Toulouse, Part 1.

This is a continuation of my last post.

My train left Nice at about 9.00 am. I had planned beforehand to drop by Montpellier along the way to Toulouse, and so I did after a journey of about five hours. I had originally intended to check out Marseille for a bit before then moving on to Montpellier and Toulouse, but my plans had changed, my time was limited, and I figured there was only so much sea you could see before it starts to lose its luster.

My attraction towards Montpellier, just like my attraction towards coming to France in the first place, stemmed simply from my love of football. While I was with Fabian in Lyon, he was pleasantly surprised to find that I had some knowledge of French football; one of the things I knew was that not too long ago, before the PSG juggernaut took over everything, Montpellier had somehow managed to crown themselves French champions - they weren't exactly a glamor club, so it was big news. Their top scorer that season was a certain Olivier Giroud; I remember getting all excited when he joined Arsenal that summer.

As it turned out, I only had about an hour to explore Montpellier, so I decided to use that time to get something to eat as I wasn't fasting (I hadn't yet fasted while in France as I was still getting used to the long hours). I also had my luggage with me, which meant I couldn't go too far anyway. Fortunately, I found a halal kebab place a short walk away from the train station.

While I was in Nice, one of the guys there told me that he liked the architecture in Montpellier. During my brief visit there, I noted that the city did have some nice architecture, and also that it seemed to be fairly clean. I didn't take any pictures or record any videos though, because I felt it wasn't fair to the city for that small area to be my lasting record of it. Now that I've done a quick Google image search, that decision may just have been the right one. Montpellier is home to some magnificent sights, and I wish I could have gone to see them.

After I'd had my lunch, I went back to the train station and got on my train, reaching Toulouse about two hours later. Rahimi/Remy met me on the platform, and we took the metro and then the bus back to his place, where he was staying with three other Malaysian guys and a cat.

Before I continue, let me just say that I was quite impressed with the public transport in Toulouse. We used the metro a number of times while I was there, and the thing that struck me the most was how regular the trains were - one every minute or so. As someone used to the LRT and Monorail, KL's (and in fact Malaysia's) equivalent of the French metro, I just found it incredible that you didn't really have to rush to get on the train because you knew the next one would be coming along very soon anyway.

As for the bus, Remy had an app on his phone that told him exactly when the next bus would be arriving at any given station. Back in Malaysia, I would never take the bus if I could help it, but I might just change my mind if such an app existed for Rapid KL (and also if that app was reliable, of course).

Another thing was that you could use the same ticket for the metro and the bus (and the tram, too, but I didn't get to take the tram while I was there) along the same journey. A single one-way ticket was also the same price (1.60 euros, I think) regardless of how many metro stations or bus stops you passed by along the way. In Malaysia, LRT tokens (I wouldn't know about bus tickets) are priced according to where you buy them and where you're going. It's quite exciting to think that Malaysia's various modes of public transport could someday (probably in the distant future) be as good as its Toulouse counterparts.

Anyway, the first activity I had in Toulouse was watching the Italy vs Sweden match at the Fanzone near the Palais de Justice (Palace of Justice; it's a courthouse). The security just to get in and watch the match live on the giant screen was tight - I'd unfortunately forgotten to remove my Swiss army knife and my nail clippers from my bag, so those got confiscated.

There was still a huge turnout, with fans of both sides showing up to cheer their respective teams on. The match itself was pretty awful though, with Zlatan missing an absolute sitter. There was a point during the match when some people in the crowd got into a bit of a scuffle for some reason, and they were duly escorted out by the security guards. Eventually, Eder scored to give Italy a 1-0 win, thereby ensuring that we at least got something from watching the game.

The next day (or evening, rather), we went to an iftar gathering for all the Malaysians in Toulouse. There were maybe about 40 people in attendance - many of them were young students like Remy, but there were also a number of families (husband, wife, kids) there as well. Remy told me they had these gatherings fairly often, sometimes just for the heck of it, but the turnout for this one was rather larger as it was a special occasion. I thought that was good, as it indicated the strong sense of community that these people had. When you're a minority in a foreign land, you have to stick with each other and help each other out, 'cause no one else will if you don't.

