News from the Interzone: Malaysia, June 2005

Greetings to one and all!

I have to say that Hermes has been exceedingly kind to me in these last weeks. A friend recently asked me what was the meaning of 'Serendipity' and if I had to use a single word to describe my recent experiences that would be it. The standard visa for Thailand is only a month so I decided on the easiest option from Ko Samui and that was a quick trip down to Malaysia. Although initially I had thought only to do the day trip down to historic Penang, I was lured to visit Kuala Lumpur (I will admit unashamedly) by the prospect of seeing the new Star Wars, in a state of the art theatre. I have to confess that aside from knowing that Malaysia is Muslim and of the relative modernity of Kuala Lumpur (aka KL), aside from a few historical notes, I knew almost nothing of this country. I have learned more about Malaysia in three weeks than about any other land in a comparable amount of time; it is indeed a fascinating place.

Suratthani to Hat Yai

I took the ferry from Ko Samui and then a bus to the rather dull transportation hub of Suratthani. Luckily I was with a Thai friend who knew the town well and she could readily show me where to go to catch a bus. alas I missed the last one for the day and thankfully she was able to connect me with a minibus down to the border city of Hat Yai, with a connection the following morning to KL. After the lengthy minibus journey I checked into a decent but inexpensive hotel called the Garden House. I was very hungry and went out for a look-see. I quickly determined that the vast majority of local places were "Karaoke" bars with little or no singing going on (although they were crawling with women). fortunately directly across the street from my hotel was a nicely decorated reggae/rock bar with a great vibe, live music and decent food. In between sets they had Lucky Dube, Eric Clapton and BB King Live in Africa concerts on the DVD widescreen on a killer sound system. One of the band members came over and befriended me. he was a Thai guy who spent five years traveling India, Tibet, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Burma. He may be the only Thai person I have ever met who spoke English with no accent. One of the guys in the band was wearing a Jerry Garcia t-shirt so, I asked if they could play something by the guy on the shirt. They played "Suzie Q" and "deadicated" it to me--close enough I guess.

I had a kind of surreal experience in the bus office before leaving Hat Yai. The media was dominated that week by coverage of the Miss Universe Contest. As we sat waiting for the bus with virtually everyone watching the contest on the small central TV, a camera crew came in looking for people to interview. Among their potential targets were a couple of covered Muslim women (who were pretending not to be watching the broadcast) and a Buddhist monk (who was clearly striving to do the same.it was the bikini contest). quite a scene really. Before boarding the bus I stretched out a bit. I noticed one other man doing the same. He seemed European, wearing loose fitting trousers, a tank top and looked quite sportif with dragon tattoos along his back and shoulders. but it was his bearing and calm demeanor that betrayed his nature. this was clearly a fighter. Upon embarking he sat just ahead of me between two Thai people. He quickly began conversing with them and I was shocked as he was the first Farang (foreigner) whom I had heard speaking decent Thai without any apparent accent. I could make out the words Muay Thai in his conversation which confirmed my suspicions. We soon engaged in conversation and he came back and sat with me. We talked for much of the trip and it seemed we had much in common, most particularly a passion for cinema.

This turned out to be exceedingly good luck for me, as Dennis (his name) has lived in KL for six years where he runs a Muay Thai dojo. He has studied the art for fifteen or more years. In addition he has a propensity for language, being a very communicative and friendly person. He speaks his native French, English, Thai, and a smattering of Malay, Cantonese and Mandarin. My first impression of Malaysia from the windows of the bus were of a stunningly beautiful place which was kept uncannily clean and manicured. On either side of the highway for at least fifty meters, seemingly regardless of terrain, the land was closely landscaped and not a scrap of garbage was to be seen anywhere along the road. (Indeed even KL is pretty clean for a city, despite the heavy traffic).

