Behind the wall of sleep

Tuesday, 02/10/2012 – 110 A.D.

Lift was out of order this morning. Not guilty. Try getting past the cactus guarding the entrance on the fourth floor! 

Today was a slow day, the morning taken up with the dreaded admin as we planned our future journeys through Asia. Although we like to be flexible in light of possible (or probable) delays, it makes sense to book a few steps ahead and be aware of where we can and cannot go. Last thing we want is to turn up in central Cambodia to discover the jungle is closed for repairs! 

Getting out to breathe in the air, and the various noxious aromas that populate it, we returned to Chinatown and went to Central Market. I toyed with the idea of getting a kaftan, but they didn’t have my size – they were all either XL or XXL. Maybe that’s the way they’re supposed to be worn? Upstairs in the market are various eateries of medium standard and we sat down for lunch. I had “USA Fried Rice”, which seemed like sweet and sour chicken with an egg on the side for good measure. It was very tasty, but my palette was screaming at me that I’m normally eating bread by this point in the day. We were pleased to once again eat where the locals eat, although I fear we may be getting a little cocky and will end up riding our luck once too often.

After lunch we went to another of the Indian-run places with every type of product you could imagine by brands you’ve never heard of. You can still buy albums on cassette there. It took me a while to find suncream, a rarely used item here no doubt. I thought I’d best not risk the skin tone of Ripened Beetroot and stuck with factor 30. After this we walked to the Kuala Lumpur Tower, which used to be the main draw to the city before the twin towers muscled their way in with their extra height. Once again we weren’t bothered about going up it and were treated to some kind of display of traditional dancing in the lobby. The music was quite catchy, the moves lazily hypnotic, but some of the male dancers looked a little…not like male dancers.

Heading out to dinner that evening, there seemed to be some kind of strike action by the taxi drivers who parked about a hundred vehicles in the road and did a bit of chanting. I was really tempted to raise my hand and shout, “Taxi!” but thought better about it. Not sure what they were protesting about, but once the police presence swelled to sufficient numbers they peacefully moved them along.

Maybe we'd come to the realisation that we were riding our luck, or maybe we’re just getting more picky, but either way we spent a lot of time walking round to find somewhere to eat. Eventually we got fed up of walking and nipped into a Thai place that  seemed to possess the twin desirables of cleanliness and popularity. I ordered the Special Thai Noodles. Tim did not…but the waitress brought him some anyway. And we both enjoyed them. The bill came to 54 ringstings and we both only had 50 ringgit notes. I made it extremely clear to the waiter that we were giving them 60 ringgits, not 100…or else there really would be ringsting!

Wednesday, 03/10/2012 – 111 A.D.

It was going to be one of those days – check out of the hotel at midday, then spend time “doing stuff” until our train at 21:25 that evening. These days can always be a bit taxing, especially because you feel doubly homeless – far away from your real home, and even without a temporary home. Plus the Malaysian climate isn’t great for wandering round aimlessly. Therefore we took a train up to the area north west of the city centre, where there sits Malaysia’s very own “World Trade Centre”. Oh really? According to our map, it was supposedly the symbol of the city before the KL Tower and then the twin towers came along, but I was sceptical about this. Whatever its importance, for the casual visitor there’s absolutely sod-all to see! Despite killing some time, the trip wasn’t entirely wasted because we went to a nearby shopping mall and saw a security guard carrying a pump action shotgun. Yeah, I know, it was a slow day.

For lunch we returned to our favourite food court and had a big bowl of nasi goreng, which is goreng with rice, unlike mee goreng, which is goreng with noodles. What’s “goreng”? I’m not exactly sure, but it was very tasty. And we asked the cook-cum-salesmen if it was a typical Malay dish, and he assured us it was, though I think he would have said anything to get our custom.

