All the Animals Come Out at Night

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Zoo Taiping

Wed 05/03 - 10/03/08

Another day, another country. Another airport. I've arrived in Kuala Lumpa for the second time, only now I'm not just passing through. It's night time, around 9pm. I get met by my transport, and driven to my accomodation, the Number 8 Guest House in central KL.

Straight away, it's obvious things are different here. My retina's smoke as the bright lights of the city blaze through the darkness, and my neck strains as I look up, following the tall buildings as they reach deep into the pockets of the sky. Welcome to the new shit. KL is not like the other cities I've travelled through in Asia. There are no crumbling slum towns or ancient temples. Maybe they exist somewhere within, but what I can see in front of me is a plastic Christmas tree of a city. The buildings are tall spears of shimmering glass and grey concrete. Everything is doused in neon, and the symbols of western consummerism are writ large across all the streets.

You want KFC? You can search for that secret recipe on every block. You want McDonalds? You'll be loving it morning til dusk. Like having it your way at Burger King? That won't be a problem in KL. Pizza Hut, TGI Fridays, 7Eleven, Starbucks - they're all there in multiples of tens and twenties. Fuck, I'm depressed. In Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam, with a population of around 3.4 million, there is not one single set of yellow arches. The 1.6 million residents of KL city could probably eat at a different branch of a big fast food outlet every day of the year if they wanted to do so.

As the car passes through the streets, past famous sights like the The Petronas Twin Towers, I feel a sense of unease once again. I felt it before, leaving India, and Vietnam turned out more than fine, better than I'd ever imagined. Can I get lucky again? I look down at the Magic Man hat, sitting on my lap, close by as always. Is there any magic here, wise old friend? Will we get to drink til our stomachs bleed, and our eyes turn black as coals? Will there be fucked up adventures and long nights of vile stupidity? Will they have karaoke? Will they have puppets?

So many questions. And the answers lie in the people. The people I meet, the people I get to spend the next four weeks with are the ones who hold the key. So far, with the exception of a couple of dumb Danish and two festering English retards, the people have delivered the goods. I tried to do my part, and hold my end up, but it wasn't easy. All you can do is down whatever's in front of you, and leave the rest to chance.

The car arrives. I find my way up to my room, and meet my room mate inside. Tom is 18, from Twickenham in London, and is a Chelsea supporter. In the few minutes a speak to him, he seems okay, despite his taste in football team. Apart from Tom, almost everyone from the Zoo Assistant and Orangutan projects are out drinking. I go out with two people from the Turtle project; one, the girl I shared the taxi with, and the other, a stange-looking, hairy guy who's name I forget. We have a few beers and they both seem like good people. When we get back to the hostel, I say goodnight, and it's strange thinking that I almost certainly will never see them again.

Morning in Malaysia. Today, I get transferred along with my group to Taiping, where we will be working as zoo assistants. There are six in the group; myself and Tim (47) will be based at the zoo for the whole month, whilst Tom, Toby (18), Amy (22) and Jenny (31) will leave after a fortnight for Borneo to work with Orangutans. Another group are based in a different zoo just outside KL.

The journey takes around 3 hours. At first, I just sit and listen as the others talk. All I can think about is being back in 'Nam, fighting the good fight. Then, I pull myself together. The war is over and those days are gone forever. Loosen your lapels and hand in the dog tags. Nothing worse than a vet who can't let go. Get over it and get it together. I start talking to Amy and Toby. Both live really close by in the U.K. Amy is from Penn, five minutes up the road from me, and Toby's not too much further afield, in Milton Keynes.

We arrive in Taiping after four hours of driving. Taiping is small town in Peninsular Malaysiam, with a population of around 200,000. Although not a thriving tourist trap by any means, it hold a few places of interest, such as the Lake Gardens, Maxwell Hill and of course Taiping Zoo and Night Safari, where we will be working. We're dropped at our house, on the outskirts of the town, 20 minutes walk from the zoo. There, we're met by Aida, our coordinator. She gives us a brief talk, explaining some of the house rules. These include no drinking on the premises, no overnight guests and no moving of the furniture. I look down at the arm chair I'm sitting on, dragged a good metre or so from its original position so I could be part of the circle. Sorry, Aida. Five minutes in the house, and already a code violation.

Aida takes us into town and we have dinner. We take a trip to the supermarket, and stock up on food and alcohol. Beer is stupidly expensive in Malaysia, maybe even more so than in the U.K. Coming from Vietnam, where you can get a bottle for 33p, this makes me more depressed. Unfortunately, the only way to be cured is to drink, so I have no choice but to give myself the flu jab - inject a virus to make yourself better. That night, we sit up late talking and having a few drinks. Further rules are flouted indiscriminately, and two chairs end up broken. Tom is a big fella - tall and stocky, like a tank, and Malay furniture is not made to withstand men of his proportions. We just put the chairs to one side, and decide to say no more about it.

Friday. Aida gives us a tour of the zoo. We meet Wasabee, a young female Orangutan, and Julie, a one-legged baby chimp. The zoo is fairly small, and we get around it in a couple of hours. We go back into town to use the internet. As we pick our way through the streets, the sky groans and breaks water. In seconds, we're soaked through. We run from building to building, making mad dashes for cover, but it's no good. We may as well just lie back and take it full in the face.

In the evening, we fill our time with drinking games. Things are starting to look up. Everyone in the groups get on, and the blues slowly fade away. At the end of the night, we fuck up more stuff. It's around 4am. We're all in the girls room except Tim. Amy is lying in bed, with Jenny sitting at the foot. Tom decides to join them, and plants himself down in the middle of the bed. Almost immediately, it folds and bends, the fragile metal giving way under substantial pressure. We get up, and look at what we've done. I try to help Tom bend the frame back, but this only makes it worse, as the metal starts to tear. We give up. There's nothing to be done. The bed is fucked, and Amy will just have to sleep on a mattress.

Tom carries the broken bed up the stairs, to our third floor attic. Out of sight, out of mind. At the end of our second night, the destruction count stands at two chairs, one bed and a bowl. We've drunk alcohol in the house, and we're not only moved furnitute, we've altered its molecular structure. On Monday, we get to work with the animals. Who knows how many of them we're gonna bend and break and fuck up beyond repair.

Sunday the 9th. Most people are tired or hungover. Almost all of Saturday was given over to a visit to Tesco, and I'm not keen to waste anymore of the weekend. Toby and I decide to climb Bukit Larut (or Maxwell Hill in English), which sits around 1250m above sea level. The humidity is high as we pace up the steep, winding road, and after a few minutes, our shirts are soaked with sweat. There is thick jungle all around us. We stop at various points to swing on vines, poke ants nests or look at fat toads. As the afternoon drifts away, so does the sun. We reach the top, and after lunch, take a jeep back down. We look out across the valley, and can see the rain clouds hovering over Taiping, living up to its reputation as the wettest town in Malaysia.

We all try to get to bed early, without causing damage to anything. Tomorrow is our first day at the zoo. We're expected to be there early, and on time. We need to make a good impression. Slackness will not be tolerated. We have bonded well after our weekend, and tomorrow, we will march into work united, as a team.

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