Malaysia - The Garden City of Ligths...

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Kuala Lumpur is one of those places where I have been a couple of times but never felt the desire of exploring it, though I have to admit that I don’t really know why. In Germany we have the expression: „Weder Fisch noch Fleisch“ (neither fish nor meat) so Kuala Lumpur is neither like 'this' nor 'that' for me, it's simply just: Kuala Lumpur.

So if you're expecting an useful blog entry about Kuala Lumpur, with plenty of insider tips, I am sorry to disappoint you. Much more this will be about a girl called "Pinky", three Swedish blokes and halfnaked, stoned and drunken travellers in a Raggae bar.

Ok, ok... of course I will add some info about Kuala Lumpur as well.

- Kuala Lumpur -

I left Myanmar early in the morning by plane to Bangkok for my onward flight to Kuala Lumpur. On the one hand I was thinking about to have some days in Southern Thailand for diving and relaxing, as they have worldclass diving spots there and some quite nice beaches. On the other hand, I am not a big fan of Southern Thailand, I don't like the atmosphere of some certain places, all the crowds of tourists, Western bars and some horny mid age sex tourists are not really appealing. Therefore, I decided to skip Southern Thailand this time and to head towards Indonesia right away, so that I have some more time there.

I had to stop over in Kuala Lumpur for a night before flying on to Bali, Indonesia the next morning. Kuala Lumpur is actually not a bad place to be and I think that somewhere between its self-proclaimed splendor as the „Garden City of Ligths“ and its literal English translation „Muddy River Mouth“ lies the true nature of the capital of Malaysia. KL - as it’s mostly called - has developed into a thriving city whose mega malls and vertigo- inspiring towers are balanced by verdant expanses of grass and rows of palm trees.

Malaysia's ethnic mix is well represented in KL. The term "Malaysian", "Malayan" and "Malay" are distinct terms. "Malaysian" is a political reference to a citizen of the country. "Malayan" denotes anyone from the peninsula, while "Malay" is a term for the ethnic Malay - those Austro heritage who constitute 50% of the population. Indian Malaysians constitue the third largest ethnic group of Malaysians, while Chinese Malaysians comprise of a third of the total population in Malaysia.

My plane landed in KL at 7:00PM and as I had an appointment with my dear friend Pinky for dinner at 9:00 PM, I headed straight from the airport to the city center and from there by train to Chinatown. On the train I met 3 Swedish guys, but none of them looked Swedish at all, instead of being blonde one of them had red hair, another one dark brown hair and the third had black hair. They were funny guys and as I told them that I am from Germany they insisteted to tell me all the dirty Germans words they know and asked if I have any interesting words to add. I could help them out by adding 1-2words to their list of "Dirty German words" and they kept repeating them again and again while laughing their heads off. When I told them that I was heading to Chinatown for finding a room for the night they told me that the three of them had paid for a quad room, so that one bed in the room was still free and that I could just crush on that bed for the few hours until my flight in the morning, especially as two of them were leaving for Thailand in a view hours at 11:00PM anyway. The third one was planning to leave for Sumatra in Indonesia but wasn't sure about that yet. As I told them that I don't mind paying for my own room they insisted that I have to take the fourth bed in their room for free and added that none of them were gay so that I shouldn't be worried about that and that they wouldn't say any "dirty words" to me in a language I don't understand, what made me wonder how many different "dirty words lists" they have. Anyway, the guesthouse was right next to Petaling so I agreed to their offer and followed them to the guesthouse. As soon we got there I just threw my backpack on the bed, washed my face, bid farewell to the Swedish blokes by giving them one more "dirty German word" and left for Petaling to meet Pinky.

Chinatown is one of the most lively places in KL. At dusk, central Jl. Petaling becomes a "pasar malam" (night market). You will find food stalls and open air restaurants with their tables on the streets and traders selling all kind of stuff from fake sneakers to pirated movies on DVDs for low prices (if they don't rip you off).

I changed some money and met Pinky at the front gate of Petaling - pretty amazed that she was quite on time. We decided to have some Chinese food at one of the open air restaurants. Pinky is a nice girl, sometimes I think that she is living in a pink pink world (in positive way), even though I know that's not always the case and for some reason she a kind of reminds me on Britney Spears - don't ask me why, and not that they look alike and not that Pinky could sing like her, and not that I know Britney Spears in person.

