Blog 7

The crossing of the singapore-malaysia border was without incident. No one checked our bags or anything. our bus was to a town called Melaka, a traveler place apparently. On arrival it was hard to see why. very little to do apart from potter over to the massive mall and buy stuff or wonder off and look at the old dutch cemetery. Our hostel was really nice with a roof top sitting room where I spent most of my time relaxing and reading. Polished off The Confusion, and read Jurassic park for the eighth time. I now have the final episode in the baroque series: The System of the World. By strange coincidence, every time I finish one volume, I go to a book shop and it just so happens to have nestling on its shelves a copy of the next in the series, and no others!

So we faffed around in Melaka for while. One night we met up with a jolly Canadian chap called Carson and him being the right sort we had a few drinks and played cards until four in the morning. Impossibly he won at gin rummy following the biggest come back in the world of cards. It had got to the point when Lucy and I were openly jeering at his efforts, Lucy more so as she was winning at that point. In addition she was refusing to add up his minus points as they were so numerous. The upshot of this evening was that we decided to head to Kuala Lumpa with Carson and see what it was like.

K.L, as we travelers call it, is quite similar to Singapore but less expensive and dirtier. We decided to stay in china town again. There were lots of hostels to choose from, but Carson having been here before seemed to know his way around. The one he went to last time was pretty bad he said so we were on no account to go to that one. The first place we went to, the door handle was hanging on by a scrap of rust, and none of us were entirely comfortable with that so we moved on. The next one seemed all right, so we nabbed a three person room. Belatedly Carson recalled that this was the one he had said earlier we should on no account stay in. it seems he had checked out a bit late and they had charged him for another day. There had been an argument and I assume harsh words were said. Anyway they seemed not to recognize him so we stayed. What followed was five nights of pretty comprehensive drinking. Lucy and I had to have a break in the middle, but Carson was immune to the after effects of drinking and carried on constantly. A typical day was this: get up at an unknown time. Possibly in the morning more likely in the afternoon. Our room had no window and it was more like a concrete cell than anything else, letting in no natural light. I would wake up to the dull pallid light coming from the corridor and idly wonder if it was 9 in the morning of five in the afternoon. It barely mattered. Food was easily accessible, as the streets were stiff with restaurants all trying to hustle you into their place and not their competitors. Food was generally pretty nice although hygiene standard was brought into question when at each meal Carson or Lucy would find something in their food. A rogue hair perhaps or a king prawn whisker and even on one occasion a dead maggot! I either had nothing in my food or I ate all my hairs and suchlike without noticing. After brunch or lunch would be a period of rest, after the tiresome moment of having to get up. On some days we went to the Petronus towers which were pretty impressive. The mall at its base was even more impressive in its size. I bought some books. (One was The Prestige, quite different from the film and very good.) After wondering around china town for the rest of the day, we would relocate at the hostel and plan our evening. Beer was expensive so we went to a Chinese liquor shop and buy a bottle or two of spirit. Sometimes it was whiskey and other times it was rum or vodka. It was ridiculously cheap. Then to a seven eleven (like a one stop or co-op) and purchased some coke. Back at the hostel we had a little party in our room as we were not aloud to take our own drinks up to the roof top lounge. So we listened to music on our speakers (yes! I finally used them! justifying both there expence and weight in one moment.)

After drinking our drinks and becoming reasonably sozzled we went to the reggae bar down the street. Quite a neat place decked out in red yellow and green and having about 87 pictures of the bob Marley on the wall. It surprisingly played no reggae at all.

After exhausting the potential of that place we would grab a cab and head to the clubs. Sometimes you had to charge and sometimes not, this was based on the phases of the moon or some nonsense. Much fun was had by all.

I did a certain amount of dancing.

One time we where sitting in the outside patio of the club minding our own business and supping a drink or two. Opposite us on the other street was a different club, called the beach club, which we had decided against as it charged to get in. quite fortunate as it turned out. Both clubs are open faced with a small fence stopping people from strolling in of the pavement. From where we were sitting you could see right across the street and into the other club. They seemed to be fuller and to be having slightly more fun that we were.

Suddenly there was a scream and a bunch of people were running across the street away from the beach club. I spotted someone exiting the club, reeling and flailing at the air. I said something strikingly witty. Perhaps “he’s had a bit to much!” or “ha-ha, look at him!” followed by me pointing vigorously in case anyone missed him. The man was quite drunk and in some way very angry at the world in general and the club he just exited in particular. He picked one of those pole things that are used to make temporary queues, its pretty heavy so it took him a few tries, then using it as some sort of club began to physically attack the beach club, smashing it into signs and tables, sending glasses smashing into the street. No one seemed to be stopping him; in fact no one wanted to go near him. People were pouring out of the club at this point and I could see why. Three men came out of the club wielding two foot machetes. They too set about the decor of the place. There was a lot of machete waving, shouting and frenzied attacks on inanimate objects. One guy in particular was determined to take down an entire palm tree on his own. We sat and watched this from the other side of the street, like it was an elaborate play. The full seriousness of it took a while to sink in. I wondered why the police hadn’t turned up, then as it seemed to hot up across the street, whether I could block a machete with my arm. Probably not. We discussed the best exits, Carson working as a security guard once, had a knack for that sort of thing. As it happens the lunatics with the machetes got into a car and sped off, we carried on having a good time.

For some reason the rest of the hostel took a dislike to us. No idea why! We left the hostel before 10pm thus taking our noise with us and arrived back so drunk that we went immediately to sleep.
We reasoned that it was because we were having so much fun, and they could hear our happy laughter, yet they were too embarrassed to join in and thus became jealous. It’s the only rational explanation.

This sort of decadence could last forever, we decided to head on to the Camaron Highlands. Parting ways with Carson, though I suspect we will see him again, we got on yet another bus.

Four hours to the highlands. Having gone out the previous night I felt little worse for wear, I needed sleep. So I hunkered down in my tiny seat and tried to snooze. I was awoken from an interesting dream, by an explosion. I sat up in my seat flailing and jabbering. There was a crunching sound beneath me. Seeing my consternation a Malaysian guy seated nearby explained that we head just experienced a “bad” puncture. This was an understatement it had sounded as if the tire had been blown off. We stopped on the lay by and the driver got out to have a look. Apparently satisfied that we were roadworthy he drove off again. What followed was 30 minutes of a bus trying to rip itself apart. A piece of wheel was repeatedly smashing into the underside of the bus as we drove. As it was going on right under me I decided to move. An Indian guy was unconcerned, perhaps he was used to it, but I watched as the flooring under him lifted up a few inches each time the chunk of wheel whipped into it.

We eventually stopped and had the tire changed, which was nice as I was getting a little concerned.

sending this from ko lanta, a very nice island next to ko phi phi. we are considering taking a Padi course here as the diving is meant to be pretty good.

the highlands were nice, with many walks in tame jungle in the offing.

now im just off to plunge into the crystal waters as i am a tad warm!

love julio