This piece is in two parts: you can chose to skip the first section describing the flight out, and go directly to Kuala Lumpur
This year getting to Asia went as smoothly as could be expected when the major segment was 21 hours on a plane (with an hour's break in Dubai's duty-free shopping mall -- I mean airport). Delta's six clerks made short work of the line at Raleigh-Durham, and I sailed through security -- except that the X-ray technicians were suspicious of my water bottle (its filter/purifier system showed dark on the X-ray). The shoe and wand check seemed to be the prerogative of underworked TSA people at boarding time. I was stunned to find a for-real bookshop (a branch of the British company W. H. Smith) at RDU, and amused to see that it sported an after-hours bestseller dispenser. I added a copy of Bernstein's "Ultimate Journey", an absorbing blend of travel, Buddhism and introspection, to the thick but lightweight (pun intended) Clancy I was already carrying.
A shuttle ride from La Guardia delivered me to beautiful Newark, and a spartan but spacious room in a mustard-yellow Days Inn. Maybe southern charm has finally rubbed off on me -- the driver complimented me on my "pleasant manner". (It's easier to relax when your next flight doesn't leave until the following morning.)
Luck favored me with a lightly loaded Malaysian Airlines flight from Newark to Kuala Lumpur. The overweight Englishman hemming me into my window seat didn't want to move, so I moved -- into a five-seat center section where I could stretch out full-length. The less said about the food the better -- I even thought I might be coming down with intestinal problems at one point, but Reiki fixed it. I was interested by the headline in the "New Straits Times": "M16 gang opens fire in shopping complex, robs goldsmiths shops." No-one was hurt, but maybe it's not so safe over there after all.
I couldn't help noticing the marked contrast between the stained carpets and shabby counters at RDU, La Guardia and Newark and the gleaming marble and glass adorning Dubai and K.L. airports. At Dubai the three-story high roof was supported by silver columns flanked by soaring palm trees and bedecked with gold spheres surrounded by halos of tiny electric lights. Things that looked like UFOs were being hung from the ceiling. A cornucopia of duty free shops flanked a luxury car on the ground floor but instead of window-shopping I people-watched -- men in suits and men in robes, women in Western dress and women in full burkhas, and little flocks of workers (men) in blue boiler suits.
Putrajaya, Malaysia's future government center, and Cyberjaya, Malaysia's future high-tech center, are rising from building sites south of Kuala Lumpur, and K.L.'s new airport was built further south still -- a full 75 kilometers from town, Since it would deliver me to my hotel I took the airport bus into town (RM 20, RM 3.8 to the US dollar). It left from the basement -- not as elegant as the rest of the building, but clean and air-conditioned.
The road was a surprise -- wide, well-marked, median barriers, big green direction signs, ads for Toyota, Nissan, Isuzu -- I could have been at home. Twenty minutes into the drive I finally realized that we were driving on the left side of the road. At the bus terminus we were switched to a minibus, but the streets were still impressive -- until we reached the crowded, narrow lanes of Chinatown, were I was staying.
The stained carpets and loud street noise at the Hotel Malaya were less impressive -- of course my outlook was not improved by the discovery that my shampoo had leaked. Next day I moved a couple of blocks east into another Chinatown hotel, the Furuma, cheaper and cleaner with most of the same amenities -- plus a "health center" on the fourth floor. For men only...
I took things easy at first, and soon realized that morning and evening were the times to be out -- I was in an ideal siesta city. Think North Carolina summer, subtract a few degrees of temperature, and up the humidity. I showered twice a day. A heavy haze hung over the city, likely due to the (unpainted) trucks and (mostly AC) buses. I waited 15 minutes for a bus one morning by a busy road and spent the rest of the day coughing.
K.L. appears to be a wonderfully ecumenical place. A Chinese temple sits almost opposite a Hindu temple, I passed a Taoist temple on my way to the old Anglican cathedral, still in use, and the National Mosque (Masjid Negara) is just across the river. Instead of a dome the Masjid Negara sports a green roof shaped like a flattened pyramid. It was memorable chiefly for the fact that I dropped my water bottle on my foot while taking off the mandatory robe (my sleeves were too short), which later required some pain-relieving Reiki. (Memo: don't leave home without becoming a Reiki practitioner.)
