As with Singapore, the thing that fascinated me was the diversity of people. Coming from a completely homogenous Japan, it was a breath of fresh air to see a mix of cultures. And by this I mean local cultures, not the crazy global mix of foreigners that prevailed in Thailand. The major races represented in both Singapore and KL are Malays, Chinese and Indians. It's like South Africa, except that there are no whites, blacks (should I be writing these with capitals?) or coloureds. Same same but different.
From the Lonely Planet, I copied down some addresses of cheap backpackers in Chinatown. After a very uncomfortable 11 hour overnight journey on a train (I'm too cheap to take the sleepers), I walked around drenched in sweat, my discomfort enhanced by the stench of drains and durians. I couldn't find any of the backpackers in my notebook, so booked my exhausted ass into one above a Rasta bar. I took a cold shower in the shared bathrooms, and headed down to the rasta bar for a beer and lunch that I bought from the street. As delicious as the food looked, it also looked like a carrier for food poisoning, but I took my chances and I ended up having 2 huge plates of unidentifiable meatstuffs for next to nothing. The bartender invited himself to my table, showed me videos on his cellphone of all the girls he's slept with (he was without his shirt in all of them) and asked where I'm from. Turns out he lived in both Japan and SA at some time in his life, and then mentioned that he partied in Cape Town with the guys from African Dope, my ichiban favourite record label from the Fairest Cape. He didn't have any African Dope to play over the sound system, but he owned more Lucky Dube (ancient South African reggae) than I knew existed. So there I was in Chinatown of an Islamic Futuristic city, listening to Lucky Dube at a bar which sported the exact same tablecloths as Cool Runnings Cafe in South Africa. How bizarre.
A great part of my time there was spent trying to organise transport to Koh Pan Gnan in time to use the accomodation I'd already payed for. Turns out that, over New Years, there is some huge Muslim festival, and KL being the mosque of a city that it is, all the busses and trains to anywhere were fully booked until after New Years. All the travel agents told me "sorry ne." I was about to give up hope and crawl into a readily-available gutter, when a strange Indian guy with a smudge of Hindu worship paint on his forehead invited me for a drink. We went to a place filled with old men, and sat on plastic chairs by a sticky table, talking about gemstones and drinking Coke. I told him of my dilemma, and he told me where the locals buy their bus tickets. We finished our drinks, and he took me to this incredibly noisy, dirty madhouse of transportation bookings. It's basically a room with one ticket booth after the other, with hundreds of locals pushing and kicking to get to the front. I went from window to window, and at the 14th booth, I found a bus company with an open seat to Hat Yai. I payed for the ticket that would lead me to The Dodgiest Busride Ever, made a breakfast date with my outta-the-blue saviour, and continued ambling my way through the city.
The next morning I met up with my 1-day friend, Murugon. He was sitting on the steps in front of the temple near the backpackers, this time sans the worship paint on his forehead. Instead, he was looking a bit pale for an Indian guy. I enquired about it, and he said that he bought something from the street the night before that didn't agree with his chemical composition. Food poisoning: You win some, you lose some. He didn't feel up to facing food, but still wanted to take me to his friend's restaurant. So we boarded the train and made our way to KL Sentral. With an S.
Throughout the 7 minute journey, he was hanging onto the pole, face pressed against the cold windows like a Japanese School kid that had too much to drink in the city. A mere 20 seconds before the train came to a halt, he started coughing, and then proceeded to paint the carriage floor yellow with last night's dodgy dinner. The doors opened and people flooded out, gasping for fresh air. I guided him to the nearest bin, where he did a few more heaves while I patted him on the back. There, there. Get it all out. He wiped his mouth, and with bits of carrot still clinging to his face he grinned at me and said: "Good, I can eat breakfast now."
Never in my life had I met anyone so nonchalant about public puking. His attitude was both refreshing and disturbing.
In the end, I ditched him after the roti & watermelon juice breakfast (that he payed for) because he wanted to feed me my breakfast. What!? I told him that I knew how to use a fork (you should see me use chopsticks! haha!) and when he sneaked his hand onto my knee, I considered using the fork to skewer more than just my roti. Gochisoooo sama deshita, sayonara!
I walked around the city like a madwoman, trying to see as much as I could in my final hours. At sunset, I went up the KL Tower, Menara Kuala Lumpur (at 421m, it's 4th highest in the world) and watched the city flicker into yet another night with a breathtaking 360 degree view of the surroundings. As I stood there watching a sea of lights, I came to the conclusion that the more you see, the more you realise that you ain't seen nothing yet. One life just is not enough. But we make do with what we have.
My bus left at 23h00 that evening, and I wasn't sure how I'd kill the final 3 hours. With all my belongings on my back, I didn't feel like taking any trains or walking excessive distances. As I walked through the vibrant nightmarket in Chinatown, I heard someone call my name, and there sat yet another random stranger that I had met earlier that day. An Arabic guy named Ebrahim who runs a guesthouse in Langkawi, one of the Malyasian islands, with his Japanese wife. I had met him earlier that day while buying a refreshing coconut beverage from a vendor, and for some arb reason I knew I was going to run into him again. He was having dinner with a Japanese girl who was not his wife, and they asked me to join them. He told me amazing tales from India, though I could only understand 40% of what he was saying (the story of my holiday), while his Japanese uhm friend kept refilling my glass with Tiger beer and putting food in my plate. Just before 23h00 I had to stop him mid-story, and bade them farewell. I made my way to the bus depot, an underground room filled with Thais, Malays, busses and carbon monoxide, and found my bus after being showed to the wrong one about 4 times. I showed my ticket to the busdriver, who looked at me blankly, then to 4 passengers who looked at me blankly. Silently I took an empty seat, hoped for the best, and passed out as soon as the bus started moving.
After the bus nearly popped a tire driving through a pothole/off the road, I woke up to find another hand on my knee that I did not remember putting there. And on the same trip, the bus driver disappeared with my passport somewhere between Malay and Thai No Man's Land, but those are different stories for a different day. All was well and therefore all ended well. Hakuna matata.
1 comment:
Why is there ALWAYS bits of carrot in puke? Oh, nice post, by the way.
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