Last Day in Malaysia (or, a perfectly wonderful day made perfectly boring in print)
(warning, dangerously boring message ahead. this is the problem with writing about things too long after the fact. my mind gets crowded by all the other thoughts and experiences that have come and gone in the meantime and I lose the immediacy of the original happenings. right now, for example, I am sitting at an IT station in the spacious main library of the University of Otago, thinking more about the yummy looking carrot cake in the coffee shop window across the way and this morning's curried mussel pie on the achingly cold beach, and the fact that, for the first time in my life, I am south of the equator, than about any of the very excellent things I did my last day in KL...consider yourself warned. I will not be offended if you just skip this one, really, even though I know you probably won't...)
Last day in Kuala Lumpur, nearly perfect. No, scratch that. Last day in Kuala Lumpur, absolutely perfect.
First of all, kindergarden report cards. Finished. This is not something I anticipated doing (at all, never mind while vacationing in Malaysia), but rather something that was dropped on me too near my departure from Korea to take care of before I left. But they are done, done, done now and I am thrilled. Free! I arrive a little later than planned at the old man's food cart in the middle of the street to find my favorite roti already sold out. This would be very, very sad, except that Yoga's been bugging me to try the banana-leaf wrapped coconut rice since day 1 and there's a pile of them on the table beside me just waiting to be unwrapped. They're not as tasty as the roti (not as oily either, which is probably a plus for my tetchy stomach), but it's always good to try new things. I have a boiled egg and a banana too, alongside my regular tea.
For the third morning in a row, a big road crew is working on repaving the streets on each side of the cart. I use the word working fairly loosely here, since mostly the 8 or so men in fluorescent orange vests just stand huddled in a knot chatting and trying to lure over (unsuccessfully) one of the neighbourhood cats. Some things are the same in every country! But the man driving the compressor is working, cutting off my access back to the guesthouse. Which I need to return to in order to check out of my room before hitting the streets one last time. The knot of men shift from calling the cat to waving at their working companion, and make a little path for me through the hot asphalt. My shoes are steaming by the time I get through the gate.
I put my stuff in the storage room around back and set out for the sky train station on nearby Bukit Bintang (pronounced entertainingly like 'bucket'). I haven't been on the monorail yet, and am eager for the experience. Riding it is perhaps my favorite thing that I do in KL. Very small, each train only 2 cars, it winds its way through the treetops of the city, high enough for an unobstructed view on all sides but near enough to clearly make out the details of everything going by. I pass mall after mall after mall, the derelict remains of an enormous prison (mere blocks from my guesthouse), a myriad assortment of temples, mosques and churches, an overgrown lot where motorcycles apparently go to die, parks, highways, museums...a bird's eye view of the city that gives me a much better sense of the density of experience waiting to happen below. My list of things to explore next time grows and grows and grows.
Back at KL Sentral, the end of the line, I finally see why Yoga was laughing at me when I said how small and quiet the station was. The side closest to the monorail is bustling, crowded, confusing. Luckily, I am an old hand at KL now, so it is not overwhelming as it might have otherwise been. I set out on the same half-well marked walking path to the bird park that I was on the other day, this time bypassing the police museum and other unplanned pitstops of my previous expedition, and going straight to the orchid and hibiscus garden. Yay me!
Clearly I am an animals and outdoors kind of person. Clearly. Nearly alone with the masses of brilliant flowers in the (free!) gardens, I feel completely at ease, completely enthralled, completely happy. It is reasonable to expect that each person's heaven smells unique, but mine is surely full of frangipani (a word as delightful to say as the flower is to look at and inhale). In addition to the frangrant plumeria pinwheels in their various shades of white, yellow, pink and red, orchids of every imaginable configuration of colour, design and scent litter the landscape. Sprays of bold red like blood. Heavy purples with unlikely black tongues. Delicate cream hearts with curly brownish petals that smell decadently of chocolate. Fuscias the size of dinner plates. Delicate lady slippers nearly invisible in the mulchy stream beds...on and on and on. One pond is full of blossoming purple lilies, humming with the accumulated buzz of thousands of tiny bees intoxicated with pollen. The KL Tower and Petronas Towers both gleam silver in the distance, framed by stands of palm trees swaying in the brilliant blue sky.
In the hibiscus garden, there is a flying insect so large that I at first mistake it for a hummingbird. It goes from flower to flower, burying itself completely in the neck of each hanging, white trumpet, somehow not dislodging the fragile-looking buds with his visible weight. I follow it for a long time, trying to get a photo, but succeed only in capturing it's technicolor green wings. The hibiscus is the national flower of Malaysia, and this manicured acre is awash in them. It's unbelievable that there are not more people here. Heaven!!
My plan to continue to the butterfly garden is interrupted by the realization that I have been sniffing petals and chasing bugs for a couple of hours. I walk back to the train station in the blistering heat radiating off the pavement, and return to Bukit Bintang. Where I start with an amazing Turkish-Lebanese appetizer lunch (silky-creamy baba ghanoush so full of flavour that my mind makes a spontaneous little escape to the middle east), surrounded by men in salwar smoking hookahs with multi-coloured pipes. Followed by a return to the Thai massage oasis and Jun's brilliance. Aaaah. She can tell I am gassy from lunch just by the way the arches of my feet feel (I am absolutely certain I have managed, at great personal expense, not to fart). She tells me about her family back in Bangkok, her 13 year old daughter who is also good at massage, and how she misses them but needs the money she earns here too much to return yet. This is a good place to work she says. I repeat...it is worth going to KL just for Jun's massage.
