South East Asia on a Hamstring – January 31

By: Marie Javins

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – January 31, 2000

Our train was either an hour late or we just didn’t know the actual arrival time. It was 7:30am when we all carefully lowered ourselves from our berths and carried our bags into Kuala Lumpur.

We took taxis to the Hotel Furama. It was a short drive but from the taxis, we could see locals walking to work and waiting for the bus. The women wore various forms of dress – Malaysia is a Muslim country so plenty of women were covered up, complete with headscarf. But there are also many Chinese in Malaysia so there were also women in mini-skirts, spaghetti strap t-shirts, and platform shoes.

My roommate for the night was Jo. Our room linked up to the room of Paloma and Sarah.

I went down to the lobby to negotiate with the reception desk to get my laundry done.

I had a small but essential pile of laundry, but rush service was double the regular price. I’d have to pay ten US dollars for my laundry and I thought that was pretty extreme. The receptionist told me about a backpacker’s place across the street that did laundry for a lot less. I went there but they were closed. I came back to reception.

“Surely there’s a laundry nearby,” I suggested.

The receptionist apologized and said that there wasn’t. I went to the concierge and borrowed a Yellow Pages. There were no laundry listings. The concierge swore to me that the nearest laundry was very far away.

I stomped my feet a bit and negotiated some more with reception. Peter showed up. He suggested that if I walked around, I would come across a laundry. “I know I’ve seen one somewhere around here,” he said.

The receptionist adamantly informed him that he was wrong. He then suggested that I do my laundry in my sink and I told him that it wouldn’t dry in time for our noon departure the next day.

He agreed that I was probably right and gave me the okay to use the hotel regular service which couldn’t guarantee noon arrival but could guarantee 1pm arrival. It was going to be tight.

The hotel concierge set up an afternoon city tour for our group. It was a real switch to suddenly be responsible for getting the most out of a city. Our previous trip leader, Andy, had spoken Indonesian fluently, given us constant options and accompanied us on almost all of them. Privately, I thought that if

the trip continued like this, I may as well be traveling independently.

I left the others and took a taxi to the KL Tower. It has an observation deck from which KL looked like a lovely, modern city with some old charm. It isn’t like Singapore where it is so clean that it is disturbing – it has character and neighborhoods. From the KL Tower, the Petronas twin towers could be seen. Petronas might be the tallest building in the world, but it might not

be. The Sears Tower in Chicago is only slightly shorter. The controversy is that the extra height on Petronas comes from these pinnacles – antenna like

structures on top of the actual buildings. It’s kind of a cheap shot.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter because in a few months a new building in Shanghai is scheduled to open and outdo both Petronas and the Sears Tower.

My return taxi was to Central Market, an indoor flea market in Chinatown. I walked back to the hotel for the 1:45 city tour. Our hotel was right in the center of Chinatown, and the fragrant (read stinky), crowded, dirty little streets were just like Chinatowns all over the world.

Our City Tour guide took nine of us in a minivan. He drove us past all the major sites of KL and told us that King Kong couldn’t climb Petronas. He suggested a new hero, such as Spider-man, might be more effective.

All over KL, we saw half-finished and abandoned construction sites. The guide explained to us that these were all projects that had stopped when the Asian financial crisis hit. The economy had still not recovered, so the construction sat abandoned.

We saw museums, mosques, and monuments and by the time we hit the tourist-batik store, we were all dazed and sickly. Someone (maybe me) had picked up a sore throat and it was seeping through to the rest of the group.

I had spotted some computer stores and split from the group. Enough batik already! I walked back to the computer stores, on Jalan Raja Chulan just east of Jalan Sultan Ismail and the Parkroyal Hotel.

The computer store was actually an enormous mall of computer stores. Three levels of stores all selling bootleg DVD and pirated CD-ROM software. It was

astonishing.

DVD’s of current movies were for sale, 5 for US$10. Every piece of software for the PC was available at incredibly low prices – $3-$4. Most of the stores had a small Mac section, with CD-ROMs of multiple programs. So the Adobe collection, for example, wouldn’t just have one program. It would have

Photoshop, Illustrator, Streamline and Premiere. I tried to look cool and unamazed as I walked from store to store but it was hard to maintain my nonchalant appearance.

I left the computer store and headed to a mall where I bought an Iced Blended from California-based Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. I looked around at the fashionable young people with their hip clothing, cell phones, and trendy haircuts. I could easily have been in Santa Monica.

I walked to the Petronas Towers for some night photos. There is a huge shopping mall in the base of the towers and I went to the food court for a turkey sandwich. I ordered “Number 5″ or whatever, smoked turkey on white bread. Horrified, I scanned the suggested add-ons and yelled at the man “NO BUTTER” just in time. He looked at me, surprised, and then went through every item before adding it.

“Cucumbers? Carrots?”

No.

“Mayo? Lettuce? Tomato?”

Yes.

“Cheese?”

Just one.

“But you pay for two.”

One!

I convinced him to add a little mustard too.

As I walked to the register to pay, I could hear the sandwich guys laughing and muttering about my sandwich. I guess butter is an essential for a turkey sandwich in Malaysia.

I walked out of the mall and passed some strikingly beautiful women in very trendy clothing. One of them spoke and I was shocked to hear a man’s voice. These were some extremely well-disguised lady-boys!

I went back to the hotel in a taxi. The girls had the door in between our rooms open and they were working on a bottle of Scotch and giggling loudly. It was alienating but I was impressed when they all said that they had no interest in going to the Hard Rock Cafe, Kuala Lumpur.