Offering: for March 10th and every day

I first started thinking about travelling to Malaysia a long time ago, thanks to a book given to me by my auntie, my mother's sister. We shared a lot of ideas about travel, about the wonders of linguistic and cultural immersion, and I think she gave me the book to help spur me onto further travels of my own, though it was about fifteen years before I finally got to Malaysia.

Twelve years ago, I went to Costa Rica, which was a place my auntie knew and loved well. I remember the email exchanges we had before and after my trip, and I remember too my auntie berating me a little bit when I was slow to respond, teaching me email etiquette that was still relatively new to me back then.

I can't help thinking about that now that I'm finally here in South-East Asia, how much I wish I'd been quicker to write those emails, to write these ones. Because now, Auntie, you're not in any place where you can read all the things I'd like to write to you about Malaysia, or answer any of the questions I'd like to ask. We lost you on another March 10th, much too soon.

Your death was the first one for me, and at the time I had no idea how strong your presence would continue to be. At first all you can feel is the absence, which doesn't get better over time but hits you unexpectedly with full intensity, time and time again. And later anger as another kind of grieving - anger that when I finally started to study linguistics too, it was too late for all the debates we should have been able to have, the disagreements and maybe the new conclusions we could have found together. Anger at all the other things you should have had that time took away too early.

In 2008, we lost another beloved auntie, my father's sister this time, also to cancer. Another auntie who shared the delight in travel, in immersing yourself through the medium of language (and coincidentally, also a sense of deep connection to Latin America). And more grief, and more anger. I wanted to bring my children to the two of you, listen maybe a little rebelliously to your parenting advice, get to know you as a fellow adult not just as a niece and a child. I wanted you both to be able to grow old.

I won't be able to show you my photos or confess my moments of weakness or joy on this voyage of mine. But I wish that in some way you can know how much you are both with me along the way. How thoughts of you come so unexpectedly from some sharp image etched on the air, from laughter; and how the thoughts come with a sudden constriction in my throat and tears in my eyes. And how joyful it still is to think of you, to feel your presences even though I wish so much that you were still here.

I had no idea at first, how long grief lasts. But in the end I wouldn't give it up, if it meant not knowing you still. Queridas tias, os amo.

Street cart

In Solo, Java, Indonesia.

More from Candi Cetho

Really, really spectacular.

Street sweets

Foolishly, I never tried whatever this is.

In Yogya, Indonesia.

Gamelan

Wayang kulit (shadow puppet) show in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Mak toum

Mak toum or bale (or beal; or Bengal quince) fruit infusion, refreshing and delicious. Tamarind restaurant, Luang Prabang, Laos.

Sunset

The same field outside of Mae Sot, Thailand.

Young coconut ice cream

At Chatuchak Market in Bangkok.

Fresh young coconut ice cream with coconut jelly, water coconut fruit, and toasted peanuts. Mmm.

High-tech low-tech

Photo: After doing their own laundry, boarding school students hang their clothes out to dry on a barbed-wire fence, near Mae Sot, Thailand.

As I've travelled around South-East Asia of course I've seen people living with far less technology, making do with manual versions of what would be electronic in North America, or just doing without. So it's especially interesting to see some technology that we have to do without.

The item I can most see a market for is the mosquito zapper. Shaped like a tennis racket, you wave it slowly through the air and it fries mosquitoes before they can bite you. It's amazing to me no one sells this in Canada! (Or do they?)

Perhaps less practical but pretty cute is the pocket sewing machine. It's basically a stapler with its guts altered so that when you close the stapler with your hand, it produces even stitches on a piece of cloth. Not necessarily that much faster than handsewing, but adorable and seemingly sold at markets everywhere.

Bicycles, South-East Asia style

This photo shows my second-favourite bike habit of the region - carrying a friend on the bike rack who holds a parasol over both your heads.

I never managed to get a photo of my absolute favourite bike trick, which takes schoolgirl fondness to a whole new level. Two girls will ride along side by side on two bikes, holding hands in between them.

