Fragments:
3 months in Malaysia

Look, I know this is long, and I know you’re busy. It’s long because it represents a fair chunk of time, and it’s long because it’s on a page on this device you’re using rather than neatly published in a little paperback. If it were the latter, it might seem less long. It’s long, and you’re busy, and all it really is is an account of certain instances and observations and revelations and reveries. I couldn’t care less if you read it or not. If you choose to, maybe just scroll down to a random interval and enjoy a few paragraphs, or search for a word and see if it turns up. You needn’t trace it from start to finish. It’s linear but it’s not a narrative. And it’s long.

What shall I write as the first line?

Something that makes it nigh-on impossible for the second to fall shorter.

Which leaves the culmination, I suppose, as this — I am somewhere else.

And I’d be lying if I said I’d not thought about how to frame this little professional adventure. For a while, in seeking some niche, absurdity, or otherwise semi-compelling framework, I thought about ‘squeak as you seek’. My black Nikes, you see — the exercise trainers that I lean on so heavily for daily life back in Bristol — they’re diminishing somewhat, structurally, at the heel of the left, so the transition of A to B has conjured this ever-rhythmic, rather annoying squelchy bleep for the past few months. And I’d had every intention of bringing them out here, you see, for the gym or the commute or whatever. But I didn’t even bring them, you see, so now I’m staring into the enduring darkness of the blank page and wondering: how do I make this interesting to any single fucking person other than myself? The general reader might have found great solace in the recurrence of the squeak — a welcome motif amidst verbose travel tales and half-baked fragments. They see nothing worthwhile anymore. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it.

——

So I’m out here in Malaysia for a while now; a saturate seeking pouch and a perpetually drenched brow for company. What a time!

And in the course of it, and without undue regularity, and in lieu of a finer motif, I suppose all one can attempt to do is scribble down the odd observation.

——

Grab chats instalment satu:

Grab is the Uber of KL, except Uber still exists, except it doesn’t have a baffling monopoly. Grab does. It’s cheap and easy and excellent. A conglomeration of conversations to cover in the first of this miniseries. Let’s kick off with the first — a particularly dazed airport number. He was talking about tolls and taxis whilst I looked out at the parched palms that line that first highway. The first Friday night there was a slightly drunk number so the Grab chat entirely eludes me, I’m afraid. We’re not off to a flyer. It’ll never last as a recurrent feature. I’d been for a few reflux-inducing-vinos for this fellow’s leaving do, (and my arriving do, thank you very much), plus a rooftop beerio, that be why the exchange evades, before a kindly colleague ensured I got into the Grab and rode round the corner from Bangsar to this here duplex haven. One driver a day or two later got quite political quite fast, with interventions of ‘that used to be the tallest building here in Malaysia, ha!, look at it now’. There is a sweeping and allegedly endemic dissatisfaction with government; he talked to me in high-quality broken English of the skewed party system and people’s alienation, and politician’s ability to defer seats and switch allegiances. “Ah yes because we copy the UK”. Go figure. Another dude talked to me about how much I should try chicken rice and how good Tame Impala are.

——

Early, justified crux:

These are amongst the most friendly people I’ve encountered, and yet I’m sure I’ve penned that before, which would suggest an inherent benevolence that is far too often overlooked by nihilistic fatalists like me.

Later that day I discovered a Masala Dosa for the first time. More on that when I’ve got my head around how good it is.

And in the evening I had every intention of a quick fix but ended up strolling around Bangsar for a while. Parts of it remind me of Thailand, with neon signs and thick heat and western scran mingling with more idiosyncratic entries. Being the regular Nigel Thornberry I am, I opted for this delicious fried kway teow in a bag, which I came back here and ate on this counter whilst watching the penultimate episode of Band of Brothers.

Obviously this whole furore is going to be framed by food, you ignoramus.

Why wouldn’t it be?

——

And what of the greenery?

What of the sheer damp splendour?

Well I did the righteous thing and ignored the good advice of everyone who actually knows by going for a stroll round the Perdana Botanical Gardens at peak heat time. As lovely as it was, I did have to stop like every four minutes to mop the rancid sweat suncream medley from my forehead with my white t-shirt which is no longer white. There are bamboo huts there, over a little white bridge, and a lazy body of water that you follow to the even lazier lake. Q Sentral — the office building — looms over the whole scene.

I spent the rest of the day being a right bloody tourist and even if you sued me I’d counterclaim the nipples off your audacity. We’re talking Petronas Towers. We’re talking a couple of Tigers and a good 50 pages on Jalan Alor, which second to my arrival night (and that new favourite bread, right, Laccha Paratha, which frankly I simply can’t believe has been demoted to an expository parentheses, it’s an insult to the quality of its layered, herbed roti, to the immediate glory of its dip in the paneer curry), was the first time I felt like I’d gone back to 2014 but stayed in 2022, wiser, more rotund, and more appreciative for the change than I’d ever have anticipated. I just chilled in the evening after walking around all day, and even if you shunned me I’d shake your hand and welcome the pointers.

——

And you have to remember that however frustrated you get, and however many micro-millimetres more that vein on your left temple protrudes on account of professional, structural, or personal inefficiency, there's always that post-slog swim under pink marshmallow skies. There’s that most welcome, long peck on the cheek that is downtime, sifting leaves and sipping Tiger.

——

Yea quite honestly I couldn’t describe a Masala Dosa if a literary autocrat stripped me of superlatives.

——

And hazy high rise silhouettes afore the mountains out the office window.

And Mutton curry ooh lah. Tell me — is it sheep or is it goat?

Alright then, let’s talk about 'lah'.

This pervasive exclamation!

It is a shrug, a sigh, an exclamation, a placeholder, a thought-filler, an exasperation, a default, an epidemic. I am going to try and execute it flawlessly a couple of times without coming across trite or disparaging. Wish me luck o dearest readers, this one's for you.

And that pastel sky is there nearly every evening, never quite yawning but merely summoning with its beautiful orange blanket the sprinkling lights of hotels, eateries, offices, travel hubs, shops and car parks. Makes it ok.

Malays are pretty much exclusively Muslims, and by law.

If you marry into an Islamic family you have to undergo training to warrant the blessing of the parents, I believe. And the most fascinating element? — hold your breath for this one folks — if you marry into a Muslim family and subsequently separate from your partner, you are not legally permitted to convert out of Islam again. It’s the only country in the world where this is the case. How remarkable.

——

Petition to get that one particular tree across the way chopped down — or perhaps a small cluster around it too — which is obscuring the left side of the small football pitch in Bansgar, so I can watch the U14s play ball and scout on the basis of technical nous, movement, and ball retention from a distance of c.500 metres as the crow flies.

——

Well jove, goodness, and a sprinkle of Aldi midaisles what a day Saturday the 13th August 2022 turned out to be for the man with a bead on. It started slow — I finished reading Lolita up by the pool, and found the postscripts’ coverage of morality and aesthetics to stoke a nice region of bygone pleasures somewhere in my cerebral setup. Honestly though, censorship doth fascinate. A stunning book. Bit difficult to read at moments, being as it is run through with intricacies that this former literature student has unfortunately grown out of noticing to the (?) needed degree. Onwards.

From there I headed to Petaling Street which is just north of Sentral. Chinatown is there. I walked from the LRT with a cigarette in my sweaty fingers. Do fingers get sweaty? Downwards were mucky walkways and rogue tall single steps to shut-off shops, frontways: thick air circulating new, pungent aromas that swirl and slap your nossie cilia; there were eager touts and tourists, caught or otherwise, by negotiative advances; there was no escape from the heat which, squashed and packed as it was into this one street where you brushed shoulders and became convinced of having just walked past that exact same tender (the less said about this sentence’s kinship to my professional life absolutely the better). In other words, it was a sensory spectacle and I bought a ring that’s too big and went to this famous little locality for some beef noodle soup, because there’s nothing quite like slurping spicy hot liquid when you’re already overheating. It was absolutely delicious — had like four formats of beef in it: meatballs, shin, roasted something or the other, some other something or the other, topped by this sweet relish and all dropped in a delicious salty broth. Yeah honestly the food here is just relentlessly silly. Anyway you little harlot what about all those calls to the MPO Box Office?

Ah, yes.

Prior to all that up there, I’d spent 20 minutes or so browsing things to do with my day. I came across the site of the Malaysia Philharmonic Orchestra, and saw that they were playing — no fucking less — Vivaldi’s Four Seasons that very eve. That very eve I say! How had this slipped through my semi-diligent pre-arrival searches for ‘Kuala Lumpur concerts’? Tell me immediately or you’re not coming to my birthday party.

Sold out. Naturally.

Called them once in the morn as soon as they opened. No dice. Called them again after finishing up Nabokov’s artistic justifications (it’s wild he felt obliged). No dice. Called them again as beef water mingled with an already creaky Celsius gage in the core of my being. No dice. Each time I upped the ante with my plea. Alas, there’s nothing like seeing the asymmetrical face of a classical fan amble into the Box Office on his own two clammy legs. Just messing, no difference, still no dice. But since I am here, kindly madam (she was kind tbf), please take my telephone number and let me know should the dice materialise. By the very way, the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra — which is a relatively young setup as far as they go — has its national concert hall in the base of one of the Petronas Towers. What a scene! I get a Grab from here to Bukit Bintang way, where I feel I might as well be should I resign a non-existent spot in the hall. Before I’m even out of the heavenly vehicle, my folk, I receive a telephone call!! Ok so how do I condense this? Just tell it how it is. This woman — Akiko her name is — well her friends can’t make it so there’s a ticket for me. Following a highly excitable initial exchange, I ask whether she’s going with her family, and whether she’s sure there’s no one else she would like to ask before providing glee to this absurd Brit? ‘Actually, I am playing’. Yep. She’s the pianist/harpsichord for MPO. Her husband is the orchestra’s Concertleader and primary violinist. Mad. Anyway there’s another twist of fate yet, as I am made aware of the need for trousers. Darned dress code. I am scrambling at this point — I’ve got like 45 minutes to find some trousers. I’m hot. I’m bothered. I’m near Alor. Can I go in travel pants? No, no, don’t be silly, this is one of the most seminal pieces of classical music ever. All hot and bothered, I flit erratically around this mall I come across, asking random souls where I can find some cheap strides, and one has the good audacity to say “hm, maybe have a look around”. Oh yeaaaaa ok yeah no worries I’ll spend the rest of my evening here as they unfurl the spiky spectacle of Winter 1 on all those patrons who have trousers, shall I? Fuck off. I found some Timberlands that looked grey in the light of the store and haggled down to like 40 ringgit. Didn’t even care at this point. Cared a little bit more, in fairness to my pride, when I went to change in the mall toilet — bum gun water on the floor and horrible smells and a weird swaying fat man — to find that the light of the shop had deceived me and that these trousers were in fact brown, and that these brown trousers were in fact near enough skin tight, and that my sweaty legs could only just squeeze into them. Nonetheless. I grabbed a super speedy bite to eat — right norty chicken in chilli ginger with a proverbial ricedome — but still turned up late to the WhatsApp-arranged rendezvous with Akiko. She was stood in her concert get-up in the Petronas lobby. I handed over some cash. She looked taken by my gratitude. I wished her luck. The rest, as they say, is splendid sound.