Despite not having much of an agenda, the day actually passed pretty quickly and we found ourselves leaving the hotel and heading down the hill to hail a taxi outside the 7-11. The driver spotted us from afar and came towards us and it was at this point that I perfomed my first fare haggle:

DRIVER: Where you wanna go?

JAMES: Kuala Lumpur Sentral Station.

DRIVER: Sentral Station, 20 ringgits.

JAMES: Ah no, we can’t go for 20 ringgits.

TIM: We only paid 10 ringgits to come here from the station.

DRIVER: Yes, but at this time of day that is not possible.

[Pause.]

JAMES: What about 15 ringgits?

[Pause.]

DRIVER: Okay.

JAMES: [silently, in his own head] Result!

I still actually had 20 ringgits on me, in the form of two 10 ringgit notes, but I needed the rest for my tea. The traffic to the station was very busy, but somehow, despite the chaos, every vehicle always manages to keep moving. If you want to automatically gain an advanced driving qualification then take your test in Kuala Lumpur! When we reached the station, the driver tried his second trick to get 20 ringgits. When I handed him the two 10 notes he made out he didn’t have any change. Fortunately between the two of us we could find another 5 ringgits, so got the fare for the agreed amount, but it was something to keep in mind for future occurrences. 

Now I sit in the station, at a table outside KFC and await the arrival of our train. This is a sleeper train that will take us across northern Malaysia through the night, then get us over the border into Thailand come morning. There are two types of sleeper class here – “soft sleeper” in which you have a small berth of 2 – 4 beds and relative comfort like your own plug socket, possibly even your own mini TV, and “hard sleeper” which treats the whole carriage like an open dormitory. We will be travelling in hard sleeper class. To make matters worse, there were only two beds left on the train, which are at the end of the carriage, where you must suffer the noise of the wheels grinding against the track and people banging the door closed as they pass through. I know we’re travel-hardened veterans who’ve managed many an overnight journey in little or no comfort, but this one is going to be a whole new experience! Wish us luck, dear readers, and I hope to see you on the other side of the border come morning - goodnight for now!

Kinky afro

Monday, 01/10/2012 – 109 A.D.

Oh people! People in the night! People in the corridor speaking really loudly and waking me and my brother up! How dare they? Oh, they dare. Next time I swear I’ll get out of bed and tell them to shut the hell up…definitely…depending on how many of them there are…and whether my hair is sticking up or not…

The first order of the day was to retrieve our washing and see just how much of it came back. All of it, as it happened. Plus it was folded nicely and put into a big see-through bag that was sellotaped shut. If that’s the way it happens over here then I’m never going back to handwashing again! Well, actually I did handwash yesterday’s shirt this morning…no point putting a single item of clothing on the hotel’s scales, is there? Speaking of shirts, we might have another casualty as White Shirt has got a bit torn and frayed on one side, but I don’t want to think about that right now.

If you read yesterday’s blog (and gawd bless ya if ya did!), you’ll know that we were heading back to the British High Commission today to find out how to apply for visas. At least we knew it would be open this time. However, we’d forgotten to bring our passports, but the guard was happy to let us in with our UK driving licences as ID – they weren’t good enough for bouncers in the US of A, but consular security guards  in Malaysia were fine with them. Might even have got in using an NUS card. Obviously the guards held onto our cameras while we went inside, so no pictures of this visit exist. In fact, after going through the whole security palava and getting a number for an appointment I was a little worried that we might be wasting the time of these people, who no doubt have far more important things to do with their day, such as securing British trade interests in the upcoming tiger economies of the East. Do they really want a couple of Grayboys coming along and asking how to get visas when the simple answer is [loud, slow, patronising voice] “Look on the website!” Turned out the woman we spoke to was happy to help, but the advice she gave was to go to the embassies for the various countries (Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Nepal and India) and see what they say. Not keen on trailing round all those buildings in the KL heat, we gathered our belongings and went back to the hotel to, ahem, check on the websites.

