Sabbatical

Hi, everyone. This blog is supposed to be about my adventures and misadventures in a foreign country, but it is also about the adventures and misadventures of my heart.

Jeff and I have decided to end our relationship. Actually, he dumped me, the son-of-a bitch! :) He did end things with me when I pushed the issue, but I do agree that we did not have a future together. I just wish I had said it first! Aarrgghh!

At first, I was quite upset. I was already emotionally fragile because I was very homesick, and then he lays this on me. I immediately wanted to go home. I decided I was going to go on sabbatical for a few days while he tried to change my plane ticket home. I had chosen to take the bus to Cherating, a small town on the South China Sea on the eastern coast of the country (KL is on the western coast). During the quite pleasant 4 hour bus ride, I decided to stay in Malaysia until my original return flight. I thought it would be ridiculous to waste this amazing opportunity. I had planned to spend five weeks in Malaysia, and I decided I would stick to the plan. I also did not want to go running back home early feeling anger or bitterness towards Jeff. We are just two very different people who realized we wouldn't be on a porch together in 30 years talking about the weather. Better we realized that now then in 15 years.

My plan is to spend a couple of days at the beach, maybe stop someplace else on the way back to KL, and then spend a night or two in KL. This would bring me back to Jeff's sometime this weekend giving me the last few days to take advantage of the beautiful pool in his complex and work on salvaging a solid friendship with Jeff. Who knows where he will end up next. New Zealand? England? I may want a free place to stay!

Today is Wednesday the 1st. I arrived in Cherating yesterday and am really enjoying myself. I won't be blogging for a few days. Hopefully, I will have some fun stories for you soon.

Take care, everyone. I will see you soon.

Thanks, Mom. You are the best.

Lake Gardens Kuala Lumpur

I went to Lake Gardens in KL the other day. Lake Gardens is KL's version of Central Park. The tour books said you could walk the park which would be a hot, sweaty walk or you could take the shuttle bus. I'm sure that there must be a tourist center somewhere that yells you where the shuttle bus stops are, but I had no idea. I feel as though there is this manual that they give to tourists when they get off the plane in KL that tells them everything they need to know. I was too busy stealing momentos off of the plane and missed my briefing.

I had attempted to go to Lake Gardens the week before, but it started to downpour while I was on the train. It finally stopped raining, and I went searching for Lake Gardens. I did surprisingly well and managed to accidently stumble my way into the right direction. Unfortunately, KL drivers are crazy, and I came to a particularly difficult section of road to cross. There I was rambling into my camcorder, waiting on the side of the road for an opportunity to dart between scooters and taxis after a torrential downpour. I didn't really pay too much attention to the road in front of me which unfortunately had a puddle about the size of the Magothy. Needless to say, it only took one truck flying along the street to drench me in nasty, polluted, KL water. At this point, I was thankful I had opted to wear my black skirt instead of my white one. To escape the puddle of death, I decided to just cross the street and hope the maniacs behind the wheels would stop. I'm happy to say they did. I passed the National Mosque and the Islamic Arts Museum and kept walking along the very slippery, algae covered, tiled sidewalk towards the Butterfly Park. I realized I was running out of time to get back to Shah Alam in time fro my scheduled taxi pick-up. I turned around and walked back, slipping, falling on my ass. Again, I was thankful I had worn black instead of white. Travelling back with a filthy white skirt would have been so embarassing. Oh wait. Falling on my ass in front of laughing Malaysians was pretty damn embarassing also. I was most annoyed because I had just turned off my camcorder. It would have been priceless to hear me screaming and then see my legs fly out from under me. Oh well. I would be a rich woman from America's Funniest Home Videos if I had a video camera following me around all the time, capturing every clutzy, clumsly, & clueless move. Well, without further ado, I proudly scraped myself off of the sidewalk and proceeded back to the train station at a turtles pace where I got on the wrong train. It only took me three or four stops to realize this and switch trains. I ended up being late for my taxi which had never shown up anyway. I chose to pretend that trip never happened.

So back to the successful trip to Lake Gardens. I was really looking forward to exploring the park. It's 92 hectare (whatever that means). It has the largest covered bird park in the world, a butterfly park with over 6000 butterflies, and orchid garden, a hibiscus garden, a deer and mouse deer park, the national monument, and the national planetarium.