Kuala Lumpur

Upon arrival in town I went and checked into a backpackers hostel in Chinatown (by coincidence just above the reggae bar). I took a walk around Chinatown and had some good curry at one of the many Indian restaurants. Malaysia is an astoundingly diverse place. Despite the relative dominance of Islam in the development of the country and the Malay majority, there are massive and highly developed minority communities of ethnic Chinese and Indians as well as other groups including the 'Orang Asli', or indigenous peoples of the peninsula. This has resulted in a country that I would have to describe as schizophrenic. Although the various groups live in relative harmony they could in no way be called properly integrated. at least not from a western perspective. This is most marked by the various rules and taboos required of Muslims by Islam, but which the other groups are immune to. It is Not like the secular republic of Turkey because Islam is so strong on the one hand while the minorities are so large and their presence so hard to ignore; although Malaysia fancies itself a kind of self styled democracy. The country is only about fifty years old so as things develop it will surely come of age. but it seems there are many hurdles to pass. I was immediately fascinated by the incredible mix of peoples and languages and cultures (and above all of foods) and walked around in great anticipation on my first night, ending in the reggae bar. There I spoke with some German backpackers, who despite having traveled for 7 months struck me as incredibly dense and imperceptive men. they declared that they didn't like KL and found it uninteresting . when I asked how long they had been here they said about four hours (most of which I think they spent in the reggae bar).idiots. My first day in KL wasn't terribly touristy really, although I did visit the central market. Dennis and I went to the Timur Mega Mall, the largest mall in Malaysia with over 500 stores and numerous restaurants, bars, etc.It had not yet dawned on me that the developed parts of Malaysia are for the most part made up of a series of ultramodern shopping malls. they are literally everywhere and they are enormous and filled with all the typical brand names and corporate globalized mash that is available everywhere else, but these people seem to have taken it to a whole new level.

It is always entertaining to go to a massive modern development named after a rampaging Mongol conqueror who destroyed virtually everything in his path (Timur Ghurkan aka Tamerlane). there Dennis introduced me to, of all people, a Turkish guy selling Marash ice cream, a famous sticky icecream from south-central Turkey. we spoke Turkish for awhile (an apparent relief for him as he had moved to Malaysia with no Malay or English and has been struggling to learn English ever since) and I had some nice icecream. we checked the times for Star Wars but it was sold out for at least two days despite show times every 2 hrs in large theatres and despite the fact that the DVD was readily available for about a buck virtually anywhere on the street. So we ended up shopping at Carrefore (sp) the French version of Costco for about 2 hours. they have an outrageous collection of foods etc, so we feasted as we shopped. Later we went to Dennis's house and watched a couple of DVDs. In the evening I went to the reggae bar and studied Thai

Malacca/Melaka

I determined to travel south to the historic town of Malacca (aka Melaka, also being the name of the province). Despite a few travelers telling me that they had been bored there, I mistrusted their opinions as I suspect they were not really interested in history. Malacca is about 150 kilometers south of KL, a quiet little city by the seaside. It played an enormous and central role in the historical development of the peninsula over the last 600 years, largely due to its strategic position off the straits of Malacca, a crucial trade waterway between the peninsula and the neighboring Indonesian island of Java. A sultanate was established there in the 14th century and it became an important centre for Chinese, Javanese, Indian and Arab traders. Eventually it caught the eye of the Portuguese; control of the city passed in 1511 to the Portuguese viceroy of India and they maintained hegemony for 130 years, eventually replaced by the Dutch in 1641 c.e. Later still Malacca was ceded to the British in the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824. The British had moved in during the geopolitical machinations of the Napoleonic wars. There are visible manifestations of the historic presence of most of these groups still remaining, most dominant being the Chinese. The Chinese make up 40% of the population of Malacca, while the Indians make up about another 10%. there is still a small group of semi-Portuguese descent in Malacca, who speak an ancient Portuguese creole called Cristao, who are also simply known as Papia Kristang. The Malaccan straits Chinese are known as the Peranakan people, or baba nonya.