The afternoon was young and we were feeling a bit more energetic than usual because of the grey clouds overhead. Yeah, so it would probably rain later, but at least it was a tad cooler (i.e. one or two degrees). If you’re a regular reader of this blog (and gawd bless ya if ya are!) you’ll know that we usually end up in parks at some point and today would be no exception, but before we got to said park we’d have to walk through Chinatown…another place where we usually end up at some point! In light of White Shirt’s probable retirement, I thought I’d check out some of the market stalls and see what was on offer. Plenty, as it happened, and at very good prices (even before the haggling started), but call me picky, I couldn’t quite find what I wanted.

And although the traders were quite pushy, I’ve come across worse (yes, Tijuana, I’m thinking of you!) Quote of the day…

TRADER: Hey man, you want to buy some DVDs?

JAMES: No thanks, I haven’t got a DVD player.

TIM: (whispering) Don’t say that, he’ll try and sell you one!

There was still plenty of time left in KL for me to find a bargain or 49, so we left the market and continued on our way to the park. Ahead of us was Kuala Lumpur Station, with its fine mix of eastern and western architecture. This used to be the main station for all trains passing through Malaysia, but it’s since moved to Sentral Station, just down the line and where we arrived two days ago. We’re not really into trainspotting, but we were into using the lavatories, although I got the shock of my life when I entered the Gents and saw what those needing more than a tinkle had to contend with…

Eeeek! I thought it didn’t get that desperate until India! Anyhow, we were trying to work out how best next to proceed when a young Chinese lady came dashing up to us with map in hand, soon joined by her friend. They wanted to get to the National Mosque, but were having trouble reading the map. Even though I was still reeling from the shock of the toilet, red in the face and sweating buckets from the increasing heat, I put on my most charming tones and told them that the mosque was on our way to the park where we were heading and we’d be happy to escort them to their destination. They seemed up for this and we all introduced ourselves, though I knew as soon as they said their names I’d forget them, and sure enough I have.

Of course, this put me under a bit of pressure, and with pressure comes even more perspiration. I’d have to make sure we found that mosque or else we’d look like a right couple of wallies, or worse, like we had some kind of underhand motive for taking them elsewhere. Fortunately that month on the roads of New Zealand without sat nav means I’m still pretty handy with a map and so, despite a couple of uncertain road crossings, we got the Chinese girls to their destination and in a decent amount of time. Not sure what Tim was so happy about though…

As we waited at the endless traffic crossings, we got to know our new companions a little. They were both from Beijing where they had jobs, but had taken two weeks off work to go to Myanmar for ten days, then on to Malaysia for five days. Oddly enough, they had to ask us where we were from - I thought being English was invisibly tattooed across my forehead, but I suppose I could be vaguely Noridc or a bit Teutonic. They’d also just come from the market where they’d done a bit of haggling over some traditional Malaysian dress, claiming that this land was cheaper than back home. Hmmm, best get my dodgy, knocked-off goods while I’m here, rather than wait until we get further into the Orient!

By the time we arrived at the National Mosque it was closed to non-Muslims, but only for an hour. The girls therefore brought forward their next planned destination, which was the Islamic Museum of Arts. But they still couldn’t read the map, so again we offered to show them where it was, which didn’t turn out to be far. I don’t think it’s the ego talking when I say I got the impression our Chinese friends wanted us to go around the museum with them, but we really didn’t fancy it. And the conversations weren’t flowing as easy as first thought, e.g.

JAMES: Are you both students?

CHINESE GIRL #1: No! I have been working for maybe three years!

JAMES: Oh, okay.

CHINESE GIRL #1: Do I seem like a student to you?

JAMES: Err, well, ummm…you have the…energy…of a student. [cringes at remark]

CHINESE GIRL #1: Energy of…how do you mean?

JAMES: Never mind. The museum isn’t far…

And so we let `em go to see the Islamic Art with the vague proposition of meeting them later at the mosque when it was open, knowing that we probably wouldn’t be there. It’s a cruel world, dear readers, but they’ll probably meet a couple of nice Chinese boys sometime soon (if they haven’t already, we never got that far!)

