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Interlude

Wednesday, December 14th, 2005

If this entry is written badly, blame the internet café downstairs in this shopping mall. The woman running it listens to badly recorded Malaysian pop at full volume on the computer opposite. The Borneo B&B will have internet access from tomorrow, so perhaps I can do better then.

As the KLIA Airport Express sped past the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur in the grey afternoon light, I was in a really shitty mood. It was just like being back in London, with the exception of the TV monitor glaring at eye-level. The opposite seat, underneath the screen, had been taken by a bloke who had weasled in just as I turned my back for a moment while rummaging in my rucksack. All my clothes were smelly again. I could smell myself and I was sure that everyone else could as well—the only backpacker in a train full of business travellers. The man sitting opposite shifted uneasily.

I wondered what had happened to my trip.
[read on]

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U-Turn

Monday, December 12th, 2005

If Taman Negara is the green heart of Malaysia and Kuala Lumpur the commercial head, so—some say—Melaka is its soul.

Steeped in history from centuries as a trading port, under successive occupation by the Dutch, Portuguese and British, home to the Straits Chinese, point of origin of Islam in Malaysia, swept along by the economic boom of the late twentieth century, Melaka is a city of intrigue and contrast. This was not only the LP gushing but also Siva, fellow resident at the Kameleon Lodge in KL, who extolled the lures of his home town to such an extent that I had already decided to stay for a night, even if I did not have to book the ferry ticket to Dumai a day in advance.

However, when the bus deposited us in the concrete wasteland around the Pasar Bazaar, I wondered whether Melaka actually has a soul. It does, but colourful buildings and colonial charm alternate with horrendous traffic and shopping mall consumer hells.
Melaka, Stadthuys2
All the while, I looked ahead to my onward travel plans with some trepidation. The ferry for the short hop to Dumai costs 90RM—for that amount of money you could almost fly—and travelling surface across Sumatra and Java would take at least a week. I’m not even that interested in Sumatra. Worse, there is no way of avoinding Jakarta on that journey. Phil and his girlfriend, who I had met yesterday and who have just made the trip in the opposite direction, confounded my worst fears about Jakarta: a thief-and bug-ridden cesspit of 20 million people which LP diplomatically suggests was not built with tourism in mind. Simply sitting it out at the bus station is not an option: not only do west- and east-bound buses leave from different terminals, making it necessary to cross the grid-locked city, but both are also miles out of town. As for the train, I shudder at memories of India. To boot, touts pounce on you before your feet even touch the ground.

I’d give a lot to avoid Jakarta.
Easter Heritage Guesthouse
I put these worries out of my mind when I eventually located the ‘Eastern Heritage’ guest house, recommended by Siva. Built in 1918, it oozes character. The receptionist showed me to the dorm in the attic—like something out of an adventure movie. There was a guy sitting on one of the beds who bet me a can of beer that he’s older than me; not a sign of the 20-something American backpacker crowd whose names I had spotted on the register. We swapped tales of our past travels and I felt at ease. This was going to be an adventure.
Easter Heritage, interior

Cue back to the 21st century when I had to jump over a gutter to escape the roaring traffic on the road outside. There, on the corner opposite from me, was an AirAsia ticket agency. Two hours later I had booked a flight to Kuching, Malaysian Borneo, leaving tomorrow evening. Looks like the beer isn’t going to be cheap for a while yet 😉

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River of Treacle

Sunday, December 11th, 2005

Kuala Lumpur is a strange town. It has no day or night, only periods of light and dark.

When I woke up in my window-less cubicle for the third time, I finally turned on the light. It was just before 7. Relieved, I gathered my stuff together and grabbed the daypack.

Outside, the sky was just brightening. In the dim lights shining through glass-panneled doors, I could make out people playing snooker and figures lit by the ghostly shimmer of computer terminals—the remnants of the past night. At the Hindu temple at the corner of Jl Pudu Lama, bells, incense and the first colourful flower displays heralded the arrival of the new morning.