Pinky loves too eat - what probably applies to all Asian girls - and of course shopping and taking pictures of herself whenever and wherever she can. I would even say that Pinky is definitely a little diva... but fortunately, to some extent I like divas.

After dinner we strolled around Jl. Petaling a bit and decided to go to a skybar for some drinks. Before we left Petaling and - of course - after Pinky had bought some biscuits, sweets and cakes, I - of course - had to take 2 dozen pics of Pinky with her camera while she was posing here and there, like this and like that, a pic with biscuit in her hand and a pic without biscuit in her hand, Pinky standing in front of the cake shop and a pic of Pinky standing next to the cake itself... and and and. But well, actually it was fun to see a "cam-whore" (how Pinky calls herself) in action.

We had to skip the skybar as I wasn't allowed to get in by wearing my flip flops, so we just headed to another place and had some drinks at a bar in opposite of the Hilton hotel. Even though I wasn't very talkative on this evening, because my mind was somehow still in Myanmar, we chitter chattered a bit until 1:00AM before we finally said goodbye to each other as I had been feeling a kind of tired from my two flights and now and then almost fell asleep while Pinky was busy taking pics of the location. And of course I had to take some more pics of Pinky and for Pinky, posing at and with the road-sign, before leaving.

On my way back to Chinatown I spotted the Petronas twin towers glittering in the night like huge metallic corn on the cob and told my taxi driver to get me there for some pics before heading back to my guesthouse.

When I finally got to my room, I found a message from the Swedish guys on my bed, written on a shoe box that all of them had decided to leave for Thailand and that I should enjoy the room. As I started to run out of "dirty words" I wasn't too unhappy about that.

As I didn't feel like sleeping anymore and had to wake up for getting to the airport in less then 3 hours anyway, I decided to have a drink at the bar on the opposite side of the road with some other travellers I bumped into. It was a Reggae bar with Jamaican flags and Bob Marley posters all over, I don't really like Reggae music as they are like playing all the old songs again and again and keep talking about „Rasta life“ and „Reaggae feeling“ what kind of bore me to death as we are not at a Carribean beach or in in the fucking 60ies or 70ies anymore. If you are still 15 or 16, well then you probably think that's cool but there will be a day when you just have to realize that it's time to move on. Well, some obvisouly just missed that moment, or maybe I am just a boring silly guy with no sense for coolness and peace and drugs and stuff.

Anyway, I was pretty surprised to smell a scent of marihuana in a public bar, considering that I am in the capital of Malaysia. But people apparently had a good time, I spotted some totally stoned travellers in a corner, half naked with just boxershorts on. An Italian guy told me that those guys were from Ireland and had a drinking competition and smoked strange stuff before they ended up laying half naked in a corner and are now probably "travelling with the light through a different galaxy".

I ordered a drink lifted my glass and drunk to the half naked stoned and drunken Irish guys laying in the corner of the bar and thought to myself: "I see, that's why KL proclaims itself as the Garden City of lights! Because its visitors end up travelling ‚halfnaked’ with the light to other far far away galaxies!!!"

To be continued… next: Indonesia - The Island of Gods...

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Photos

Twin Towers
Kuala Lumpur by Night

Kuala Lumpur
Petronas Twin Towers

Me
Forced by Pinky to have a pic of myself

Pink Selfportrait
Pinky (Pinkpau) playing with my camera

Message on a box
from the Swedish blokes

Comments

[alicia]

KL
Hey Chi,i'm glad you shared your blog. It's sure a fun thing reading at it. Of course, knowledgeable, even full of some kind of "soul and spirit" along the journey that i don't know how to describe. Truely, it took me days reading it, not on the spots but to read and look at it properly so that i won't miss anything. Btw, you lucky to have Pinky accompany during your day in Kuala Lumpur. She is a sweet girl. :)

[Mel]

Hilarious!!!
CHI. This entry was soooo funny to read! I wanna meet the Swedish guys, the stoned travellers and especially PINKY - she is sooo lovely! hahahaa

[Janina]

Hilarious
This entry was hilarious !!! :-)

[pinkpau]

malaysia is so not the garden city of lights! who told you that!
something tells me this Pinky girl is cute, smart, hot, funny, sexy, interesting, humble..