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Published: December 4th 2012
Due to an issue with my Australian visa, we have to head back to KL a few days earlier than planned to sort that out. Instead of going on the 10-hour bus ride, we decide to fly, which costs only marginally more, but is so much easier on travel-weary joints, bones and buttocks. An hour later, we're at KL International, hop on the bus to the city for the umpteenth time, sit back and relax. Or try to, rather, as there's two nasty Thai chicks sitting right in front of us, who aggressively put their seats back all the way without prior warning. Lucky for us, we discover two free seats in front of them. To reciprocate, we change seats, count to three and simultaneously put our seats back as far as possible. A shrill yelp indicates our manoeuvre has been successful and well-received. Is there anything quite as satisfying as putting into place those with an enlarged sense of entitlement?
At Chinatown, our usual hostel is booked solid, so after checking out several other ones and scratching our heads at how expensive KL is compared to the rest of Malaysia, we finally settle for a simple, cheap option. Later
we discover another place right next to ours. We decide to have a quick look to see if it's any better than our current one, just for future reference. The owner asks where we're staying, we tell him, and he says he can't take us in if we stayed there before, as that place is bedbug-infested. Crap. Panicking, we rush back to our place, get our stuff and tell the manager we decided to go somewhere else. She gives us a look as though we used her place as love hotel and makes it clear she expects some sort of payment. We give her RM10 to bail ourselves out.
After a while, we find something that looks clean and respectable and is still within our budget. Alas, after our first night there, J. wakes up covered in bedbug bites. Worst case scenario. For the third time, after Argentina/Chile and Laos. Why they never choose to feast on me, I still don't know, but if I was a bedbug and had to choose between her and a hairy white guy, I would go for her as well. The million-ringgit-question now is, was the first place infested and did we give
their bedbugs a ride in our luggage, or is it the second one that harbours the little beasts? Or maybe both? We decide to switch hostels yet again. Further down the road, we find a place that looks spotless. Good, new-looking mattresses, no tiny holes in the sheets, no little bloodspots anywhere to be found.
What's next is just going through the motions: finding a pharmacy or drugstore, getting antihistamines, anti-inflammatory cream, cotton buds, more bug spray, the usual. It doesn't take long for the bites to blow out of proportion and merge into each other, becoming an itchy, swollen, red mass. I put on the cream using cotton buds, J. covers up, and we head out pretending nothing happened.
***
My visa issue sorts itself out. Apparently, the problems were due to a server crash in the department of immigration. Still, I didn't get any replies to my emails, plus they behaved in an extremely rude manner to my Australian friend whom I asked to give them a call for me to enquire what the fuck is going on with the visa. Good thing he knows how to deal with rude, uncooperative
Australian bureaucrats. End of the story is, I'm stuck with two Australian visas, which I'm starting to get worried about, not knowing whether it'd cause any problems at immigration.
Now that we have way to much time in KL, we take the opportunity to branch out to places we haven't been to before. In posh Bangsar, we pass red-faced expats with snooty, blonde teenage daughters, we see dolled up Chinese and Indian Malaysian chicks, none of which without designer sunglasses, naturellement, and we duck expensive SUVs navigated by rich Malays with the confidence of someone who knows they own the country.
As I'm neither British nor upper-class, I haven't had a proper afternoon tea/high tea in my life. Now seems like a good time to change that, seeing it won't get any more affordable than in Malaysia. We find a café that we usually wouldn't set foot into, not because it's too spacious or its décor too 19th century, more so because the throne chairs look a tad uncomfortable. Nonetheless, we settle in and order afternoon tea for two. Shortly after, we get a three-tier set that comes with a selecion of sandwiches (we asked for veggie), slices
of various cakes and scones with butter, cream and jam. A quick glance into the teapot reveals that there's only one teabag and the water goes up to maybe the three quarter mark only. I'm a big tea drinker, so I'm not gonna put up with half-arsed crap when I go all out once in a lifetime. I don't want any piss-weak tea, and if they're not able to brew a proper pot of tea, they should at least not be so stingy and put only one teabag in. I kindly ask the waitress to add in another bag and fill it up all the way to the top. It ends up being a decent treat, but we can't help thinking the tea would be better had I brewed it and the scones and cakes would be better had J. made them.
