Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

This is becoming another wonderful Malaysian experience. I absolutely  
love this country, and these people. It's fun having Bev along this  
time - to see it all again through her 'fresh' eyes. This is simply a  
lovely people. The Malaysians have all the complexities of any  
nation, any culture - the politics, the poverty, the wealth, the  
crime ... they have persisted through Arab, Thai, English, Japanese,  
Portuguese, Dutch - invasions, occupations, influences. They have  
taken it all in and came through it as an independent nation. Last  
year Malaysia celebrated their 50th year of independence. That is  
fairly young as a sovereign nation, yet the culture is so very old.  
I've heard of Malaysia referred to as the 'land of smiles'. Maybe  
it's the climate - warm warm warm - maybe it's the method of  
negotiation and cooperation that has worked for them over the  
centuries, maybe it's in their blood... but they are lovely lovely  
smiling people. The royalty are friendly and humble, the poorest of  
the poor still smile from their ramshackle porches when they see a  
horse go by.

Tonight we had a dinner at the Hotel Majestic - a century old  
downtown Melaka mansion that was converted into an exclusive hotel.  
Beautiful old building, tastefully renewed w/o losing the charm and  
beauty of the turn-of-the-century architecture. A little Dutch/ 
Portuguese influence on the tropical Malaysian style. The Governor of  
Melaka hosted the dinner, along with several Melaka ministers. And  
while we dined a fantastic quartet played - they were of mixed Malay- 
Portuguese blood - very dark skinned, interesting faces, a couple of  
the guys were in their sixties I think, they reminded me of something  
one would see and hear on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Guitar,  
base, drums - songs from every era, several different nations. I  
really enjoyed them! After dinner was over and we were leaving I  
stopped to tell them how much I enjoyed their music - the said - so,  
what's your favorite song? and we'll play it! And so they played on,  
one of them started picking out tunes on the piano in the next room -  
Bev said 'can you play 'Desperado?' - and they barely hesitated. The  
keyboard player tried a few chords, then he had it, then all of them  
joined in and they actually knew most of the words.  (Bev helped when  
they hesitated)

The ride starts tomorrow. Bev and I will both be riding the 80km  
distance which starts at 6:30pm. I'm riding one of the Royal Stable  
horses 'Heremes Cairo' - a big beautiful strong bay from Australia.  
Tuanku (His Majesty) Mizan rode this horse at the Sultans Cup last  
November and finished the 160km with him. Lovely lovely horse. He's  
targeted to do a 160 in Terengganu the end of May, so this is just to  
be an easy 'training' ride. Tuanku Mizan will be riding, as well as  
Usif (not sure about spelling his name) and one other RTES rider. Bev  
is going to ride Hamdan's stallion (Hamdan is the ride organizer) and  
she'll probably ride with us too.

All the RTES horses (and Bev's stallion) vetted in fine today. I see  
such a difference in the horses now from when I first started coming  
here amost 4 years ago. They are fitter looking, have better weight -  
they are riding nicer horses in general - these people are trying  
hard and learning fast. I was very impressed.

We rode a little bit of the course yesterday - 13km - some roads  
through date palm forests, through villages, along canal banks. It's  
going to be interesting!!

Now it's almost 1am and I'm off to bed. There's a tour of Melaka  
organized tomorrow but I think I'm going to sleep in and hang out  
here, and hope I can come back next year and see more of this  
beautiful place! I picked up a nasty flu in Dubai in January and it  
keeps coming back, it hit me again a couple days ago so I'm going to  
sleep in and get some rest so I can do a better job with the horse  
tomorrow night.

from warm, humid, lovely Malsyia -

later,

Steph

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