Lemon and Mint Chicken with Couscous Tabouleh photo by Skyler Burt

Today I had a hankering to photograph some Arabic food, I live in Oman,I guess I should have a little taste every so often as well. I tried this lemon and mint chicken recipe floating around. Lemon and mint juice is one of the most popular drinks here, next to Mountain Dew, of course.  So why not marinade chicken with it, the lemon and mint I mean, not the Dew that would be disgusting!  Couscous and tabouleh are classic staples of Arabic cuisine and come with just about anything ordered. Mixing them up seems like a no-brainer, a few minutes after my plate hits the table everything tends to end up in a pile anyways.  I’ll be trying to shoot more and more local dishes so I think this type of post will become a regular thing here.  Stay tuned and hey stop by Yellow Street Photo’s website to see some more great photos!

Heres the Recipe:

Serves 4

For the chicken

1 kg boneless/skinless chicken breast chopped into pieces

2 cloves of garlic razor blade thin

½ cup lemon juice

2 tbs extra virgin olive oil

½ cup mint leaves chopped very fine

1 tbs white sugar

Combine garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, mint and sugar in a medium bowl. Place chicken in and mix, then put them on wooden or metal skewers. Best if grilled!

For the Couscous Tabouleh

1-cup chicken stock

1-cup couscous

1 cup of flat-leaf parsley chopped

1/2-cup of mint leaves chopped

2 green onions with the stalks trimmed and sliced thinly

A hand full of cherry tomatoes sliced in half

Juice of one lemon

Bring chicken stock to a boil. Take the saucepan off the heat and add in the couscous to the stock. Put a lid on it and set it aside for 5 minutes or so. Push around the couscous to fluff it up then empty it into a large mixing bowl. Place the mint, onions, parsley, and lemon juice with a few tsp of olive oil into the mixing bowl and stir together. Add a little salt and pepper and serve topped with the cherry tomatoes and grilled chicken.

Enjoy!

I know that the Canon EOS Utility is nothing new, but I just started using it for demonstration in my studio photography classes with my 5D Mark II and I’d have to say WOW! What a tool to have! Before my students would have to watch me set everything up and then one by one look on the back of my LCD screen, but now with EOS Utility they can see everything thats happening in front of my lens live on my large computer monitor. All those minor adjustments that make or break a photo my students were able to see in real time from their desks. Just Amazing!  I think it will really help me in my studio photography as well. If you don’t have it, download it from the canon Here and get the latest update for the Mark II, you can change exposure, ISO, File Size, and even save the images to the computer all from the program.

To see more food photography by Yellow Street Photos check out the site!

©2010 HMB Photos

Hello family,

Sorry I have been a while since I have been able to write. We have just now finished our classes and have our finals soon. Once finals end, we will be sitting in our office for 2-3 months doing…. well nothing. We have gotten a taste of it over the last few days while our students have been preparing for their exams, and not attending classes…. and we are getting so bored. We leave work early nearly everyday, and would go out to shoot, but it is unbelievably hot these days. We are loving it here though, despite the weather and look forward to being here next year. We can’t believe that we have been here for 8 months and it feels like we just stepped off the plane.

Korea was a country filled with  never ending sea of people who worked easily
10 hours a day in an environment of neon signs, soju bars and norae bongs, not to
mention the overwhelming population. Oman could not be any more different. Oman is a laid-back country where shweh shweh “slowly slowly” is the motto, and
desolate, subtle browns and greens of the environment mixed with the national
dress, uniform black and white robes,  could make a double ADHD kid on crack
calm to an afternoon nap. This country is so tired that it shuts down from 1-4
everyday, no joke. Don’t run out of toilet paper or something else essential at
that time cause not a thing is open, that’s time to drink Arabic coffee, eat
dates and seek shelter from the relentless sun, a tradition which continues
despite the introduction of AC. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the
desolate atmosphere is relaxing and the people are much happier than other
countries where the work hours are longer. No one locks their doors, people
leave their cars running when they go into the store, and the biggest threat to
Omanis are deadly car accidents, or death by laziness if there is such a thing.