I saw faces from all over Asia -- Malaysia has had sizable immigrations from both China and India. The original Chinese settlers intermarried with the (Muslim) Malays to produce the Peranakans or Straits Chinese, who also adopted some European habits. Although northeastern Malaysia is becoming more fundamentalist Muslim, here I saw only one woman in a burkha - the Muslim women covered up with long skirts under tunics (a version of the shalwar kameez) and head scarves, often brightly brooched to one shoulder. But I also saw several younger women wearing the head scarf with jeans.
The red-and-white taxis were quite cheap, but hard to find. The buses were very cheap, but hard to figure out. The subway/metro/tube (light rail transport) was both cheap and easy. Still, I did a lot of walking, discovering not only that I was out of shape (which I knew), but that my new Birkenstocks were not fully broken in (a nasty surprise). The resultant blister did not succumb to Reiki, possibly because it was hard to reach. I walked much further than the map suggested because of all the major roads. The new rail station, K.L. Sentral, sits in a nest of spiraling freeways, apparently expressly designed to be pedestrian-hostile.
One reason I enjoy Asia is that the streets are so often full of life, so I loved K.L.'s Chinatown -- street markets for flowers and fruit, fish and meat; street markets for handbags, watches, CDs, T-shirts (Harry Potter and Spider-Man much in evidence); street front restaurants for steamboat (skewers of food cooked in broth at the table), for seafood, for clay pot meals, for dim sum. The streets were designed to cope with monsoon rains with raised pavement next to the road and lower, covered pavement next to the shops. The shop houses (shop below, house above), were built with the upper stories projecting to form the sheltering arcades, just like medieval European houses but without the timbers.
I found Little India less atmospheric, although it had plenty of shops selling silks and saris along with department stores and supermarkets. The Saturday night market was setting up when I was there, complete with magnetic bracelets and sandals, and plenty of anti-aging potions.
The third main district is the "Golden Triangle" -- full of high rise buildings and high price hotel rooms. I duly visited the Petronas Towers -- presently the world's highest buildings -- but I couldn't go up to the viewing area on the connecting bridge because tickets were sold out for the day. I did visit the glittering six-story mall inside one of the subsidiary buildings (it could easily bankrupt a shopaholic) and the manicured park out back, complete with a lake and paddling pool.
I spent a morning strolling though the Bird Park -- an enormous aviary with peacocks strutting around -- where I encountered my first photo request of the trip from a young Saudi Arabian couple. I admired hornbills and parrots, flamingos and pelicans and an enormous rhea. I even encountered a bored stare from a Buffy Fish Owl (I kid you not). Bored myself by the regimented Orchid and Hibiscus Gardens, I moved on to the new Islamic Arts Museum. Strangely there were few exhibits from Malaysia while many came from Iran, others from Kashmir (textiles), India (a gorgeous emerald necklace), Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, even Jerusalem. I paid most attention to a collection of models of famous mosques. Some -- Xi'an, Islamabad, Cairo -- I have seen. Some -- Mecca, Medina -- I can never see unless I convert to Islam. Some --Samarkand, Bukhara -- I now want to see more than ever.
I expected good food in Malaysia, and was not disappointed. I lunched in an Indian "coffee-shop" (it sold Horlicks!) on dirt-cheap murtabak -- a thin chewy pancake wrapped around a cake of egg and chicken and fried. Good and filling, but not spicy. I dined at the Old China Cafe behind swinging wooden doors on sambal petai shrimp -- shrimp and fava beans (although I didn't recognize them as favas) in a candlenut and tamarind sauce. Hot and sour and delicious. Elsewhere chicken satay and Indonesian rice were also good, although I found steamboat disappointing -- the skewers (chicken sausage, chicken, pork, prawn) were better fried. I even discovered a taste for fried, dried anchovies. I had seen boxes and boxes of small dried fish in the markets -- one place was drying them on the pavement, spread out on tarpaulins -- now I knew why.
All-in-all Kuala Lumpur was a gentle reintroduction to Asia. Most signs were in two languages, one of them English. Most people seemed to speak at least some English. The streets were clean. The food was good. The traveling was easy -- if hard on the feet. I expected my next stop, Singapore, to be even easier.
Originally sent from Singapore Oct. 10 about Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Oct. 2-5
Site design and content © Copyright 2001 - 2003, Wilhelm's Words
Contact: wilhelmswords.com
Home