At my old guest house, I had to wait, but when the receptionist finally emerged he was happy to see me and did not seem to mind when I turned down the first room he offered—opposite the first floor toilets and smelling as if the previous occupier had not quite made it that far. I checked into a large, airy room in the upper floor for 30RM and breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever the situation was with Michael, if I’m going to recover from being sick, I better do it in comfort.

Yeah, that heat exhaustion from 2 days ago was not all there was to it. Transferring my backpack from the Pudu Guest House around the corner, I could feel the dizzyness return, although I took care to walk slowly. I felt a flash of indignation: it was not even 7:30 in the morning and yesterday the fever had not returned until the afternoon—I had expected to be free from it during the first half of the day. Whatever it was that spread through my body was taking over, robbing me of my strength. Well, it could hardly get worse than almost collapsing on the street in Chinatown.

I clutched the little flask of peppermint oil one of the Chinese ladies had given me and ascended the stairs slowly.

After two hours of rest, the dizzyness had all but disappeared. It turned out to be nothing serious, just the repercussions of the stomach upset from Taman Negara, but I decided to rest for 2 days, get all my clothes washed and recharge my batteries before hitting the road to Indonesia. That’s why I’m still in KL.

***

Because I exist in no particular time zone, I wasn’t sure what time it was when I emerged from the darkened internet café today. I returned to the temple and ordered a vegetarian curry from one of the restaurants next to it, only to notice that everyone was tucking into Dhosai—it was only 10 in the morning.

Damn, I thought: I missed out on a good thing. But then the vegetarian curry arrived:

Vegetarian curry
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Rainforest for Beginners

Sunday, December 11th, 2005

(long entry warning)

When I woke up this morning, I got a surprise. Not that this is unusual when travelling—in fact it had happened to me most mornings on this trip—but this was not just the familiar ‘where am I’-feeling. It was an unexpected emotional awareness of…something.

The sounds of the forest surrounded me: a chorus of birds with harmonies of bugs. The atmosphere was strangely serene and peaceful. The trunks of the giant Dipterocarps on the opposite bank looked like pillars in a cathedral.

I’ve been to the rainforest before, but perhaps I had been too deeply within to appreciate it. Kuala Tahan hovers on the boundary of the national park across the river. There was a sense of being in the presence of something primordial—which of course this forest is.

***

The weather was holding. Part of me was still undecided about going on a trek, so meanwhile I had booked a short excursion while making up my mind: an walk through the canopy.
Canopy Walk2
[read on]

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Bug Safari

Sunday, December 11th, 2005

The river bus had delivered us to Kuala Tahan a few hours before dark, so I booked a place on the night walk, or rather the Bug Safari. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!

We set off by boat across the river at 9pm. Just past the last of the wooden luxury chalets of the park resort, the jungle began. Ducking under the wooden lianas which mark the start of the trail, we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by forest. The air was completely still—not a breeze stirred in the leaves—and stifling like wet cotton wool. The silence was broken by the chirping of countless insects and the hooting of far-away monkeys. Occasionally, a feint rustling ruffled the branches ahead.

Ghost-like, our torches fingered the green walls around us.

Our first sighting was dismissed by the guide as a ‘small spider’:
Spider1
[read on]

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Into the Jungle

Friday, December 9th, 2005

feet.jpg

Having no alarm clock and being such a chronophobe, I woke up about every ½h, finally getting out of bed at a quarter to six—just before really drifting off to sleep. Why does daylight have such a soporific effect on me?

I breakfasted on an Imodium. I think I would have been alright if I had not seen the guys at the food court prepare the chicken and plotted the bacterial growth curves in my head. The irony was that I didn’t even have the chicken—I had the pork feet in vinegar (which were slow-cooked and therefore fine), washed down with a bottle of ‘Tiger’ beer. This caused me considerable embarrassment when I was joined at the table by a family of other diners.
[read on]

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Up yours!