The concert hall was stunning. The playing matched up. 17 of them — principally violins, naturally — worked through a few other pieces first:

Felix Mendelssohn’s String Symphony No. 10 in B minor
Five sweet, succinct pieces that start out Edvard Grieg’s From Holberg's Time

After the intermission (wherein I strolled briefly to gaze at the Towers of tiers lit up in all their splendour) came the overlapping blossoms and flourishes of Spring, the slow saunter into Summer’s sun, the undulating upturn of shining plans, before the brightness meets brisk breeze, leaves slowly droop and drift, and I run out of overwrought alliteration. Every time I listen to it I find myself leaning towards a different season, and not even necessarily the one we’re in. The whole shabang timelessly appeals to the ties between our fleeting emotions and nature’s predictable impermanence.

Stunning soundscapes played by a crafty monochrome collective.

I feel very very lucky to have seen it. And with such trousers on.

That was Saturday the 13th August 2022.

I was spent when I got back.

My legs were right clammy.

Sir, after you’re done leaving me sat her like a lemon, please do me the good honour of procuring me a Kariff lime and lemongrass cooler, with a Nasi Lemak of seismic proportions, come to think of it, for I’ve been really rather stressed today, and it’s the first of the working week.

——

Now I guess all I’ve really found is that people here lament, emphasise and gesticulate in much the same way as any other population. They sigh, like me, hold their shoulders funny in the downward lift, extend the lattermost syllables of their huff verbals, which arrive in some mighty bi- or multilingual blend.

——

Describe it to me. 120 words. 0 marks.

It tastes like sea water made consensual but confusing love with thin cut red onions.

There, only needed 15.

I was told it’s yoghurt. I think it’s buttermilk. It tastes like yeast, like an Activia gone wrong, like some left field bodily residue doused in salt and floating coriander. “But it’s cooling and incredibly good for you”. My taste buds got up early, gathered their families, and headed to the picket line to protest that latter point.

No, to be fair, it’s actually quite refreshing………………not the flavour profile, oh no, but maybe the subsequent physiological state, and definitely to find a single edible, purchasable good that I don’t finish. First and only out here thus far.

Moru Ice, ladies and gentleman, Moru Ice.

——

Grab chats instalment dua:

We back!

Well this fella used to run tours at the Batu Caves but got bored of saying the same thing everyday. He has asked me about the Ukraine war.

The downpour transporter has undergone a medley of things that rendered her constantly curious or upset, or at least so it seemed from that section of her being I could make out in the rearview. I’d feel similarly re: the aquaplane hazard. And what precisely of the fellow who worked for Malaysia Airlines’ advertising department for 34 years? And went to Liverpool during a trip to Europe at his fanboy son’s behest? And the Maldives at some time, and Sri Lanka to pick up some stuff for an event.

And this current good sir, who is one of the silent ones, perhaps solely and understandably on account of me penning shoddy Grabchat notes on the back seat. Boy it smells good in here.

Naren — my boss’ partner — is a member of The Royal Selangor Club, an old colonial setting with original columns and a lawn opposite the government buildings. He’s in the discipline of law, like his father, and like the bulk of its members it would seem. Corporate litigation. We had scran and some beers there, talking about the relative sprouting of the city in the past 30 years — the scene we looked out upon would’ve been largely rainforest when the Club started, some old photos attest to that, as does an old English expat that stops by for a hot minute. We also discuss Singapore’s independence and subsequent direction, nepotism, the corruption scene in Malaysia (this one albeit in hushed tones). Some right nefarious dealings from highups. What’s this recent one? A government contract for the purchase of 6 major tradeships, and years down the line not one of them is finished. It was a tasty and educational evening.

——

A bag of curry for my fatigue, ta.

——

The intersection through the balcony glass over there has a big yellow square with a cross through it etched on the tarmac, but cars pay little heed. These roads.

——

Ah goodness me yep these notes are entirely non-chronological cos I haven’t talked about the beautiful awnings of Thean Hou temple and my flying low, have I? About the warm yellow lanterns under the warmer yellow lantern that doesn’t so much as hang but sit in a state of glorious relentless suspension. (I was damp). Have I? About the cornices of ornate red and gold? The swooping shape of the roofs? The little golden animals that sit atop them, as if watching over the whole scene's sanctity? The big stone figurines marking men from bygone dynasties, each of whom did something noble, most of whom looked after or protected or sacrificed something for their parents — a solid root for any culture, religion, belief system, no? Have I? So what you’re telling me is that the sweet pungency of the incense and fascinating triple bows and the sculpted dragons of emerald green and dazzling blue, unphased as they were by the ovenish onslaught unlike my own drenched temples, have all gone unmentioned in this erratic journal? Right well yeah I went to this place and it was ledge, and I spoke to a middle-aged dude for like 5 minutes about my time here so far and he advised on some bits to do and see and the whole time, unbeknownst to me, and remaining so until about 45 minutes later when I was walking round Brickfields and kindly apprehended by an Indian fellow in a sarong — me flies were undone. Got a mint snap of me at this gorgeous place looking like my willy could fall out any moment. Have I written about all that?

——

Lifts are fucking mad I never normally go in them at all and here it’s not just them I take, it’s the granted, that some mechanisms are working just so that in like 13 seconds it’s gona take me from down there to all the way up there. Fucking mad I tell you. Have given me some sort of unsettling, heavy-bodied vertigo though…

——

What of the dudes sat by the side of the road on plastic chairs just staring at the side of a restaurant and listening to tinny music on their phones? Do they think about the machinery required to develop and safely sustain an elevator?

——

I’ve until now neglected to discuss the paid assault I experienced at Si Fu Reflexology last weekend. Of course, I anticipate your rebuke — all topics and happenings are neglected until they are covered — but this is an especially spicy case. We’re talking GBH at the massage parlour. I’d been for this lovely baked egg jobby at Yeast, right, good bread, good energy, fried duck bits, as you’ll have it, and how else to follow it than a nice relaxing release at the hands of a professional? I scoff at your ignorance. Made the rookie error of notifying my masseuse — whose English was sparse — that there remains on my right shoulder blade a small mountain range of knots. He proceeded to batter them into oblivion (except he didn’t, because they’re still there and will be forever now), meeting my protestations with calming ‘oohs’ and no let up on the vigour. Heavy elbowed son of a gun. Didn’t focus his abuse exclusively on the ailed area, either, as I’d paid for a full back and neck treatment, so the rest of me had medium tier bruising for 48 hours thereafter. Think I might have jovially (read: completely sincerely, but in a throwaway tone) told him to fuck off at one point. Remarkable.

——

After this I went to Batu Caves because you have to do so if you’re in Kuala Lumpur, I do believe. It’s law. And there there was a mighty deluge, but not before I slogged eagerly up the vibrant steps to the dripping, echoing cave and the Hindu temples therein. For the most part I pottered about and glanced upwards, through minute cracks and grand openings to the cloudy outer from whence I’d just arrived. For around 15 minutes I was captivated by a chanting prayer or offering from two topless gentlemen, adorned in sarongs, sat cross legged either side of a fire, into which they threw bits and bobs. They took turns turning out Hindu incantations on the mic. Think of it as a grandiose B2B, the sounds of which crept out from the ornate temple and licked the furthest stalactites. It took me for a bit, fair play. A cockerel pecked at the floor with the pigeons, however, entirely unperturbed, or at least completely accustomed. I strolled back down and got caught in the downpour, before getting a pani puri and a chilly Grab. I do believe I briefly touched on the lines the driver’s forehead sported.

Lemon for a finger and helmet for a leg.

——

Most days at approximately 4pm, any semblance of blue or even white vacates the high, sweeping premises and ushers in its wake the captivating gloom of greys, blacks, and smeary purple. Clockwork. Occasionally, should the handover not occur, I will walk back to Brickfields, enjoying the clear sky and heady atmosphere.

——

Due blessings unto the metropolitan anonymity that affords me a cigarette on the balcony with my bollocks out.

——

The way you fold your banana leaf is indicative of whether you enjoyed your meal or not…allegedly. If you fold the back towards yourself it shows you are satiated and grateful; if you do the opposite, it’s an unspoken, passive-aggressive indicator of mediocrity, or worse! There, you lucky little prick, you have it.

——

Wee couple politicals:

1. So on Wednesday I think it was — August 24th — one of Malaysia’s former prime ministers (the current’s predecessor, I believe, so fresh by all accounts) was imprisoned for 12 years for corruption. Sofiya at work got a call from her Ma warning her to get home quickly so as to swerve potential protests, riots et. al. Quite naturally, I enquired, and here’s what I learned:

This guy — whose divisive ways were alluded to by a particular wheelman in Grabchats numero uno, and whose dickswinging is laid bare in the plea for architectural height (ah we’re gona fall short yeah? bung a spire on there) — was actually very popular with the poorer communities across the nation. His government gave regular handouts and financial support, and despite sweeping knowledge of his nefarious dealings, people figured that he had some licence given his will to feed his people — the base level symbol of leadership. So when he left office and the handouts stopped, many (of which there are many) struggling hand to mouth were left harder up, and retained pretty staunch affinity with him. I also read a post on LinkedIn about the Brickfields area and how he committed to developing it, which I have seen first-hand, I suppose. None of this is to say that he’s eradicated poverty and disparity, because that, my furrow-browed audience, is impossible.