©2010 HMB Photos

If a student was asked to compare two countries which had nothing in common,
Oman and South Korea would be good choices, which is why we had such culture
shock when we first moved here.  South Korea’s 48 million population lives on
an area of land 1/3 the size of Oman, which boasts a population of 3.5 million,
of which 1/3 are foreigners. In Korea we would go days without seeing another
waegooken, (foreigner) but in Oman you can’t go a second. The Omani’s have
become disgustingly spoiled with their oil findings in such a short period of
time that consequently Oman emerged from it’s time capsule and began to advance
so rapidly, and is now trying to desperately put the breaks on. His majesty,
Sultan Qaboos has run the country since he overthrew his inward thinking father
40 years ago and the people hail him at any cost. He built school, colleges,
roads and hospitals, all new additions to the country. With no background in
such things, he imported labor to work as doctors, teachers and manual workers,
as the country was literally void of skilled workers. This is where the
foreigners come from. With a short history, Omani people are best at raising
camels, farming dates, and hiring people to work for them. Nearly every house
hold, which consists of 1-2 (in separate houses on the same property) wives and
10-12 children, have at least 2 servants working for them, delivered from
India, Pakistan, Malaysia, The Philippines or other countries which don’t have the revenue which oil brings.  They cook, clean and take care of the children, and
wives are for childbearing, although the old ways are fading fast, and despite
the governments block on TV, movies, music and well, all media forms, the
people find ways to unlock satellite channels, download music and import books
from Lebanon. Most Omani’s go to college these days, some what choose their
spouses, and young women refuse to allow multiple wives. Of course the society
was not always like this, previously women did the house work, but with new
servants to work in the house, they are left to sit at home and do… well
nothing once they have been married.

©2010 HMB Photos

Since the discover of oil and the advancement of the country, 40 years has been like 300 in the eyes of progress, such as infrastructure and industry. But the further you drive from the capital city of Muscat, the further back in time you
travel. The towns and villages are very conservative and an average scene in
the evening would be a small town suq (city center) full of men smoking shisha and drinking tea, and not a woman in sight. It is not common for women to go
outside.  In fact in every Arab house there are two living rooms, one for women
and one for men, and when guests come over they are segregated. A man could
have a best friend for 20 years and never once seen his wife. Men and women are
forbidden to touch, and that includes shaking hands… a mistake I have
continuously made in offering my hand to new people I meet.. oops. Ladies are
rarely seen out and about, and when they are, they cover their face… aside
from Muscat that is. Muscat is a sort of modern twilight zone of the real Oman,
where women are seen out in masses with their two nannies and 7 children
following them while they shop for the newest Gucci sunglasses, with  tight
fitting abyas (black robes) and very loose hijabs (head scarves) even showing
some, or a lot of hair.

With all that useless information being said, Oman is a fascinating country,
and we are enjoying living in the Middle East. There is something captivating about this part of the world, and to be honest, I can’t pin point it. I don’t know if
it is the aroma of frankincense and shisha in the streets, and remarkable
minimalist, Arabic architecture,  or the happy, friendly atmosphere of the
Arabic people. I love wandering around the old forts and visiting the other
cities. Although at times we suffer from extreme home sickness, and sometimes
that is the US and sometimes it’s Korea. It is hard to imagine that Korea
became like home, but sometimes we just miss the conveniences and lifestyle
that we enjoyed there. But we miss the states as well… me especially. After
two years of being gone, I am a bit worried about just how much reverse-
culture shock we will experience when we go back. It is continuously amazing to
me how quickly human beings are capable of adjusting to new environments, and
how easy it is to change Your society; Your “norm.” After all, if you always
walk around wearing a hijab and an abya, it is the other people who are
strange, or crazy.

So the dessert, camels, never ending sand dunes and overwhelming friendliness
have us intoxicated here. Every time we go out of our small city and see the
country, coast and mountains, we just love it. So for the next year we will be
here, and trying to get in to Grad school in the states, as soon as we save the
2 million dollars that it costs…. We have had a few opportunities to get out
and make pics, which has been nice, and we hope to continue shooting when we
get back. Nowadays it is about 130 degrees out by 8 am, and we have been
confined to our AC. Sky has continued to shoot however and I have tried to be
as driven as him. It’s hard though, because he is REALLY driven. He wakes up at
345 to get out before sunrise and work on his nature pics, before we make it to
work at 730 to start our day. But we really can’t complain too much, as the
shweh shweh effects every aspect of business here and we only taught about 3
hours a day before our classes ended.

