I was waiting in the KL airport to head to Singapore for the
weekend. I had heard rumours of fantastic food and shopping in this extremely
clean Asian city– it has an extremely strict government that ensure rules (e.g.
“No spitting your gum on the sidewalk”) are abided by. I had just finished a
two-week-long training session for work. Not only were the 9 hour days full of
Powerpoint presentations gruelling, we wanted to see the town during our
evenings. I had successfully completely exhausted myself to say the least. However,
I had met amazing new friends, from all over the world. I now have connections
and invitations to visit Hong Kong, Thailand and Dubai. There were people there
as well from all the major cities in Australia (Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and
Sydney.)
I honestly did not have a clue of what to expect KL to look
like. Driving from the airport to the hotel, I was pleasantly surprised to see
quite a large, modern city with nice shopping areas, beautiful hotels and clean
streets, all surrounded by plush, green tropical hills. The people are a mix of
Malaysian, Chinese and Indian, which obviously led to a very multi-cultural
feeling in terms of the people walking around, the different varieties of food
and the overall cultural feeling. There is also a draw of Middle Eastern
tourism, so when walking down the street, I felt almost scandalous at points in
time when wearing a skirt and tank top because of the number of Islamic women
covered from head to two with only their eyes showing. However, seeing this entirely
foreign culture to me was a draw to leave the hotel after class to explore as
much as possible. Therefore after class, we typically went to the pool, and
then headed on the monorail to Bukhit Butang, which is an area of town with
huge shopping complexes. I envisioned dirt cheap deals, which we did find at
the enormous shopping centre of Sungei Wang, but the quality was so poor, it
was not even worth buying! (And after a few days of eating buffet, or at the
Chinese and Italian restaurants located at the hotel, we were more than ready
to venture out for some real, local flavours).
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| The Monorail |
A massive food court spanned the entire basement of Sungei
Wang – I have never seen anything like it. Food stalls everywhere! All around
the perimeter walls, as well as filling the centre as well. Tables and chairs
were shoved into any available space. Mirrored pillars helped bounce light
around, attempting to keep it from feeling cave-like. The lights, smells and
yelling of hawkers were overwhelming and almost had me in a panic. I was
famished by that point and all I wanted was a big plate of fried rice, or
something of the sort, to fill my stomach without having to question with every
bite of what I actually was ingesting. Continuing to be drawn to the same
noodle bar, I settled on a soup of vegetables and rice noodles. The friendly
staff behind the counter assured me that there was NO meat in the soup (I am
pretty sure I ate more questionable things while there, I just won’t think too
hard about it). After collecting my large bowl and rounding up the troops to
one, central table, I sat down to the steaming broth. It was quite tasty,
(floating at the centre of the bowl was a mass of crunchy noodles that added a
salty crunch), so I lapped it up in just a few minutes, only stopping to buy a
bottle of water from a nice lady pushing drinks and sweets around on a trolley.
I must say, the food court experience (and food courts are a
big deal in Asia, mostly due to the large assortment of cheap, Asian style
cooking – I mean, how many different ways can you cook meat, veg and rice, but
I digress) was not nearly traumatizing as I think I was assuming it would be.
The food was not as scary as I expected and the people were eager to help you
find something you would enjoy eating…
Eating from a street vendor, however, was quite a different experience. On
about our 4th night in KL, a couple of the girls in my training
class invited me to finally venture out of the hotel to see what the rave was
all about with the ‘shopping and eating’ in KL. By my previous statements, you
might be able to foresee that we did not stay long at the shopping centre due
to the poor quality of these ‘bargain clothing items.’ Instead, we gave into
our hunger pains and ventured down one of the side streets in search for some
great, local food. Low and behold, we stumbled upon one of the main streets of
food vendors and night markets in KL. Lights were strung up between the buildings;
people were bustling with excitement of, dodging from one food cart to the
other, inspecting the menus and gauging the quality of the food based on the
number of people already occupying the seats set up at front of the stall.
