The Bro Tour

What on earth....?

I'm taking advantage of being 13 hours ahead of the East Coast of the US.  It's Friday morning here in Malaysia and yet still very much Thursday over there.  So I might get this in before my self-inflicted deadline of Thursday.  That's rule number one.  Post on Thursdays.  Rule number two, I'm just discovering, is a pain in the neck.  It has to do with making one blog post per week. Sometimes that's tough because I feel like there's not much to say.  Other times - like today - it's tough because there's so much to say.  Mark suggests that I write about Nairobi today, and Thailand and Kuala Lumpur tomorrow.  But the rules....  Wait, aren't I the one that once wrote about rules and not needing them?

My niece, Maria, at Westgate Mall, which was badly damaged and where many lost their lives during
the terrorist attack of 2013.  Nairobi always bounces back.

A sixteen year old Noah smiles as his mother Donica presents him with a birthday cake.  The very next day
he took his father's car for a spin.  He'll have to wait until he's 18 to drive for real in Kenya, though.

Oh well, I'm sticking to the one blog per Thursday idea and in order to tie everything together, I've recognized that the one common theme of our travels is that both Mark and I have brothers who live afar.  My brother Moges lives in Nairobi, Mark's brother Doug lives in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and my older brother Mike lives in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.  We are on a bro tour, visiting them all - one by one.  As if that doesn't sound crazy enough, we have other friends who are like brother and sister to us - Nathan and Kristi - and they live in Hanoi, Vietnam.  And yes, we're visiting them, too.

Good friends of Moges and Donica's and old friends of mine, as well.  Kenny (far left) is the younger brother of one of my oldest buddies David Kuguru, and Kenny's wife is Ruth (far right), who I once beat in a foot race back in junior high.  In
the middle are Donica, Lilly, and Moges.

For years, these people have come to the States, torn through our summers and left us in the wake of their exotic travels.  Their kids speak of favorite airports and cities with a casual nonchalance and seem so well-adjusted to just about any circumstance they encounter.  At the end of each summer when they've all returned to their African/Asian homes, we wait for autumn and in the cool quiet of the changing season, I think to myself that I wouldn't trade the changing of the leaves and Halloween for anything in the world.

Do I still feel that way?  I don't know.  Mark and I just took a sweaty, humid jog through the Kuala Lumpur neighborhood where his brother Doug and sister-in-law Tracy live with their three kids.  Frangipani and palm trees are everywhere, the grass is so green, water from yesterday's rains rushes through all the drains, and the lush hills of the city look down on us...it's hard to think about going back home to the States sometimes.  But then Mark reminds me that this is vacation and who wants to go home during a vacation?

Anyway, we are - for once - the traveling ones!  We are, for once, the people who tell the airport stories, who emerge from a night's sleep in Bangkok still wearing the t-shirt from Nairobi, and who say things like, "I'll just get a pedicure in Kuala Lumpur, though it's so much cheaper in Bangkok."  Clearly I'm the only one saying that, though I do believe every single soul (sole?) in my family could benefit from a serious pedicure.  It could even be a health issue at this point.

Rather than write in detail about the things we've done and seen, let me just list a few highlights and post some pictures.

Nairobi highlights:  Seeing the transformation of the our old school, The International School of Kenya.  (A lowlight was trying to find the locker room - or even the general area - where Mark first asked me out; that area has been built over and then some).  But my old biology classroom was exactly the same!  Other highlights were being in Moges and Donica's gorgeous home, shopping at a bazaar with Donica and Lily Bekele Piper, a force of nature who we met through Moges and Donica (and everyone else in our lives from Kenya), celebrating my nephew Noah's birthday and gifting him with a box of Teff Rings cereal from Addis.  We jointly confirmed that it tastes awful; it tastes the way a barn smells, if you know what I mean.  Hanging out with my dearest friend Patricia and seeing how her boys have grown.  Just being back in Nairobi, with it's red, red dirt and beautiful people.  Seeing old friends who have come back and are helping to build Kenyan businesses up.  Micah's highlights:  Seeing the newly renovated Westgate Mall and eating at KFC there (first time for American fast food in months).  Eli's highlights:  Also eating KFC and watching Thor in a nice theater.  Daniel is still asleep so I can't give you his highlights.  Mark was really sick the entire time.