©2010 HMB Photos

Anyway, I hope everyone is doing good, and that you enjoy these pics. Please
send us a letter or drop a line to say how everything is with everyone. Love
you guys, Love Heather

©2010 HMB Photos

©2010 HMB Photos

©2010 HMB Photos

Hi everyone,

The few months that I have spent here have flown by faster than any other time
of my life, perhaps because I am enjoying myself, or because I am working hard,
either way, I can’t believe it has been nearly 4 months. (And 5 months since
our wedding) Work is going good, and we are already looking for work for next
year, in an attempt to prevent the last work visa fiasco from happening again.
Although we would love to start graduate school this coming year, it looks like
starting the year after would be better financially. Our apartment has come
together nicely and it has finally began to feel like home. It is amazing how a
place can start out feeling so empty and even creepy at first and later be
salvation from the world spinning around you, because the country or details
don’t matter, in these walls is OUR home, and that is so comforting.

The most recent addition to our home is satellite tv, which we finally hooked
up after our tv which we inherited from another teacher who recently passed
away had began to collect dust. Now as Sky has gone to play pool with his friends
and colleagues, a much needed break as we have spent 24/7 around each other at
both work and home, I flip it on for the first time. CNN Arabia, as depressing
as it is in the US but slightly more politically sensitive due to the region,
shows the same stories broadcast on BBC, but both are as depressing. It’s like
having your earplugs in during a flight and then suddenly taking them out when
you are woken up by the stewardess, and it sounds so loud that you get a shock;
even the whispers of the couple sitting 3 rows in front of you sounds
unpleasant. Was the world continuing to degenerate so rapidly during the nearly
6 months since I last watched it?

MTV Arabia is next, a mix of English, Spanish and very provocative Arabic music
videos that my female students assure me come from countries such as Lebanon
and Egypt, as girls in the gulf region would never act in such a manor. I watch
for a little while though cause I am surprised to see girls singing in Arabic
but wearing evening gowns, after all, the ladies here are covered quite
literally from head to toe, except for in the university, where they are
forbidden to wear face covering of any sort.  Only 6 or so channels come in
English and I am starting to feel jipped by the 21 rials that we paid to have
the Indian man hook up our satellite. I pick up my book instead…. that’s a
new phrase for me, cause generally I hate reading. I would rather spend my free
time working on images or studying spanish, or Arabic (occasionally).

The book is Girls of Riyadh, and it has me addicted. The book was written by a
24 year old Saudi woman, and is the most controversial book in the Middle East.
No it is not about war or religion, but instead about the usually private lives
of Saudi women. Saudi Arabia is the most conservative country in the Middle
East, making it the most conservative in the world. Women are not allowed to go
out without a man, wear jeans, or throw a unintentional look towards a man
which could be interpreted wrong and have life long repercussions such as
limiting her possibilities for marriage.

Very different from the free Oman where men and women go to university together
and women are sometimes spotted outdoors without a face covering. Where the
female students roam in the hallways hoping desperately that their new perfume
and Gucci handbag will have every boy in the halls looking. Where the girls sit
across from the boys in the class room, giggling at silly thing that happens in
the class, some being ultra conservative, knowing the consequences of acting
foolish, and others showing their poor upbringing by practically begging for
the boys attention, sometimes even engaging them in a joking conversation, in a
society where women are never supposed to talk to men who are not in their
family. All the while the boys love every bit of it, taking mental pictures of
the girls and making comments in Arabic about which girls are pretty and which
ones they would never marry, knowing that outside these walls they would never,
under any circumstances even be allowed to look at a lady.

This book takes a closer look in the private life of Arab women, which is so
fascinating to me after living here for a bit. I like talking to my female
students and they are so interested to hear every detail about western weddings
the oh so taboo dating. In their culture they are sometimes allowed a sit down
with the person that they are about to marry, (who was of course chosen by
their parents and not themselves) but that is as far as it goes. Accompanied by
all four parents they are given a few minutes to ask such questions as “what
kind of food can you cook” and “what did you study in school?” In Oman it is
the boy who pays the dowry, as it is in most Arab countries, however for Indian
Muslims, it is very different, as with all of India, the girls family pays, and
she pays a lot.

