around the world in 180 days

So we’ve been in Kuala Lumpur since Friday evening and we’re having a good time seeing the city with our trusty tour guide Paul. Patty is working on a PhD and has a paper due on Monday that she’s been immersed in most days, but Paul’s been great, hauling us all over the place. This morning, we visited Batu Caves, which are gigantic limestone caves with Hindu temples inside. After that, we went down to Chinatown and checked out all the stalls. Paul kept commenting on how much things had changed.

30 years ago, KL was a small community with little international significance and no large buildings. Many of the roads were dirt and the population was small. It sits a the confluence of a couple of rivers, though, and as Malaysia entered the global economy, it began to boom. Now it’s the largest city in Malaysia and the capital of the country. Because it’s so young, it’s a relatively unremarkable city, as far as architecture goes. It has a set of twin towers, called the Petronas towers and a spire, but not much that is old or of cultural significance.

Even while Paul and Patty have lived here (10 years), KL has changed a lot. A huge highway runs nearby their house which used to be a two lane, tree-lined road. The central market, in Chinatown, used to be a wet market, with vendors selling fish, fruit and other food, and today it’s an upscale tourist destination. Chinatown also used to have tons of vendors selling pirated DVDs for around $2 a piece and now they’ve been driven underground. That isn’t to say they’re gone, because they’re not. It’s just a more back-alley affair, with people who say, “DVD, sir?” and lead you through a maze to their warehouse, or, more commonly, a table with the cover art for DVDs, showing what they have to offer.

There’s also an area that used to have rows and rows of software for similar prices. We stopped by, and just since Christmas, all of the shops had converted to laptop and other computer equipment sales. We shopped around, looking for a set of portable speakers for our CD player. We found a set to purchase ($7) and when the salesman was bagging it up, he leaned over the counter and said, “You want software, DVD, games?”

I said sure, and he pointed to a room in the  back of the store that had a man sitting in front of a computer, smoking a cigarette. They had lists of their inventory and told us that they’d call and have whatever we wanted delivered on blank, unlabeled DVDs or CDs, depending on the program.
They also had pirated DVDs in Indonesia, selling for 15,000 rupiahs (or $1.50) in Ubud and for 10,000 rupiah ($1.00, easy, huh?) in Kuta. Kuta also had PS2 and XBOX games for the same price. It was unbelieveable.
Of course, we didn’t buy any. That would be immoral and wrong, right? It’s stealing, right? Stealing from billionaires who produce and profit from these things. That’s why we don’t have any to ship back. Not a one.

I’ll have some more photos online soon, everything from California through Bali. I need to sort them and label them and all that fun stuff, but once that’s done, I’ll post the link.