Upon arrival in Malacca I checked into one of the historic Baba Nonya houses along the riverside, the Heeren House. The old man who owns the place is so charming. he was exceedingly pleased when I spoke a few words of Portuguese with him and was immediately very helpful and communicative. I would gladly have stayed there for my duration (despite its being a little expensive) unfortunately they were booked for the rest of the weekend after that night as it was a kind of holiday both in Malaysia and nearby Singapore; but he quickly helped me get a room at another of the old Peranakan houses, a kind of working museum called the Baba House.

I was tired upon arrival after getting up early and a three hour bus ride so I took a long nap.stirring myself outside, after having a delicious meal of some traditional Peranakan food, I walked across the river and began to explore the historic center, which was swarming with tourists (mostly Chinese). it was too late apparently to visit any of the numerous museums (they have converted anything remotely touristic into musaia) so I wandered up to the ruins of St Paul's church on the hill overlooking the old town. This church was originally built by the Portuguese in the 16th century and called 'Our Lady of the Hill'-When the Dutch took over Malacca from the Portuguese, they changed its name to St. Paul's Church and used it for 112 years to worship until they completed the construction of their own church . Christ Church . at the base of the hill. Although the British added a lighthouse, they did not pray there and St. Paul's Church ultimately ended up as a storehouse for the British gunpowder supply. There is an incredible vista from the hill of the town stretching off in all directions.

On one of the paths leading up to the hill, alongside the old Dutch graveyard, I was approached by some Malay girls who wanted to take their photograph with me. They were friendly but shy, so at first I thought they spoke almost no English. Soon a few more of their friends came along up the path and I was introduced to them. There were four covered Muslim Malay girls and one uncovered Tamil. They were all university students, having just completed their year of studies. most of them were going home to their families the following day for several months. We strolled through the grounds of the old church. They were astounded that I could read the Latin, Portuguese and Dutch tombstones, and scarcely believed it possible; but when I showed them that Dutch is just like English (Hier leggen under begraven xxx. born such and such a year, died such and such, etc.) they seemed somewhat relieved. (There was one particularly sad tombstone, lengthily and ornately written in Latin, which described the trials of a woman, the wife of a magistrate in Cape Colony, who became too ill from her pregnancy to continue with her sea voyage and rejoin her husband in Africa, and so was set ashore in Malacca and died in childbirth). It was quite hot so we decided to go and get a drink. Of course we had to find a place that was suitable for the girls (i.e. no pig flesh and no booze), but eventually settled upon an open air place by the river (although I am pretty sure both products were available there). We asked each other a lot of questions about each others lands and culture and they taught me some Malay.

Now I had not intended to learn any Malay (indeed as I had just embarked upon the hubristic plan of teaching myself Thai it seemed inadvisable), but circumstances required me to give in to necessity. Also I suffer from a very serious ailment; I have self-diagnosed this cruel disease as the dread affliction of autodidacticpolyglottophilia, so I really cant help myself under these kinds of conditions. I will limit myself to write about only a few salient features regarding Bahasa Malay at this time:

In comparison to Thai it is exceedingly easy
There is a lot to be said for a language with no case, number, gender, tense, voice, mood of inflection (although this is somewhat offset by agglutination)
The vocabulary is largely drawn from an array of other languages, with bits and pieces of recognizable Portuguese, Arabic, English, Persian, Chinese, Tamil and Sanskrit
It is very similar, indeed mostly identical, to its sister language, Bahasa Indonesia, making it one of the most spoken languages in the world, with up to 250 million speakers worldwide.

Another bit of the surreal accompanied us along the riverbank there, as our waiter was a Malay ladyboy, a real queen, with a great personality and the Malay girls got along great with him (I've gotta get my photos digitized so you can all see him along with these Muslim girls (left the digicamera in Seattle-I'll get a new one soon, promise!)!).