Like my Indian colleague Fatima, who I love to talk with. She is very
conservative and so funny, and sometimes we talk for hours, avoiding random
bits of work that we have to do. A few years after her wedding, 3 children
later, and long after the dowry was spent, her husband abandoned her to move to
New York and live the American dream with his new wife who he married in the US before his Indian divorce papers were even signed. In utter grief and to avoid
her mothers marriage pressure after her divorce, she went back to school to get
a masters, then another and finally a third. When she realized a fourth masters
would be completely excessive she moved abroad to work and avoid her mothers
introduction of random men. I found her once in the bathroom, washing up for
her evening prayers, and she wanted to talk. She had her headscarf off, and she
looks much more her real age without it as you can see her drooping chin and
the starts of grey hair. She stopped me to say that she was thinking about
arranged marriages and love marriages as they are called, and she said that she
had recently changed her mind about her 15 year old daughter, and she decided
that she would not be upset if she wanted to marry someone of her own choice.
She said that when she thinks about her marriage she can not think of even one
nice thing to say about her ex-husband, but that if it was a love marriage,
she probably would have liked something about him, even if it was some small characteristic.

Living here is very interesting and I am continuing to learn from this
experience. I am interested in their lives for some unknown reason to myself.
I am sorry if this letter was both pointless and boring, cause these are the
things that I am thinking about while I am here, so they are the things that I
am sharing, even if they are just one tiny piece of some culture that I know
nothing about. One thing that I can say is that this country is about as
opposite as it gets from Korea, and how I miss Korea sometimes. Of course
California will always be home, but Korea was the last thing familiar, and
sometimes I just want to go downtown and hang out. But as I said, Oman becomes
more like home every day, at least for now. We are busy applying for grad
schools and working on color correcting images for Lonely Planet. We are dying
to finish all of this so that we can get out and shoot some before the summer
creeps up on us.

On a more interesting note, we went to visit one of Sky’s students recently in
Bedia, the deep, deep dessert.(The pics I attached are from there) It was
amazing and SO beautiful. We spent the evening drinking Arabic coffee, eating
Halawa (a tradital Omani sweet) and ridding camels. Then we made a fire in the
dessert and they made us a delicious dinner on the open fire. It was amazing
and for the first time in my life, I saw the stars as God had meant them to be
seen, I never knew the stars looked 3D when you can see all of them. I wish I
was more descriptive on this extrodianary adventure, but it is getting late,
and I am so tired.

©2010 HMB Photos

As I said, I am sick and also I will be watching a final exam at 8:30 am, so I am going to end there and read just one more chapter of my book.. or two. I hope everyone is doing good, I always enjoy the pics, and as I now know because of the news… California is having some crazy weather. I hope no one is
effected by it. I love you guys, Love Heather

©2010 HMB Photos

©2010 HMB Photos

©2010 HMB Photos

The change of scenery is breathtaking, we had no idea that a vast dessert could
have so much beauty. Since we have been here we have spent some time at the
beach, gone snorkeling and eaten a lot of good food. The weather is perfect
right now because it is winter here. In the summer we hear that it is
unbearable, but for now, it’s perfect for camping and snorkeling, two of our
favorite things to do. The beaches are so clean with deep blue water and off
white sand. The sand is a bit rocky like the rest of the environment, and the
mountains are very unique; rocky and jagged, and layering for miles. The sun
sets and rises here bigger than I have ever seen before and it’s always a deep
red or orange color. We learned about the particles in the atmosphere creating
these kinds of situations in science class, but we never imagined that it would
be this beautiful. We have seen camels walking in our town and are planning to
go see the turtles that storm the beaches this time of year very soon. The
nature here is simply amazing. City life however, or lack there of, can be a
bit frustrating.

