Malaysia didn’t immediately welcome us with outstretched arms. After awakening a quarter past three in the morning for a four a.m. airport pick up and a six o’clock departure, our flight arrived in Kuala Lumpur 30 minutes early and the taxi service I had conscientiously hired in advance through our hotel for a smooth entry was an hour late. We waited and waited, and the Kuala Lumpur airport is not such an interesting place to hang out in for an hour and a half. When our driver finally appeared, the poor guy told us he had already done an airport run earlier that morning, then received a call from his company sending him on an emergency pick up elsewhere, knowing it would make him late for our arrival. He had been driving for hours and needed to go to the bathroom as he “couldn’t take it any more.” He pulled up to an airport hotel and we waited some more while he ran inside.
Arriving at our beautiful boutique hotel, we were less than impressed with the shabby street, but curious about the obvious blend of ethnic flavors. We let the hotel staff know about our unsatisfactory transfer but they were not forthcoming with the refund we desired. Instead they informed us our room was not yet ready and asked us to wait. We’d had it with waiting and let them know. That’s when they chose to tell us they had upgraded us to a suite, but the classic room we had reserved could be ready immediately. We went with the suite and waited upstairs in the rooftop restaurant, eating the gratis breakfast they offered us. Waiting is easier with a plate of tropical fruit and a view.
Our room, reminiscent of the colonial era, was a well appointed KL blend of Chinese, Indonesian and Malay furniture with Indian stylings and some contemporary Western appliances like a flat screen tv. The bathroom sink was a table of recycled dark wood with a marble top and a Chinese ceramic bowl for a sink. I deplore the politics of the colonial period, but love the aesthetics. Our windows faced an internal courtyard hung with wooden lanterns, without any views overlooking the street. That could be a little claustrophobic, but the street really wasn’t much to look at and too much to listen to late at night. Kuala Lumpur is a city that doesn’t sleep.
Over the next few days we had many different views of Kuala Lumpur, a blend of old Malaysian architecture and street life alongside of the new generation of prosperous high rises. Many, even most, of its streets are rather grimy, even just behind the ultra posh mall housing Valentino, Gucci, Ferragamo and the like I saw two rats playing chase in a pile of garbage, yet I grew more fond of the streets the more I walked them. New York City, downtown LA and plenty of other urban areas are gritty, but most are edgier than KL. Denpasar, Bali is more congested and dirtier. Even though we were warned in advance to beware of pick pockets, Kuala Lumpur feels safe, not warm and fuzzy friendly, but not mean either. The weather was warm and moderate like a southern California spring day, great for strolling.
KL is Asia, and Asia is still exotic and fascinating to me. One long street parallel to our hotel hosts hawker stands selling Malaysian, Chinese or Thai street food. Each stall has one or two or three hawkers eagerly attempting to round up customers. The chefs stir fry in large woks curbside and the tables are packed full of people eating mostly with chop sticks. Fresh fish sit on ice, roasted ducks hang on hooks and Asian greens rest behind glass counters. Around the corner are fruit stands with whole fruits sold by the kilo, small bags of cut pineapple or pieces of jackfruit, and that Southeast Asian smelly favorite, durian, an aroma that travels down the road. (People are either passionately in love with durian or detest it. Despite its many nutritional benefits, I can’t get over the repulsive smell. Once again I decided to give durian a chance and ate a tiny piece of my friend’s fruit while holding my nose. The taste is good if I can’t smell it, but then I smelled durian on my own breathe for two days.) On the corner of our block is an open air Indian restaurant with a self-serve buffet, one of many in KL, sending the smells of curries and spices into the air. Passing the Indian restaurant on our way home one night, we found the place jammed with men intently watching the Indian national soccer team on television.
After two days at our hotel we moved to a penthouse apartment just off the high end section of the boulevard. The apartment belongs to a Green School family who graciously offered to let us stay. The sweeping views from the floor to ceiling windows reminded me of Los Angeles; many short structures, clusters of much taller buildings, plenty of trees, the mountains in the background and highways clogged with traffic. In the mornings we worked out in the small gym with a view and we swam daily in the pool with a nearly 360 degree view on the roof of our building. One afternoon we witnessed from the apartment a terrific electrical storm, gigantic bolts of lightening dramatically cutting jagged lines across the sky.
We were what in Bali expat vernacular is called “on a visa run’ which meant part of our purpose for being in Kuala Lumpur was to leave Indonesia in order to renew our visas and re-enter Indonesia. When we signed in at the gates of the Indonesian embassy, the guard pointed to a sign and then to Asher. Graphic images of a t-shirt, shorts and flip flops, all with the international NO sign slashed across them meant Asher couldn’t enter in his calf length Bali yoga pants. It didn’t seem to matter that both Sofia and I had on flip flops. Asher said he would find pants and left the embassy. I was less than convinced about that, but set off to find the appropriate office with the necessary paperwork. After waiting in line and receiving the papers, I discovered we couldn’t proceed without Asher. While filling out the documents near the embassy entrance, I saw Asher stride through the gate in jeans I had never seen before, a big smirk on his face saying, essentially, “I charmed the pants off some guy.” He told me he approached the reception clerk in the office building beside the embassy and asked if he could rent his pants. The guy was young, Indian and gay, with a bigger waist than Asher has and a willingness to trade pants in the bathroom. Asher had to teach him how to fold and tie his Bali pants. The guy didn’t even want to take payment, though Asher insisted, but did want reassurance that Asher would not run off with his jeans. When I heard that story I laughed so hard I had to keep the tear drops off my paperwork. We were able to finish everything quickly, moving swiftly from one part of the jam packed consulate to another, Asher constantly pulling up the rented pants. Most of the throngs in the embassy were Indonesian workers renewing their passports (Indonesian workers are to Malaysia what Mexican workers are to the U.S.) and the system seemed to be less accommodating for them, or maybe just overwhelmed by their sheer numbers. To my surprise, the Indonesian government supplies visa photos and passport photocopies gratis (a government notable for most often having an outstretched palm, not for giving away anything for free). But not pants. We returned the jeans to their owner with smiles all around and by the next afternoon had our visas stamped into our passports. Asher dressed appropriately for the return visit.
People in Kuala Lumpur seem intent on two activities: eating and shopping. They do a lot of both in malls. Malls, malls, everywhere malls. Malls in full swing celebration of Christmas... and in Muslim Malaysia. Store clerks with head coverings topped with Santa stocking caps. Throngs of Malaysians taking pictures of each other in front of decorated trees and falling soap bubble fake snow. Stores packed with shoppers. Low end, mid range and high end malls offering a startling array of consumer options, including culturally specific items like modest Muslim swimwear and a Lego masjid. Mall after mall with massive, crowded and interesting -- yes, interesting -- food courts. We made an important discovery in a mall set up like a Penang food market of the 1930s... Taiwanese shaved ice. A large metal machine holds a block of ice in place, or in this case a block of frozen sorbet or ice milk in Asian flavors like red bean or green tea, while a sharp blade shreds the frozen treat into a gigantic, fluffy mound of paper thin ice cream ribbons. I realized this could be the solution to my raw ice cream dilemma; it is difficult to get truly raw, truly healthy ice cream to be truly creamy and instead often it ends up more like a frozen block. If I can source and drag back to Bali one of these Taiwanese machines, I can serve frozen blocks of raw ice cream shaved ice style... an inspiration!
Our friends Edith and Jon arrived in Kuala Lumpur with their three daughters. We left our room with a view for a long bus ride together into the Cameron Highlands, finding views of mountains covered with tea. More to come....
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