On other nights, the five of us in the house (excluding the cat) would have iftar together in the living room while watching whatever Euro match was on at the time. The group stages were on every day while I was there, so we'd always catch the 9.00 pm game while waiting to have iftar at just before 9.45. As Isya' was at about midnight, we'd watch the game until it ended at around 11.00 before praying Maghrib together.

The day after the Malaysian iftar, Remy drove us to Carcassonne, which was a French city (according to Google anyway; I thought it was more of a town) an hour away from Toulouse. It was notable for being home to the Cité de Carcassonne, a sort of fortress from the medieval ages, which was of course the reason we drove there in the first place.

It was my first time ever visiting a castle of any sort, and it was Remy's first time there as well, so we took our time exploring. I'd read about medieval castles when I was much younger, so it was a bit surreal checking out the outer ramparts and looking down on what used to be the moat. Seeing for myself the things I'd only ever read about and seen in movies, online or on TV is always great.

The inside of the fortress housed a bustling town filled with restaurants, small hotels and other shops. We also checked out a large cathedral - it was the first time I'd ever entered a Christian house of worship, and I wondered why it was so dark inside. The architecture was amazing, and Remy particularly liked the stained glass windows.

Besides that, there was also a small castle where I guess the rulers of the fortress must have lived in back in the day, but we didn't go in as I had to pay to enter. It would have been nice to have gone, though, as we would have also gotten access to climbing up some of the fortress' inner walls.

We also bumped into a group of Malaysian Malindo Air flight officers, whom Remy chatted up and even gave them some contact numbers they could order Malaysian food from. He told me he always chats up fellow Malaysians, which is a nice thing to do, especially if they're tourists, what with him having been in France for four years and all. It's probably not something I would do, though, particularly if they were in a large group. I'm not good with small talk with strangers.

After we were done with the fortress, we stopped by a nearby lake, the name of which I didn't really pay attention to. It was a beautiful place, though, and the water was clean enough to wash your face with. There was even a kind of inflatable waterpark, though no one was playing there at the time. The lake was also surrounded by lush greenery. I didn't get any of it on camera as I wanted to just soak it all in and live in the moment. Remy and I walked around the entire lake (must have been a few kilometers); it was tiring, but, at the same time, somewhat refreshing. I guess it was good to spend some time with Mother Nature for a change, away from the hustle and bustle of modern life.

It was a pretty eventful first few days in Toulouse, as you can probably judge from this very long post. I still had a few days left, though, so we decided to spend them just exploring the city.

To be continued...

A Nice Time.

This is a continuation of my last post.

I arrived at Lyon Part Dieu, the main train station in Lyon, at about midday. The first thing I did was to go to the billeterie, or ticket office, to get myself a train to Nice. Fortunately, I was able to get a seat on a train at about 4.00 pm, which meant that there would be no uncertainty about finding a place to sleep that night - my friend in Nice, Syu, had arranged for me to stay with some of her guy friends. It also meant that I had four or five hours to kill before my train was due to depart.

There was a mall right opposite the station, so I got myself a SIM card (with unlimited calls and messages and 2 GB of mobile data for 39.99 euros) and a fish sandwich for lunch. After that, I took the public transport to the Lyon Grand Mosque for prayers. I had to get on a bus and then a tram before a short walk finally got me to my destination.

Just like the mosque I went to in Paris, the one in Lyon was somewhat smallish compared to the ones I'm used to going back home in Malaysia, or at least the way it was designed made it seem that way. I noted the presence of a couple of cop-like figures with large guns standing guard in the mosque courtyard. I wonder what they must have made of my giant travel bag. They didn't call me over and ask me to open it up, so I guess they didn't make too much of it.

After I'd finished praying, I left the mosque and headed back to the tram stop where I'd gotten off at. However, I'd only just exited the mosque grounds when I heard someone calling me from behind. As it turned out, just like in Paris, it was yet another Muslim Frenchman offering to drive me and my bags back to the train station. Again, as he had come out of the mosque with me, I decided to trust him. And again, I made the right call.

