We’re at the end of our second week in Kuala Lumpur. Since my last blog we’ve spent a lot of time just relaxing. Because of Chinese New Year we’ve avoided going to a lot of the so-called attractions because thanks to the holiday most of those places would have been heaving with people. Saturday morning (Feb 2) the car which we’d used to go to the Genting Highlands on Friday, wasn’t due to be returned until after lunch so we took the chance to go to a small restaurant called The Daily Grind for breakfast. The menu was completely pork free. I had a normal kind of breakfast but with beef bacon instead of pork. That was a new one for me as I never knew there was such a thing. It was nice though and if I’m absolutely honest I’m not sure I’d be able to tell the difference between beef and pork bacon. After that we drove to a garden centre and had a look around. Dan was after some potting compost for the plants at work, once more, living life on the edge! Getting there meant driving through what looked like (to put it kindly) some of the poorer areas of KL. Having said that though, almost right alongside these poor areas you could find large impressive houses or even mansions with security that turned out to be embassies of various country’s, Qatar being one of them. It seemed strange to see such obvious wealth alongside such equally obvious poverty. Then again, what we see as poverty seems to be the norm for a lot of the people here and they don’t seem unhappy at all.
After finally dropping the car off we got the train to go to yet another Mall. This time it was the Mid Valley Megamall. Whoopee!!!! The journey should have been two train rides but when we got off the first one it turned out there would have been a 25 minute wait for the next one and Daniel assured us that the station which was way underground would be deeply unpleasant as there is no air conditioning so its like an oven. I was happy to take his word for it and instead we went outside to get a grab (taxi). Arriving at the Mid Valley Megamall you realise it’s just like every other mall but much bigger. Consequently you just know you’re in for an afternoon of scintillating excitement. I thought we Brits were obsessive shoppers due mainly to our shit weather but the Malaysians have us beat hands down for the exact opposite reason that the malls are a perfect escape from the heat. Lynne had been having problems with her iPhone not taking a charge which turned out to be because of fluff in the charging port. I had been trying to persuade her to have a Samsung phone if only for the brilliant camera. So far she had resisted all my persuasions but suddenly while we were at Mid Valley she decided it might be good just to take a look at them. 45 minutes later and £650 lighter she had given in and now all three of us have identical phones! Brilliant, I’m sure that will cause some problems in the not too distant future!
Sunday February 3. We had yet another car for the day and Dan drove us to Melaka. Melaka is about a hundred miles away and took roughly 2.5 hours to get to. Having arrived we then needed to find Kiat’s (Dans friend) house. After a short drive around, that proved fruitless Dan phoned Kiat who then came out to meet us. We followed him to his house where his wife provided us with drinks to cool off. We were introduced to his 85-year-old mother who remained seated in a wheelchair having recently fallen, injuring herself thus needing hospital treatment. She was however, obviously still as sharp mentally as ever! After a short chat and being introduced to some more of the family we headed off into the town in Kiat’s car. The car was a small nondescript hatchback and it was fascinating to see the different driving style of the Malaysians. Kiat got in amongst the busy traffic and just pushed in wherever he wanted. It seems quite acceptable to switch lanes and cut in front of people and there never seems to be any hint of road rage. In fact I found myself cringing a couple of times but nobody as much as blew a horn in annoyance the way we might do in the UK. Once the car was parked we commenced a walking tour of Melaka with Kiat as our guide. To say it was hot would be a massive understatement and the walk soon became somewhat of an ordeal. I don’t want that to sound as if we didn’t enjoy ourselves because we did, but blimey it was bloody hot. I was already peeling and itchy from our ill-advised time at the pool the first day or two and I wasn’t going to risk more sunburn so I was wearing a baseball cap to cover my bald bits (my entire head). Melaka is quite a popular tourist destination and being so close to Chinese New Year it was very crowded so opportunities for any kind of photography were very limited. I should try to do more street photography including people but I’ve never been particularly comfortable approaching people. You never know what their response is gonna be. We visited another Chinese temple where people were praying and whilst wandering round an old Chinese lady came and gave us an orange each. Apparently this is good luck. Having thanked her I then thought, well she looks like a bit of a character so I asked politely if I could take her photo, “No no no” was the answer and she couldn’t get away quickly enough! Which perfectly illustrates why I’m uncomfortable with street/people photography. Landscapes are much easier and don’t ever run away!
