Senses Assailed

 It sounds like a cross between a motorbike and chain saw; but is actually a powerful blower. Fogging is what it is called , which is blasting out partly burnt diesel fumes to kill/control mosquitoes . When these regularly carry malaria and dengue , it is serious business , and carried out weekly around our block . A great fog drifts passed, but by then we have closed all windows. Unfortunately, for maximum effect , it starts  at 6.30 am , no need for an  alarm call that morning . A notice in the lift advises that on the first Monday of the month , extra chemical is added to also control rats and cockroaches. This is definitely a time to stay indoors. I don’t see anyone sleeping rough in KL!

By 7.30 , the air has cleared sufficiently to take our granddaughter to catch the school bus , and for me to set out on my daily walk. I’m in the middle of the city , but appear to be on the edge of the jungle . Trees adorn the top of this hill , and there are actually patches of virgin jungle that have somehow escaped house construction . Road noise is blocked out by the terrain , so especially first thing in the morning it is a magical time . The air is still, sunlight streaks through the canopy reflecting off water droplets left behind after the overnight rain . Strange birds call to each other , jungle fowl ( , which look like wild chickens ) scurry past . A walk on the wild side?

There is a crashing of branches as a troop of monkeys set out to explore the neighbourhood . Bars on windows are essential for these . There seems no uniform response to protection from human predators. The occasional house has an electric fence or spiked railings , most apparently nothing at all . Our condominium has guards on the gate and at the entry doors , which gives a sense of security , reinforced by our elevation . The guards also patrol , including checking the emergency  staircase ; all 22 floors of it . They look appropriately fit !

Meanwhile I am completing my circular forest walk , extending greetings to those passing in the opposite direction . This is frequently twice as we cross by on the diameters ( I had to dredge my maths to work that one out ) . During the week us walkers tend to be of a certain age ; at weekends the serious fit emerge , normally as runners and cyclists . I try and forget how may times they pass by. For me the exercise  finishes in a swim in the block’s olympic sized pool. The development also comes complete with two squash courts , table tennis , and fully equipped gym. Residents must all retain excellent fitness other than the use of these facilities ; those are invariable deserted. 

Morning routine is capped off by a visit to one of the may coffee shops in the adjacent mall. It is at the top end of those in KL . In must be , as the other day ,  judging by the car’s size and royal crest in lieu of number plate, the king ( or queen ) had come to shop or buy. Malaysia is very democratic as there are 9 Sultans , who take it in turn every five years to be king . The role is mainly ceremonial , except that this year with hung parliament , it was the king who appointed the PM . This is now Anwar who has been trying for 25 years to get the job . He had previously been jailed on trumped up charges ; but released with a change of PM . That one is now in jail , along with is domineering wife, having been involved in stealing  billions from the state pension fund  . I suspect that he hoping Anwar reciprocates by releasing him . I wonder if he is hoping for the same for his wife ? 

25 years ago I met Anwar while my company tried to sell advanced water treatment to help solve a water shortage . It was used to treat water from a golf course , which was then drunk by the  then  PM  ( Mahathir. ). Anwar asked pointedly if the water had been safe to drink . Of course I replied , any other response, then I would have been in jail. It can’t have been any other, as Mahathir, at the age of 97, has only just failed to be re-elected as an MP . Bloody good stuff our water !

The city is never far way

But this Banyan tree reminds that nature can soon take over in the tropics

Changing Scenery

Serenity , nature at peace with itself  and little visible intrusion from  mankind . That may be illusory as from  our balcony at the foot of Les Alberes , there are only four houses to be seen . At night , the hills are in total darkness , and when wind free, noise has disappeared as well . The occasional owl is the only reminder that we are not alone. 

Air flights are not really travel. The only input from us has been to be walk down the gang plank ( air bridge ) , enter a tube , then eight hours later reverse to somewhere else. It’s the closest to teleportering . A blink, and we have arrived in a completely new environment ; that is once we have negotiated the final obstacles of border officials and taxi drivers ; our sole contribution to the change of scenery .

