More than a week has passed since my last blog and If I’m absolutely honest, not a lot has happened. We’ve gotten as far as looking at flights and hotels for the different destinations we’d hoped to visit whilst here but that’s as far as it got. Myanmar was my favoured destination but it’s proving difficult to find flights that aren’t extremely expensive. That came as a surprise as I was under the misapprehension that everything was going to be as cheap as chips! First reality check, done!
On Thursday this week we were getting ready for our third attempt to find the Kuala Lumpur Bird Park when Lynne asked me if I’d mind not going today as she wasn’t feeling well. She had an upset stomach which was unexpected as we’d been in the gym and the pool that morning and everything was fine then. In fact we spent every morning except Friday in the gym. It’s frigging hard work but the pool always feels great afterwards. So Lynne is poorly with a bad stomach again. After a couple of days we were all in the kitchen when she let slip that she had been drinking water from the tap in the bathroom just to take her Statins. Daniel was quick to point out that not even the locals drink water from the tap which is why he has a filter system which provides hot and cold water instantly. Anyway, I suppose that explains why she’s ill having only eaten much the same foods as Dan and I.
Now as I write It’s Tuesday and we’re into our 4th week. Yesterday Lynne was feeling much better so we set out and actually made it to the Bird Park. We were both convinced Ā that we had visited a bird park in Sydney years ago but never this one in Kuala Lumpur. However, as we walked around, things began to be more and more familiar to me and I started to suspect that we had indeed been here before! As we entered an aviary with all kinds of parrots including Lorikeets I knew we’d either been here before or somewhere exactly like it. We decided to pay the exorbitant price of 2 Ringits (37p) for food to feed the birds. The food is actually a small cup of milk mixed with honey which the Lorikeets seem to love. After Lynne had taken a turn feeding them I took the cup and the birds came to me. Unfortunately one Lorikeet decided he would rather sit on my shoulder and attempt to bite chunks out of my ear. All very funny to anyone watching but not the most pleasant feeling for me. I think he was really wanting to steal my glasses.
As we continued our walk around the park it became ever more evident that we had been here before and we were finally convinced when memories of trying to photograph the ostriches came flooding back. This time we watched other people feeding them and remembered that Ostriches are horrible things and don’t seem averse to taking the odd finger along with the celery sticks on offer!
Without even intending to we just happened to be passing the open air theatre at the moment the bird show started. We wouldn’t normally have gone out of our way to see this. All it consists of is half an hour of parrots doing various tricks. What I found more fascinating was the Kingfisher which turned up as the show started and sat within 10/12 feet of the stage Ā seeming to watch the whole thing. After the show finished we made our way to the exit. It had been another hot and sticky afternoon of walking. On leaving the bird park we discovered a quicker way to get back to the train station which taught us that on our previous attempts to find said bird park, we had passed quite close to the entrance a number of times without even knowing it! As I was writing just now I received a text from a friend saying he had just read my last blog. Well, it’s nice to know someone is reading it. Many thanks Graham!
In the past week we’ve had numerous thunderstorms. It always seems to be about 6pm that they start. Each time I find myself thinking this is the mother of all thunder storms until I remind myself that yesterdays was just as intense. They often go on for 2 hours or more and I’ve taken literally hundreds of photographs trying to catch the fork lightning. The theory is that if you can achieve a 2/3 second exposure, then you just keep hitting the shutter immediately the last shot finishes. That way you’re bound to get something. The only problem is it’s pretty hard on the camera. I wasn’t joking when I said I’d taken hundreds of photos. In the space of 2 nights I took something like 600 photos. About 10 of them had lighting strikes in them and 5 of those were worth looking at. You can see all 5 in the following photo, which is a blend of them all. For my first attempt at lightning photography, I wasn’t too displeased with it.
So, now it’s Wednesday and I still haven’t finished this blog. Last night we were invited along with Daniel to a restaurant to celebrate the last day of Chinese New Year. I actually wasn’t that keen to go because it felt like an intrusion. The whole event was a get together for Daniel and a group of his mates all put together by the restaurant owner Chris who Dan had met just a week earlier. He also runs a business providing so-called access solutions, simply put, that means ladders and scaffolding. Kiat had recently placed an order with him for scaffold towers and while Dan was chatting to him happened to mention that they were planning this get together at which point Chris offered to host it at one of his two restaurants for free. Well, that was an offer too good to refuse, but my personal reluctance to go was based on not wanting to look like we were tagging along just for a free nosh! My reservations turned out to be unfounded though as all of Dans friends made us very welcome and Chris seemed thrilled to have us there. He couldn’t have been more attentive and the food which he described as a fusion of Japanese and Western was fantastic. The evening started off with most people drinking beer and in-between beers arriving there was a tower of beer in the shape of the Eiffel Tower you could resort to as back up.
The first dish to arrive was a small appetizer which was fish liver and fruit. The fish liver was delicious, kind of like fishy Foie Gras! The next hour or so saw a variety of different foods arrive at the table including plates of fried anchovies which I’ve never eaten in my life. Having tried them I have to say they reminded me of the pork scratchings we get at home but they were really tasty! By now the food was coming thick and fast along with the beer and wine. One of the main dishes was a large bowl of various fish, veggies and noodles which the custom is for everyone to gather round with their chopsticks and having poured the sauces in, on the count of three they all dig in and throw the food up in the air thereby mixing it all together and then fill your plates. All great fun and just ever so slightly mad but once again the food was amazing. The best however was yet to come. We were presented with what I can only describe as a Sushi Boat with different cuts of raw fish in it. There were two of these for around about 10 people to share. Much to my delight no one else seemed interested in eating the octopus which you can see at the right hand end of the dish. I ate all but one piece and Lynne had the other one.
It’s way beyond my writing skills to describe how excellent the food was that night but it was almost surpassed by the entertainment to come, most of which of course was courtesy of Kiat the class clown. He decided to get the Karaoke machine working and started singing along to various old BeeGees songs. At one point he asked me what my favourite song was and without really thinking about it too much I said Stairway to Heaven. This started a whole conversation about who performed it and when Daniel told him it was Led Zeppelin, Kiat asked who the singer was and when Dan answered that it was Robert Plant, Kiat replied “oh, Addicted to Love”. Instantly the whole room collapsed in hysterical laughter. Kiat is just such a naturally funny guy you can’t help liking him. Ā At one point in the Karaoke session even I sang a song (can’t remember which, well and truly drunk by now) and Kiat proceeded to sing Lionel Ritchie’s Truly to Lynne. After the ensuing hysterics died down we then played a dice drinking game. The game is played with seven dice and you roll them into a pot and, depending on the combination of 1’s or 5’s you either end up drinking yourself or nominate someone else to drink. The strange thing is everyone seemed to nominate Kiat in spite of his protestations! He must have been so pissed by the end, I dread to think what his drive home must have been like!
Finally we played a game in another room where you throw ping pong balls into any one of 7 cups of water at your opponents end of the table. Each time you get one in, and it’s a lot harder than it sounds, that cup is taken away and the first one with no cups left Loses! Needless to say, Dan won as usual. I don’t think I ever met anyone more competitive! Ā Git!š¤Ø
All in all, a fantastic evening with some great people and I can’t remember when I ever laughed so much. Dans friend Tommi dropped us home and I barely remember tipping into bed and conking out instantly! Brilliantšŗš“
Wandering Wildman 