Fabian, as was his name, was a French citizen of African origin who reverted to Islam three years ago along with his wife and kids. He ended up driving me all around Lyon, including to the highest point in the city to give me a fantastic view of all of Lyon, before finally dropping me off at Lyon Part Dieu. His English was somewhat limited, but we were able to go through a good number of different topics ranging from French football (he was surprised to find that I knew enough about it to hold my own in that discussion) to the state of Islam in France.

The kindness of strangers is not something a traveler should ever be reliant on, but I am thankful that Allah sent Fabian and 'Abid my way. These two men helped to ease my journey and enriched my first two days in France. May Allah bless them and their families in their future endeavors.

It was quite a long train ride (it was about five hours or so) to Nice, which got even longer due to several delays. It was maybe 8.30 pm when I reached my destination, where I was met by Syu and one of her guy friends. That was the only time I actually met Syu during my stay in Nice - the timing was a bit bad as she had some important internship stuff to attend to. It would have been nice to sit down with her and catch up, but I guess it wasn't meant to be,

Her friends whom I stayed with more than made up for that by being fairly good hosts. There were about a dozen guys in total, split between two houses, and all of them had iftar together every night eating Malaysian food. They were friendly enough with me and did their best to make sure I was comfortable.

Like Syu, they were mostly up to their necks with internship work, so I didn't really have anyone to take me around to see the sights in Nice. I didn't mind that, actually, as I saw a certain appeal to discovering the place on my own. I had a place to stay in this time, so I wouldn't be weighed down by my luggage.

On the day after I arrived in Nice, I made my way down to the beach. Some of the local public transport, namely the buses and trams, wasn't working as there was a strike going on (to protest against a proposed labor law, as I later found out), but the beach wasn't too far anyway on foot.

The blue of the ocean was magnificent, emphasized even further by the bright sun on the day. The beach itself was a bit rocky as opposed to the sand I'm more used to and was littered with sunbathing tourists (eurgh). There were also Euro 2016 booths and games set up along the coast, with people in Northern Ireland shirts all over the place as they'd had a game against Poland the day before.

I didn't want to wander too far or too much, so after I'd had my fill of the beach and gone through some parts of the town I returned to my hosts' apartment. The guys later told me I should have taken the time to make it to this high point that overlooked all of Nice, but I felt I'd done enough. I was satisfied with what I got from the day; sure, it would have been nice to have done and seen more, but I was happy enough with I had.

The next day I took a train to Monaco. It was a windy day with a slight drizzle, but I'd already gone too far to turn back. I saw a bit of the city - the way it was designed makes me feel a bit claustrophobic, now that I think about it - before making the long climb to the Prince's Palace. The view from up there was brilliant, and it made my efforts to reach the peak worth it. I didn't actually go inside the Palace itself as I think that would have cost money, but I did take in the sights around it.

I also checked out the souvenir shop, where I found that an AS Monaco jersey costs 85 euros. I'd found out the day before that an OGC Nice jersey costs 80 euros. If that was the going price for an original football jersey from France, I'd just have to make do with a Petaling Street knockoff from back home. RM50 can get you some quite reasonable quality.

I left Nice the next morning for Toulouse, where I'm presently staying with my Rembau friend Rahimi (or Remy, as is his French nickname) until Thursday, when I'll be setting of for St Nazaire in the northwest of France to see Borhan, another friend from Rembau.

I really liked staying in Nice, both because of the people I was staying with and the overall cheerful vibe that the town gave off. It would be nice to visit there again in the future, and I honestly hope to do so. I'll also make it a point to visit more of the French Riviera next time.

A Night in Paris.

I write this as I sit in the waiting lounge of the Gare de Nice Ville, the train station in the Nice city center, and wait for my train to Marseille. From there I will take a train to Montpellier, where I’ll take in the sights (I hear the architecture is quite decent) for a few hours before then boarding a train to Toulouse, where I’ll be staying with an old friend from Rembau for a few days.

The journey here hasn’t exactly been a smooth ride, which you would have gathered from watching my recent vlog (included below). I left Malaysia on a 10.10 am Emirates flight on 11^th June, and was due to arrive in Dubai at around 1.00 pm local time before then getting on a flight to Lyon. As it turned out, just as my plane was about to land at the Dubai International Airport, it was forced to land elsewhere for the time being as the airport had temporarily shut down due to some kind of drone flying about in the airport airspace. My plane was just one of the 14 that had to be redirected that day.