We had set off two days earlier , spent a night in the terminal ( airport hotel ) ; and now after another flight ,  when awakened in our new bed , the outlook couldn’t have been more different . On the 9th floor , surrounded by 20 storey tower blocks and the continuous noise of a major metropolis. KL ( Kuala Lumpur ) is a vibrant , bursting city . Certainly not at peace with anything , since with double digit growth it reinvents itself every ten years . 

When we were first here 25 years ago , the  tallest towers ( Petronas at 450m )  in the world were completed . Just to make sure they built two identical ones. Now , they are just finishing off another tower 50% taller ( Warisan Merdeka at 680 meters. ) . Surprising what you can do as a small country with lots of oil. But Dubai have more money  and  ambition ; so even this new tower is only two thirds the height of the Burj Dubai ( now renamed Burj Kalifa in deference to Abu Dhabi , who actually have most of the oil. ) . 

It’s a strange existence living vertically , surrounded by hundreds doing the same , most on show . It’s not nice living behind a curtain all day , so many remain on display . It’s not a matter of exhibitionism , but rather merging into the crowd . Why would anyone choose  to look at me , when there all those other windows. Certainly  not an instinct followed in suburbia . In our apartment  here in KL , I counted 100 others , all with a direct view of us ; and we are located in one of the least dense areas.

The view from the living room is in total contrast . There seems to be nothing but trees and jungle for a kilometre ; then with a view reminiscent of Central Park , the tower blocks seem to form a boundary wall to this greenness. The reason for this special view , is that this gap is inhabited by individual houses , with gardens and road sides full of tropical trees. Our vista is mainly tree tops ; but google earth shatters the illusion that the space is jungle. When google maps first arrived in KL , it was perceived a threat to security by seeing sensitive areas . The American Embassy was in a very built up area , but on google maps it was replaced by a square of jungle. It stood our even more from its neighbours on the map ; there must be a reason why buildings  rather jungle weren’t used to hide the reality !

From giant towers , to never ending shopping malls , KL advertises its wealth and the transformation over recent years . Forty some years ago a local Chinese business man, with incredible foresight and vision  bought a 350 acre redundant tin mine , lots below ground level .  The centre is now a series of theme parks , surrounded by a city of 200,00 people complete with universities and hospitals. We attended the Christmas lighting ceremony in the main hotel’s glitzy foyer . Drinks and canapés were followed by the finest sea food platter at Gordon Ramsay’s latest restaurant . KL is firmly “ First World “.

A changing skyline 

Dior’s glitzy Christmas ( that’s just their display !)

Connected Holes

 It’s a bit of a shock to see your knee cap through a hole in your leg ; though the view was soon obstructed by copious blood . I was always a hyper active child ; climbing to top of the tree to retrieve those apples way out of reach of adults , jumping down virtually the full height of the staircase, and dashing everywhere…. Mmm ..where did all that energy go to ? So while dashing, I slipped on a garden path and gashed my knee on an edging stone . 

Fortunately there was a cottage hospital at the end of the road . This was doubly so as I returned six weeks later having gashed again that knee. Clearly at aged 7 I hadn’t learnt to slow down . I do remember distinctly the second visit . The ‘operating theatre ‘ was a black bench now covered with a rubber sheet to protect it from my blood ; and the second set of six stitches in that knee hurt despite whatever pain relief had been administered . I could watch them sowing me up …Yuck . To this day I won’t watch televised sewing ..of people. 

The fateful garden was in my grandfather’s house in Weymouth . A idyllic sea side town in which to grow up , if you ignore the occasional pain . At the time the house seemed enormous , well to a small boy , it would . On the wall in the hall was a full sized oar , a memento from my uncle’s rowing days in pre-war Cambridge . After graduation and war he became a civil engineer in Rhodesia ( as it was then ) . He succumbed to a hole in his head ,created by falling scaffolding . Despite that I too became a Civil Engineer . It seems I have difficulty learning lessons!