Syrupy, fresh sugar cane juice from a bag on the corner. Refreshing cold shower. Yummy beef noodle soup from a Chinese cart that Andrew recommends, served with a tall glass of icy lime-plum juice. And it is time to go to the airport. And frantically back to the guesthouse. And more frantically back to the airport. But that is another story, more interesting than this one...
Last day in Kuala Lumpur, nearly perfect. No, scratch that. Last day in Kuala Lumpur, absolutely perfect.
First of all, kindergarden report cards. Finished. This is not something I anticipated doing (at all, never mind while vacationing in Malaysia), but rather something that was dropped on me too near my departure from Korea to take care of before I left. But they are done, done, done now and I am thrilled. Free! I arrive a little later than planned at the old man's food cart in the middle of the street to find my favorite roti already sold out. This would be very, very sad, except that Yoga's been bugging me to try the banana-leaf wrapped coconut rice since day 1 and there's a pile of them on the table beside me just waiting to be unwrapped. They're not as tasty as the roti (not as oily either, which is probably a plus for my tetchy stomach), but it's always good to try new things. I have a boiled egg and a banana too, alongside my regular tea.
For the third morning in a row, a big road crew is working on repaving the streets on each side of the cart. I use the word working fairly loosely here, since mostly the 8 or so men in fluorescent orange vests just stand huddled in a knot chatting and trying to lure over (unsuccessfully) one of the neighbourhood cats. Some things are the same in every country! But the man driving the compressor is working, cutting off my access back to the guesthouse. Which I need to return to in order to check out of my room before hitting the streets one last time. The knot of men shift from calling the cat to waving at their working companion, and make a little path for me through the hot asphalt. My shoes are steaming by the time I get through the gate.
I put my stuff in the storage room around back and set out for the sky train station on nearby Bukit Bintang (pronounced entertainingly like 'bucket'). I haven't been on the monorail yet, and am eager for the experience. Riding it is perhaps my favorite thing that I do in KL. Very small, each train only 2 cars, it winds its way through the treetops of the city, high enough for an unobstructed view on all sides but near enough to clearly make out the details of everything going by. I pass mall after mall after mall, the derelict remains of an enormous prison (mere blocks from my guesthouse), a myriad assortment of temples, mosques and churches, an overgrown lot where motorcycles apparently go to die, parks, highways, museums...a bird's eye view of the city that gives me a much better sense of the density of experience waiting to happen below. My list of things to explore next time grows and grows and grows.
Back at KL Sentral, the end of the line, I finally see why Yoga was laughing at me when I said how small and quiet the station was. The side closest to the monorail is bustling, crowded, confusing. Luckily, I am an old hand at KL now, so it is not overwhelming as it might have otherwise been. I set out on the same half-well marked walking path to the bird park that I was on the other day, this time bypassing the police museum and other unplanned pitstops of my previous expedition, and going straight to the orchid and hibiscus garden. Yay me!
Clearly I am an animals and outdoors kind of person. Clearly. Nearly alone with the masses of brilliant flowers in the (free!) gardens, I feel completely at ease, completely enthralled, completely happy. It is reasonable to expect that each person's heaven smells unique, but mine is surely full of frangipani (a word as delightful to say as the flower is to look at and inhale). In addition to the frangrant plumeria pinwheels in their various shades of white, yellow, pink and red, orchids of every imaginable configuration of colour, design and scent litter the landscape. Sprays of bold red like blood. Heavy purples with unlikely black tongues. Delicate cream hearts with curly brownish petals that smell decadently of chocolate. Fuscias the size of dinner plates. Delicate lady slippers nearly invisible in the mulchy stream beds...on and on and on. One pond is full of blossoming purple lilies, humming with the accumulated buzz of thousands of tiny bees intoxicated with pollen. The KL Tower and Petronas Towers both gleam silver in the distance, framed by stands of palm trees swaying in the brilliant blue sky.
In the hibiscus garden, there is a flying insect so large that I at first mistake it for a hummingbird. It goes from flower to flower, burying itself completely in the neck of each hanging, white trumpet, somehow not dislodging the fragile-looking buds with his visible weight. I follow it for a long time, trying to get a photo, but succeed only in capturing it's technicolor green wings. The hibiscus is the national flower of Malaysia, and this manicured acre is awash in them. It's unbelievable that there are not more people here. Heaven!!
My plan to continue to the butterfly garden is interrupted by the realization that I have been sniffing petals and chasing bugs for a couple of hours. I walk back to the train station in the blistering heat radiating off the pavement, and return to Bukit Bintang. Where I start with an amazing Turkish-Lebanese appetizer lunch (silky-creamy baba ghanoush so full of flavour that my mind makes a spontaneous little escape to the middle east), surrounded by men in salwar smoking hookahs with multi-coloured pipes. Followed by a return to the Thai massage oasis and Jun's brilliance. Aaaah. She can tell I am gassy from lunch just by the way the arches of my feet feel (I am absolutely certain I have managed, at great personal expense, not to fart). She tells me about her family back in Bangkok, her 13 year old daughter who is also good at massage, and how she misses them but needs the money she earns here too much to return yet. This is a good place to work she says. I repeat...it is worth going to KL just for Jun's massage.
Syrupy, fresh sugar cane juice from a bag on the corner. Refreshing cold shower. Yummy beef noodle soup from a Chinese cart that Andrew recommends, served with a tall glass of icy lime-plum juice. And it is time to go to the airport. And frantically back to the guesthouse. And more frantically back to the airport. But that is another story, more interesting than this one...
posted by Roberta | 3:28 PM
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