2. Isn’t it unnerving and altogether sad that, universally, celebrations of independence are accompanied if not led by showings of military prowess.

I’m heading to the Cameron Highlands.

Well then, fair scribe, what lines the highways?

Green palms, high n low.
Tiered banks with ridges of concrete irrigation that run to gutters.
Settlements that have carved away the greenery to reveal the earth’s core orange sand — or are they worksites? Or are they quarries?
Perfume adverts and overly smiley ambassadors.
Corrugated iron workstations and small farms.

Bidor. When we passed through, I heard distant echoes of tramadol stupors, brought forth by the raucous murmurs of the mamak beyond the busglass.

And on the churning, snaking hill upwards through the forests (or jungles: what qualifies?):

Telephone wires draped between the longest, deep green valley.
Shacks on stilts, glancing out.
Cobs hanging from string, bottles of dark unlabelled liquid sold from wooden huts by the roadside, with men sat relaxed on wooden slats, doing what business per day, one wonders?
Stomach sac unease
Zimmer’s unprecedented and unrivalled masterpiece arriving from new buds.

Well what of the enduring and often unacknowledged guilt that perhaps accompanies English folk, given that their language is the ballast of travel? So many ignorant ones (myself very bloody much included) don’t expand that horizon because, well, what’s the need, our uninvited birthright is that people will speak to you in your mother country’s linguistics should you encounter them in a hostel.

——

I met a guy called Dave from Chennai when I was having some food yesterday afternoon. He was nice. Didn’t rate the cold. Lives in MidValley. Had quite a stringy beard where it grew out from his chin, and retained the Indian head nod so sometimes I, for the life of me, could not tell if he was agreeing, mulling, biding time, disagreeing, quarrelling, loving, or apathetically accepting.

——

But for the most part, right, and you can understand this surely, dear scribe recipient, it was a washout. From the point I got off the bus in Tanah Rata to the moment I lay my head in this strange booth (oh it’s good to be back), it rained. It rained hard, then eased, then rained hard again, repeatedly, for the duration. You get the idea.

——

So prior to meeting Dave and having a beer and some roti with different curry gravies, I had a bit of a back-and-forth between the one concrete vein that passes through Tanah Rata and the Traveller Bunker. Before checking in I got an espresso and read some of Robbins' exemplary prose. Then I went out for a walk via a market, round some sports fields where the slipperiest game of netball to have ever been conceived let alone conducted was going down, and then down the start of Trail 4, only to greet a locked gate and sludge under these sacred Karhu’s. I’d bought some small sweet bananas (oh it’s good to be back) and one of them made me need a shit really badly — couldn't have been anything else could it — voila! returned to satisfy the animalistic impulse and came back out to the same market; bought me some Clarks brown boots for 8RM so stick that in your inventory. Back to the Parit Falls route for an hour or so. Sodden, but some nice scenes. Wicked to be in the rainforest. Had a companion as well in the form of a small blood sucking little fucker of a leech that got me just as I exited. Prayer calls, cascades, small shelters, a bridge made of paper and plastic. Slept pretty good.

——

I had spoken to the kindly Malay fellow Kong — who actually lives in Italy but has been in the Cameron Highlands for two months given the state of Europe geopolitically, financially and otherwise — about what my options were for this morning. Didn’t want another washout to stop me, you see. All the tours were booked but that’s cool playa, I got calves you could eat. Charted a course for Trail 10 and 6. Golddust.

——

I woke myself up with short sharp snores a few times. Is that an altitude thing?

——

Just after 9am I was at the trailhead. Walked past a cluster of people wielding Malaysian national flags and getting talked to through a megaphone. More on them later.

The first stage of the climb was burnt sand coloured clay, and a loop up to the right via a ropehold. Then it was an ascent into the jungle, with steep steps in the form of gnarly roots. The first drip of sweat followed an asymmetrical and mesmeric route down my beak and slooped onto the floor within 3 minutes. After another 40 — winding, rising, past a couple of other guys, overtaken by the same number — the path narrowed and a pylon loomed. The view over the town and the sprawling forestry was stunning, and clouds lingered at the same level as I in the distance.

——

My Malay uncles! About 40-50 metres beyond the rather dominant pylon is the peak of Gunung Jasar, though the relatively if you head further havenway through some bushes you get the perfect vista out the other side (what, the north west, I guess) where the clouds were in fact lower than I. It’s always some kind of feeling. A couple of the young fit training guys — the ones that passed me on the ascent — were up there with an older fella in a neon yellow top. Good Nick, we’ll call him, for he certainly was in it. That's him up there in the picture wiv me. A guide on these hills for over two decades. The two that I had passed arrived about 8 minutes after my own melting milieu, and they obviously knew fair Nicholas. All three were mighty friendly — we took photos and cooled off and then they told me to follow them past the vista peak down the other way, which wasn’t the plan, but aye. Nicklaus and the younger of the later arrivals were so far gone. I slipped once and paused to put my bottle in my bag and the older one (a Penang dweller) went ahead too. I didn’t see them again, with the fading ‘aohhh’ locator cry my last memory of their existence. I fought through a 20 minute descent of moss just to climb the mountain again. This time, thine salty drops were even less reluctant. Confident all day to be fair. Them and me.

——

So those flag-waving-many were now at the pylon and so I sat and snacked and sipped and smoked for 30 or so warm minutes, watching on as they sang songs of independence (Merdeka!) and took photos of each patriotic other. Clouds rolled in and obscured the views. I chatted to a few of them — one kindly dude called Hadeeb (?) was especially sweet. In liberation from empire, onwards means lateral calculations and, with time, upward progress. In trekking, sometimes, onwards means downwards.

——

Kong warned me of the steep slippy descent, and sections of it were genuinely a bit booky. I reckon it took me 40 minutes to get past the worst of it: a ‘path’ the width of my shredding soiled Clarks, foliage tending for the same airspace in every direction. Only breathers gave me the means of gaining a footing, as did a rope that’d been latched to one of the trees, thus briefly replacing any sturdy roots or twigs that for the rest of the stretch my muddied palms gripped for and grappled with. Rolling down the beak. Pouring down the beak. T-shirt translucent; belly rippling. The views at times. My.

About three hours into the whole affair, something resembling concrete reappeared underfoot, albeit splintered and bulged by travellers, rainfall, and heat. I meandered through private vegetable farms, stopping for clunky confusing exchanges with their workers. Dogs slumbered. The greenery and the solitude for these hours was something akin to perfection.

——

And propped up homes sat serenely aside these rolling tea fields, right. Children noticed the damp pale ghoul walking down the path and waved hello. Beyond them, all around them, cascades of plants turned to flavoursome sips via a four step process. The trickling stream ushered me deeper into their midst.

By this time I’d run out of fluids for over an hour because I am an idiot. All this meant, though, as I timed it as such to avoid mirages on the horizon and jelly legs, was that the lemongrass tea at the end of the meandering valley was just about as good as any tea anyone has ever had. Obviously I am unable to qualify or quantify or even argue that but it’s a tool of storytelling I’m willing to defend to the hilt right now.

——

I sat next to the stream for a bit as families — most of them native tourists I reckon — flickered to and fro. Then, on limbs that were rapidly fatiguing, I strolled up the final stretch of the 4 hour outing and settled at the Cameron Valley tea shop just as the ghastly heavens spat out their own brew all over the gaff. Ate a couple of scones didn’t I. Dare you to even try commencing legal proceedings on such an act. Delicioso.

Then…after a lift back…a hot shower! Who’d hath thunketh.

A Belgian and a Kurd walk into a hallway with 16 beds either side. There’s no punchline.

——

I went out for a drink and some supper with this German girl called Paula. She was cool — a paramedic graduate going on a yoga teaching retreat in Bali soon. Reluctant to fly. She had a dal and a desert pancake. I had chicken rice and a thosai (that’s a dosa, no spellings are consistent in this world and the sooner you get onborde with that the betta. We talked about all sorts — the humility of travel, the US of A, freewheeling spirit meeting digital angst. Pleasant evening.

This guy at the restaurant, though. Can we call it a bromance? Is he an idol, a mentor? No days off. Deserving of all of them. A certified legend. Over the course of my visit to the Highlands, I spent a total of around 4 hours in his close proximity and I’m mighty glad of it. Infectious personality.

That next photo is he and I.

——

I did what any right honourable man would do the day after a long marauding excursion and took a comparatively sluggish stroll to scran a Nasi Lemak with some strawberry sambal at Opah. Few little and not so little farms that way. Hanging coloured plantpots and bags of soil stacked in tiers on wooden palettes with rounded corner rectangles cut out the top of them, from which sprouted low yield (or just yielded) strawberry flowers with little green buds or luscious red ones. And that’s where I stayed for a few hours on the morn of my return — up the road round the corner down the road round the corner.

Got a punnet for good measure.

Fuckin aye.

——

And on the descent, you ask?

Wispy whites caress the curves and contours of the high rise jungle don’t they. Ethereal isn’t it. Isn’t it?!!

A thousand trees for every human. The humility. A thousand and one trees of all shapes, sizes, stories — from giant canopy leaves to dangling vines, monkey chow, docile drapes, steadfast old things, unperturbed or otherwise obstinate neighbours to so-called development.

——

What a fantastic few days it was up there. Cameron Highlands, people. Get yourselves there at once.

Tell you what. Preceding all this, in the relative calm of post-submission composure, I spent three consecutive evenings watching three consecutive John Wick films, which involve, mostly, Keanu Reeves taking on and dispatching several consecutive foes. Gory nonsense. Nice. Good.

——

And the banana leaf lunch at Vishal’s that promptly danced on all my tastebuds and fancies. Sam, for christ sake, you know the drill: stop experiencing new things and write about past things.

——

Well I can't precisely write about the future, can I?

Ah bollocks that might well be the definition of imagination.

——

I got back and enjoyed a swim in that familiar infinity, before finishing up packing and packing it in. How many packing references can you pack into one paragraph? A packagraph, and you bloody well will so don’t try and fight it.

——

I have been here for almost a month. It is September.

I am Hemingway.

I am Isherwood.

I am a camera.