It started to get late so we said farewell and I headed back to Chinatown. upon crossing the bridge I discovered that they were having a night market throughout Chinatown (every Friday and Saturday there). I wandered about and snacked on yummy dim sum and sate. there were lots of crafts along with some very bad but entertaining Chinese karaoke, dancing and street performances. Eventually I had had enough and settled into a cafe where live music was playing all night. along with a Carlsberg beer promotion. I stayed a couple of hours, people watching and studying Thai. Headed back to my hotel whom did I run into but three of my new Malay friends. it seemed that they had come looking for me. We went back to the riverside place from before and had more (virgin) drinks from our ladyboy server. eventually we left and wandered about the town. I don't know if these girls had ever been out after dark before but they were terrified. this was somewhat exacerbated by the fact that virtually every car and motorbike that drove by had young Malay men catcalling and whistling; but frankly you cant find a lot of safer cities than Malacca really. But to be honest their situation is or at least seems to me, to be just cultural fallout of Islam, which is apparently destined to remain stuck in the middle ages, particularly in regards to its treatment of women. (I would be glad to debate this with anyone, if you wish to bait me on this topic).

In the next few days in Malacca I wandered about the town visiting a number of the museums (they have a particularly interesting one which is a Museum of Democracy ,built with the intent of teaching Malays about their own constitution and governmental system. although I was there by myself alone). most of the museums aren't heavy on actual artifacts but are heavy on text, pictures and dioramas, with several good displays and exhibits heavily featuring Sir Stamford Raffles, the English governor and naturalist who was the founder of Singapore.

In the evening I would generally settle into the same small cafes along Jonkers walk in Chinatown (with the same musicians playing pretty much the same music, every night. I stayed a total of 4 nights in Malacca. On the third night I met four fun Germans, Dirk, Voj, Georg, Jurgen. We had a grand time drinking and sharing stories. Georg was just traveling but the others are working in KL. Here is Jurgen's blog entry for Malacca. (actually his entire blog is quite interesting particularly if you want to see how European expats perceive living in Malaysia you can see Voj's pictures of Melaka. Voj is Persian/German so I was able to speak a few words of Farsi with her.

a few more links on Malacca:

Malacca to Mersing

Bus from hell. literally and metaphorically. I have been on a lot of hair-raising bus trips around the world, but this was a particularly bad driver. according to Malay driving customs the best way to pass someone is to get right on their ass and ride them hard until they yield. this is particularly effective in a large vehicle like a bus. but this guy couldn't rely only on this tried and true practice. he would try and slip the enormous vehicle in between massive trucks and other buses. Along the way I witnessed the remains of at least 2 surely fatal accidents. one a semi rolled over on its back with the cab largely squashed while the other which was very recent showed the remains of two small cars that had both been crushed accordion fashion leaving only flattened silhouettes of cars. a crowd and numerous police had gathered. being in the very front seat behind the driver I decided to distract myself watching the movies showing on the screen above my head; the first was a really terrible low budget ripoff of Candyman called Bloody Mary. and the second was Wes Craven's Dracula III:legacy. actually a pretty good vampire movie. but what was striking about it was that about 3/5 of the way through the movie there is a blood orgy in Dracula's castle. there is a whole room full of naked people/undead writhing around in pools of blood and feasting on various victims in horrific/ erotic manner. Malaysia has fairly heavily censored media and yet sitting just opposite me was a covered Muslim Malay woman who was absolutely transfixed by this phantasmagoria. yet again the surreal juxtaposition of cultural worlds colliding.