Carts piled high with fruit and veg for sale, as well as ones with rows of
skewers ( holding assortments of meat, fish, veg, etc. meant to be bought and
cooked in large pots of steaming liquid) were parked in any open space between
the ‘restaurants.’ We chose one that seemed to have a good number of people out
front, and were pretty much forced into that decision after the host saw our
hesitation out front and grabbing that second, ushered us in amongst the rows
of tables and sat us before we had even blinked an eye. A menu was pushed in
front of my face, and before I could even grab hold to start flicking through
the pages, the waitress flicked through them for me, ensuring she pointed out
every ‘special’ on the menu. Another lady appeared out of nowhere to toss a
bowl of peanuts and a different bowl holding jalapenos onto the table. The
first waitress disappeared, bringing us back some water, wipes to wash our
hands, and a couple of Tiger beers (the Budweiser of Asia). Leaving but a split
second to ourselves, the usher lost no time in running over, stealing my
friend, Marybeth’s menu from her hands, declaring he ‘needed to borrow this for
a quick second.’ He returned a moment later, menu-less and announced he would
decide for us what we would eat (we warned him against bringing meat), then
scurried off to place our order with the kitchen. The food was surprisingly
quite nice – we had prawns, Chinese broccoli and some fried rice.
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| Food Cart Skewers |
We also had quite a bit of entertainment while sitting
there, enjoying our food. It started with a man in about his 20’s attempting to
‘Wow’ us over with his collection of wooden fruit baskets that could collapse
flat, or when popped open, resembled 3D apples, pears, etc. They were one of
those hideous souvenirs that you would find hanging on the wall of your 80 year
old great-aunts house. Next up was a 10 year old boy who stealthily stuck up
behind us, placing some bracelets on our table and then turned pathetically
towards us with his hands out, hoping for any amount of change we could spare
for one of his creations. Marybeth had previously warned us against buying
anything from them, so I guiltily shooed him away. An array of other beggars
and street vendors sauntered by our table, and slowly as the sun sank further
in the sky, the street was filled with hungry restaurant goers and street
vendors. One man rode up on his push-bike (what they call a plain bicycle
here), dismounted and leaned against the cart he was towing behind his bike.
After adjusting certain locks and hooks, he sat down in a wheelchair that he mysteriously
had produced and began making little metal shaped objects he was hoping to sell
to passer-by’s. Out of all these entertainment acts, the most intriguing to me
were two separate sets of people, doing the exact same thing. They were two different
disabled people, being pushed by someone they knew alongside the tables of the
restaurants. Strapped to the wheelchairs were large sets of speakers playing
various tunes, while the person in the wheelchair belted out the lyrics to the
songs through a microphone, also hooked up to the speakers. It was
heart-wrenching, yet bizarre and almost sad that they had to beg for money this
way. After seeing this, I selfishly asked if we could pay the bill and quickly head
back to our hotel, I had enough of this whole other world of culture.
The bill came, and to our shock, they had charged us for
those bowls of peanuts and jalapenos – we hadn’t even asked for them, yet alone
eaten them! Even more shocking than that though – was the second item on the
bill – the hand wipes the first waitress had brought to use with our drinks! We
didn’t want to cause a scene (and honestly, they hadn’t charged us that much),
so we politely paid for all of it and thanked them for the meal.
One evening, after class, we headed to view the Petronas
Towers (‘Twin Towers’), which are magnificently lit up at night, the KL Tower
and a couple of rooftop bars (Luna and Sky Bar). All of these are KL Landmarks
that dominate the sky during the day, and even more so at night. From any spot,
they are fantastic views of the city and lend for great backdrops for a night
out.