By the time we were finally allowed to land about two hours later than was originally scheduled, my flight to Lyon had already gone. I wasn’t the only one, of course; there must have been about a hundred or more other passengers queuing up to find out when our flight would be rescheduled for, some more disgruntled than others. Many of us, including myself, unfortunately had to wait until the next day for our respective flights. We were given hotel rooms to stay in for the night, as well as meals for dinner and breakfast.

The room I was given was actually quite nice. It was comfortable, and after (a pretty good) dinner I watched the Wales-Slovakia game that night until I dozed off. The next morning, aside from breakfast, I stayed in my room until just before 12.00 pm, which was when the shuttle van to the airport would be arriving. At about 2.30 that afternoon, I was finally on my flight to Lyon, 24 hours behind schedule.

After I’d landed at the Lyon Saint-Exupery Airport (somewhat interestingly named after the author of The Little Prince, who was also a fighter pilot in World War II), I bought a train ticket to the Lyon city center, where I would then board the earliest train to Nice, where a friend of mine from Rembau (and Bukit Indah, in fact) is studying. The ride was only supposed to take about 20 minutes, so about 30 minutes into the journey I realized that I was on the wrong train and spent the remaining hour-and-a-half kicking myself about it. To be honest, though, even before the ride had begun, while I was sitting in the train waiting for it to depart, I had a hunch that I’d made a mistake. However, I decided at that point to stick to my guns – that wasn’t one of the better decisions I’d made in my life.

At the end of the trip, we got off at this place called the Paris Gare de Lyon. This got me a bit confused, as I wasn’t sure where I was. I hadn’t yet gotten myself a SIM card, so I wasn’t able to access the internet using mobile data. Eventually, I managed to get online using the station’s free WiFi (which was only limited to 20 minutes) and I found out that I was, in fact, in Paris.

The first thing I did after finding out I was in Paris was to locate the nearest mosque as I hadn’t done my Maghrib and Isya’ prayers yet. It turned out that the Paris Grand Mosque was only a short bus ride away (Google Maps even told me which bus to take; technology is wonderful), so I made my way there. It should also be noted that I had to lug my two heavy bags around with me: a large green travel bag, which weighed at about 19 kg back at KLIA, and my backpack, which wasn’t too light either as it contained my laptop as well as a bunch of other stuff. I wasn’t exactly in peak physical condition, of course, so traveling from any given point to another was quite a challenge.

I think it was just before midnight when I finally got to the mosque, as they were in the middle of Tarawikh at the time. I was pretty tired, so I didn’t manage to join in after I’d completed my Maghrib and Isya’. After they’d finished, I was getting ready to bunk down there for the night when a man, presumably upon seeing me and my giant green bag and gathering that I wasn’t from around town, greeted me. We briefly chatted and I asked him if I could stay the night in the mosque. He spoke fluent French, so he asked someone from the mosque’s management if it was possible. As it turned out, that wasn’t allowed – the mosque was closed between prayer times.

I tried not to panic, as I’d pretty much banked on being able to spend the night there. Thankfully, the man was nice enough to offer to drive me back to the train station where he figured I’d be able to stay until morning. I was a bit suspicious at first, but for whatever reason I decided to trust him.

I’m well aware that he could have mugged me, and the fact that it was about 1.00 am in Paris (doesn’t exactly have the best reputation for safety) means that it was likely that he would have. However, I just felt that the whole situation just didn’t seem like it could have been premeditated; too many factors were in play. And besides, what kind of criminal goes to Tarawikh prayers at the mosque until 1.00 am and then spontaneously decides to take advantage of a naïve-looking traveler?

I was right to trust him, as it turned out. He was a 25-year-old French citizen with Pakistani roots named ‘Abid (I think), who had been born, raised and educated in France. He was an Uber driver with a degree in something like International Trade, and also had a small fleet of drivers working for him. He wasn’t really from the area either; he just happened to be in the neighborhood after finishing a job and decided to drop by the mosque for prayers before going home.

‘Abid was very helpful. Not only did he drive me back to the station, he also helped to check the price for a room at a hotel (which was way too expensive for just a few hours), helped to carry one of my bags, and even checked the qiblah for me while we were at the station. After all that was done, he left.

