A Wedding in Manila Quick one before I jump into a plane – I was just at a small wedding in Manila. One of my oldest friends in the world got hitched to a lovely Pinoy girl here, and will soon whisk her away to Australia and all that. Great, very happy for the couple; very pleased to see him too, because I only get to see him every few years. But then I was stuck for a few hours in a small room with two tables (I told you it was a small wedding) in a Chinese restaurant in downtown Manila. At one table was the Filipino family, full of wonderful and lovely people I spent some time with. Present at the other table: the family friends and relations, mostly Hokkien-speaking Chinese people originally from Singapore. The Hokkien-speaking drove me mad (because I speak and understand it quite well and why is it that these conversations are always so inane?), but what really got me was the chauvinistic Chinese Singaporean men and their distasteful ways. They saw fit to use me as an example of a ‘young Singaporean woman who’s picky about men and who puts her career first and won’t stop until I’m 30 and then by then it’s too late I can’t have a family because I’ve missed the boat’. All that, in the context of how Singaporean women are so picky and Filipino women are not, which is why they prefer Filipino women. For being more submissive. Wow, that’s a lot of assumption for people who have only met me for 20 minutes. And a lot of gall for people who are guests in someone else’s country to dare to speak of its women in that fashion, with those very women present. Especially when it isn’t true (Pinoy women are FAR from submissive!!). Saying it in a different language doesn’t make it better. It’s not about being picky; it’s that I have taste, career, and choice. It’s not like people who thoughtlessly refer to the entire female species as the “weaker gender” (how old-fashioned) would ever get it. I spent a lot of time being angry — I know people are stupid, I know it’s pointless arguing. The gall! The cheek! The hypocrisy! (All the MCPs who were going on about female submissiveness were also, in the same breath, discussing the finer points of having more than one family, one in a different country. And then also lecturing me, somewhat, on family values.) But I’m just reminded of how the reason I never have to tolerate people like that, what more marry men like that, is that I get to choose. And I get to infuriate men like that whenever they appear, because I can. As the incisive @illyrica puts it: “picky” = “insufficiently grateful that an actual man is willing to bestow validation upon your worthless life by choosing you” I thank God every moment for the empowerment that is not needing this validation, not needing men, not needing to pick through this garbage, and indeed for not needing to pick. At all. for more angry feminist ranting: why i am still a feminist Bah. Manila was great fun (five days so far; more on that city soon), jumping into a plane to Singapore, and then into another one to Bangalore. Related posts:I Am So Damn ChinesePerformance Anxiety and Indian BureaucracyFirst Night in Taipei Portrait of the Artist as a Very Big Head [Flickr] skinnylatte posted a photo: Some Tips on Indian Visas in the Singapore/Malaysia/United Arab Emirates context (i.e. the places where I’ve applied for an Indian visa) Never forget: almost everybody needs a visa to India. The default “tourist” visa you get (I say this as a Singapore citizen) is a 6-month multiple entry visa. It costs S$50 in Singapore. Don’t go to the High Commissions to apply for your visa. In Singapore and Malaysia they have outsourced this to India Visa Centres and no longer accept visa applications unless for emergencies — in Singapore, Mustafa Centre Travel and Serangoon Travel are what I use, and in Malaysia it’s at the Straits Trading Building in KL. You pay a few dollars more but save yourself the insanity and the trouble of queuing up at the High Comm. You can get an Indian visa in on day if it is an emergency if you go to the High Comm before 11 am on a weekday. You’ll get it in the evening. The cost is about S$100 extra. You can get an Indian visa on the same day if it is a business visa. For that, you need a letter from an Indian company with its official letterhead, and a letter from a high-ranking person at your own company (also on a letterhead). It’s S$240 for 1 year, multiple entry, and S$400 for more than 1 year, up to 5 years. Variable pricing applies for citizens of other countries, if you’re not applying at the embassy of your home country (although you should be a legal resident). It also usually takes 5 or more working days to process a visa application if you are not a citizen of that country, even if you are a legal resident. You are also obliged to pay extra for “fax” fees to your home mission. There are some newfangled rules they have just introduced that muddles all this. It’s meant to increase security, but it’s also increased hassle — now you are supposed to have a gap of two months between each visit. Although if you use India as a jumping off point to neighbouring countries (i.e. Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka… forget Pakistan) on a reasonable tourist schedule and timeframe, then the two-month rule is not supposed to apply. Meanwhile, the groundbreaking, earth-shattering recent Indian law says tourist visas are now issued for citizens of FIVE countries, including Singapore. A great step, but still restrictive: 30 days only, and you cannot enter for another 2 months after too — it also costs more, and is issued at major Indian airports with the glaring exception of Bangalore. If you’re a citizen of Pakistan or Afghanistan, or it’s clear you have links to these countries, and/or have visited with the same passport… good luck, and have a lot of patience and humour. It’ll be trying. I have a passport filled with full-page Indian visas. I think this time I’m going to try for a five-year business visa. Which is another thing altogether. (Sigh) Related posts:No Need New VisaIt’s OutPlanning Vacations, or Expeditions Cookie rascal [Flickr] skinnylatte posted a photo: HSBC Restaurant No, the global bank hasn’t diversified into Hot and Spicy cuisine, but these good folks offer up decent food in Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur. Hot and Spicy Bangsar Cuisine (whatever Bangsar cuisine may be) is an odd place — completely South Indian-run as far as I can tell. But they only sell Chinese Malaysian food, and not the awful Indian-Chinese stuff. Surprisingly edible. Now that’s truly muhibbah. Related posts:Happy Munjen New YearYou Asians have Two StomachsTwitter Updates for 2007-11-19 Alpha and Omega Everything starts and ends with India. I am always coming and going to India. Every post of significance here, these days, seems to have to do with the going and returning and yearning for India. I spent all of 2008 yearning for adventure, 2009 living it, 2010 wanting a bed, a pillow and a bedfellow. 2010 is here and I find I’m leading the life I wanted in 2005 (a good thing). Now I am (still) a writer, (still) a photographer, but also business owner, ice cream professional, and more. Responsibility is a hard game to play; I no longer live for myself but for others, and it is increasingly harder to leave. I’ve traded up from chappals and hobo attire to (sometimes) proper business shirts and name cards. ‘Carefree’ is no longer an applicable word when you’ve started to build a family. “Home” is a state of mind, not the state of your possessions. My “home” is Singapore but it is not my home. My home is India but it is not “home”. Malaysia is where my wardrobe, room, cutlery, dog, cat and heart are — and yet it will never give me legal abode. A recent feature article about me in our Chinese papers was oddly poignant, and ended on a pensive note. They called me a nomad, but instead used the Chinese equivalent, “you mu ren”. It is not the same yurts, tents or gypsies that are conveyed from the English “nomad”, nor the electronic nomadism of the “digital nomad” I pretend to be. In Chinese, the language I continue to learn and be amazed by as I grow with it, “you mu ren” is a person who travels and herds, instantly conjuring up ideas of plains and steppes, mountains and forests. The article ends, “I only know I have to go./ To leave, is sometimes to come home./ To come home, is sometimes for leaving again.” 5 days in Manila, followed immediately by a month in the motherland — racing autorickshaws all around the South. I keep saying the country gives me perspective. I sometimes forget it is the ground beneath my feet. Related posts:HSBC RestaurantKnow Your CamelHospital Bedside Story iPhone App Review: Angkor in Your Pocket In 2005, a 20 year old newbie backpacker trudged through the Cambodian border at Aranyaprathet on foot and her first instinct was to reach for a stack of paper in her 65L backpack. Just to locate the section, “At the Poi Pet border… expect to pay extra for a Cambodian visa”, and additional instructions on how to bribe immigration officials, hitch a pick up truck, ride a shared taxi, or board a minibus to Siem Reap after clearing immigration. That was my first introduction to the world of crossing land borders. It was also the first of the series of month-long backpacking trips to come, the short regional jaunts that would come to define my time at university. If I were to do it again today, knowing what I know now, and owning what I now own — an iPhone — things would have been simpler: Travelfish.org has been my exclusive source of travel information in Southeast Asia since they opened for business. When I saw it for the first time, I told many friends that I would never buy another travel guidebook for Southeast Asia again. Five years on, many of them didn’t believe me, but that held true — the well-written online guide to many Southeast Asian countries is still free, and even better. Five or more years of travelling the region with Travelfish meant I’ve discovered many personal favourites through it. From the lovely cottages and wonderful food of Chiang Dao Nest, to the former Golden Triangle of Mae Salong, to the Gibbon Experience Project, and what smaller temples one should see other than the Angkor Wat itself, I mostly learned about them on Travelfish. The first Travelfish iPhone app covers Angkor, or rather the town of Siem Reap and the nearby temples of the magnificent Angkor Wat. I’m a fan of both Cambodia and