——

So is this place better than EST or does it not quite measure up? It feels more like a hotel. That is for sure. Short sentences are not really my thing. That much is also for sure. The location is more among it, but again that depends on if you fancy the concrete jungle over and above the mamaks of Little India. I am not sure I do. There’s a writing desk which is a nice touch; it allowed me to work from home yesterday (MERDEKA!) after a swift morning swim, in the pool that is certainly not as nice as EST, surrounded by brick and glass living vistas, but it does the job nonetheless. I went out to Jalan Alor on Tuesday evening and was flirting something raucous with the fringes of sleep by about 11:37, so when the snap crackle pop of some Rice Krispies fireworks erupted outside I had a cursory glance but figured that’d just be the start of a 24hr Independence Frenzy. I was wrong. I am a camera. The shutter is fucked.

——

Well to be fair I might not have been wrong. At Dataran Merdeka (that strip before the Royal Selangor Club, oh cmon you remember, oh cmon you know the one, wake up, pay attention, swine) there was an all day military parade and other goings on unto which stumbled and intentionally camped out tens of thousands of people, but I’ll never have that memory, because as I briefly mentioned, and in another similarly lengthy sentence I grant you, fair author was working from a new apartment (a pale brown laden hotel suite). Bet it was an Independence Frenzy there though. Tanks rolling down the street n shit.

——

Paula (that German lass from Cameron) came to hang out briefly before heading down to Bali. In the evening we went for a stroll amidst the masses and tried to source some fireworks, as you’ll guess, to no avail. Looped back via Kampung Baru, had some juice, had a very very very very high-quality corn, salty and buttery and hot it was, and then sat cross legged in a mild slumber at this little eatery. I actually headed back that way tonight to a larger little cluster of foodstops. Pretty good shit I have to say. So that’s one side of this building — Kampung Baru and Chow Kit, the captivating, somewhat seedy communities of low rise homes and front yard cookouts. Faint smell of something rogue in the air for the most part, you know the ones. And then down the other way, a couple of Monorails or a 20 minute stroll away, you’ve got the buzz of Changkat and Alor with all its lanterns and shoulder rubbing and pushy restaurant ambassadors. So yeah overall I’d say the location is probably a bit better, though I was fond of Bangsar. Stop pushing me into swaying one way or another it’s too early to know what I want who i am what i smell like or what rate my toenails grow at. Man man man you’ve really lost your laissez faire.

——

So yeah, I’m Sam, 27 years old, never tried to publish anything, never really tried to do anything, just talk to myself in note form on devices only I can unlock. Good to meet you.

As far as achievements go, yesterday was not one.

Just mooched around like a spindly fart for hours on end. Not even mad about it.

Got some clothes at a ‘family bundle’ store which is like a thrift-lover’s paradise of cheap, (for the most part) genuine, somewhat stained but largely decent stuff, though I lost a couple hours total to the two I visited, which is pure consumerist nonsense. If you’re gona do it at least make it edible. Fair request — curried chicken and spicy salted egg buttermilk spaghetti, chicken wings, and a fine Italian calzone in one Saturday don’t mind if I digeri. Watched The Accountant. Went to sleep.

Are you not entertained?

——

Oh yeaaaaaap yup yes yap yos yash it’s good up here in the city it is. Kampung Baru and the row and all the delicious cheap eateries that reach out their soothing claws and rope me in around 8-9pm of an evening. I had spiced pepper beef with cabbage carrot rice and chillies yesterday. With a drink it cost me £4. Tonight I had a thali and a thosai and a drink for £6. Baffling. Absolutely baffling. Could most certainly very easily establish why things are cheap here but I’d rather it stay a source of beautiful bafflement.

——

The man with the infected incision down the middle of his torso and drain bag draped by his side full of bloody yellow drainage and scrawled totals for medication, and kindly, soft pleas. What is our aversion to charity? I have enough to spare 50RM so why did I try to walk away twice?

——

The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen.

Honestly there’s this implacable, bubbling sorrow in me. As there is, evidently, throughout my home nation. As there is, I’m sure, in the pocket of people’s hearts across the globe reserved for respect and remembrance. I’ve choked up a couple times watching footage, reading condolences, tracing anecdotal accounts of her impact. No doubt being a born-and-bred Windsorian adds another layer to it, but. But. I don’t really know? I’m not a massive monarchist, I’ll be the first to admit it, but I had nothing but time for Queenie. Her dignity, grace, hilarity, endurance, and inherent, incredible kindness were and will remain an example to every single human on earth. Her sense of duty to her country. Her stay! 70 years on the throne! The world literally went from black and white to colour; the role of her dominion from coloniser to celebratory commonwealth; her children to grandparents in the time. And you know what — not once did she appear anything other than devoted and delightful. Surely no other human in the past few centuries has touched the lives of the world’s people in such a lasting, humble, and beautiful way. RIP.

——

I remember on holidays when we were younger we would go to the odd museum. Naturally, right? There’s always a national number or niche tourist lure. Pa would read pretty much every plaque, and we’d groan and circle, impatient culture vultures, trying to prod him along.

I remember — and I am sure I’ve written about this in some journal volume or another — up until like my very late teens I would proudly and arrogantly proclaim ‘I’m not interested in history, I’m interested in what’s to come’.

So after five weeks of glancing out of the office window and seeing it below, today I spent a good three hours perusing Muzium Negara. Look, in no way have these things dawned on me just now, but it’s a very ample time to remind myself that Pa was right in his steady paced curiosity, that I was wrong in my dismissal, and that history is in fact everything. It is entirely and completely and absolutely everything. Imagine being so blind to it. Fuckin narc.

I think as a general rule of self-pointed thumb, I am a snob and a moron. And there’s this strange emotional overlap, I think, given that the Queen has just passed away, and there’s this ceremonial, archaic passing of the baton unfolding before the eyes of the British Public, the entire world, and yet at one time the British Empire was the most behemothic creature, flailing its inky mitts all over once autonomous lands. One of which was this one here. So it was a fitting moment to go, perhaps. Or a slightly sombre one. Or one of intrigue. Or one of thanks, somewhat shamed humility, existential confusion.

All of them.

Gosh, wouldn’t it be entirely lovely to be able to aptly capture a feeling with words?

My brain is porous matter, my memory a frail notion.

Alas, it was this very day and so if I scratch it down now…

So, a crude summary of the history and happenings in this country that’s home for a little bit:

Bones and stones evidence the earliest dwellers back in the Neolithic era. That was gallery A but I did it all skewiff didn’t I. Started with B didn’t I — apt given my previous perspectives.

For millions and millions of years I’m still entirely none the wiser. Progressively more practical tools, cooking techniques and experimentation, I guess?

Malaysia’s history — as much as it is documented — really got off and running in 1400 with the Sultanate of Malacca. Sultans of other Asian states and kingdoms came and went to the tune of avarice, entitlement and conflict. Progressively, as some early semblance of regional trade materialised and gave extended birth to globalisation, Malacca (south west of here) became a vital and highly sought after trade port towards the 15th century. Between the bulk of Asia and the Middle East sits the dangly little archipelago doesn’t it just.

Then the Portuguese turned up. It was a gorgeous little stopping point for them en route to the East. An armada eventually colonised the space in 1511 after a number of failed attempts. They turned Malacca into their hub, and attempted to expand their reach to other regions.

Naturally the Dutch caught wind of the whole thing and managed to wangle their wursts in in the middle of the 17th century with the help of the Johor Sultanate (Johore is the region in which Singapore used to sit, and which it now sits just south of). Portugal naturally didn’t like relinquishing control very much because of the pathological nature of human beings, but so it went.

Through the Anglo-Dutch treaty a little further down the line (1824, I just checked), Malaya (the mainland, and most surrounding clusters of coastal land, I think) all came under British rule, whilst the Dutch counted Indonesia as their colony. To be honest I’m still not entirely sure what the story was and how it all evolved with Sabah and Sarawak, but I do know these two are now the bread of the Borneo sandwich, and the filling is principally Indonesian, and just on top there’s a little olive which is its own sovereign state: Brunei.

Sovereignty. Mad. That’s all this is and all this has ever been really.

The King is on the throne.

There are imaginary fault lines everywhere on the orb.

People slaughter others for the right to some bit or another.

Anyway, once the Dutch had handed over the vast majority of Malaya to Britain’s suit-donning white men with twirly moustaches, two things happened over the course of the next 100 years, and this is probably true of much of the Empire, or maybe not:

Development. In depth, and in great breadth
Oppression. An incomprehensible sense of entitlement and superiority.

With the knowledge, tools and contacts of the new rulers, Malaya started to flourish in the production and trade of rubber, tin, spices. And education improved too. But with that education came a greater propensity to think for oneself, and thus emerged stronger stances of nationalism. Communist parties killed three British ambassadors (?) in around 1940 and prompted a national state of emergency in which British forces defended (?) Malaya against nationalist extremists.

During the period, representatives of Indian, Malay and Chinese political movements recognised that their governmental factions weren’t prone to hold sway enough to displace or usurp the British on their own, so they joined forces to create the Alliance, went over to the Isles and pitched the powers that be on independence. And hey, they got it, after some period of negotiation over post-indy funding and infrastructural support I guess. In ‘57, so five years after wor dear Liz may she rest in perfect peace took to the big seat.

And that’s the thing isn’t it? The Empire all but ended when she came into power? She was all about giving these formerly ruled countries what they sought, but without compromising on their chances of prosperity? Maybe.

Anyway, after a period of planning and getting the people stoked, Merdeka day marked the distinction, and what a fine spectacle for the unified nationalities and identities of modern Malaysia. What, 7 or 8 years later, Singapore decided they wanted out, and it’s been plain sailing unanimous animosity since really.

…Finally I got to the beginning at the end and realised that neither I nor many people alive today bar Yuval Noah Harari know what era shifted into the next from the point of Pangaea. Rocks and bones and muck and cave paintings and primitive existence that’d have a pretty good gladiator battle with post-modern internet in the realm of desirability.

Good museum. Made me feel all sorts of ways. That’s encouraging.

Getting bored of drinking beers on my own, I will tell you that for free.

——

Hit Pasar Seni last week one day after work to read my book in the dusky buzz. Also went to Supper Club with a colleague in Brickfields. This is the spot some briefer visitors have referred to as ‘shitpub’ but honestly I’m all about it, if nothing else then for that divine onion pakoda. At the weekend (last weekend, it’s another weekend now, and what else do we do but sail between them, paying little heed to the sandwich filling?) I had an hour long full body massage that was so sweet and so relaxing and so enjoyable that it affirmed my previous KL massage experience as genuine assault.