My grandfather was a tax collector , initially in the East End of London . Whitehall mandarins decided he needed a fundamental change and posted him to Tregaron , one of the remotest towns in very welsh Wales . To function he first had to learn welsh . However he ingratiated himself into the community by marrying the publican’s daughter. Presumably “ London “ had decided he had gone native ; he was transferred from green Wales to Bilston , in the centre of what was then “the Black Country” ; the heart of industrial England . Tregaron was his true love , as he followed his wife to be buried ( in a Hole ) in the family plot. He was followed by my  parent’s ashes , interred to the refrain “ we will keep a Welcome “…a real tear jerker , especially when sung by a male voice choir.

On a lighter note , Tregaron in the location a much bigger hole ; or so the story goes. In 1843 a travelling circus was visiting one of the many pubs when its star performer..an Indian elephant died , presumable of the wet and cold . Now it takes a very  big hole,  dug by hand,  by beer fuelled clients , to bury this carcass . No doubt the story has been elaborated upon over many a pint . So 150 years later numerous hole were dug over the pub garden in search of the pachyderm’s skeleton . Nothing found . Still , the story ‘gained legs’ and was turned into a film , shot on location of course. I can’t help feeling that this landlord will be this tale’s biggest promoter !

Ah, now back to Bilston , and another hole, or holes. The area was heavily mined for coal in years past. Redundant mine shafts were cheaply closed off by capping with railway sleepers , buried , then largely forgotten ; until the timber rots! This then new and enthusiastic Engineer set on his career in that Black Country , building sewage works .  I must have still had oodles of optimism to voluntarily choose both career and location . I was responsible for a new tank on this purification works , or ‘poo factory ‘ as more colourfully described by my nephew. The problem was that inaccurate mine records said there was was potential for a old shaft somewhere on site . Amazingly , to me, it was a ‘water diviner’ who rediscovered this lost hole . 

Sewage, although fascinating to some , is not a riveting conversation topic , especially at social gatherings around the dinner table . So I moved into water supply ; and that brings me to another hole , this time a borehole in Bottesford . This village is as far away from anywhere , except Belvoir Castle ( pronounced Beaver ) ; the home of the Duke of Rutland . Somehow the Coal Board had overcome the objections of his Dukeship, and drilled for coal. The Board never obtained planning for the mine , but did transfer one of the drilled hole to the Water Board . It became an important adjunct to water supply in this remote village , and incidentally in the production of Stilton Cheese.

Back in the early eighties pumps , at the bottom of borehole , were connected to the surface with numerous lengths of steel pipe . It takes along time to change a pump , and when that pump is a crucial part of supply, it leaves a lot of ‘dry’ unhappy customers. So when Bottesford’s pump need changing , I switched to using flexible, especially strong ‘Wellmaster’ hose pipe ; needing only minutes to lower the pump. All was perfect until the pump started . It ran for a few second , then stopped . The connection from hose to pump had come undone . Although the pump was only suspended 100 feet down,  this borehole was 1000 feet deep. Good bye pump. Fortunately we had another . 

Retirement takes me to rural France , and my very own borehole; this one 400 feet deep . The pump needed changing and lowering to match falling water levels . The depth was beyond the strength of normal plastic pipe ; ah so just the situation for ‘Wellmaster “ hose . However there were no local contractors with the requisite experience , and I couldn’t afford to block the borehole with falling pumps . So screwed high stretch plastic was used. It still works, and this hole at least remains open!

Another water world, another elephant

We’ll keep a Welcome in the Hillside

‘Far away a voice is calling

Bells of memory chime

Come home again, come home again

They call through the oceans of time

We'll keep a welcome in the hillsides,

We'll keep a welcome in the Vales.

This land you knew will still be singing,

When you come home again to Wales.

This land of song will keep a welcome,

And with a love that never fails.

We'll kiss away each hour of hiraeth,

When you come home again to Wales.

We'll keep a welcome in the hillsides,

We'll keep a welcome in the Vales.

This land you knew will still be singing,

When you come home again to Wales.

This land of song will keep a welcome,

And with a love that never fails.

We'll kiss away each hour of hiraeth,

When you come home again to Wales.

We'll kiss away each hour of hiraeth

When you come home again to Wales