The Gift that Keeps on Giving (from Malacca)

Today Angie, Martin and I visited Malacca - a beautiful city in Malaysia.
Malacca has much to offer - the Dutch area, the seashore, and a very cool Chinatown.

My favorite part of town, however, is Kampung (Malay for village) Mortem.
I first visited Kampung Mortem ten years ago and was a little worried that it might not still exist.

Fortunately, though it's getting pressured by high rises, this little gem of a neighborhood is still standing. It's a 4 or 5 street area packed with traditional Malay stilt houses (like above) and friendly people. We wandered the area awhile and enjoyed the cool breezes off the river.

Another 'event' in our day, was a ritual tasting of the legendary 'king of fruits' - durian.
Durian has the texture of custard, is extremely popular in South East Asia, and smells like an open sewer.

One author said, "It's like eating your favorite ice cream while sitting on a toilet".

For me, it's like eating your LEAST favorite ice cream while standing in a PUBLIC toilet - but to each his own.

Is it just a coincidence that we bought it next to the men's toilet at a gas station off the highway? I think not...

The worst feature of durian (unless you like it) is that you will continue to burp up the 'flavor' for the remainder of the day. If you can imagine a mealy fruit that has aftertastes of garlic and onion, you can imagine how pleasant this might be...

It's only real value for me, is as a spiky prop that can used in Jackie Chan films.

We enjoyed the rest of our day - a nice lunch in Chinatown, poking around in a rubber tree plantation (rubber comes from trees. How weird is that?), checking out the biggest bananas we're ever seen, and driving through palm oil groves.

Tomorrow, the teaching begins.
We're teaching Leadership Challenge... but the biggest challenge we'll see this week is the durian...