We finally got to our park, side-stepping the Butterfly House because it was a little over-priced for what it was – to be fair, the first over-priced thing we’ve seen in Malaysia, leaving aside beer bought in bars. Up at the park we saw the National Monument to the country’s war dead, then had a drastic change of scenery at the Dinosaur Park, which was a deserted children’s playground where Tim tried his luck going down a helter-skelter slide and temporarily dislocated his little toe (serves him right, the big kid!) There were also sections of the park devoted to deer, some unidentifiable large rodents and a few roosters, but these were pretty tame after having been to the Singapore Night Safari and Australia Zoo. And then the rains finally came and we headed back to the hotel.

That night we ate out again - oooh, it’s such fun! Perhaps we’re getting a little bolder, but we tried our luck at a place down one of the busier backstreets that are brimming with second class eateries, but eateries that are always full with locals. Isn’t the golden rule supposed to be to eat where the locals eat? They all looked the same to us, so we picked a place called Dragon View, which just about had a slightly-obscured view of the Petronas Twin Towers. A whole section of the menu was devoted to frog-based dishes, which I would have gone for had I few beers already inside me. Instead I settled for Thai style chicken. This means that for the last four nights I have eaten Indian, ahem – KFC, Chinese, and Thai…not bad going for a boy who wouldn’t willingly eat any other vegetable than chips until he was well into his teens (come on, they’re made from potatoes, so they must be vegetables!)

You’ll note in the photo above that there is a foot illuminated by neon lighting. On our way back from the eatery we went down a street we hadn’t been down before. There were lots of foot massage shops along it…more than really seemed necessary, even for a city of 7 million inhabitants. Outside of these shops were scores of young women, all rushing up to us and offering the joys of a foot massage. Just a foot massage? I thought it rude to ask, but some of them looked as though they gave more than just a foot massage several times a day. The golden rule is to never make eye contact. The silver rule is just to say, “No, thank you,” once they’ve ignored the fact that you’re not making eye contact and rushed up to you anyway.

And now, back at the hotel with no ill-effects so far from the local cuisine, the only issue hanging over us is our Indian visa. It looks like we can only apply for a visa to visit India if we’re in the UK, and obviously we’re not. So why not just skip India given that Tim’s already been there? Because we fly out of Mumbai and back to England on the 20th December, that’s why. Even if we have to jump the border fence, we have to get into India somehow…

All down the line

Saturday, 29/09/2012 – 107 A.D.

We first awoke to the sound of a child screaming with delight in the corridor, its parents occasionally speaking, oblivious to there being other guests in the hotel. We estimate this was some time around 07:00. Both Tim and I waited for the other to go out and tell it to shut the hell up. Instead we both went back to our slumbers.

It was the day of our first major train journey in this round the world trip of ours. We had our tickets printed out, we’d planned our travel across the city to the nth degree…so what could go wrong? Surprisingly nothing, as it happened, apart from the rain coming down as we were leaving Marsilling station and about to do our 15 minute walk to Woodlands Checkpoint. That meant the waterproofs came out, with day bags worn frontwise and under them we looked like a couple of pregnant backpackers as we made the punishing walk! Actually, it wasn’t too bad, what with the rain keeping us vaguely cool in the tropical heat.

[Cars leaving Singapore have to have at least more than half a tank of gas to prevent them constantly going to Malaysia for cheaper fuel.]

This is the difference between me and my brother – I poured away my small tub of washing powder, he kept hold of his. I dunno, I guess I just wanted peace of mind. We’re leaving a country where they put drug traffickers to death and the last thing I needed was a customs officer opening my luggage and getting excited by a small quantity of white powder. “But it smells like Persil,” Tim rightly protested. Sure, but that train wasn’t going to wait for me while I went through a full-on body search and got swabbed in all kinds of private places!

