Irresponsible Indonesians

When I was in Shanghai, China earlier this month, I had thought that the haze situation there was bad. There we were, standing at the Bund along the Whampoa River and we could hardly see clearly across the body of water to the other side.

When we reached home and saw our sky, I was rather thankful that we could still see that it was blue. I wrote in my facebook: "Happiness is in seeing blue skies. Had missed that for several days!"

But it so turned out that my smugness for the Malaysian weather was shortlived. Within a few days, a haze had descended on this country from Indonesia where the irresponsible people there are continuing to practice open burning. As usual, our government is powerless is act against this brazen invasion of our air space. This has curtailed our activities much. For one thing, my visits to the Bukit Mertajam hill at Cerok Tokun have stopped temporarily. The Kuala Lumpur Marathon is scheduled for this weekend and I've already had to advise my daughter to take things easy.

This morning, I crept out of the house to take this picture of the hill. Like yesterday, the day before it and several days earlier, the hill can hardly be seen clearly. It had been particularly worse yesterday and today, though, as the hill's summit is now shrouded in a thick haze and the transmission towers are completely obliterated from sight. For us residents in Bukit Mertajam, we know the hill is there and it is easy for us to trace its outline although we cannot see it clearly enough but for visitors to this town, it will take them some effort to realise that the hill is there at all. Wouldn't be surprised if they miss the hill altogether.

Here is another consequence of the haze. I could simply stand in the open and take pictures of the morning sun. It's something that you can never do when the sky is clear.