——

Someone else is joining our team.

I’m going to have to find out her middle name.

I’m busy but it’s manageable.

What will I do for the ‘long weekend’?

There’s a fun fair I might go to on Thursday lol.

——

Didn’t go.

——

So I had some intention of working yesterday, despite its being a public holiday, but in retrospect I don’t really know why — for what and to whom and where on the foam slider of premature stress am I trying to prove myself? So I didn’t. I walked way too far to a bakery in the late morning heat, only to find it full, so got a takeaway and a Grab back here but now I have sourdough, so life re-finds balance by passing through the magnifying monocle of wheat.

I copied some shit from one document into another one.

I went for a swim, read my book, and sorted out our Paris trip for the end of November. For Nils. Aye. Let’s hear it for booking a holiday before our next holiday has even gone down. And then I spent the evening with Adeeb, who is a fascinating, extraordinary person really, and good company. We went for some beers at Havana on Changkat, played pool, shot pockets, shot shit, ate some saturates, strolled to the Philharmonic hall ‘neath Petronas — both towers were imbued with colours of the Malaysian flag once more — and watched the 50+ piece orchestra flawlessly turn out John Williams banger after John Williams banger. Some evening, no? Victor’s theme from The Terminal, and Leia’s Theme were the emotive highlights, but you’ve got the splendid sprawling sonatas from Harry Pitta Bread, the entire final suite from E.T., the two note sharkmarker, flailing sabres, ah ya know, heaters. Some evening, yes.

And here’s a fun little test for you:

What’s a more alarming statistic?

That there is currently a 24 hour (!) queue snaking around the camaraderie-coddled streets of London to see the coffin of HM Elizabeth II lying in state

I have cooked twice in 6 weeks.

[25 words, 0 marks]

——

No one would read a story about a manboy that eats 8 octopus takoyaki, a bowl of hot & sour popcorn fried chicken, and a carbonara, washed down pre- and post- gluttony by three cans of beer, just to complain about his midriff tyre, would they?

——

The cashier at the Japanese supermarket wouldn’t touch my non-halal smoked ham, right, but every time a prayer call echoes out across my immediate to medium vicinity (oh it carries!), I feel somewhat compelled to look further into Islam. Naturally, of course, I will not. This is a symptom of the direct correlation between my inclinations and my inactions.

Merry day to you as well.

——

So basically I’ve gotten into a strange pseudo-artistic habit of framing something natural and awe-inducing — like a tall palm or cluster of junglecrops — alongside or before or as a backdrop to something grossly, fascinatingly unnatural, like a scraper that resembles a walkie-talkie, or a free standing telecomms tower with shaft ridges of white jutting up. Awesome in their own right, right, but there’s a real joy in setting them against the atavism, greenery, and raggedness they so frequently usurp. Reckon I’m the first genius amateur snapper to find and frame these gorgeous, agonising juxtapositions? Reckon so?!?!

——

This is a fucking maze.

Tight meanders; almost oxbow lakes of gravel, mud, dust and stone.

This is fucking amazing.

Monkeys, launching.

Grabbing leaves and scranning some.

Bit part audio recorded as I spent two or three sweaty hours snaking around the entirety of the Taman Tugu trails. Embarrassed to pen as much but due to my having not brought Columbias, I’ve been somewhat limited in the trekking I can take on, so the Tugu option was a good one given its clear marked pathways, sporadic steps and controlled jungle in the heart of the sprawling metropolis. It was sensational. No moment more so than when I turned one of the incessant corners, dodged a small mudpuddle, and identified the source of the hustle bustle rustle in the trees — a family of monkeys migrating from one patch to another, couriering their young with trust, stopping for a bite of a leaf with their remarkable little mits, taking note of me without qualm. I was captivated, completely. They appeared more abundant during the final 30 mins of my visit, with some scrambling across a telephone wire to cross a road, using their rigid tails as robust ballasts. Excellent, most excellent.

——

And all the while Jim Caviezel’s gauntish uncle cooks up Middle Eastern tastes in the Kampung Baru market court.

This morning!

Less about the fact that somewhere in the collective proverbial ticker of the Malaysian people there’s an undying reluctance to use stairs if there’s an escalator available, more about my hitting the sweet spot. I crossed the roads with gusto, you see, and if I hadn’t done, the LRT at Dang Wangi wouldn’t have rolled in just as I descended the stairs (!). I took the stairs again at Pasar Seni — and this is a long stretch of a descent but boy were the bourgeoisie bustling to get on that automator, and lo! — the MRT rolled in just as I reached the bottom. Even the god dang LG2 elevator reached its rightful position as I entered the building. Blessings unto the Queen on her final hurrah.

——

So yeah, last Saturday, Wet Deck bastardised many songs by squishing them into house beats. Bit bougie for my taste. To the mamak for some late night dosa. Digeri!

——

I stood two metres away from a smoking area and some jobsworth, nightmarish lady came trudging up brandishing what I can only imagine is equivalent to a PCSO badge (do they have badges?) and instead of just letting me take a single step out of the so-called ‘cover’ in which my so-called illegalities unfolded, she gave me a £30 fine and took fucking ages to do it as well. Accidentally gave my old passport number so that’s either unideal or completely ideal, depending on the way you glare at it. Probably just go and pay it tomorrow ya know. Been smoking the occasional snootie in that spot for 6 weeks. What a bunch of ripe, raucous codswallop. Seemed as though the Malaysian fella puffing away literally right next to me wasn’t getting himself a ticket though. Decent.

——

It’s been 3 consecutive nights without watching a single episode of Brooklyn 9-9. Am I feeling ok? Important check in.

——

FOOD DIARY:

The chicken rice claypot that bubbled and broiled at my latest (and last?!) visitation to the Baru foodhaven. Salted egg chicken and crispy greens the next night. A delicious brothy fragrant curry laksa lunch. Indian feast Friday. Ah you know, all of it really, all of it showing its residual doughy glory on my forward moving side.

——

Grab Chats instalment tiga:

Well the guy spoke such good English around face masks, the weather and football that I asked for his damn number. Come to recall, most of the stuff I said he repeated directly back to me and said ‘yeh’ as though that’s precisely what he was thinking also, or maybe he just wanted to confirm his agreement, but it all amounted to the sum of my no doubt unwelcome proposition. What’s happening man? He hasn’t reached out.

Harriet is here. She worked at the Bristol office many many moons ago and has been at the Sydney office for manier moons. Now she’s Interim Office Manager to get a handle on gossip or discord or both. Good company, good human. We went for food and a couple of beers on Monday, shooting the shit bout this that and t’other. We did a similar thing on Wednesday, but work became less of a binding topic upon recognising that we’re actually both semi-fascinating human beings with experiences that transcend Hybrid. Had an impromptu foot massage to match. What odd, shock-horror TV channel do they have on in there? Why that? Who has the answer?

The two of us hung out a fair amount in the period of our overlap.

Good value, that mother tongue with an odd Aussie twang.

——

Today I’ve done very little, because last night I went to sleep at 2:30am and my (in)abilities far outweigh my years…

——

Oh right yeah I had a dream and an old housemate from university that I’ve not spoken to in four or five years turned up and was exactly the same. The room I was in was slightly altered though; there was a small living quarter next to it that we went through to and sat in and garbled at eachother across, maybe our other housemate even joined, I can’t quite remember now. I had partial sight of my bed but everything above, below and beyond it was somewhat holographic, like a mirage of a Tokyo high rise or tech district. Needless to say, when I returned from the undoubtedly inane, nostalgic chat my effects had been stolen, and they’d replaced my iPad Pro with a dummy piece of crap with some weird fur casing. I was so upset I forced myself awake. Imagine!

——

And just like that, my time in KLCC was over. The Sfera Residence was a nifty locational change-up (you know it used to be called Fraser Residence, but then it changed hands, and instead of going through with a rebrand they thought ah yeah sod it we’ll just shift the letters around a bit), but I wasn’t as mad about the room or general amenities. Huge fan of Kampung Baru though, and Chow Kit, and the proximity to Bukit Bintang. Swings, roundabouts and several other incongruous items.

It’s been nearly two months here in total, and this was originally due to be my last day here, and am I drawing the most from the experience? It’s hard to say. Retrospectively it might be easier to say, or perhaps it’s all doomed to fail given this implacable idealism of gonzo-ing my way across the city (read: world), writing poetically of off-the-cuff and left-field exchanges, capturing the hearts of my companions — and by extensions my readers. I am just writing tenders really, and that’s probably what I’ll do forever. Minty fresh coolness.

——

And just like that, I overate again. Heaps of the good stuff on a banana leaf. Mounds of it.

——

Concubine is a fine bar in a very cool area, with neon partitions and an ever-so-slight edge among locals and tourists alike. It’s where chats deepen, where lamb tostadas and spicy chicken wings get scranned, and happy hour deals are delightfully accepted.

So after my 30 lengths I put my heels on the infinity wall and lay back, the water taking my weight and rendering me a flotilla. In appeasing my oxygen deficit, intakes sink my chest and head lower, almost bringing the water level over my nose and mouth, but just in time, in perfect sync, I exhale and rise. So on and so forth, beneath a cloud with an orange tint rim.

——

Alas, time comes and goes and I’ll write the same things over and over and then my cells will start to cease functioning much faster than they can replenish, and I’ll have bigger fish to fry than the odd professional disagreement.

——

The new starter — Yasmeen — she’s very lovely. On her first day, the three of us (that’s with Yasmin, another huge ledge who pre-existed me at this company) (oh and yea we’re working on naming conventions) went to a salad place down at Platinum Sentral. Another lunchtime I had a spicy noodle laksa with crispy bits and soup and a fried egg and I’ll be fucked if it wasn’t flavourtown population me. Thenceforth came the writing of case studies and some proofing sessions, some qualms, some calm, slightly late evenings for the most part, but all the while a spectacular view out the window.

——

By the time Friday rolled around, I was ready for the blowout coincidentally afforded me and my team. And what does that look like, you ask? It looks like seafood nibbles, wine bottles on a conveyor belt, and oyster shots* on a similar system, all rolling beautifully, debaucherially into a climactic bill of almost 3000RM. Alreet.