The capital city is Muscat which is 2 hours away from our city, Sur. The drive
is nice and we have done it twice to go shopping, but it is a bit of a headache
if we were going to do it often. Our town is very small and the people are very
conservative, although the whole country is compared to the rest of the world
as in alcohol is illegal, and that sort of thing. However this being one of the
most relaxed Arab countries, the people still wear traditional clothing, all of
the time. That means the men were a long, white robe called a distasha and a
traditional hat. The women wear long, black robes  which they pull a piece over
their faces when they are shopping or out in public. No it’s not the type from
Saudi which you can see the woman’s eyes, but instead made of a sheer material
so that the women can see out but no one can see in. It sort of looks like they
put a black sheet over themselves to play ghost like we did when we were
children, but then just left it there. It’s called an Abaya and they can be
quite intricate and beautiful. The more conservative girls wear just a plain
one, but the other girls wear them with embroidery and glitter on the head
piece. (the Hijab)  However the people are remarkably nice and both Skyler and
I are thoroughly enjoying teaching adults. As well the girls are not allowed to
wear their face coverings in the university, which makes it easier to try to
remember their names and keep order in the class room. But it makes it weird
when you are standing in the checkout line at the store and a black floating
ghost walks up behind you and says “Hello Heather Teacher.” 90% of my students
have a great sense of humor and I find it quite interesting to talk to them.
They are very open and I have asked them everything from why they still wear
this, to how they feel about having multiple wives, and they are happy to
discuss these topics with me. Similarly, they are eager to ask me questions.
Although non of them believe that I’m from America, as everywhere that I go.
They automatically think I’m some sort of Arab, in fact three male students
came to my office today to ask/argue with me about my nationally. They had
actually come to  give me their grand explanations for their recent absences
and poor test marks, but the conversation turned when they were not able to
persuade me into changing their situation. That is a problem in this society,
males are favored so much over females that they are often given special
privileges, consequently the female students are less pampered and far surpass
the boys in academic skills. The girl students sit on one side of the class
room never talking to the boys, and the boy students on the other and steal
glimpses of the girls, so it’s a sea of half white, half black robes and far
too much perfume on both sides.

The whole country is covered in Mosques and the call to prayer sounds 5 times a
day, including the first one at 4:30 in the morning. Now remember that I said
that the country is literally covered in Mosques and you’ll get the idea of why
we’ve yet to be late to work. Which now starts at 7:30am, a stark difference
from our 2-10 timetable in Korea. There is 3 times as much paperwork to do in
the office, but we teach far less class time per week as well. We also share
our office with our two good friends Greg and Cecile and upstairs are two of
our other friends from Korea Sarah and Chris. We have met lot’s of great people
living here and we also share our office with 2 Indian women who are very nice
and fun to be around.
Photographically we have yet to take a picture… but there is some good news
onthis front. Previous to 2 days ago, we did not have a car, so we could not get
around. We now have our apt, a leased car, our cell phones and internet, so we
are back to living in the real world. This quarter we actually sold images on
Lonely Planet which was very nice and the big news so far is that Sky has just
got a shoot for this Friday. (Our weekends here are Thursday and Friday, so
Wednesday is now the happiest day of the week =) My husband is very good at
marketing himself and tries so much harder than myself. He notified other
photographers and companies that he would be in this part of the world for a
while and because of this a magazine based in Abu Dhabi, UAE has contacted him
for a shoot this weekend in Muscat. The day rate is awesome and it is a
possible cover shoot, which means if they choose to run it for cover, he will
make even more. I’m very proud of him. We have a set of images to send of to
Lonely Planet from Malaysia, but it will take a while to edit them.

We can’t wait to start shooting here, which we will probably be able to start
in the next month or so. We have 9 days off at the end of this month for the eid
holiday, a Muslim holiday here. That will be our prime time to produce some
images. This letter is getting ridiculously long, but I hope you got a feel for
what we are up to. I am in the middle of making banana bread for one of our
Indian co-workers because she is loaning me one of her Indian outfits for a
Halloween party that our friend is having tomorrow night, I’m going as a
Bollywood movie star. We miss everyone so much, especially me and I can’t wait
to see everyone. Anyone wanting to come visit is more than welcome, we would
love to share our 1 bedroom apartment.. =)

Love you guys and I hope everyone is doing great, Love The Burts

I remember the first few days in Malaysia, one of my first photography trips after leaving South Korea.   The first time I stepped out of the hotel with my camera was exciting, but ultimately exhausting.  Everything was new to me and I wanted to take

A woman prepares a wick for some homemade lime butter candles, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. ©Skyler Burt.

a picture of it all.  I was like a slaphappy, crazed photographer acting like the streets of Kuala Lumpur were the press pool at a high profile case.  My photographic “don’t think, just shoot” approach for those first few days was not a good start to experience a new culture and it did not result in the greatest photos either.  Instead, I recommend sitting back, taking a breath, and focusing in on “the small.” Shooting “the small” means to dive into your surroundings and come away with colorful detailed snaps depicting the less than obvious aspects of a country’s culture.

