My colleague Arno and his wife are on Ko Samui, and our colleague Nabil is on Phuket. Some ten days ago, Arno sent a picture which he took with his phone, writing that he doesn’t really want to come back…
Reminded me of our last time in Malaysia, which is five years ago already. Well, paradise, yes, maybe. For us. But first and foremost, it’s hot. You’re sweating without doing much:
Zuleikha, Malaysia 2010
So after noon, you sometimes just sit around, feeding keropok to the cats:
The kids – here are some of our relatives – play and pose, but even under the trees in some other kampung further North, it’s hot – and at night, you’ll get eaten up by mosquitoes:
Finally, here are two portraits I made during that holiday (I’ve shown them before). The first one is of Comel who is now married and has a baby boy herself:
Comel, July 2010
And the second one is of her brother, who sadly isn’t amongst us anymore:
Mohammed Haniff, July 2010
So is Malaysia, or is Thailand paradise? Like I wrote above: Well, paradise, yes, maybe. For us. But that is only because first these people – relatives or not – will do everything they can to make it paradise for you, and second we’re ignoring most of their problems.
Have to go back there soon…