Where I think the old locker room used to be.  Now an extended eating area with three or four separate cafes. 

The old Biology classroom where I decided that Bio was the only way to go.

Bangkok highlights:  Everyone loved the food.  On day two the family split up and Mark and the boys took a bike tour of part of that enormous city, while Marta wanted a more sedate experience outside of the city.  The highlight of the boys' time was that day, and Marta - though relaxed and armed with a good book - did not have the most awesome day ever. Daniel's highlight was the elaborate scheme organized by a guide at the National Museum, a tuk-tuk driver, a federal government lawyer, a fashion store, and a high-end jewelry store (see the P.S. 2). But Bangkok is a wonderful, wonderful place to visit; noisy, creative, modern and old at the same time, western and eastern - just an amazing place. Can't wait to go back.

These wires are almost an artform

Be careful if you visit this part of the city with your young ones.  There are some fairly dodgy invitations above some of the neighborhood establishments.

At Wat Pho, a Buddhist temple that dates back to late 1600s - early 1700s.  The temple is thought to be the birthplace of traditional Thai massage and still houses a college that teaches it.  The reclining Buddha is unbelievably long, and the temple complex has the largest collection of Buddha statues in Thailand.

Street food is everywhere, all the time.

Above, Eli rides through a neighborhood in Bangkok, Micah is up ahead.  Bottom pic:  Marta's dreams of a peaceful day exploring a floating market are upended by the chaos of tourist hell, with boats jam-packed onto narrow canals beneath the hot sun and amidst the diesel fumes of motor boats.  We were the floating market, with sellers on piers, pulling our boats in and suggesting we buy stuff. Interesting, all the same... 

And now we are in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  Mark's brother Doug and his wife Tracy work at the International School of Kuala Lumpur where Doug is an assistant principal and Tracy teaches high school English.  Their kids are Reeve, Gabi, and Rania, three of our six favorite nieces and nephews, all of whom are world travelers extraordinaire.  In fact, just when we think we're cool jet-setting types, we say a quick goodbye and see you Sunday to Reeve, who - without fanfare - is off to Jakarta, Indonesia for a basketball tournament.  You can't keep up with these folks, but it's fun trying!

More on KL later!

p.s.   I cannot tell you about Hazal and her current adventures, alas.  But I can tell you that that picture at the top of this blog, while being flabbergasting to us, barely cracked a smile at last night's dinner table.  If you were as worldly and wise as our traveling bros and their savvy wives, you would know that in some parts of the world, squatting is much preferable to sitting on the toilet, and that the urge to do so must be discouraged in more reputable places.

P.S. 2, from Daniel: The guide got us an incredibly cheap tuk-tuk deal to visit two historical sites and one place he called a "fashion show" that was only happening that day, meaning that we shouldn't miss it. The lawyer agreed that the "fashion show" was a special occasion and that we should definitely go. But when we arrived at the store, we realized that it wasn't a "fashion show" at all. It was just an ordinary store where people wanted to sell us fancy suits. After managing to leave without any suits, the driver insisted that we shop at the jewelry store because our presence there would get him free gas. The manager of the store, who knew the D.C. area well (he had lived there for a while), stopped trying to sell to us when he realized that we were from Silver Spring, not Potomac. Mom got out with some magnets. Was this indeed an elaborate scheme so that everyone involved would benefit from these clueless Americans, or was it just five loosely-connected organizations who wanted us to get cheap suits and jewelry that would cost a fortune in the U.S.? I'll go with the former, but not everyone would agree.