thehostelwitness

The Golden Triangle, Kuala Lumpur

Isn't it funny how small, seemingly insignificant moments can stick with you forever?  I think my memory of Malaysia can best be summed up by such a moment. Last night in the rain, with the dark all around me,  looking across the street at a table showered with light and two beautiful blonds in cocktail dresses laughing with each other. I must have stood there for ages looking, just a beautiful moment seared into my brain.

Kuala Lumpur is like that moment in many ways. Its a dark, wet city, with litter and noxious odors rising up from exposed sewage drains. Its a nightmare of a city for walking, with sidewalks that end for no particular reason, made out of tiles that have an annoying propensity for promoting falls at the slightest wetness. Very few crosswalks means that your life is quite literally at stake every time you cross one of its many 6 lane intersections. But just as you are about to write the city off, there in the dark rises the glimmer of the Petronas twin towers, like the two blonds, standing out beautifully against the contrasting black all around it.

Its quite a departure from my little beach heaven. I ended up staying in Puala Pangkor for four days in total and it was as lazy and uneventful as predicted. I took up swimming in the mornings, napping in the afternoons, and then walking around taking pictures as the sun fell. Its a bit deceiving, the peace. So much in fact that as I turned the corner one evening, I was faced with a wild pig snorting angrily at me.

Wild pigs living in a jungle, right out of the heart of darkness. He (in my mind, it was a he) stood up to my knee height and after a bit of me standing perfectly absolutely resolutely stone like still, tucked in his tail and marched back into the jungle. It was certainly the last thing I had expected to come across in my little paradise. During the week I had encountered many more monkeys, toucans, and a countless array of kittens and cats prowling the premises. But a killer pig?! Would never have thought about it - and here I left my hunting spear at home.

Back now in Kuala Lumpur, I'm still a bit of sensory overload, with killer cars taking the place of pigs. So I was happy last night to run into a UK'r staying at my hostel last night. Together, we decided to go out and hit a few bars in the Golden Triangle neighborhood. Things here in Malaysia are quite cheap, however the taxes the government issues on beer is outrageous - to the point where it actually costs me more in New York City to drink than it does in Kuala Lumpur. Still, I had been a bit socially starved so the cost was worth it.

My original plan was to spend a couple months traveling through Malaysia, but recently something came up and on Friday I will be flying into Bangkok, Thailand. The "something" actually first came up a year ago. After the company announcement of my departure, I received many calls wishing me well in the coming year. One of these calls came from my friend, Fred. Every year, Fred and his church travel to Udon Thani, Thailand and work for a week at an orphanage there in the city. He invited me to join them if I was in this part of the world in March and even hinted at the possibility of my staying on at the orphanage after he leaves to teach English. I didn't put much thought into it at the time, but last month I received another email from Fred asking me if I was still interested.

So, after a bit of thought I decided to do it. Strange world, no? I'll be in Bangkok for a few days before taking the flight out to Udon Thani, but will spend the better part of the next month or so there. The travel plan, such as it is, is to fly out of Thani on the weekends to explore various parts of Thailand. I'm a bit nervous - terrified, actually - but think that this will be a good experience for me. 

Teluk Batik, Pulau Pangkor

The temperature is easily in the mid-nineties, with a humidity almost as high to match. I've found that on days like today - i.e. every day - the sensible thing to do is to get up early for pictures, head inside in a museum or coffee shop in the afternoon, and then venture out late at night once the cool air has moved in. Otherwise, you just can't function.

Today, I'm spending my afternoon sitting in my little bungalow on Palau Pangkar, a small island about two hours northwest of Kuala Lumpur. It also gets very little mention in Lonely Planet, which could be why I've only seen four Westerners all day. There are only three streets near the beach of Teluk Batik - vendors and food stalls line the main thoroughfare with two smaller streets dotted with restaurants and guest houses making up the rest of the topography.

The island itself no bigger than 12 kilometers and aside from a few outcroppings of settlements, its just hilly jungle. I even got to see my first wild monkey! It was just sitting there on the guard rail, watching the car go by. I'm sure my expression at that time was pretty similar to the monkey's - minus the picking of the butt that was going on when I passed (as to who was picking the butt, well that's between me and monkey).