*Well what you do is you tip that salty slimy thing right into your gob, chew it a few times, then knock back the mini Bloody Mary, before swirling it all up and around in and out of your tastebuds (do they resemble recesses or mounds?), before nibbling on a celery stick to even out the whole affair. Never had one before. Had 8 then. Proper idiosyncratic. Proper tasty.

And that, should you wonder, was just the outset of the dooz.

——

Friday night necessitated Saturday’s middle act — three or four hours lounging at Anggun Residences KLCC with Harriet and Fab, sipping a single stubby, swimming in the sublime sluice, and nattering nonsensery. There’s a street called The Row between Kampung Baru and Chow Kit — viney plants crawl along the walls and clusters of seating are dotted outside by hip new cafes and restaurants. At one end it’s like a burgeoning western retreat, and at the other there are outstanding mamaks and proverbial grub. I’d spent a few evenings on this road when I’d stayed in KLCC. Anyway, H and I chilled here for a while (J, K and those thereafter were left hanging) and the sunshine set us on our merry way to Kuala Selangor.

24 very fun hours followed.

KUALA SELANGOR

For at least half of my stay here there’s been this floating idea of a weekend away, but people are either flakey or have their own lives, and no doubt it’s the latter, but either which way it just hasn’t taken on any form whatsoever despite my having brought it up a few times and people provisionally being onboard.

Alas, as has been laid bare in proximal evidence over the past fortnight, Harriet, like me, has no-one else to hang out with, and so we upped sticks and took an hour Grab north and westwards towards the coastline. Only an hour! That is wild isn’t it, considering the hectares upon hectares of palms and arid floored walkways that line the motorway. Mind, I reckon if you drove an hour from any major city (sans jam), you’d end up somewhere with a right different complexion. Renders my point pointless, but indeed Kuala Selangor very much had that different complexion, and it was divine. The doctor doth order.

——

Immediately upon arrival we walked down this rickety wooden dock, past some folks fixing their nets and a small mangy cat, to the wide body of water separating us and the twinkling lights of this place across the way. Right nice it was. ‘I reckon that’s the river’, quipped Harriet, at which we both stroked our comparatively cleaner whiskers and wondered, for hours and hours on end, whether that big flowing thing there truly was the river or whether it was a mirage. No no, we took a photo of the cool vertical wooden pole and the viewz and then found a place to stay. Basic little room. Air-con worked (no remote though). Didn’t get bed bugs (yet). TV up there on the way but hold the function, as there's no remote (and a gnawed wire).

Found all the remotes 3 minutes before checking out (didn’t care).

Off and at it then.

——

Though evidently a spontaneous trip from the big bustling professional city shared by two big bustling young professionals, the bulk of our time there felt like an impromptu stop on a backpacking trail, principally, I’d imagine, not so much on account of our having backpacks, but more so on account of the scenes.

The town of Kuala Selangor is basically four rows of roads and a big square next to the river. Over the bridge there’s more, but we’ll get to that. First, we headed up towards the lighthouse, which was inexplicably about a kilometre inland from where the strait actually met land, so any wayward ships might well be fucked regardless, or perhaps it was simply historical and ceremonial in presence. Anyway, the road up there — on which we met a teacher that had lived in the town her whole life and loved it and naturally wanted a selfie with us — was lined with many many monkeys. Don’t you dare look them in the eye. Fascinating, beautiful creatures. They were everywhere we went over the following 23 hours too, to be fair, shifting and scuttling, shitting on the ground and tending to their young. But they were most prominent and most voluminous here. At the top of the slight hill, an incredible sunset unfolded before us. Why is it so captivating to watch the colours tilt and change? Beautiful hues. Some turd English guy on a tour did his best to ruin it, and a monkey shook the pole on the lighthouse, but we were steadfast in our awe.

——

Tourism wise, Kuala Selangor is known for a few things: Blue Tears (bioluminescent plankton on the strips of the Selangor River); eagles feeding; dragonflies being their pretty little selves, and the Sky Mirror phenomenon. We partook in the first and last. Let me recount the former, ever so briefly. Well we booked it and went to have a bunch of roti and rice and curry and deliciousness for the grand total of £5, may it never fail to bemuse, and by the time we got back to the jetty it started to spit a bit. Hang on. Let me roll it. Do you remember when you were a naive little neck-bearded being, on Koh Rong, post some quiz you’d collectively won and seen through in a highly hazy dance-off, all of which you got very merry off the back of, when you and your bloody brilliant travel companions strolled into either Chhak Kampong Som or the Gulf Thailand? Course you do. At the time, however, little did you know that as you potted your grubby little feet around there would be bioluminescent plankton i.e. blue specks illuminating spectacularly around your trotters. And that remained, until now, my only encounter. Still the most spectacular, to be fair. So here we were on a half hour boat ride in the pitch black, out past the homes and businesses and eateries on stilts on the other side of the river, to a spot dark enough to bring forth little bursts of bluey green as the vessel carved a path and we lilted our little nets into the water. It was pretty cool. The rain started coming down a wee whiff more (so much so that Harriet was ‘ a bit cold’, unbelievable) and they called it a wee whiff early. We were back on land at about half 9. Harriet thought she was gona barry. Walked over the bridge which was, naturally, not really fit for pedestrians, and in fact lined with detritus from many a collision. On the other side things didn’t really cater any kinder — sludgey, plastic riddled banks that curved round to the first inland road. At the end of that. Well….

A full soundstage with men in drag and women in cabaret singing disjointed, kooky songs as some guy stageleft bopped on tin cymbals. Parody.
Some kind of graduation ceremony at the large Chinese (Taoist?) temple.
A guy with an axe.
Incense, a mystery liquid and dusty floors in the watchtower centrepiece.

Naturally we hung around for a while and absorbed it. Then we walked down some residential roads that would be scary in the absence of clue and signal — this was, perhaps, the most ‘travelly’ I felt across the course of all of it, so there’s obviously a correlation between ‘travelling’ and creeping fear. Darkness, barking dogs, families setting in for the eve, oblivious. We wound up at this bar called ‘Bad Man’ which was full of varying levels of drunk Chinese patron. Pretty interesting scenes to be fair. We could only stomach one following the earlier feast, but we watched on as groups played Perudo, got more rowdy, edged towards us, muttered eager words, went back to their folk, sippedy. Some underage girls there for sure. Maybe not for sure. Conjecture. Definite Chinese Uncle territory. Hammered, some of them. Well naturally it was problematic getting a cab so we asked one of the people who didn’t understand, who pointed us towards another who also didn’t, and so on and so forth in a fairly rapid turn of events until one fellow translated the word ‘taxi’ into the word ‘taxi’. Long and short of it is, one of the employees — undoubtedly wonky in his own right — drove us back round the way, over the bridge and to our hotel in the piddling rain. He’d earlier given us a little Guinness glass gift set, but wouldn’t accept our (likely insulting) offer of 10RM for the ride, opting rather to shove it beneath my tee and against my spine. What a jovial, lovely bunch they were. Some day.

——

Hey Sam,

Drop on the end of the last entry a single line about the fact that Saturday ended in a regular deluge, and that the smoke you exhaled at the final turn rose, visible, for metres upon metres, barely messing with the steady droplets.

Kind regards,

Sam

——

Fairly early start all things considered, especially for me. Might have been something to do with the direct line of cold air bursting from the aircon machine to whereth I lay. You’ll remember that at this time we were agonsingly unaware that the remotes were tucked away in an obscure drawer, and so I tried to battle the temp manually and that was less than fun. Browsing and rolling and monging out for the first few hours. Out of the city aye. Oh aye. When we got up and round and down and out, we instantaneously, simultaneously recognised that the prospect of breakfast was less appealing (only marginally, I grant you) than that of a jaunt around the Nature Park down the way. What precisely can I say about that? Well it was sludgy in parts, and the air was thick, and a weird rivermoat surrounded it, and at the back end there was a massive mangrove forest that housed monkeys and reforestation efforts and, to the contrary, many a slanting, fallen tree. Harriet took this fascinating, immersive opportunity to conduct a customer service call.

Crux: there were more mosquitos in direct proximity to my skin than I can ever remember. Fought through the pests to enjoy the tropical, dank scenes.

We had some weeeeird breakfast. Ok it wasn’t that weird but there were certain shortfalls or confusing points of difference from what, for example, one might typically consider a “sandwich”, though to be fair to the lads and ladies as well as well as well the fried eggs are well nice. A couple of hours later, after a fuckin scorchio swifty in the town square (for lack of a better idea, sure), we headed out on the Sky Mirror tour.

And thus — during the 30 min speedboat ride outwards, as the river gave way to the Strait; as the body of water rolled and calmly lapped in every direction; as the horizon changed but stayed ever the same, and as small fishing boats cast nets that amount to livelihoods — emerged one of those moments that have been increasing in regularity: some swelling of mingled emotion, the exact nature of which is hard to prescribe, and in timeframes I can’t quite appoint. These episodes span to before that night I got home to 4VP and cried on my bed for like half hour— you know the one. All I can inconclusively affirm is that they sit somewhere in the midst of correlation between my mind’s frailties, an enduring nihilism, and a complete, agonising gratitude for my life. Making sense? Thought as much. As the boat tore through the Strait towards its odd goal, despite the kindly looking Chinese man and the polygamous trio, despite the spitting saltwater and rev of the engine, some peace fell upon my mind — I thought, basically, of the fact that I am only able to experience these scenes and fascinations because of the undying commitment and love of my parents, and I’ve no right whatsoever to bemoan or overlook what comes my way. With a lump in my throat and my hand dangling over the edge, I rode it out and closed my eyes for some moments.

RIGHT SO THIS SKY MIRROR JOBBY IS LITERALLY A MYSTERIOUS ISLAND THAT EMERGES A FEW DAYS A MONTH IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STRAIT OF MALACCA.

I don’t know how else to explain it? You just see this mirage of bodies in the distance as the boat slows a bit, and they’re standing — for all untrained eyes — on the sea. A bunch of native and tourist Jesus Christs. And so we took our place. It is really rather gnarly. H and I (L, M, and others had already arrived) spent like 45 mins slooshing around the warm water (maybe 3 inches deep across the board), taking snaps. I took a pee through my short leg and smoked a snoot; tropical location for both, yeah, mint. Letting weird little crabs do their thing we were; getting our feet crawled on by minisnails we were. After this initial stint of awe and wonder, the sky started to breach the clouds a touch more readily, and so we, being English, having taken our customary two ‘professional’ photos (which are jokes btw), spent the next 45 or so minutes complaining, talking about foods or drinks we’d like to consume, commentating on the ridiculous poses that these different groups lining the island were taking, and otherwise neglecting to fully admire the sheer glory of this natural spectacle. It was genuinely remarkable though — a really cool couple-hour outing.

