We've moved away from the more developed western side of peninsular Malaysia. Here, the roads are dark corridors at night. Temerloh is the town of the Patin fish, an icon that decorates the town infrastructure. We ate Patin fish upon arrival, steamed and doused in a light, sweet sauce. It was very good.
We presented at the Rotary Club of Temerloh meeting on the first evening here, and it almost turned out to be the "obligatory" GSE-presentation-without-PowerPoint. Then at the last minute, success. The computer connected, and we shared our slides about Oregon and ourselves.
Somehow like the calm that Malaysian drivers seem to possess on the busy streets where motorbikes race by and cars turn into traffic, I felt unconcerned about doing a presentation without a projector. After all, our Temerloh hosts said, "You give us your best tonight at our Rotary meetings, and we give you the best of Temerloh on your itinerary." We have yet to see our hosts flustered either behind the driver's wheel or guiding us through planned and unplanned events on our schedule. I hope I am absorbing some of the Malaysian calm demeanor.
Yesterday we had a boat ride on the Pahang River and visited Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary, where we got to feed and ride elephants. We were all heartbroken about the conflicts and severe habitat loss facing Malaysian elephants, but also glad to see conservation efforts. Riding an elephant bareback was fun and prickly!
Today I go to visit a mountain cave. Temerloh is a very short paragraph in Lonely Planet, and this particular cave area isn't even mentioned. All the more reason to appreciate our GSE experiences here, which we would never have discovered without our hosts and home-stays.
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