Back in Chinatown, we stop to buy some baozi on the way back to our hostel. As we wait, we watch an old Chinese fella with long, white hair and long whiskers, straight out of a 70s kungfu film. He just stands next to the sit-down area of the eatery, looking confused, then walks up to the
tables, when all of a sudden, the chef comes running out of the restaurant with a knife in his hand and shoos him away. The old man backs off, then starts shouting and screaming at the chef, gesticulating wildly. He goes on a long tirade in Cantonese, dramatically making use of his rather impressive voice and bushy eyebrows. The customers start laughing, but I'm not sure if it is that they know that the guy is harmless and are used to him going a bit crazy or if they laugh to defuse the situation and keep everyone from losing face. We can't help but watch on in awe at the unexpected theatrics right in front of our eyes. The man goes on for a bit longer, then walks over to the baozi lady and politely buys a couple of baozi, and walks off as if nothing happened. Through the magic of a little interpretess, I learn what it was that the guy was saying: "How dare you flash your knife at me? Are you threatening me? Do you wanna kill me? Who do you think you are? Do you know who I am? I'm gonna take that knife and slash
you and cut you up into little pieces!" Trust me, it sounded a hell of a lot better and more dramatic in Cantonese.
***
The following morning, we take the train to Klang. Hilarity already ensues when I buy the ticket: "Two tickets to Klang, please." Lady just looks at me. "Dua tiket ke Klang." Lady creases her brows. "Klang? Kelang? Klaaaang? Kllllll-ang?" She just looks at me, but then the guy behind me tells her "Klang", and she gives us two tickets. I look at her, look at him, and ask: "Didn't I say that? What did I say?" But he's just smiling and moving on already.
The KTM komuter train takes a good hour and a bit. Klang, formerly known as Kelang, is considered a historic and royal city, which was already enough to convince us to go there. As we don't have a map, we try to ask people to direct us to the tourist information. Nobody is able to give us a concrete answer, though, so we enter a bookshop to ask for a map. "Hello. Do you sell maps of Klang?" The skinny, mustachioed Indian guy just looks
at me. "A map? Of Klang?" He goes to talk to his colleague, who gives us a map of Malaysia. "No, I meant a map of Klang, not Malaysia." He has a look at the back of the shop and returns, presenting us with a map of KL. "No, not Kuala Lumpur. Klang! Kelang! Klaaaaaang! Klllll-ang! This place! The town you live in!" No reaction. "Ach, forget about it. Cheers!"
Not sure what they put into the local water. We end up doing a self-guided tour of the town. We find Little India, which is extensive and colourful. There's a nice Hindu temple, which unfortunately appears to be closed. We come across a humongous mosque and ask a guy in front if we are allowed to go in. He says yes, but as we approach the entrance, a different guy wearing a taqiyah says no, only for Muslims. He just seems to be a random guy, not one who's in charge, so I contemplate just going anyway to see if I can find someone who's in charge, but I am discouraged by the hostile stares of a few bystanders.
We stop by an Indian vegetarian restaurant and order
two thalis for late lunch. One would have been enough, as we realize when the waiter brings the humongous platters, consisting of a dozen little bowls with dhals, dips and sauces, as well as rice and papadam. I am shocked to see that out of the big Indian families at the nearby tables, everybody is able to finish a thali with ease. Not only that, but halfway through they order more rice to go with the sauces.
***
Other noteworthy things that occurred during our stay in KL:
• We pass a Chinese waiter wearing a swastika t-shirt. I ask if I can take a picture of him, just to document the randomness. I think after China, they owe me a few pictures in return anyway. I wonder what his motivation could be wearing that shirt. Later, I see that they sell it at the Chinatown markets. Most likely it's a Buddhist thing, I conclude.
• I apply more cream to infected bedbug bites, four to five times a day, in fact. They calm down after a while.
• We enter the Hindu
temple in Chinatown. There's some sort of festivity going on, with cool live music and worshippers eagerly awaiting the arrival of someone important, some lying face down on the floor. I love how you can just walk into the Hindu and Chinese temples, sit down and chill out for a while (literally, it's rather hot outside). Nobody seems to care about our presence, nobody judges us.
• I get pissed off at a proto-German girl in our hostel. All she does is sit on the couch, watching DVDs, eating two-minute noodles and drinking soda. When after 11pm, I tell her to turn down the ear-deafening volume, she says she won't be able to hear what they say. I'm wondering what's more important, people being able to sleep or the chick having to strain to listen to the dialogue of Transformers 3.
• We eat our last supper at Sangeetha, a fantastic Indian vegetarian restaurant in Little India. Of course, we are coaxed into ordering way too many dishes again by the astute waiter. The food is overwhelmingly rich and tasty, we tuck in happily until our stomachs are about to burst. Before dessert, a
foreigner couple walks in and takes a seat. They order drinks, and when the waiter delivers their order, I hear him saying 'Coca-Cola', which startles me, and I turn around, looking on in shock as the waiter places the can in front of the guy. I'm just shocked at the obscenity of that act, which overwhelms me similarly to how the beautiful food overwhelmed me before. The menu features incredible mango lassis, lime and mint concoctions, fresh real lemon tea, rose milk, and that obscene bloke orders a coke. I'm stunned and appalled. Or maybe I've become an elitist food nazi, who knows. This concludes this Malaysian trip.
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Anastasia78
Anastasia78
No map in the book store????
Imagining this scene had me laughing out loud. :)