It seems so far away from Malaka and really, its only about 6 hours in total. I ultimately ended up spending 4 days there, the highlight being my last night which also happened to coincide with a Chinese street festival. Myself, Lucia and Racquelle (two very lovely Portuguese travelers I had met on the public bus - I'm convinced "Lucia" is Portuguese for "legs"), and Yann (a local street vendor who had befriended the two girls) spent the better part of the night downing drinks and randomly sampling the street meat. I bought Yann a Jameson, as he had never had scotch before - not due to the lack of availability of it, but solely for the fact that a single finger of liquor can easily cost him half of his day's wages.

The reality of his everyday life is just shocking. I have always been considered skinny and even now, I'm down to 185 from 205lbs just 7 months ago. Here is a guy who stands shoulder to shoulder with me, who would be lucky to push 120lbs soaking wet. The girls were determined to get some food into him, but he refused, growing quieter and quieter as the night progressed. Its a pretty eye-opening experience - while I'm sure he was grateful for the company, at the same time I could sense a reluctance in him, as well as a bit of sadness, if not bitterness, as if he only really thought about his station in life when sitting next to people his age who live a completely different experience. He's 23, an orphan, and its just him and his sister trying to make it by.

So that ends my haggling, at least in the smaller towns. I might feel better at having saved $10 ringgits on a cab ride, but at the end of the day the three dollars is going to help kids like Yann a lot more than it will me.

From Malaka, I took the bus to Kuala Lumpur. Its amazing how a city of 1.4 million people is almost entirely devoid of sidewalks. I was only staying overnight, so I could hit out for Pangkor early in the morning, so I figured what the hell, I was due a day off.

I've taken two days off in the last six months - which pretty much consists of me sitting in a bathrobe and watching shit movies (speaking of which, "Man of the House" isn't as bad as it would appear - and I stand behind that statement). I don't feel badly at having spent my day in KL indoors - the Petronas Towers will still be there on Wednesday when I return.

In the meantime, it was off to Pangkor. The bus driver was a bit late, which always makes for a fun time as he suddenly turns into the Malaysian Jeff Gordon. I don't think it matters what country you are from, there is nothing more dangerous than a bus driver who is an hour behind schedule. The four hour drive was made longer by the fact that he was trying to play Malaysian karaoke on the dvd player and it was constantly skipping. To give you an idea what it is like, Malaysian music is very similar to Indian music, except if it was the type of stuff coming out 20 years ago. Synthesizers are in, apparently (not that I should be critical of music...when I first heard the term "indie music", I thought it was referring to the rock scene in India).

But anyway, I got here. There can't be more than a thousand inhabitants on this island and while I've read that on weekends, it gets packed to busting with all the holiday travelers from Kuala Lumpour, on a Monday, its virtually deserted. I've got a newspaper and the last few chapters of a book to keep me company tomorrow, the fact of which I plan on taking full advantage of sitting a beach somewhere tomorrow morning.

Eastern Heritage Guest House, Malaka

"Mr. Jacob, officer from the USA!"

I looked up at the sound of my name, still shaking off the rain from the top of my head. It was Lim, the Indonesian woman who was working at the front desk of the guest house when I had checked in earlier. She was sitting on a barstool, leaning over the counter to speak with her friend who was now behind the desk.

Smiling, unsure of how I received a title, I offered a smile. "uh, Hello."

The Eastern Heritage guest house is housed in a picturesque, Chinese building built a hundred years earlier when the British were still administering Malaka. This town is one of Malaysia's most famous cities, attracting scores of Singaporean tourists drawn to its unique heritage and architecture - the throne to a now extinct Malakan empire, ruled by the Dutch, Portuguese, and British, occupied by Japan during the war, and finally home to the Straits Chinese, decedents from mainland immigrants hundreds and hundreds of years ago. The Eastern Heritage is one such remembrance of their presence here, the outside of the building rising three stories tall, with old, intricate wood carvings of flowers running along to the top of the building. Inside, rich, black lacquered hardwoods ran the floor throughout, with a beautiful, old circular staircase that rose to the guest level of the building. The building was old and creaky, with no amenities to speak of, but it was charming. I loved it immediately.

The trip from Singapore to Malaka had taken about 4 hours, but on a spacious bus so I didn't mind it at all. The first thing one notices entering Malaysia are the acres and acres of Palm tree plantations that line the freeway. Its a beautiful sight - until you realize all the native jungle that they dispatched to get it like this. Currency is cheap, with the going rate roughly 6 ringgits to 1 dollar. I laugh now when I was confronted with my roomchoice at the Eastern - 10 ringgits for a dorm bed or double that for a single bed. It took me a second to realize that I was debating over $3. I took the single.