Had a few roti and headed back to KL thereafter. Corkin’ 24 and a bit.

I guess these are a few key things that haven’t yet been addressed:

I had a near physical and emotional meltdown, which mingled with an overwhelming sense of apathy across my entire Wednesday 5th October. How does that work? Had been amassing, mind, marked by dull headaches, flippy frustrations and tense conversations for the best part of a fortnight. It’s just a madness. I do feel better today.

Trousers are getting tighter. Definition is getting looser.

I’m not sure when it started, and it’s not necessarily bad practice, but I tend to copy fascinating, relatable or just generally well scribed passages from the books I’m reading into the Notes app. Never before have I copied 6 or so consecutive pages in full before though.

What is it about Robbins’ prose? That it most closely aligns with how I’d one day like to be able to write?

What a fucking waste of time hahahahaha I started and I was trying out different page scanners and shit but they were all kind woeful or aaaaay up went a paywalll, hence I ended up typing out the last half of it all. Reckon it took me like an hour but once I’d started I literally couldn’t stop, it made me feel weird the idea of stopping, despite the fact I know full well I’ll likely never revisit that note again. Kinda like this entire journaling undertaking, no? Wild, largely pointless undertaking.

“To physically overcome death — is that not the goal? — we must think unthinkable thoughts and ask unanswerable questions. Yet we must not lose ourselves in abstract vapors of philosophy. Death has his concrete allies, we must enlist ours. Never underestimate how much assistance, how much satisfaction, how much comfort, how much soul and transcendence there might be in a well-made taco and a cold bottle of beer”.

——

A bit about Adeeb: he is from Syria, but when things got rough over there about a decade ago his parents sent him to the place that was easiest to enter and (feasibly) stay in. He is handsome and kind, with an interesting voice and Middle Eastern accent that borders on French. When he arrived — despite or perhaps because of his self-proclaimed ‘spoilt’ upbringing — he really struggled. He knew very few people and felt alone. A psychedelic experience paved the way for where he is today, complete with wisdom and empathy and intrigue.

A bit about people here in general: well there’s no blanket coverage that’ll do it justice, but I’ve enjoyed the alternative community of coworkers. You’ve got your introverts, your privileged divas, your merry pranksters, your perhaps naive nerds, and your legends, and to be honest the very latter runs across all the former combined, so yeh, I’ve made some good friends and learned about life since I got here.

A bit about the evolution of Fab: huge nightmare when he first joined the business; still wildly different to me, but has matured, and is a good laugh, and most importantly: I think he is caring, and he’s just trying to make his way like the rest of us.

A bit about Harriet’s storytelling: it’s good.

A bit about Agrain: it’s low calorie and it’s terrific.

A bit about my drinking: it’s not gotten any better.

——

Well there was the Friday bonanza to close it all out, complete with sub-par escape room and troublesome signs of Hybrid’s general acumen. From here we headed to scran some incredible Chef Wan Malaysian food, and then for hours of karaoke and drinkie poos. There are certain discrepancies between how folk approach karaoke here and what it is perhaps utilised for in the UK. Here, karaoke is an opportunity to passionately exhibit the quality of your vocal work. In the UK, karaoke is an opportunity to let off steam and get silly with some friends. Here, karaoke is a challenge, a calling, a spectacular spotlight. In the UK, karaoke is loose and lairy. And so on and so forth. I said goodbye to the folks I’d spent ten fun weeks with. What a ride…

…But you best believe it’s not over. My lover’s on her way over for a fortnight, so I wake up dusty and I’m tracking flights and scrambling to the KLIA Express but by jove it’s landed early. Alas, there she is, below a bob and beautiful, rolling through the arrival sliders. Not a single barry en route, too. Those travel bands!

FAIR WARNING: This is where it stops being a professional visitation and starts being a holiday.

I won’t cover it all but I’ll throw in some highlights, I guess the first being heading through the thumping soundsystems amid the Brickfields Diwali bazaar to Mr. Naan and Mrs. Idly for some delectable roti and curry. This, dear, is how I’ve been living.

We were in KL for a few days, so enjoyed the cool water of the pool, doing handstands and getting water in our ears and nossies and the likes. In Chinatown market, George got way too waylaid by ripoff branded goods and haggling opportunities that she’s simply not equipped to handle. We rounded Perdana Botanicals in the stifling heat, looking in at the bobbing terrapins and talking of post-partum psychosis. There was also a dragon.

——

For breakfast one morning we headed to a mamak over the LRT bridge — Mithra’s Spices, it’s called. What a staple and what a place. How on god’s green earth do you account for that ultimate combination of crisp and goo on those there rotis? Nasi Lemak, Dal, a medium spicy sauce and one neither of us dare touch, washed down by warm Cham amidst friendly mamak patrons. We also headed to Taman Tugu, which was about monkeys for the most part, but with an (un)healthy slice of mosquito thrown in for frustrating measure. George not only came up with a new bounding walk, but has spent the time since incessantly counting her bites, making sure I am aware of the current bite count, bemoaning my significantly fewer bites, and then looping right back round to scratching said bites. She is a walking talking mosquito bite cocktail, complete with mosquito repellant and a glazed cherry. The straw is a mosquito's stinger.

Sweat the last of my bodily liquid into whatever I was wearing. Smashed a 100plus and went to the War Memorial again, which was beneath the most blazing orb of oppressive heat that at one point I considered lambasting all that is holy and sombre about the space in order to cool my fevers in the surrounding waters.

It’s good to know, also, that despite the distance and the time-bound difficulties of the past 10 weeks, she still rises to a cool 350 degrees Celsius as she sleeps.

We got a wee whiff wonky in the evening didn’t we just. Went for some beers on the road next to Petaling — the one I’ve so loved to frequent — and out back by the small stinky single bathroom there was a bathtub, a blue rustic bathtub, full of someone’s next meal. Stinky pink fish just glugging about going about their business, with a net atop and a stream of water coming in to keep them under the faintest of illusions that their fate is anything but settled.

We had a delicious garlicky seafood medley cooked in foil on a fire, and claypot chicken rice, before headed to get our feet massaged by two kindly old folk. This latter undertaking, quite naturally, gave Georgie a bout of the hiccups.

——

KL tower which was cool but the reflective lights were a nuisance — more so, at least, than my own reflective episodes, which were full of warmth and thanks. As was my forehead, I guess? As we indulged in a banana leaf curry I used at least 16 pieces of tissue to wipe sweat from my brow and neck.

——

We got about things pretty efficiently to head north on this humid slice of land, packing what had become a pretty frenetic space into our backpacks and setting off for the 4-or-so-hour train up to Butterworth. Deltas, mountains, small villages and sprawling palm jungles flickered past the window. The ferry from Butterworth >> Georgetown was only 8 or so minutes long, and all of them were packed to the rafters with distracting lines for the one in travel bands. So air is no good but neither is water. We’re running out of fundamentals, cos I’m not hellbent on sticking to land.

We walked like two drenched legends to this most incredible place — an old colonial house, rustic to the extreme, holes and stains in the walls that make it complete, an outside kitchen, shower, shitter, vines climbing the walls next to a small pond in the courtyard, The narrow lane to get here hosts cats licking their fur, purring, pondering about.

I don’t know. I love it. I love it so much. I love Penang. Honestly I do. It’s low. Its architecture is perpetually fascinating. It’s got a coastal feel, but also a slight Mediterranean sensibility to its brickwork and bustling bars.

We went to Antarabangsa Enterprise for some cheap small cans and spoke to a business continuity auditor called Clayton. A drunk man fell off his scooter just down the way and sat there, dazed, palm to his bald head for many minoot.

Circular-shaped mooching landed us outside a beauuutiful tasting Chinese joint. After this it was strong cocktails and evaluations of our friendship groups at Junk Cafe, before having a couple of fun little nightcaps at a place called Pokok, where the age-old combination of pop-rock covers and world championship badminton continues us on our very merry way. A buzz came about the place, which, like the rest of Malaysia (reductive, but give me it), perhaps even all of SouthEast Asia (I know), shuns the 7pm tipple for a 10pm feast and rowdy weekday eve.

——

The next day took the shape of a big scorchio session at the Kek Lok Si temple, which was as stunning as it was stifling, followed by a big sizzling stroll to Penang Hill. We looked out at the city and the waters beyond. Georgie is addicted to mosquito bite ointment. She needs help

^ Acutely aware how poor an account of the day’s colours, flavours and mise-en-scenes that is, but we were revelling, not writing, and now I’m revelling again, not adequately recalling ///

I can remember, however, that we got a couple of rotis and some dal from a small mamak and ate it on a wall by the mosque round the corner, and that ants feasted on lost crumbs and sauce. I can remember our morning coffee and sweet pastry under a veranda, and that down the way someone used a pressure washer to clean the wheels of their moto. I can remember the richness of the colours and searing of the sun as we rounded, swooned and viewed the temple gardens. I can remember much more, and so that’s enough, alongside the pictures, to justify ending this paragraph here.

——

The next spectacle is Escape Penang. Goodness gracious it offers all sorts of activities up to visitors. First up was an elevated obstacle course, and we were arrogant enough to plunge straight for Level 3. These few hours are very possibly the sweatiest and shakiest of my life. Burning forearms avec skin. The water slides were fun fun fun. Ever heard of a zip coaster? No, nor had I. It’s honestly a madness. You get fastened into this harness at the top of a very steep hill and sent on your way, in canon, down for at least a mile, round sharp corners that send your limbs flying and jank up your junk, to the bottom by the bridge. We laughed a hell of a lot. There was just about time for me to fly off this banana slide ‘like a deck chair’. When I was in the air I truly thought that both of my collarbones were going to break, both of my shoulders were going to dislocate, and that the rest of my body would likely just give up in physiological response. They were in genuine pain for the rest of the evening, less so but still somewhat for the rest of the fortnight, and perhaps even now when I sleep on my side or cough funny. The things we do for adrenaline. At least my lover gave me the final few bites of her cornetto when she stopped chortling at me and realised that I’d just survived a life-threatening accident.

