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| One of the towers opposite the hotel |
This has been a very violent week in the usually peaceful state of Sabah. There have have been up to 27 people killed and the army and air force have moved in and have bombed the two villages to "flush" the terrorists out. It all seems very heavy handed for 150 terrorists and rumours are flying around as to whether the government are trying to prove their strength to the Sabahans or whether it is the opposition stirrings things up. I must emphasise that I myself am perfectly untouched by the situation and apart from Police roadblocks and no Zumba classes for the moment, I am totally unaffected and life is continuing as usual. However for many of my mentor colleagues from the East coast, life has changed for them - they have been evacuated to the Hyatt Hotel in KK where the British Council will pay for them until they think it is safe to go back to their areas. We now have a contingency plan of evacuation and if a text comes through with the words e_a_u_t_ (secret but I'll let you guess!) Emily and I have to meet at my house and go in her car over the mountain and down to KK where the Hyatt will be waiting for us. The other negative effect of the "troubles" is that all the Filipinos get clumped in with the pirates and are immediately under suspicion. There are thought to be around 1 million Filipinos in Sabah - most of them legal and I feel very sorry for them all at this time.
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| Was Batman a guest?? |
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| Little India |
At the weekend I had a taste of what it might be like as a wife groupie in 5 star hotels as I flew over to Kuala Lumpur to meet up with Andrew. Andrew is now working in Kuala Lumpur after being in Bangkok, Kathmandu and Chiang Mai and it seemed too good an opportunity to miss. We stayed in two different hotels and the last one was opposite the Petronas Towers and a huge shopping mall. Those of you who know us will know that Andrew is not a shopping mall person and I am always looking for bargains so Prada, Gucci and other smart brand names are not really to my taste. We did though have some lovely meals, cocktails, a visit to Chinatown and Little India and generally had a relaxed weekend in nice hotels. We even had our first go at archery which was on offer in a shopping mall and felt that we weren't too bad at it!! Sadly it was over far too quickly but Andrew will be coming over to Sabah next weekend and this week I am hoping the situation in Sabah will return to normal.
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