I finally arrived in Mersing, a small town whose primary claim to fame is the gateway to Pulau Tioman and its surrounding islands. it was exceedingly hot, but I was quickly escorted to the station where they sell boat tickets (and also hustle hotel reservations for a commission. but as there aren't that many places to stay out there this is really no big deal. just don't let them convince you, off season, that they are your only hope of getting a room). they provided a minibus to the docks where I waited for about an hour for the 'fast' boat to Pulau Tioman

Pulau Tioman

I can hardly begin to describe the outstanding time that I spent on this gorgeous gem of an island. Apparently the islands off the northeast coast of Malaysia, called the Perhentians, have even better beaches (which I find hard to imagine really) but there Islam is so strong that there is no nightlife and you can find beer only with difficulty. Tioman is a duty free zone, and although there are few enough shops that this means little for shopping, at least the beer is cheaper than the rest of Malaysia. In any case Tioman, which was the location of the film South Pacific, is a stunningly beautiful place, with crystal clear blue, green, and aqua waters, surrounded by reefs (many of them sadly damaged) and an amazing abundance of wildlife. I decided to go to the northern village of Salang, still largely undeveloped, a tiny place with no cars and a genuine local community. Debarking from the boat and proceeding along the jetty the first thing that one sees is a massive sign at the end of the jetty warning Muslims that if they are caught drinking they will be fined a large sum of money and beaten repeatedly with ratan, in accordance with Malaysian law. despite this sobering little feature it does little to diminish the fun to be had by travelers, divers and backpackers. I checked into my hotel and during a quick walk around the town, immediately noticed massive monitor lizards living in the brackish waters behind the main strip (a 1/2 kilometer long walkway. there are no cars here).. but I was quite exhausted by the trip so after a delightful swim in the perfect water I took a long nap, waking late in the evening, and reading long into the night. In the morning, having realized that the southern end of the village had the best beach access I moved to the small hotel/resort there (once the only business on the beach) . it's nothing luxurious really but cheap and clean and with a very friendly staff and an OK little restaurant (on the whole apart from the fresh fish the food on the island is less than outstanding) In any case once I was properly settled I determined to go snorkel ling.

I knew that the waters had great promise but I could not have imagined the tremendous abundance of marine life that I was about to witness. Within 10 meters of the beach I began to see an array of fish that completely blew me away. Spectacular colors and variety confronted me with each stroke. The enormous fecundity of the place and its myriad denizens was immediately enchanting. Within 20 meters of the beach I began to see really large animals including a whole school of massive Napoleon fish (Cheilinus Undulatus). they were all at least a meter in length, of tremendous girth and very beautiful . I swam with them for awhile, but got distracted by two sleek blue spotted rays (Taeniura lymma) . these were highlight but there were so many different creatures (and actually I know little of marine biology) that I could scarcely keep track. the various attributes of the reef itself were so varied and beautiful as well, that I could barely believe my eyes. But aside from the natural wonder that I discovered on Tioman, it was the remarkable and lovely people from around the world whom I met there that most pleased me. I was particularly lucky in my primary aquaintances there.

As I sat watching the sunset and drinking a decent latte, I met Jen, Steffen, Cynthia, and a little later, Lash, a local divemaster. What a splendid bunch of people; and what was more we soon discovered that Steffen and Cynthia and I had much in common as we are all very interested in various aspects of language. Steffen is a translator of Norwegian and English, and Cynthia a speech therapist. So of course we had over the next days some really interesting conversation. Also we are all about the same age, and it is rare to meet such peers amongst travelers, much less find someone really interesting to talk to. But this was only the beginning; over the course of the next week I met so many amazing people, from so many different countries and backgrounds. Salang is just small enough, and so relaxed and beautiful that it breaks down a lot of the barriers that normally prevent travelers (or anyone really) from communicating.