My excursions over the last couple of weeks have taught me a few things. One, the sun is very hot and draining. Two, I am quite intimidated by the idea of going into a local restaurant alone because, three, I am very aware that I am a minority and do not like being stared at. For these reasons, I no longer set out with the goal of an 8 hour adventure. After about four hours, I am usually sunburnt, hot, hungry, and tired. Therefore, I knew I would not be able to explore the entire Lake Gardens so I had to pick and choose.

Much to the anticipated chagrin of my Aunt Debbie and my gramma, I chose to skip the bird park. I'm just not that into birds. I first walked to the Butterfly Park which was about a 1-2 km walk from the park entrance. I looked for a sign for the shuttle bus but not seeing one, I decided to walk. I was the only person walking. It was actually a pleasant walk along the outskirts of the park. Even though it was still early and most of the walk was in the shade, I was saturated in sweat by the time I reached the Butterfly Park.

The Butterfly Park was neat. It didn't seem like there were 6,000 butterflies though. I thought I would be walking through a curtain of butterflies. I had visions of me as the Snow White of butterflies. I would twirl slowly with my arms extended, singing some enchanting tune which could never actually come out of my vocal chords. The butterflies would all come and land on my arms and flit all around me. Yeah, that didn't happen. It was, however, a beautiful, tranquil maze of a garden. There were beautiful flowers and butterflies. They also had ponds with big koi fish and some freaky, slimy looking blackfish which gave me the creeps. They reminded me of Ursella's evil henchmen eels in the Little Mermaid. There were also frogs, snakes(in cages), and white rabbits. The gift shop was the best gift shop I've been to here. There was a Chinese man named Jackie who would write your name in Chinese Rainbow characters combined with different kinds of Chinese Feng Sui symbols. He would do it while you waited. He said it would only take hime 3 minutes. I told him my name was hard, and he had me write it down. He started writing and then laughingly said my name would take 5 minutes. It turned out very cool. I love it.

While I was in the Butterfly Park, I saw about twenty other people at the most. This was the most I saw all day! The park was empty. I guess because it was a weekday. I wasn't complaining though. I practically had the park to myself.




From the Butterfly Park, I walked to the Hibiscus Garden and walked through thousands of beautiful hibiscus. From here, I went into the orchid garden which was lovely. They had an orchid bazaar where you could purchase umpteen different orchids. Here's the part that is going to make my mother ill: they weree 3 ringgits a pot which is less than $1 US.

From the orchid garden, I had a taxi take me to the other side of Lake Gardens to what is called the lake garden. As the name suggests, this is the location of the lake and its surrounding gardens. There was a very large playground which I knew my niece and nephew would love so I took a few pictures. As I was crossing the lake (which at that point was really just a stream), a man on the pridge pointed at something swimming and said something I didn't quite understand. It sounded like "comodo" or something, but I don't think it was a Komodo Dragon. I actually thought maybe it was a Frankenfish. I crossed the bridge and walked along the side of the stream trying to get a good shot of him. I couldn't find him. I was just muttering to myself that he was a fast little sucker when I spied something moving on land about 10 feet away. It was him! He sort of looked like a small alligator but smoother. While I was contemplating my flight or fight instinct while simultaneously grabbing my camera, he saw me and quickly darted back into the water. The amazing thing is that there are 3 or 4 foot walls surrounding the stream/lake so I can't believe he could get out so easily. At this thought, I contemplated the fact that it may not be the same one, and there could be others. My flight instinct took hold, and I bolted for the safety of the walking path.

The garden and park was very nice and peaceful. I saw about 6 other people there. It looked like they were waiting for a shuttle even though I didn't see a sign. I had been sitting cluelessly with them for a few minutes, when I saw the entrance for the Deer and Mousedeer Park. From where I was sitting, I could see a couple of big hotels not too far away so I decided that I would just walk towards them after I walked through the deer park, figuring the shuttle bus would come while I was in there. I loved the deer park. I love deer. I think they are such gently, peaceful creatures. At least, they appear to be. The mouse deer were in a completely caged environment. They were about the size of a small to medium dog like a beagle but the shape of a deer. They were very cute. There were so many regular deer there. They were all just laying around, chilling out with some chickens. After the deer park, I was definitely ready to go. When I came out of the park, the six other people were still sitting in the same place so I decided to just try to find my way out of the park on my own. As planned, I started walking towards the big buildings. I eventually came to the road, took a taxi to the train station and headed home. Hungry, hot, sunburnt, and sweaty. I loved every minute of it.