I settled down to sleep at this sort of padded seating area, but it wasn’t long before some big security guys came up to me – and others who were sleeping or were about to sleep there – and asked us to leave. There were still maybe two hours left before Fajr, and four before the ticketing office would be open, so I started wondering what I was going to do.

I decided to go back to the mosque. As I had plenty of time to kill, I decide to walk the whole way, heavy bags and all. I stopped at a few bus stops along the way to catch my breath and took the opportunity to observe nighttime Paris.

An interesting observation I had was that the vehicles on the road would always, and I mean always, stop at red lights, even at pedestrian crossings, even in the middle of the night with no other cars or pedestrians in sight. Being a KL boy, I found that to be quite insane. Another observation I had was that it was common practice for drivers to turn off their car engines while waiting at stoplights and then starting them up again once the lights turned green. I didn’t know how economical it was to be doing that as compared to just letting it the engine run, but I intend to find out.

I eventually reached the mosque, prayed Fajr, and then walked back to the train station. I waited for the ticket office to open at 6.00 am and asked for a ticket to Nice. The only one they had available was a night train. I’d gotten pretty sick of Paris at that point and didn’t want to stay there for another day (especially not with the prospect of again having to haul my luggage around the whole time), so I asked for a ticket to Lyon instead, where I figured I should be able to get a train to Nice that left before the sun set – and even if I couldn’t get one, at least I wouldn’t be in Paris anymore. They had a train to Lyon at about 10.00 am, so I took it.

It had been a somewhat interesting start to my trip, albeit a difficult one. Things could only get better from there, I suppose.

Preparation.

I've got a slight temperature. That's not ideal preparation for France, particularly considering that my flight is on Saturday morning. Google tells me that the temperature in Lyon, where I'll be touching down, is generally around 20 degrees Celsius, in spite of it being summer. The temperature in Malaysia, on the other hand, is typically at above 30 degrees, even at night. Having a flu in France would not be enjoyable.

In terms of my other preparations, I'm pretty much good to go; all I need to do now is to pick out the clothes I'll be bringing along. As far as planning my journey goes, I decided not to go too much into detail, because circumstances are more likely to dictate what I'll be up to rather than some extensive itinerary. Basically, I have a plan, but it's more flexible than I suppose a lot of other people would like.

I expect to face challenges while in France, not least the long fasting hours of over 18 hours per day, which is quite daunting when you compare it to the relatively tame 13 hours we get here in Malaysia. As I will be a traveler, however, I'll have the option of not fasting. I'll try not to exercise it, but I fear I may have to at some point.

It'll be an interesting time to be in France, as the Euros will bring hundreds of thousands of visitors to town. There'll be loads of other people coming to France for the first time, and loads who know even less of the local language than I do (I've been learning French bit by bit for over six months now). Maybe it's possible that I'll get to know new people and be on the receiving end of some kindness from strangers.

I probably won't be watching any of the football (tickets have been sold out for quite a while), but I've planned my trip so that I'll at least be in the vicinity of some of the matches taking place in the cities I'll be visiting. There'll be fan zones and stuff, and it would be fantastic to see these things in the flesh. I won't be able to attend any matches, so I'll just have to settle for soaking up the matchday atmosphere.

I'm planning to vlog my experiences in France, and I'm sure I'll hardly be the only one. People do it all the time these days, and I'm certain some people who actually vlog for a living will be doing their thing there as well. It's a practice that is still somewhat looked down upon in Malaysia, but if people can embrace selfies, they can embrace vlogging as well.

I'm also planning to write regularly over this coming month. The last time I went abroad - to Saudi Arabia to perform umrah - I had a lot I wanted to write about, but I barely had the time and facilities to do so while I was there, and upon reaching home I kinda put it off until I decided that the trip was best consigned to memory.

I guess things have changed since then, because I'm determined not to have the same thing happen this time around. I'm a different person from who I was when I decided not to write about umrah over two years ago - heck, I'm a different person from who I was even a month ago. I'll also be a different person a month from now - this time, I'm documenting that journey of change. I named this blog Evolution for a reason, after all.