making up syllables: October 2011

melaka is fairly similar to georgetown and for that reason alone i almost skipped it. but i'm really glad i didn't. also a unesco world heritage site, melaka, or malacca, was a booming shipping town well before kuala lumpur was even a dot on the map (i'll have to consult a cartographer on this to be sure but it sounds good). now, although a little beyond its prime, it's still a quaint and lively town full of antiques, open air restaurants, a huge night market and beautiful river walk.

after my ho-hum room in kuala lumpur, jalan-jalan (★★★★, it may have just been because the last place was so crummy but jalan-jalan was pretty great. i had a private room which was fairly inexpensive, free wifi access, a good public space and the staff, which was more or less just a guy named sam, were incredibly helpful and friendly. the facility, while not extremely lavish, was really pretty and comfortable. definitely recommended) was a very welcome change. the most notable feature of the guesthouse was this elderly chinese man, perhaps related to the owner, who sat around in a tank top and underwear and ripped farts without hesitation.

the first day, surprise-surprise, was spent in wandering. there aren't as many temples and cultural landmarks as there are in penang but the food is just as wonderful, especially the traditional nonyan cuisine for which the area is famous. i had chicken and rice balls, which was pretty tiny and i probably could have had 3 portions of it, but it was delicious. later i found a bar along the river where i could sit outside, drink some beer, and watch the river tours cruise up and down. the night market was still active as i was heading home so i stopped by a stall for a "new generation hotdog waffle" which as i'm sure you could guess was a-maz-ing. i'm convinced every type of meat product should be wrapped in waffle.

at some point some franciscans rolled in and built some things so the next day i checked those out. they were old and decrepit and look cool in photographs. at one point i was walking along a road and i heard a loud splash in a drainage ditch next to me. i looked in expecting to see a fallen branch but was surprised to find a huge monitor lizard. it must have been equally surprised to see me as it hurried off into the sewers. i tried to find it at the opening on the other end but it must have been hiding or swimming down some other branch because it never did resurface. i spent most of the afternoon walking the length of the river until the path finished at a tour company. i decided to take the boat back down to the other end, which i thought was genius, until the boat pulled a u-turn and headed right back to where it came from, forcing me to walk all the way back. i spent the rest of the night in the night market eating various foods and drinking, well, beer. a perfect way to spend a night but not really very interesting to write or read about.

the next day i was off for another boarding crossing into squeaky clean singapore, ending my tour through mayalsia, and re-inducting me into the first world.

i know it doesn't look like much, especially 4-star worthy, but it was comfy, spacious and quite accommodating.

mod's cafe, a little coffee shop with an old vw van parked inside. pretty good coffee too.

the night market on jonkers street

there was a dude giving a demonstration here as "the fastest guy who could poke holes into a mango using only his busted ass finger" or something like that. i guess he was pretty good at poking holes into fruits with a finger but really i think he just wanted to sell 'secret chinese medicines.'

true words

its funny and sad because its true

some dutch people died here awhile ago

i hate that i forget what this food was/is...the black turd looking thing is the shell of some nut...and the green turd looking thing is a pickled pepper or something...it was all delicious though. nyonya cuisine.

i was walking along the river and ran into this crew who seemed to be shooting some sort of poorly choreographed fight sequence. i would have stuck around to see if they eventually nailed it but i think i was throwing them off their game by video taping them.

taking the passenger bus was a lot different than the mini-bus. for one, the driver wasn't a mad man. but also the curves are a lot harder to negotiate in a larger bus. also the seats included barf bags so that might clue you into the nature of the roads. it was a fairly short ride to kuala lumpur (aka. KL - breaking my caps rule here) and i was lucky enough to book a guesthouse about 2 minutes walking distance from the bus stop, right in the heart of chinatown. the place, ribbon stayyz, was recommended by a couple i met in the cameron highlands (★★, the photos on their website are pretty misleading. even though i found the sign in about 2 minutes, finding my way into the guesthouse was another thing altogether because the entrance is actually hidden inside of a 7-11. there's a fairly decent common area with a free-use computer, but the room was more or less a closet with a bed in it, which was about all that fit inside of it. it was literally just a place to sleep. but worse, the staff was almost entirely incompetent. they seemed to be as new to the city as i was - i asked them if they knew any festivities going on for 1malaysia day, the malaysian independence day, but they acted as if it was the first time they heard of it; i asked if they knew where i could find a doctor or a clinic and they didn't even know where to start looking. thank the lord for the internet), but i think i would have been better off picking a place on my own.

