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Friday, February 27, 2009

Holiday Inn Melaka Malaysia

I have observed I believe that I considered there was now an undercurrent in most of the recent countries I have visited, that feels like "go home white man".
It started in the south of Iran. The north was good and the welcome was genuine I felt. In the south the welcome smile lasted a split second.
Then in Pakistan the welcome was there but no warmth.
However India was worse. There was no welcome, just an enquiry, where are you coming from ? Or whats your name. A response to either question did not elicit much more communication.
Thailand as I have mentioned is no longer the warm welcoming country it was however Cambodia felt more like Thailand used to.
Malaysia, the welcome is indifferent. Motorists/bikers give me the "where you coming from" but the people in the street in the hotels and the shops, plain indifference bordering on something less than a welcome I felt. I am an oddity because of the bike however.
So today when I was loading the bike which had been parked at the front door of the Holiday Inn with 24 hour security, and near the Bently owned by the "Boss" I was not expecting any suprises. I left the cloth that I had washed the bike with to dry on the pannier, and it was there that I found someone had taken a crap in it and left it there.
I don't know what thet says about the Malay culture, the Malaka society, or the Holiday Inn security but it does make me feel that my intuitive feeling that colonists have left behind some bad feeling is correct.
As this USA sponsored financial decline worsens, I feel that the white man welcome in some of these badly affected countries will get less pleasant. There is no hiding the fact that you are not a local. Unrest is on the increase already in most of the places I have visited.
Just my opinion.
nzl04