I returned my attention back to Lim, a thirtiesh Indonesian woman who was traveling and working with her Swiss husband. I was still puzzling over how I had become "Mr. Officer Jacob", when she asked me where in the states I was from.

"Seattle...its in Washington."

"Oh, Washington! My friend had to drive to Seattle once, from Virginia. He said it took him 6 hours!"

"No, your friend must have meant Washington DC. I'm from Washington State on the other side of the country."

Her eyebrow rose. "But he said he had to drive there and it only took him 6 hours."

"No, I'm afraid it takes six days just to drive from Seattle to New York."

"Six days!! The United States is so big! But no, he drove. It only took him six hours."

Somewhere, the language difficulties had begun to kick in. But before I could even try to correct Lim, she was off on another tangent.

"Madame!" she addressed her friend, "Can I please borrow your news-paper?"

"Yes," replied her friend, "you may borrow my newspaper!"

They both started laughing. Lim offered an explanation, which for the sake of brevity I'm going to relate into more or less correct English. The newspaper is brought in by the owner of the guest house every day and left there for the staff and residents to enjoy. Apparently three days earlier, a Norwegian man was sitting on the couch with the paper at this table. Thinking it was the copy belonging to the guest house's, Lim took the paper and began reading it with three other friends. As she was reading, the Norwegian man stood up and angrily grabbed it out of her hands.

"You!!!" he started in broken English, "you took my paper! Its my paper!" Lim had proffered an apology for the misunderstanding, but the man had grown incensed. In between his bad English and her broken English, the misunderstanding only served to grow.

A minute later, he was shouting at her and her friends, using obscenities and telling them all to shut up. "And all for an eighty cent newspaper!" offered her husband. 80 cents...or, what would be less far less than a single kroner. Lim proceeded to apologize, but the man - who for whatever reason was acting totally irrational, kept on his tirade until confronted by a room full of travelers and workers, retreated to his room. It should be added that no matter what the circumstance, a traveler should never start shouting at locals nor lose one's temper. No one will side with you and you'll only come out looking, like this man did, as a complete and utter ass. And there are other reasons, which I found out shortly.

"We are a very quiet people," offered Lim. "You do not lose your temper - especially in Malaka! We are a pirate city, you know that right? All through history, its been pirates and the underworld here. And the way he was yelling at me, telling me to fuck off... I tell you what, if my brother were here, he would have killed him.

"No, I am really serious. We do not argue in Indonesia. A white man comes into a little town and acts like that, my friends would cut open his stomach, chop up his limbs, and then dropped the pieces into rivers. No one would ever know! We would just follow him outside and that would be it. When the police comes, we just shake our heads, and there are no witnesses.

"In Indonesia, we have these knives - not like the big Japanese swords - small knives, because you cannot use swords in the jungle. It is small and fits in your fist and all you have to do is cut open someone's stomach and they are dead. We don't go for the throat, we just cut their stomachs.

"We do not raise our voices, because if you lose your temper it does not take long for someone to kill you. In my village, my parents were tailors and had to pay the underworld. They don't yell for the money, they just ask for it and you pay. If you argue, they will come for you at night. And he's lucky he was here in this place. Here it is nice and there is no underworld at this building. If he was outside in another bar in Melaka acting like that...that man, would be dead!

"Someone could just put something in his drink. Poison. You know, its so sweet and smooth. Its the oldest thing, next to prostitution!"

The conversation sort of died after that. Lim's husband just sat at the couch with a bit of a bemused expression on his face, like most white husbands with asian wives, a bit unsure as to the level of crazy manifesting itself in his bride at this particular moment and for that reason, always just a little scared. Its a cliche, but still one confirmed for me tonight, that you don't want to piss of an Asian woman. Especially Lim, from Indonesia, a chain of islands just off of the shore of Crazyland.

The night's conversation turned progressively worse - or rather, better - with Lim confessing a love of knives and weapons in general, especially Native American tomahawks, Japanese katanas, and those Indonesian knives. The ironic thing is all this from a woman who stands just above 5 feet tall and has the sweetest smile of anyone I've seen here so far.

And what little crazy, murderous city does she call home now? Stuttgart, naturlich.

I ran into Lim this morning as she was brushing her teeth. Embarrassed at having me seen her, she started laughing and I couldn't picture a more appropriate moment then that - little Lim, laughing, and foaming at the mouth.