Tuesday, December 6th, 2005

The weather was OK this afternoon, so I set off across town to the Petronas Twin Towers—the tallest buildings in the world. From the sky bridge, on the 41st floor, Kuala Lumpur could really be appreciated.

The towers are at the KLCC centre. I stepped out of the Putra station and looked around, map in hand.

“Can I help you?”

“Yeah, eh, twin towers?” (feeling slightly apprehensive when saying that).

“You’re standing right in front of them. You can see better if you take the other exit from the station.”

There were a few high-ish buildings around, but nothing like New York. Surely, that could not be it?
KL buildings.jpg

I turned around and there it was. I’ve got to say that the Empire State Building looks higher, Canary Wharf more imposing. But perhaps the scale of the towers was best appreciated from closer up.
Petronas Towers.jpg

To get a (free) ticket for the sky bridge, we had to scuttle into the basement, like rats. There was a sign that no more tickets were available for the day, even though the towers had just re-opened after prayers and it would be hours yet before they would close.
closed.jpg

Oh well, up yours then. Another box ticked. It reminds me why I never bother with sight-seeing back in London. Relieved, I returned to the colourful, lively bustle of Chinatown and Little India.

***
That was about it from Kuala Lumpur for now—I’ve just booked a ticket to Taman Negara (a combined bus and boat ride) leaving early tomorrow. I’m not likely to be near an internet café until I’m back in Kuala Lumpur or Singapore which could be in anything from 3-5 days. There is no point in dithering: it’s my once in a lifetime opportunity to visit SE Asia’s premier rainforest reserve

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Chinatown

Tuesday, December 6th, 2005

So, the neighbourhood is a little dodgy, but it has its compensations. Lots of backpacker hostels, for one; the proximity of the bus station for another. I won’t have to go far to make my enquiries about Taman Negara; although it would sure help if the beer was a bit cheaper.

I don’t feel like hanging out in my guesthouse any more (see previous entry).

Another advantage is that this is right next to the colourful bustle of Chinatown (and Little India!):

KL Chinatown 2.jpg chinatown4.jpg

Here you can get almost anything, especially when looking for cheap food. Chinese tea is a real discovery: Malaysian tea is served with condensed milk (shudder).

I got my glasses fixed (10RM; nothing here is cheap, except for the food), but the traditional craft stalls have all been replaced by shops selling modern consumer goods, so no luck with my sandals and my creaking backpack yet.

Around the corner from Chinatown is the art-deco style Central Market:

market.jpg
It’s mainly an overpriced handicraft-bazaar but the buildings in this area are charming. And all this before breakfast! I’m off for a lunch in the food court now. ‘Pork feet with ginger and vinegar’—may as well wallow in it while I’m here 😉

KL Central Market area.jpg

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Nice ‘Hood!

Tuesday, December 6th, 2005

KL Malaysia.jpg

Chinatown, around the corner from Puduraya Bus Station

This street is blissfully quiet at night.

I discovered this place by following LP directions across the road from Puduraya Bus Station and then walking up a set of stairs to look for something a little more peaceful.

During the day, the little street turns into a popular short-cut and the drone of the scooters duely awoke me at 7:30 this morning, despite the earplugs. This isn’t a bad thing. It means that I can get more done during the day. Early to bed and all that.

In a country where a small bottle of beer costs 2$ US, it isn’t a bad thing at all.
[read on]

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Fools will travel…

Monday, December 5th, 2005

(…or why I am not a Lonely Planet Writer)

The ferry was late, and it was packed. That should have told me something.

According to LP and to local lore, buses leave directly from the tiny town of Kuala Perlis for Kuala Lumpur several times a day. I got to the bus station just in time to miss the 13:00 departure, cursing mildly at the 1.5h wait. From the outside, Kuala Perlis is little more than the ferry terminal, the bus station and a small strip of basic eateries and what LP describes as ‘grotty, dirt-cheap hostels’. In short, my kind of place—the kind I always seem to end up in.
[read on]

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