of the iPhone, and I continue to be fascinated by the direction travel seems to be going with all the possibilities on smart mobile computing devices like the iPhone. While there are many apps that help travellers find out where they are and how to get there and when (GPS apps, travel itinerary apps like TripIt’s, apps to find restaurants nearby), I’m more interested in where I should go, and why. A combination of Travelfish’s good writing and the intuitive nature of a well-designed iPhone app, I thought at some point, would be a breakthrough. So when Stuart announced the launch of their first ever iPhone app, Angkor, I jumped on the opportunity to review it. Weighing in at a reasonable 43.6 MB, the app works great offline — which is a huge plus for travellers on the go without connectivity. The menu is laid out in 8 clear sections, in large icons. Tap on any of those icons, and that’s where it gets interesting. The app is locked in landscape mode, which suits the way they’ve thought about user experience. You drag your finger to the left and right of a series of flash cards in each section: overview, map, district, type of hotel/restaurant/activity. I’m particularly excited by the fact that maps work great offline and get even better with connectivity. I don’t always have data on my phone when I travel, but wifi spots are easily located. I can think of plenty of ways in which the maps feature could change the way I travel. Instead of using Google Maps and having to input the address of where I’m going (always a chore because address formats and spelling is so frequently frustrating in this part of the world, or in a language you can’t write), with data access I can simply locate myself on the inbuilt map that’s pre-populated with Travelfish-recommended hotels, bars, restaurants, and also with useful spots like transport locations. The filters let you turn on and off each category of landmarks on the map — again, very useful. The four walking tours suggested in the app are also marked out on the map, and you can turn any of them on or off. I can see how useful it would be if I were walking around Angkor Thom, needed to see what the nearest temple to drive to was, and whether it was worth making a detour: I can simply locate myself, tap any of the nearby pins and read all about them. Other sections are Background, Sleep, Eat and Meet, See and Do, Transport, Walking tours and Photos. Having been to Angkor/Siem Reap several times, I’m familiar enough with the area to say the recommendations and reviews are spot-on, and the writing a joy to read. More importantly, at US$7.99, it’s a steal for all that valuable information — and for the pleasurable experience of using such a well-designed, well-written app. Download now. Leave the guidebook at home. There’s another one for Koh Samet as well (in case you’re in Bangkok and planning an island getaway). I truly believe they’ve set the bar for travel guides on the go. Related posts:On To Phnom Penh and Siem ReapI’m a Wanderer, not a NavigatorAsia Travel Travelfish's Angkor app [Flickr] skinnylatte posted a photo: menu reviewed: popagandhi.com/1019/angkor-travelfish-iphoneapp/ Travelfish's Angkor app - map of bar street [Flickr] skinnylatte posted a photo: reviewed: popagandhi.com/1019/angkor-travelfish-iphoneapp/ Travelfish's Angkor app [Flickr] skinnylatte posted a photo: reviewed: popagandhi.com/1019/angkor-travelfish-iphoneapp/ Travelfish's Angkor app [Flickr] skinnylatte posted a photo: how to travel from Bangkok to siem reap www.travelfish.org My iPhone's travel screen [Flickr] skinnylatte posted a photo: stuff I use mostly when I'm on the road Sana'a, Yemen - portraits [Flickr] skinnylatte posted a photo: Sana'a, Yemen - Portraits [Flickr] skinnylatte posted a photo: Sana'a, Yemen - Portraits [Flickr] skinnylatte posted a photo: Sana'a, Yemen - Portraits [Flickr] skinnylatte posted a photo: Sana'a, Yemen - Portraits [Flickr] skinnylatte posted a photo: Sana'a, Yemen - Portraits [Flickr] skinnylatte posted a photo: Sana'a, Yemen - Portraits [Flickr] skinnylatte posted a photo: Sana'a, Yemen - Portraits [Flickr] skinnylatte posted a photo: Sana'a, Yemen - Portraits [Flickr] skinnylatte posted a photo: Portraits of Yemen Yemen is all over the news these days for all the wrong reasons. Those of you interested in that sort of thing would do well to read Waq al-Waq as a necessary companion blog to Western reporting on Yemen, which does tend to come across as uninformed and inaccurate most of the time. I still miss that country greatly and think constantly about what a wonderful experience it was, to have had the chance to see it. Here are some of the beautiful people I met. Related posts:They Really Wanted a PhotoNo, I Haven’t Been KidnappedHaji Lane Last Night Lahj, Yemen - The Crowd [Flickr] skinnylatte posted a photo: Lahj, Yemen - The Crowd [Flickr] skinnylatte posted a photo: Aden, Yemen - Tea in Aden [Flickr] skinnylatte posted a photo: Sana'a, Yemen - Portraits [Flickr] skinnylatte posted a photo: Sana'a, Yemen - Portraits [Flickr] skinnylatte posted a photo: Sana'a, Yemen - Portraits [Flickr] skinnylatte posted a photo: Sana'a, Yemen - Portraits [Flickr] skinnylatte posted a photo: Portraits of Yemen No related posts.