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| Petronas Towers |
On the one long weekend we had in KL, we trouped up to the
Batu Caves. Located about 20 minutes from the city, there are two caves that
draw a large number of tourists every day. The first is mostly one large
cavern, brightly lit from all the skylights and the home to a Hindu temple that
draws practicing believers for worship. Monkeys, actual, live monkeys, crowded
the large staircase and surrounding trees leading up to the cave. They acted as
sort of ‘guardians’ –stealing people’s food and water bottles straight from
their hands when they got the chance!
The second is the ‘dark cave’ and is one of the most
ecologically rich and most researched caves in the world (due to the number of
species of insects, flora & fauna and bats). We opted to first have a look
around the temple cave. Called ‘The
Ramayana Cave,’ it depicts the story of Rama in a chronicle manner along the walls
of the cave. In my typical nature, I was busy taking pictures of the brightly colored
statues, paintings on the walls and fascinating people. Not paying attention, I
stepped off a ledge that was literally only 1” high. The next 5 seconds were a
blur and felt more like 5 minutes as I flew through the air, flinging my
sunnies (sunglasses) and camera through the air, both skidding across the floor
of the cave to stop about 10 feet in front of me. Biting my tongue to keep
myself from screaming out loud in this sacred temple, I jumped to my feet (only
then realizing how badly I had twisted my bad ankle in the fall). Looking down,
I was covered in dust and dirt and had scraped on my knee that had already
begun to bleed. How humiliating! Thankfully one of the girls in the group had a
wet wipe and I had some hand sanitizer to attempt to clean my wound. If only I
had something to clean away my hurt pride! Thankfully, it was time to head into
the dark cave anyways, so I could disappear into the darkness and away from the
stares of the 100’s of people also visiting the cave on that sunny Saturday.
The dark cave was
fascinating and our guide was quite insightful on the facts and history behind
the large, luminous natural structure. Bats flew high above our heads and the
mass amounts of droppings they left on the floor of the cave was what made the
rich environment for all the insects and plant life in the cave (the guide
pointed out some of those bugs – giant centipedes and cock roaches crawling
under our feet – it made me squirm at every breeze blowing across my neck
thinking one had landed on me!) It made it all worth it once we reached the
very back of the cave, to the one sky light – it was heavenly!
Leaving the cave,
a few of us girls were feeling a desperate need for a foot massage with all the
walking around we had been doing. We had heard about an infamous place that had
an option for Fish (yes, live fish) to eat the dead skin off your feet! Such a
gross concept to think about – but one we just had to try none-the-less. We
found the place, not too far from the shopping center we had been visiting
every day. Paying for a foot and back massage, we settled down on the edge of a
pond and dove our feet into the cold water. Slowly but surely the little fish
swam up and starting nibbling at our feet. It was the strangest sensation! We
could help but laugh and yell out because of how bad it tickled. Thankfully when
we were out of time we were rushed into a separate room for our back massages
because just at that moment, a group of about 50 Asian tourists came in and all
stuck their feet in as well. That was our queue! The massage did us some good –
and we were back and ready for more exploring.
Training ended
that second week and after an amazingly hilarious ‘Talent Show’ (we had been
split into groups for training and each group had to perform an act) and
end-of-training dinner, we had to say our goodbyes. I was off to Singapore for
the weekend, but most everyone else was back to their respective citifies and
home offices. We promised to stay in touch (and especially those of us from
Australia) – it’s always great to make connections, not to mention some great
new friends.
Back into the
grind of work now after a 3 month whirlwind, I am focused and ready to step up
to the plate at work, proving myself and asking for more challenges. Since May,
I have felt unable to breath at times with: visiting home, two-weeks in
KL/Singapore, moving out of my apartment (because Bec has now gone back to
Canada), and then a trip to Ireland for our dear friend’s Dave & Sorcha’s
wedding. I think after this week of organizing and housekeeping type things, I
will maybe feel like I’m back into some semblance of a routine!
More stories for
Singapore and Ireland to come…
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| Singapore Skyline |
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| Add caption |
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