as i am wont to do, i spent most of the first day walking around, getting acclimated to the city. right in the center of chinatown is a large market called jalan petaling which is, unsurprisingly, full of food stalls and shops. outside of chinatown and little india, kuala lumpur is noticeably muslim, much more so than anywhere else i had been in malaysia to that point. in fact, kuala lumpur is home to a beautiful islamic arts museum, a museum of islam and an islamic textile museum. not to mention the national mosque, which is where i ended up spending most of the day. my initial plan was to briefly visit the mosque (after all, what do i know about mosques?) before going to the islamic art museum and the lake gardens' various parks, but that was not to be so. upon entering the mosque i was greeted by a volunteer, a small muslim woman whose name i knew i would never remember (but it started with a 'z'). she seemed pleased as punch to be guiding me, a bonafide american, through the building and, to be honest, she was actually incredibly informative, describing the various areas and how they relate to muslim practices, at times criticizing not only the architects and their questionable ideas but also the seriousness of malaysian islam (she was a bit of a fundamentalist and later related to me about the miracles of the water of zamzam - she was urging her mother to replace her chemo treatment with water from this magic pool, which you know, i thought was not only irresponsible but a little bit crazy, but she had been so nice the rest of the day i just kind of let it slide). eventually we sat and observed the evening prayer and she translated and explained the various passages. obviously, the question of my own faith came up in conversation, which is always awkward for me for some reason. i think i find it uncomfortable and a bit embarrassing whenever someone of such strong convictions asks me to explain my own, very weak, perhaps non-existent convictions. but clearly she saw this as an opportunity because for the next 4 hours (this is no exaggeration) she bent over backwards trying to impress on me the beauty of islam, even skipping an appointment she had to workout with a friend. this wasn't so bad because i was interested in learning more about islam, although i had no interest in converting (which she assured me was not done by the sword), and i snagged a free quran out of it, which i may or may not read (the intention is there).

it was late by the time i finally got out of there, well past dinner, so i was hungry and tired and didn't feel like dealing with the task of finding a place to eat. which is why i ate at subway. stupid i know, but it was comforting and i loved it. afterward i got some beer and took it back to my closet where i read and fell asleep.

the next day, as i mentioned, was 1malaysia day so i was pretty sure there was something going on, but if there was i never found it or i was just too late (i guess they celebrate real early in the morning in malaysia). i had already decided to go a little outside of town to visit the batu caves that day, so the general lack of patriotic festivities wasn't a major detriment to my plans. however what was a bummer was toe accident number 2, which happened while i was waiting for the bus. yeah, i hurt myself waiting for the bus. as a side note, i've always been pretty anti-flip flop. i think they're tacky and totally inappropriate for anywhere that's not a beach, but for this trip, because they are easy to get on and off, which is useful in temples and such, they were my go to shoe and i think it was why i had so many foot injuries. flip flops are just bad news. so anyways, i was waiting for the bus, pacing a bit, and i guess there was this piece of concrete that hadn't been flattened when they were filling in the sidewalk and i kicked it with my exposed toe, the big soft pillowy tip of it, which caused it to explode, literally explode, in a fountain of blood. it was terrible. blood was everywhere. i was beside myself in a mix of disbelief and horror. fortunately a man had a napkin in his pocket which he let me borrow. i used it to wrap the bloody toe so i could walk to get a bandaid somewhere. i ended up going all the way back to the guesthouse so i could clean the wound properly and use a bandaid i had already bought (for my other wrecked toe). i had managed to damage both toes within the period of a week. it was if i was sabotaging my own enjoyment.

eventually i made it on the bus and found my way to the batu caves. i was expecting to climb down into a subterranean pit, but i quickly realized it was actually a climb up into a pocket in a rock wall. the steps up were inhabited by a group of monkeys that scampered around, clearly unfazed by the presence of tourists, pausing for nuts and photos. i was hoping the caves themselves were going to be more natural and mysterious than they turned out to be, but they were still worth visiting. i opted to take the train back, which turned out to be the right decision because there just so happened to be a doctor's office in the station. they took a quick look at my crushed toe and decided that the toenail was dead and thus had to be extracted. having a toenail pulled off is painful enough but worse was having the doctor stab my toe over and over with a needle to 'numb' the pain. i'm pretty sure the needle passed through the entirety of my toe at one point. after the minor operation he cleaned up my other toe and off i went with two freshly bandaged digits. and then, with perfect timing, it started to rain.

it eventually stopped raining, and although i was able to stay dry by riding the subway most of the way to the islamic arts museum, an asshole in a van decided to speed through an enormous puddle while i was waiting to cross the street (mind you several other cars passed without incident) soaking my entire lower body, including my freshly bandaged toes. the art museum was really quite nice even if i was walking tenderly the entire time (obviously i ignored the doctors request to stay off my feet for awhile). inside they had minature models of notable mosques from around the world and collections of art from muslim cultures of various countries, even including a study on the evolution of arabic calligraphy and several of its regional styles, which spoke to my typographic interests.

after the museum it was already getting late so i retreated to my room to clean up before grabbing some dinner at the market. i then took a subway across town to get a look at kuala lumpur's most famous attraction, the petronas towers, all lit-up at night. inside the towers is an enormous shopping mall, one of 66 in the city apparently, which was having a fashion show in it's main plaza. after taking some photos i decided to go back to the market to have a few beers and then called it a night. i ended up watching hannah (it's gotten mixed reviews but i really like this movie and i even downloaded the soundtrack by the chemical brothers) with a few people at the hostel and then went to bed. the next day i would take another short trip to the dutch harbor town, melaka, which, when kuala lumpur was still a malaria-infested jungle, was once the richest city in malaysia.

jalan petaling in chinatown

masjid (mosque) jamek - i was allowed on the perimeter but only if i wore a robe. it wasn't very flattering but i agreed anyway.

merdeka square - horse fountain

masjid negara (national mosque)

the prayer room, i was not permitted to enter

batu caves - at some point i must have gotten some condensation on my lense as all these photos have a weird hazy glow on them.

inside the batu caves are hindu statues and a couple of temples, but they're mostly tacky looking (sorry hindus, but you should use candles instead of lightbulbs; its way more legit)