The rest of the afternoon was spent walking and sweating profusely not necessarily in that order although we did stop for drinks a couple of times. We visited a house museum called the Baba & Nyonya Heritage Museum. The house is a representation of late 19th century and early 20th century Malaya. It gives a fascinating glimpse of the richness of the culture along with the opulence that was fashionable in many pre-World War II Peranakan homes. I copied most of that last bit from an article online. What!? There’s no way I could know that stuff now, is there?
At about 4.30 pm we decided to make a move to start the journey home. This came as a huge relief as Kiat had talked about how nice Melaka was at night with everything lit up. That would have meant maybe another three hours of walking around in the heat. I didn’t think I had another thirty minutes left in me let alone three hours so I was glad to go back to Kiat’s house for drinks before leaving. While we were there Kiat told us about his time spent studying in the US, Kansas to be exact. Apparently he spent 5 years there and also time in Canada before getting his degree in Structural Engineering. He plays the group clown but he’s obviously a clever guy too.
The journey back was straight forward although we did see one dead monkey at the side of the road. It took just two hours to get back to KL and we had to go to another mall (kill me now) to get some shopping. I’m sure this is gonna get interesting at some point when we get our act together and do some travelling but until then we’re just mooching about settling in to life in KL. The days since the trip to Melaka have been spent around KL, on Wednesday we drove up to a Forestry research area expecting to do some walking. The entrance fee was 15 Ringits. That’s about £2.80 but once inside we found that none of the walks we wanted to do were open. The only one we could do was up the side of a waterfall. That would have been enough to keep me happy, I love photographing waterfalls. Unfortunately this one had half the population of Malaysia taking a bath in it! Seriously, there were people splashing about everywhere in the water meaning photography would have been impossible. We did walk up as far as it was possible to go but without having a chainsaw that wasn’t very far. Having given up on that we wandered around for a short while but there wasn’t much to see, just a few monkeys in the trees. Writing off this portion of the trip we decided to head back to KL and go to the Botanical Gardens which is within the city itself. When we got there we walked around the gardens which are incredible but once again we only spent just over an hour before we were beaten by the heat. Back at the car we decided to head back to Desa Park where Lynne and I had gotten slightly drunk a few days previously. As soon as we came out of the carpark we were right on the doorstep of S’mores bar so we sat down to eat.
Because of Chinese New Year everyone with any sense apparently all leave the city and go home to family for the holiday. Consequently, whilst Dan was driving us around, there was only a fraction of the normal traffic on the roads. You still see instances of idiot driving though. As we were traveling along a motorway I noticed a motorbike with two people on it doing a quick u turn in order to travel the wrong way down a slip road that was obviously meant for traffic to enter the motorway not leave it. Apparently that happens all the time. Dan was telling us about a friend of his who got stopped for drink driving. When he asked the police if they could deal with the matter at the roadside they agreed to and demanded 300 ringit which is about £56. When he said he had no money because he’d spent it all on drink, they asked if he knew anyone nearby who could get him the money. He replied that he didn’t know anyone locally so they rooted through his car and settled for a Casio watch which had been in his glovebox. Unbelievable but true! From all accounts it’s not unusual for the police to accompany people to an ATM to obtain their bribe, oops, sorry, fine!👨🏼✈️🍺😜.
Thursday we spent the whole day in the apartment and never went anywhere. It was great just chilling out with no pressure to do anything. The most notable part of the day was the storm that hit about 6.00 pm. It started with rain that looked beautiful glinting in the sun but slowly the sun disappeared and the rain got heavier and heavier as time went on. Before long visibility was down to the point where we couldn’t see any of the high-rise blocks or the mountains in the distance. I can honestly say I’ve never seen rain like it. Thunder, lightning, the whole works. Afterwards as the sky cleared the I took this photograph of a fantastic scene just before sunset.
Wandering Wildman 