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.
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