Honourable mention goes to being a small child on a bike much too big for you, carrying your even tinier sibling tied onto your back with a big checked cotton scarf.

So near yet so far

Women doing laundry just across a river in Myawaddy, Burma. Taken from the Thai side of the Rim Moei river.

Modes of transport

Well the goats aren't actually a mode of transport. Maybe they're trying to hail a motorbike taxi. Mae Sot, Thailand.

Dry season

Cracked earth on the outskirts of Mae Sot, Thailand.

Terrace life

Burmese meal on the terrace of "our" house, on my last night in Mae Sot, Thailand.

Sidling sideways

Past some tiny jewel coloured crabs at a street marketstall on Yaowarat Road, Bangkok Chinatown.

The famous reclining blogger of South-East Asia

Courtesy of my travelling companion in Laos. Homage to the famous Buddha of Wat Pho, with all necessary apologies made...

Giant statue of a reclining blogger, podiatrical perspective, observed on a lazy cafe terrace overlooking the Nam Khan river, complete with reading material, sticky rice meals, and lots of fruit juices, in Luang Prabang.

Let there be

Garden in Mae La refugee camp, Tak Province, Thailand.

Banana pancake

As much as I love local food, there are some pretty tasty foreigner foods around too, like this beautifully caramelised banana pancake with honey, in Yogya.

Remains of Majapahit

Candi Cetho looms out of the mist, remains of the ancient Hindu kingdom of Majapahit perched at the top of a steep hill in one of the few remaining Hindu towns in Central Java. Most Hindus fled to Bali as Islam spread through Java, but a few people made offerings to a shiva linggam as we walked through the mist.

Planting out the seedlings

I don't know what it's like all over Indonesia, but the fertile equatorial islands of Java and Bali not only host three full harvests a year, but there is no season to the cycle (though rice is best planted in the wet season, and crop rotation is often practiced in the dry season - maybe sweet potato will be grown then, or soy).

So it was that along one small country road in one day, I was able to see all the steps of the cycle - harvest; the mature grains ripening; tall green shoots with no grain yet; delicate small shoots; the planting out of the new seedlings; a bed holding the seedlings in their first days; and ploughing the muddy fields.

It's hard work planting out the new seedlings, which are tied in little bundles and flung into the drowned paddies, then separated and planted painstakingly by hand. It's work mostly done by women, who in old age are often permanently bent, with rounded spines. These women were working cheerfully and energetically in the heat of the day just outside of Yogyakarta in Central Java, stopping to wave and smile as I called out Terima kasih! (Thank you).

There are seasons to other things though, and seasonal beauties just now are avocados, rambutan, salak, sirsak (soursop), and durian. It would be fun to come back when the cloves ripen on the trees - but whatever time of year it's incredibly green here. And full of friendly smiles.

Tempeh

Vegetarian heaven! Crisp freshly fried tempeh with a chile sauce. Too delicious to be properly focussed, apparently, but the textures come through so well that I wanted to post it anyhow.

Gado-gado

Not the first, not the last, just one of the many delicious gado-gado salads (sometimes written gado2 to my great delight) I've had in Indonesia. Vegetable and spicy peanut sauce heaven...

Nirvana

After climbing a few sets of steep stone steps, you emerge blinking into the open top level of the temple of Borobudur - Nirvana.

Each of these stupas contains a Buddha statue, many missing parts of themselves after all these centuries but still majestic. The diamond shaped gaps represent the instability of human existence; the square ones, the perfect equilibirum of enlightenment. One stupa's statue is known as the Lucky Buddha, as my guide Aisyah tells me. When terrorists hid 10 bombs in the temple complex, only this one, tucked right into the stupa, failed to explode. She tells me to touch the Buddha and make a wish.

I feel a bit unsure about touching such an ancient monument, but I do anyway. I lean precariously on the rough lip of the stupa and reach my arm through the gap between the interlocking stones, wrap my fingers around the stone thumb, close my eyes and wish.