Every country has their own way of pulling in those valuable tourist dollars and usually they are great places to make photographs.  Although tourist attractiosn are impressive, it might be better to leave them out of your photos.  Go ahead and get that photo out of your system, but then move your lens to “the small.”  Tourist attractions are usually full of detailed slices of the country’s culture.  Zoom in on the people, the patterns, the trinkets, or whatever inhabits your destination’s monuments to make a more personalized photograph.

Next time you photograph your favorite hot spot try photographing “the small.” Simply think of a few categories so as not to get distracted.  I usually try to focus on three categories.  Sometimes a place doesn’t have all three and I don’t necessarily try to make pictures in any order, but I like to keep these ideas in my pocket so I can pull them out whenever I lose my focus.  Detailed below are the categories I use most often when I want to find “the small.”  What categories you choose is up to your personal style or taste and the situation at hand, but it helps to keep “the small” in mind while you’re snapping your next great photo.

Category 1: Color

Detailed photos with the theme of "color," Kuala Lumpur. ©Skyler Burt

Color can be your best friend when shooting “the small.”  For the most part colors are everywhere, just lying around going unnoticed, but if you are keen to them, you will see them on every corner.  Try picking a color to shoot for the day.  It is amazing how certain colors repeatedly show up when you are looking for them. Look for it on walls, flowers, statues, people’s clothes, and everything you see throughout the day.  Each time you see it take a picture of it.  Try to find its opposite color and work with both of them together.  When it presents itself, color will do wonders for those travel photos.

Category 2: People

Detailed photos with the theme of "people," Kuala Lumpur. ©Skyler Burt

People are great reflections of their culture and pictures of people can really give a sense of a country’s identity.  When you take pictures of people, focus on what makes the person special to really make those travel photos come to life.  If you are looking for “the small” when people are your subject, try zeroing in on simple characteristics. If a person has interesting eyes, hands, a mustache, or even jewelry, these features can make quite a nice picture.   Another method is to concentrate on their actions. If the person is playing a musical instrument, look at their hands.  If they are dancing, try capturing the motion of their feet.  There are many possibilities when it comes to taking a detailed picture of a person and sometimes just pieces of them are enough to tell a story.

Category 3: Found Art

Detailed photos under the theme, "found art," Kuala Lumpur. ©Skyler Burt

The Found Art you see always changes depending on your location.  Found Art can be anything from brooms to doorknobs, neatly bound rolls of incense inside a well lit Chinese temple, a brightly colored mailbox hanging off an old wall, traditional teapots for sale or baskets stacked up and tucked away in an alley.  The number of things you will see during your adventure is endless.  Usually these little seemingly insignificant objects will make great travel photos.  More often, these little things can really symbolize the character of a particular culture and show everyone just how interesting the trip was.

When trying to make good travel photos, look for “the small,”it is important to capture slices of life which are symbolic to the particular culture.  When exploring with your camera try to look for different colors, unique characteristics of the people, found art lying around or whatever is strange or new to you.  Search high and low for these cultural cues so that your photos reflect what makes the destination so interesting.  Every country has uniqueness like no other and if you are able to capture it, people will love the photos from your travel adventures. Want to see more travel photography check out Yellow Street Photos website!

Detailed photos under the theme, "mail box," Malaysia. ©Skyler Burt.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. ©2009 Skyler Burt

As a travel photographer you must perfect your “travel portraits.”  This is something that I’ve been trying to do for a while, but I admit I just haven’t got to the sublime art of making people comfortable around me.  Or maybe it’s making myself comfortable around people, or both, I’m not sure.  Whatever it is, I know I must get over it and produce some stellar portraits or I ought to hang up my camera now.  Or at least shut myself inside a well lit room with a stove and focus on food photography, which for me would be the same.  Although, I wouldn’t pass up a good meal, especially after taking a nice picture of it.

