This is a bit about Kualar Lumpur, but is mostly about my woes with trying to write a novel travel novel
One morning in Chiang mai I woke up with the grandest of intentions and ambitions. I want to write a book about my trip around the world, or at least the first half of it. Travel books are a dime a dozen and for the most part they are 
(in my opinion) pretty poorly written – even the much lauded Bill Bryson bores me to tears. So, my twist? My way of making the book interesting or novel is this. I want to improve my irish, I want to write the book in such away that it teaches me how to write and speak in irish. The book would start off in english, I would write about the trip while slowly bringing in the irish to eventually finish the book in irish with the person reading it having no problems with the language by the end. Whether that seems to you a good idea or not doesn’t matter. The fact of the matter is that this particular morning, over that particular bowl of rice soup, this idea blew my mind apart. It got me excited, I could really do this. I saw none of the obvious difficulties, I was invincible. When I arrived in chiang mai my first stop was a book shop where I saw the ‘Teach your self Gaelic’. My plan that morning was to track down that book and get cracking that afternoon on the first great english/irish travel novel.
Finding the book was a pain in the hole, there are a dozen second hand book shops in chiang mai which is great when you don’t know what you are looking for but when you do and its such a rare specimen as a book to teach you a language that in global terms, a handful of people can speak with any degree of confidence – its a bloody nightmare. Over and back across town, I got it eventually. I stopped just short of punching the air in delight, I rushed up to the counter and happily parted with the necessary amount mullah before scurrying off to take my first irish lesson in 10 years. Across the moate and back into old chiang mai I sat at my favourite caf, ordered some more soup and opened the book. Bloody scottish!!!
Firmly back in my non novelist box myself and bobby took to the skies away from thailand on our long winded way to Manila. 3 hours on the plane to KL went pretty quickly. We made our way into the hustle bustle of late afternoon KL chinatown. We made for the local youth hostel who were gladly able to put us up for the night, they even had a tv where I could watch the pools rather unfortunate demise from this years CL.
KL is one mightily impressive city, its the veritable concrete jungle. Planning permission gets denied on the account of buildings being too small or too conservative. Bigger, better, ridiculous than anything I have ever seen. We took a lift to the top of the Petronas towers which gave us a fantastic view of the city and coincided quite fortunately with an amazing sunset. The city even has its own twin towers, bigger than the ones that no longer exist manhatten side, standing underneath them gives you the impression that you have been dropped into the middle of a science fiction film.
Our second and final day in KL we regressed back to our pre-teen years. We went to an indoor theme park, my first ever rollercoaster (twice). Its good fun!!! Though bumping cars against 7 year old malaysian kids is better fun. Its a good and relatively economical way of passign a couple of hours – beats sitting in the pub thats for sure. KL is a cool city, but I don’t feel the need to dwell there that long on my return in a couple of weeks time. Its population is a strange mix of indian and chinese people, so at times it was like walking around india with the exception being that there were decent roads and actual pavements. The food in the capital was pretty poor but I am told it gets much better up around georgetown which will be my first port of call when I return….
Slan,
Phil
Tags: chiang mai, kualar Lumpur, Malaysia, thailand
Phil Gill
Think you got too much sun today Phil! Check out “In the name of the fada” RTE archives! Your brilliant idea has been done! Des Bishop beat you to it!! Must arrange a chat on Skype.
I dare you ask Paddy Joe what the Irish for “Ladyboy” is?
Haha! How about writing it in Scottish Gaelic? Now THAT would be impressive 😉
I wrote an Irish story in the intercert once using some English words and a smattering of French. I got an F…..
Don’t give them any heed. They are just jealous. Remember the advice, if you want to really do something,you can and you will. Looking forward to reading the NOVEL.
Mam
Well at least Mother will buy a copy! Not that she is biased or anything!!
Was reading a Scottish Gaelic book in Edinburgh last weekend – weird eh !
Great to see you the mammy is behind even your ridiculous ideas !!!!
Hmmm… mix of the ridiculous and kuala lumpur… reminds me of this! (needs sound)
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/scampi/
You’ll be so glad I shared…
Happy Birthday Phil!
Hope you had a Happy Birthday.
All the best from all in Virginia.
Hey, how r u keeping?
Buon compleanno!!
Ciao!
Sounds like a great idea Phil… Don’t mind Des Bishop… go for it….Is e mo thuarim fein nach bhfuil se sin bla de bla bla