Walked down the way to a beach. There was a horse. I made a ditty.

‘Squashie in your wedding shot, bottom half’s burnt and the top half’s not’

Caught some jazz funk blend at The Canteen @ Chinahouse, a gorgeous little spot famous for its home-baked cakes and mojitos. What if I go to sleep and don’t wake up because of internal bleeding around my collarbones and upper internal organs?

Oh just brush your teeth and shut up.

——

“This almond croissant is getting me in the mood for dim sum”

“‘I’m gonna go buy a needle” — perhaps the height of my lover’s anti-mosquito sentiment? She had figured that she could suck back out whatever they put in.

Saw a small cluster village on stilts, some on buckets, and between the homes or shops or medley of both you could glance and see fish bobbing beneath.

The roads and lanes of Georgetown snake and weave in a tapestry of street art. Our two-toothed hero of a guide knew where they all were because ignorant fuckers like us have been coming for decades, now, I’d have thought, to browse them and snap them. But what’s the worry — we created an unbreakable bond, a largely wordless bond consisting instead of oohs and ahs and pointed fingers. He had a good aura. Yeah I liked his aura. Bought him an ice cream.

In the evening we had an absolutely sensational Japanese meal at a spot called TONARI. Just happened upon it. Goes to show that maybe you shouldn’t discard a spot willy nilly just because you turn up to a place and there’s no-one else there. Fuck my gums it was good. Maybe the best? Probably the best. Spring onions wrapped in cured ham. Other tidbits freshly barbecued out the front door. small glasses of Tiger, succulent meats with generous, delicious garnishes, and sushi that I would quite candidly lay down my life for.

The subsequent hunt for coconut ice cream was a big holiday motif.

—

And then came a travel day that needn’t really be detailed. It was easy enough, if a bit tiresome. Alas, we had a smooth check-in at Mercure in Langkawi. Swim in the pool, won't you, and have an inaugural cocktail, says the kindly doughie smiley man at the bar. Mine was literally just seven different spirit shots thrown into a glass with some shaved ice. Georgie read its ingredients to me in her sexiest voice. Vermouth.

Swim in the sea, won’t you, said no one to both of us and yet we did, because it was hot and sunny and it was there waiting for us. Alongside, that is, banana boats, parasailing, jet skis, buoys, gihrls (lol), and other distracting, potentially hazardous life unfolding around us.

Few cocky tees at Ah Chong, the beach bar that rapidly, readily, and enduringly became our favourite. Just good energy, and as golden hour fell on our beach baby locks and dry skin, we sipped espresso martinis and mojitos and other delicious concoctions for like four or five pounds apiece. Later, we met up with Adeeb for a glimpse of a fire show (more on this in days to follow), and went for a regular Chinese feast at a place on the main road.

They came and showed us a live crab and asked us if it was sufficient for us to scran on shortly thereafter. This was of course one of several over-ordered dishes and for some reason or another it all got the better of me. I felt a little squiffy.

——

This day was a beach day. We started with a hard mooch down the road, past closed cafes, building works and a coastal outcrop, to Pantai Tengah, a smaller beach with resorts dotted along its shore. Secluded, fancier spots — you know the ones. It was a Malaysian bank holiday, which is why a lot of things were shut up or opening late, and we capitalised on the quiet with an impeccably careless amble. Careless is bold though; the scenario did no huge favours for our hunger; we cared about that. Eventually we found a little place inland which had seemingly opened only in the past few weeks and not really yielded much footfall on account of some horrid floods which we’d fortunately just missed. They were evidently thankful for our custom, anyway.

We went for a swim and dried on the slow stroll back to Cenang, where we sat and basked for hours on end. George fell asleep on her front, the full force of the Equatorial blast on her back and bum, each of which showed hilarious repercussions for days to come.

In the evening we went for some cocktails on Tengah, looking from the palimpsesting wood balcony out at the sunset. The very line of the horizon was touched by a host of little cumulonimbus clusters. Then we went for really delicious Vietnamese food on a more desolate stretch of road. They were the most kindly, accommodating guys and the food was really good. Stray dogs swayed, yawned, and scrounged lazily outside the front of the restaurant.

——

As burns rendered sun cream Georgie’s best friend, recurrent eye infiltrations made it my arch nemesis.

We found a car to rent. We drove around the island.

On the way down from the Skybridge we were in a cable car with an elderly couple who were over from Sabah, and we talked about waterfalls, our marriage (lol), the state of play in Langkawi nowadays, and the importance of keeping moving. They had grown children and grandchildren now, too.

Driving an automatic is almost offensively easy. Especially on these roads. Am I living in a dream? For some reason there’s a spot on a mainish vein to the north of the island called Scarborough Fish & Chips, which I found as hilarious as I did compelling, so we stopped and looked out at the jutting limestone tiny-isles and sipped a cool beer as kindly doggos played in the driest of sand.

—-

“We’re opening up a bar on the beach called either Sagina or Smeorgies, vote below.”

“Georgie the explorgie”

I played drums with a fun band of expats. Frederick was like the band leader, an incredible kindly Kiwi fellow who wouldn’t take my “no, please” as an answer and cajoled me on stage for the likes of Black Magic Woman and Rolling Down the River. Had a blast to be fair, made me really miss the sticks and skins. There was a very old, very wrinkly woman in red there who I’m fairly sure was the principal legend of Malaysia.

——

The perfect day with a freshwater (bar biles disease) and kayak private island swim.

First up we drove to the Telagah Tuju waterfalls, hiked up the hill, and soothed ourselves in their frothy cool waters, then we rounded the west coast and drove north. We’d already visited Tanjung Rhu a few days prior. We’d ambled along its serene shore, privy only to the plop of fishermen’s lines cast into the water, or the over-soon whirring of speedboats taking people hither and thither. Off the shore are several small amorphous islands of dark green shrubbery and shiny grey rock — that delectable sense of wildness and sea-sprouting absurdity I’d tasted in Nam and Thailand and Cambodia years ago. Anyway we of course saw the softer core activities available there — namely, kayaking — and endeavoured to return. Return we did.

What absolute heaven-sent bliss! Hot bliss. We moseyed about the waters for nigh on two hours. Between the paddling there were periods of complete stillness, and as we snaked a figure of eight round two particular outcrops, past the scuttling little crabs clinging to the sides, we reached an alcove of water so stagnant that only a bobbing misplaced shoe and a soaring eagle overhead took our attention away from the stunning nothingness of it all. The figure of eight ended with sight of a single fisher boat, achieving little to no yield, it would seem, pootling away and us, our yellow wagon steadied, coasting towards this 20-metre stretch of sand where we then spent about half an hour of further bliss paddling, making out, and momentarily refusing to accept that this wasn’t life in its entirety. But it was. The salt of the sea and the salt from my forehead mingled in droplets every now and again. We managed to shun the temptation to head on over to Thailand, which was represented by a wide landmass far away, shrouded in a light fog. Another figure of 8, you say!? Stop it immediately. It was just sublime and there’s no point being poetic about it. Afterwards we sat and drank a small can of Tiger afront a lovely resort towards the Western end of the beach, watching as a middle-aged man played boomerang frisbee with himself. It was windy.

We saw a little gecko noshing on a littler ant on the column in the picturesque dinner spot — Bon Ton Resort. The food was sublime and we got two desserts. I remember the pavlova or meringue especially because it was a tower of at least half a metre in height, which is wholly unnecessary after fresh Laksa and the likes.

——

To Melaka! To a room so far removed from the traditional resplendence of our place for the previous two nights — Kunang Kunang Heritage Villas. That spot was seriously special. Check it out. Photos do it far more justice than will my words. In Melaka there were stains on the base of the bed and what I’m fairly sure was blood on the bath mat, meaning we made a makeshift replacement out of tattered shit tickets. We took eachothers’ pulses — either to pass the time or monitor the impact of preceding days. Had a quite beautiful evening touring the market with little bites. It was super busy.

Massage parlours are pretty strange affairs there. You go in and they don’t have enough masseuse’s, so they ring round what I can only assume is a very finite pool of freelance masseuses, all of which have likely been called by another place two doors down two minutes ago, so you have to sit and wait as they try and find someone to rub your skin for you, all the while the owner is watching really crass videos super loud on TikTok. Georgie’s eyelids and temples got abused so I settled for the feet.

——

Right, christ, quickfire:

In the morning we ate soft boiled albumen and sweet croutons.
En route to the Melaka Straits Mosque there’s a super odd ghost town that crows peruse at will. It’s got a half-Korean, half-French, half-finished feel. Complete husk.
Crossing the road one of us celebrated the ‘gumption coming out my arse’
Clam Sweatcher hhhhhhhhhhhhhu
Was that a crocodile? That was a crocodile in the water I’m pretty sure of it
Had this quite extraordinary tasting laksa but boy was it spicy. Like, tissue stuck to the forehead and groups of Jonker 88 patrons laughing at me kinda spicy. But the flavour!
It took nigh on immediate effect. We sat and watched a guy with three phones conduct mafia business, before indulging in a foot massage, standing by the river and rolling on home. What a nice little stop.

Melaka — as I highlighted way back when in the account of my museum visit — used to be a major port and a principal battleground for imperialist powers. It maintains a rich and fascinating body of architecture, and a lazy riverside vibe that turns to bright lights and bold noises of a weekend evening. There are some stunning little spots lining the waterway, which you can mooch alongside for hours on end and not get tired.

——

It was a very very hot morning. I’m getting sick and tired of stating it. What top non-fiction writers can you think of that repeatedly tell you about the conditions? Unless, of course, the conditions are the story. I'll leave you to chew on that big bulbous curveball.

The journey from Melaka back to Kuala Lumpur took an agonising four and a half hours, and I was frustrated by that. By the time we got in and checked in and cleansed ourselves adequately we only really had time for a shawarma, some beers, an earl grey G&T, Chinese spice mojito, outrageously good beef rendang, a few brief card games, a tiny impromptu boogie, then of course some more cocktails (one had a canned peach in it), a simmering sadness at it all coming to an end, an implacable, obscure feeling that those three months might define me in some way or another. All we really had time for, that.

It’s over. The whole shabang.

Which means something else begins.

Fragments: 3 months in Malaysia

Fragments:
3 months in Malaysia