby turtles. They are black with white edges on their flippers, and they flap and scramble over each other without ceasing, trying to get out of the protective cage placed over the nest and out to the sea. I was impressed by their stamina.

We carried the 100+ anak penyu (baby sea turtles) that emerged that night out onto the beach in buckets, and Zam made us all stand behind a line in the sand. On his cue we poured out the turtles and they ran toward the glow of his headlamp as if it were a magnet and they little iron filings. As they neared the water, he turned off his light and stepped out of the way as they disappeared into the waves under cover of darkness—off to try their luck in the big wide world.

The following day was Hari Raya Aidilfitri (the celebration at the end of Ramadhan known in some places as Eid). Everyone dresses up in new clothes and goes to prayers, and then goes around visiting friends and family. We visited a number of families over the course of the day in Mangkok and everywhere we were invited to eat and drink. I was so full! We sampled a wide variety of sweets that you can buy in the store, but every family also served two homemade traditional Hari Raya foods: ketupat pulut, which is sticky rice wrapped in palm leaves, and tapai, a packet of rice that has been fermented with yeast and wrapped in a rubber tree leaf. Tapai tastes a bit like Japanese sake (rice wine). After a whole day of visiting and eating I was exhausted and happy to head back to KT for a few days to stay with Pelf while my host family visits relatives.

First Days in Terengganu

I have been here in Kuala Terengganu (KT), a small coastal city on the Terengganu river, since Tuesday. The state of Terengganu is about 95% Muslim, which is much higher than most other parts of the country. Above you can see several mosques lining the bank of the Terengganu river on the edge of town. There is a Muslim prayer house across the street from where I am staying and they broadcast the five daily prayers over a loudspeaker starting at 6am. But on the same street there is also a Hindu temple and a Presbyterian church!

On Wednesday I had the opportunity to attend a buka puasa (breaking of the fast) banquet here in KT. Everyone sits down with their food and waits until the announcement of the official end of the fast at sundown. Then they break the day-long fast by drinking and eating dates before starting into the rest of meal. I got a traditional baju kurung to wear to the buka puasa. It's very comfy to wear. The woman attending the dressing rooms told us it was the first time she had seen a white person wearing baju kurung! Here are the TCC ladies: Pelf, Dr. Chan, and me, all dressed up for the dinner.

Two days ago I paid my first visit to Kampung Mangkuk, the village where the Turtle Conservation Centre's Mini Turtle Museum is located. Mangkuk is on a narrow spit of land between the Setiu river (home of the turtles I will be studying) and the South China Sea. Goats, cows and chickens are all running around, and the houses are scattered among coconut palms like these (below, seen from the TCC building with the sea in the background). There is a large group of elementary school aged boys who like to come hang out in the Mini Turtle Museum whenever we are there. They are so full of energy and were excited to teach me Malay words and to learn the English ones.

I have found a place to live in the village and will be moving there in the next couple of days. There were a number of people eager to rent me a vacant house or room, but I ended up deciding to rent a room from a family who live near the TCC building. They are two grandparents, two parents, and four kids. The mother understands some English, but none of them speak it, so my first few weeks with them will be an intensive introduction to Bahasa Melayu, the malay language.

I am looking forward to immersing myself in the language and getting to know TCC's neighbors in Mangkuk. Internet in Mangkuk is VERY SLOW at best, so though I will be online only occasionally, I'll be sure to update when I can.

Foods!

Aside from taking care of official business pertaining to my arrival in the country, most of what I have done in Malaysia so far is eat. It is Ramadan so restaurants are pretty quiet during the day (although I did manage to get some amazing Indian food for lunch yesterday, and satay chicken today!), but toward evening there are collections of stalls around on the street, called pasar ramadhan, selling food for the breaking of the fast at sundown. I met Jaki, a fellow Fulbrighter and fellow North Carolinian, for dinner this evening. We picked up an assortment of foods from a nearby pasar ramadhan and took them back to her apartment to eat. We got chicken and nasi tomato (tomato rice), a sort of bready vegetable omelette type thing, plus some noodles, and everything was fantastic! On the way home I bought for RM5 ($1.60) a half kilo each of rambutan (above), which looks like a red and green koosh ball on the outside and tastes like a more tangy version of a leechee, and mangosteen (right), which is sort of like a creamy cross between a tangerine and a peach. Everything I have eaten here is so delicious!

Arrival in Malaysia

Fifteen hours on an airplane is a very long time. For me it was long enough to try out every possible comfortable position for napping, watch three movies, study Malay vocabulary, get to know the old man sitting next to me, and wax amusingly philosophical about the adventure I am beginning:

"On the second leg of my trip to Malaysia—NewYork to HongKong, a 15 hour affair—it begins to dawn on me that Malaysia is VERY FAR AWAY. Not just physically, although that would be enough in itself, but truly different—different history, flora and fauna, religions, languages, different looking people. Back in June, a bus passed by me on a street corner in Washington DC and in that moment I suddenly realized that life is LONG (if you are lucky)—long enough for things to happen that you never even imagined that you hadn’t imagined, long enough for completely unexpected hundred and eighty degree changes of heart and tortuous three-sixty homecomings. With a similar sense of gravity, the knowledge settling into my bones right now is that the world is WIDE: wide enough to encompass the utterly inconceivable. Right now I am flying over the eastern edge of the Gobi desert, as near as I can tell. Somewhere down there people live their whole lives. Fully human beings are born and learn what normal means and do everyday things and love and grieve and die. And to them anything other than living in the Gobi desert would seem foreign and beyond the pale. We are malleable creatures—shaped by everything we encounter—and I realize that I am entering a period when new hands will knead the playdough of my soul. Whatever lies ahead, I prefer this morphing and reshaping to lying untouched on the countertop so long that I become a dried out rubbery crust."

After a mad last few days of packing and logistical preparation in Raleigh, my arrival in Malaysia went very smoothly (despite my perilously short layover in Hong Kong). I was relieved to arrive in Kuala Lampur (KL) after over 24 hours of traveling and get some sleep. It is not even as hot here as it was in Raleigh when I left, though the sun is more intense. My taxi driver from the airport had a little stuffed turtle hanging from his windshield, which seemed like a welcoming omen. I am looking forward to leaving on Tuesday for Terengganu province where the real turtles await.

The picture is the view looking down from my hotel window. I love the palm trees!