One night in particular was so very pleasant. sitting on the beach in a circle, laughing and sharing stories and ideas with 4 Brits, 3 Finns, 3 Irish ladies, two Dutch, an Ecuadorean and another character of uncertain origins about whom I could a dissertation length monograph (the infamous Winston, aka 'Chester', notorious ranter and pathological liar, professing himself to be a multimillionaire financier from Montreaux, with connections to the royal families of Russia, Romania, and numerous other countries, master of twenty languages, Reiki Master, accomplished diver, friends with virtually everybody of importance everywhere, privy to the secrets of the Illuminati and the gnomes of Zurich, and generally a huge pain in the ass for everyone on the island; but somehow the whole experience would not have been the same without him). I have found this this kind of social arena and instant camaraderie amongst people from different lands to be so rare that it is truly precious. Others I befriended that week include a couple of Canadians, a couple of Kiwi supertravelers, a Danish divemaster, a stunning Norwegian girl, a madman hero-lifeguard from Borneo, several Singaporeans, a couple of Americans, a family of Turks, an Aussie or two, a bunch of the local Malays and two charming Columbian/German ladies.

Kuala Lumpur Reprised

All things must come to an end and I felt that as there was a massive changing of the guard on the island it was time to escape with my Dutch friend Onno when it was his time to leave. The last night was very quiet as so many of our friends had left that day (indeed even the notorious Winston had gone to Mersing for a bit. a lengthy story in itself, although we saw him on the docks of Mersing headed back). we took the long bus trip back to KL, mostly uneventful except for some rumswilling Malay freaks stumbling around the back of the bus.

In KL I found a nice guesthouse with my friends Melinda and Sara, and after feeding ourselves on outrageously good noodles, we set out for the nightlife of KL. We had agreed to meet the Irish contingent from Tioman at a club called The Loft, which Onno had learned about from friends living in KL. It's really a very cool club, and it was nice seeing so many of our friends from the beach there in an ultramodern nightclub, so different from the natural paradise we had left behind. Eventually to keep things interesting, we decided to move on to another club and settled on the Zouk, one of the newest, sleekest and most exclusive clubs in KL. There were about 100 people milling about outside with a huge sign saying 'Club Closed' surrounded by security goons. But there are certain advantages in Asia to being accompanied by 7 lovely western ladies and we marched in like we owned the place. a pretty cool club on the whole, though it was a very young crowd. We danced to the thumping house music for a bit, had a beer and went our way.

The following day I went touristing the city with Melinda, Sara and Melinda's friend who had just arrived from Argentina. We went to the historic Merdekah Square and then visited the gorgeous hibiscus and orchid gardens. Nearby Sara and I also spent an hour or so in the unrivaled enclosed bird sanctuary there, featuring thousands of birds from all over the world. In the evening we set out on the town again to the Golden Triangle area and visited a nightclub called The Beach, nice enough in itself, but infested with Philippina and Thai whores. We soon tired of this and strolled to a massive tropical/Latina style club called the Rum Jungle. They had an awesome multipiece Latin band playing whereas Marissa (the Argentinean) was able to display her Latin origins. the girls had to leave early but I stuck around and met some really amusing characters including several Russians, a couple of Germans (out of their minds in excitement at the outcome of some infinitely important football match), a couple of Malays and an animated Iranian-Italian guy, who was completely blown away that I could speak Italian and Farsi. my last day in KL I went to a place just outside of town which is sort of like the Las Vegas hotel the Luxor, a massive mall with Egyptian motifs, adjoining a complex of water park, hotels, convention center and god knows what else.. it was simply enormous. after a delicious sushi lunch I headed back to the centre and visited Times Square, I think the largest mall in KL. I bought some books, spent a few hours reading and after some yummy Thai food went and saw the new Batman movie (My opinion: It totally rocks! He is the best Batman yet. Awesome!)

The following morning I headed back to Thailand, more on that soon.

Well, this has been difficult to crank out! Anyone who has read it all the way through deserved some kind of medal. I may try and convert this travelogue into a blog which might be more manageable for me and my readers alike.

Cheers to all of you out there!

Toby

PS: Oh, I just realized that I failed to rant and rave about the horrors of plastic bags and the tremendous damage they are doing around the world, especially to our precious oceans. Please everyone, if you don't need a plastic bag don't take it and try and reuse the ones you already have.

PPS: Blessings to Bob Geldof and everyone who helped him this week to end African debt!