For the last few days Heather and I have been trying to take pictures, and I’m going to stress the word “trying.”  I told Heather that “I’m going to make portraits of people no matter what, I don’t care if I have to ask a hundred people and ninety-nine of them say no, as long as I get one!”  After her eyes stopped rolling we cracked open our trusty guide book and after careful analysis we set out to find the Thean Hou Temple.  A temple, which the guide book describes as a three storey

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. ©2009 Skyler Burt

beautiful Buddhist temple, one of the largest in Kuala Lumpur.  As travel photographers, fireworks shot from our eyes in a cartoon fashion and we immediately went to look for it on the map.  Maps by the way can never be trusted in guide books, unless they’ve been printed yesterday, especially of countries growing as fast as Malaysia.  It seems that in the six years since our guide book was printed Malaysia has not only changed all the street names but the directions of them as well.  The three maps that we have been using to try and navigate around the city all had a convenient little arrow pointing off the map with the words Thean Hou Temple.  Not too surprising.  Well, we weren’t going to let some small, useless arrow stop us.  At the bottom of the stairs in the lobby Heather remembers a stack of maps of the city that were different than ours.  I quickly ran down to grab one, but again the dreadful arrow was pointing straight off the map into the void that was our lack of direction.  “No worries” we say to each other,”we’ll just hop on the train and….”  So that was our plan.

It was not that bad of a plan, it had certainly worked well for us in the past, and the trains here are very convenient.  Among the plethora of trains that take you around the city we hopped on the MRT, or Monorail Transit.  This is my favorite form of transportation around the city, mainly because you get really nice views and the train has no operator.  That’s right, it’s completely automated with no driver,

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. ©2009 Skyler Burt

fantastic!  Now, I don’t know if this is a regular thing, but it’s a first for me.  No one else on the train seemed to be too surprised and I didn’t want to look foolish and start wildly gawking at this newfangled marvel of modern technology, shouting that no one is controlling the train, so I kept my cool.  Once we exited the station in the area, which we suspected that little arrow on the map pointed, we were greeted by a short young man asking us “where ya from?”  This is a regular occurrence for us if we stand in one place for more than thirty seconds.  Usually the person asking, wants to sell us something or give us a overcharged taxi ride and out of sheer abundance of hearing this simple yet effective conversation starter, our most likely response is a shrug like we don’t speak English.  This man didn’t look to be peddling anything, so we answered as we always do, “Los Angeles, and you?”  This man, who’s name I can’t remember, seemed to be nice and informed us, in a whispering voice, that most tourists don’t usually venture into the area that we were in and that if we like taking pictures, we should go to, (insert name of district I can’t remember).  We asked him if he knew of Thean Hou Temple, but he didn’t.  So we walked for a while and he said he had nothing to do so he would guide us to the district of which he spoke of earlier.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. ©2009 Skyler Burt

Right now in Malaysia, the people and government are really taking precautions over H1N1.  Everyone gets handed a little white mask just about everywhere you go.  Most people wear them, and our newly found man, the random protector of lost tourists, was following suit.  It lead to a pretty funny walk.  Every time we asked him a question, he would give us these really long responses, all I’m sure were quite informative, but nevertheless muffled by the mask like a Malaysian Darth Vader.  At the end of each response he would pull down the mask and let out a great laugh and smile.  We would nod and smile, blurting out a “Oh” and “Ah,” then our guide would pull up the mask and go on talking.

Soon we arrived at the district that he told us about, and we said our goodbyes.  He turned around and headed in the direction from which we had just come and was gone.  We never found the temple that day, but we saw it from the train heading back to our hotel.  After lots of walking in the wrong direction we found the temple the following day.  Like the guide book said Thean Hou is three stories and beautiful, but much newer than we had expected, and without the charm of some of it’s more ancient brothers.

Our adventure started with us reluctantly renting a car. I say reluctantly
because 2 days earlier we had returned to Kota Kinabalu having driven straight
back from the east coast 6 hours in a 600cc car, after offering a ride to a
German couple….and ALL their bags. Two Americans, Two Germans and an obscene amount of bagage should not be able to fit in this car, but it did, and we drove over Mt. Kinabalu in 1st and 2nd gear all the way back. The German couple were seriously nice, so it was worth it. So, back again to rent the cheapest car on
the lot, and they gave us the same one. Then off to the store for provisions. I
stood at the store for 30 minutes choosing a pb&j…should I go with Goober,
the only American brand, or should I go with something Malaysian which is most
likely going to be nasty? The goober says “America’s Favourite!” right on the
jar.  I thought to myself, “If that was an American opinion, favorite would be
spelled right.” So goober it was, and raisin bread, plus a bottle of rum per
Skyler’s request. Then we were off.