[Waiting in line for the immigration process…we missed the sign on the wall prohibiting the taking of photographs! I don’t think you get put to death for that though.]

Getting through customs turned out to be a breeze. All we had to do was put our luggage through a scanner (one obviously designed to ignore Aerial Ultra) and there wasn’t even a body sensor to deal with, which meant we avoided that annoying process of, “Empty your pockets please, ladies and gentlemen!” As we sat waiting for the train, still on Singaporean soil, yet technically under Malaysian jurisdiction, a young child screamed its head off nearby. “I’ll bet they sit behind us!” I remarked and Tim just smiled.

Coach M3 was where our designated seats were. Coach M3 was listed as “superior class”, though given that it’s second class seating, I’m not quite sure what it was supposed to be superior to. Sitting on the roof? Hanging on to the sides? Superior Class turned out to be a bit crappy, but it could have been dirtier. On the whole it was functional enough to get us from A to B (or A to KL) in six hours, providing there were no delays. And sure enough, the family with the screaming young child came to sit in Coach M3. “I bloody told you!” I said to Tim. “Yeah, but they’re not sitting directly behind you, are they?” he replied. No, they weren’t, but five minutes after the train started moving, and with kid still screaming, the whole family got up and came to sit in the seat RIGHT BEHIND US! Why??? The carriage was barely a quarter full with loads of empty seats so why come to make our lives a misery? We had to laugh. Fortunately, just across the water in Malaysia and at the first stop, some people (quiet people) got on and they had reserved the seats directly behind us, so noisy family had to move. Great success!  

[“Now we can eat our packed lunches and watch The Mighty Boosh in peace!”]

Oh yeah, and today I managed to actually bring a packed lunch with sandwiches that contained fillings. So much tastier!

A lot of the scenery on the journey was Malaysian jungle, not surprisingly. Occasionally we stopped at stations of small ramshackle towns where children played right beside the tracks and people watched the train pass as if it was the highlight of their rural day. A part of me wished we could get off and explore these truly out-of-the-way places, maybe even spend a few nights there, rather than retreat to the cosmopolitan safety of yet another metropolis. Definitely one to think about for the future.

Our train arrived at Sentral Station in KL bang on time, which was great because the screaming child was once again doing his thing. The station has a great system for taxi’s where you go to the counter and effectively buy your trip in advance. The standard price to get to our hotel on Jalan Pudu Lama was ten ringgits (5 ringgits = 1 pound) and all we had to do was give the driver the ticket we got from the counter, no need to worry about him having a dodgy meter or going twice around the one way system. And he was banging out some great Buddhist tunes on the stereo, which probably soothed his nerves against the manic traffic.

The Mayview Glory Hotel seems okay and our room has a bit more space than the last one, though it has neither a kettle nor a fridge. There is drinking water available on the 1^st floor, but Tim is still sceptical and it's rubbing off on me, not that I have the option to boil the tap water now. Our room also has an arrow on the ceiling which points west to Mecca in case we fancy a quick prayer, rather than simply living on one as we have been doing for the past three months.  

Not really having much time to plan a meal, we took a quick walk out of the hotel, stepped over a cockroach on the kerbside and headed to the KFC close by. I asked for the Colonel Burger Combo and questioned whether the girl had taken my order correctly when she presented me with a cardboard plate of potato wedges instead of fries. Still, the sauce they were coated in wasn’t bad at all…a sort of cheese-meets-mustard-meets-something-else…and I’m hoping and praying that the “something else” is something that agrees with my belly! After dinner, the only thing left to do that evening was to sit down and make use of the strong internet connection to watch a live stream of Liverpool stuffing Norwich 5-2. The reception guy at the hotel had earlier said that everyone around KL over 40 supports Liverpool because they were great in the 80s. Well guess what, people of KL, after that victory at Carrow Road, LFC are great again!