It was a 3 hour drive, but we managed to find it alright…and boy was it
secluded. The Rungus people are one of the something like 34 tribes in Sabah.
They have their own language, food and clothes, and that is what we expected to
see. Unfortunately they no longer walk around in their tribal clothes, and
instead they just wear dirty old clothes which is not very interesting or
photographic. They showed us to our room and told us that there was another
couple visiting them too, from New Zealand. The house that they live in is the
most interesting thing about these people. Their house is called a “longhouse”
and it is called that because it is literally a really long house. It is made
of logs and bamboo, no windows, no screens, just sticks. It is pretty much just a really long porch with a series of about 10 rooms in a row. When a father and mother had a house long ago, and a son got married, they would simply build 1 room on to the house. Each family lives in 1 room, and every time a son or grandson got married, they built on another room and soon enough, well you get the picture. So the longer your house was, the bigger your family. To this day many Rugnus families still live in these really long, wooden houses and they can be seen
all over the country side.

After we took a look at our room, we were called over by the owner
(grandfather) of the house who was sitting with 5 men of the house. He wanted us to have a beer with them in celebration of their newly built, outdoor eating area. We were obliged and quickly started conversation with them. 2 of the men spoke
English and they translated for the others. They told us that later in the
evening we could try their rice wine, and so Sky offered to give them a taste
of our Rum…..what a mistake! When we pulled it from the car they all passed
the bottle around staring at it like a kid on Christmas morning, they had never
heard of rum. They laughed at the character on the bottle, a pirate with a
parrot. Fast forward to 4 shots later and they were all asking for more,
smacking their lips with the finish of every shot repeating loudly “RUM, it’s
RUM.”  The worst part is that they kept forcing us to drink and we kept saying
as politely as possible, “We usually don’t drink it like this,” to which they
replied “Don’t you want to be my friend? We are being friendly!” We were some
of their favorite visitors, I’m sure of this. They taught us how to say cheers
in Rungus, and after Sky mistakenly asked about a nearby fruit tree, they told
one of the grandchildren to get us a fruit from it. It was a giant, stinky type
of durian. He jumped to the grandfathers request, climbing the tree like a
monkey and then all of the family stood at the bottom shouting which fruit he
should pick. The taste was horrible, but after the kid climbed the tree and
picked just the right one, we had no choice but to eat it. Plus they kept
saying, “Our traditional fruit, don’t you like our traditional fruit?” I could
still have night mares about that food, which is banned in almost all hotels in
Malaysia due to it’s repulsive smell that sinks into the fibers of the room.
And FYI, it does not go well with shots of rum.

By dinner time, the rum was gone and the men of one Rungus longhouse were very
happy. As for the dinner, another interesting and barely edible affair, we ate
our small portion  with a grin on our face and excused ourselves to our rental
car; Goobers never tasted so good, and it’s now this American’s favourite. haha
With second dinner finished, we headed back to the  longhouse, and boy was it
dark. Creeping back in, (hard to do with a house made of bamboo), we were
invited to another circle with the men now sitting on one side of the porch and
the women on the other. The women were talking and sleeping and the men were
busy, you guessed it, drinking rice wine. “We told you there would be rice wine
and my friend went to the other village to get it.” Oh no! The faulty
electricity in the longhouse went out just then, further suckering us in to
their now lantern lit circle, and we could only stand 3 or so rounds of rice
wine….oh gosh, that was a long night in the longhouse. We finally snuck away
and went back to our room, 2 foam mattresses covered with mosquito nets, but we
slept on one. It was a long and uncomfortable night

.

The next day the New Zealand couple said that they needed a ride to the tip of
Borneo, and although we planned 2 nights with the Rungus people, we took the
out and gave them a ride. A long 50 minute ride to the tip of Borneo that made
us wish we were back with the pirates of the longhouse! In that very 50 minutes
we decided that we were never going to get old and grumpy, cause this older
couple complained about just about everything in Malaysia in 50 minutes. We
didn’t plan to see that area, but it was a pretty drive and we made it back to
KK in the same day. Overall, it was not the trip that we planned and we did not
really get any useable pics, but it was quiet an adventure that we will
remember for a long time.