Klang

I took the train to Klang which is about halfway between Shah Alam and the coast of the Straits of Malacca. It was a charming little town. It was an interesting mixture of peaceful, tree-lined roads curving gently through beautiful neighborhoods and parks and busy, narrow ship-lined city streets bustling with activity.

I walked up to see the former palace of the Sultan of Selangor. Selangor is the state where I am staying. Malaysia is made up of 13 states. Nine of the 13 states have hereditary rulers (sultans), and the others have governors. In a pre-established order, each of the sultans takes his turn as King. The Sultan of Selangor was the previous King. His term ended in 2006. The new palace of the Sultan is now in Shah Alam. Now, back to the former palace. It was beautiful. The landscape was quite elaborate but not ostentatious, and the palace itself was of course

lovely. The front gate was locked so I couldn't go

onto the grounds, but I could see plenty from

the street and the park across the street.

On my way up to the palace, I had made a friend named Divi. She worked as a guard at the Royal Selangor Club which is like a country club. I had heard that Klang had a great Little India. I asked Divi how to get there and managed to stumble upon it with little difficulty. It was very interesting. It was, as many things in Malaysi have been, a feast for all of the senses.

I don't know that much about the Hindu religion, but it seems as though flowers play a major role in their prayers. The first thing I came to was a small flower market selling different wreaths, strings, and assortments of flowers. All along the sidewalk of the main street, men and women both were sitting and stringing together

flowers that looked like large Lily of the Valley. I had noticed these flowers hanging from the rearview mirrors of taxi drivers. I really wanted to take a picture of them, but I felt so invasive and rude. Then I remembered: That never stopped me before. Luckily, everyone I asked very generously agred to have their pictures taken.

The main street was lined with stores selling sarongs & traditional Indian dress, lots of Indian restaurants, Indian grocers, and jewelry stores. Some of the stores had Indian music playing loudly into the street. At one point, I was stainding on a corner and just took a few minutes to absorb everything. That corner captured the diversity and beauty that is characteristic of all areas of Malaysia that I have visited. Behind me were the crowded, noisy, aromatic streets of Little India. To my right, was a city street which transformed into a tranquil tree-lined street. To my left was a large, colorful, and ornate Hindu temple. In front of me was an Islamic Mosque with the afternoon prayers streaming out of the loudspeakers at the top. It was Hindu blending with Muslim. It was tranquility joining city bustle. It was a melding of different worlds and customs combining to create a harmonious balance of respect and acceptance. I think the world could learn a lot from this proud and unique corner of the world.

Not to leave things on too serious a note, I decided not to return to the train station the way I had come. Instead I ended up on a very empty, local street where everyone did their proper duty of staring at me as though I had just walked out of a space ship. If I could only have gotten back into my space-ship and ordered it to take me the three blocks to the train station. I managed to walk those three blocks on my accord though. And all was well.

Lunch with Manickam

Brooksie has two regular taxi drivers who he uses. He says they are a little more expensive than most, buut they are reliable and trustworthy. They are two brothers, Veloo and Manickam. I seem to be some form of entertainment for them. They always ask me what I did the day before and laugh at me when I tell them. I'm so glad I can brighten their day.

Manickam is also always trying to get me to go to places that are far away so he can get a bigger fare. I always tell him I'm going to take the train, and he laughs and says "I am very clever". Then he tells Brooksie "Madame is very clever. Very clever." All with an awesome Indian accent. I love it.

I told Manickam I loved Indian food so he said he would take me to a good Indian restaurant for lunch. On Tuesday, he took Jeff and I to the restaurant, and it was so good. Better than that though, it was an authentic local place. We ordered our food, and they brought our place settings. Instead of plates they lay down huge leaves which I think were palm leaves. They were wet from being washed off so we wiped them dry with napkins. They brought us forks and spoons sitting in a glass of water. Then they put three piles of different foods on each of our leaves. One was just cucumbers and carrot. One was a potato dish, and the last one was some sort of green vegetable dish. I had ordered the Chicken Masala and chicken rice. Brooksie ordered dried mutton and mutton rice. Manickam was just eating the side dishes and plain rice. When the food came, I grabbed a fork from the cup. Manickam stopped me and said we were to eat with our hands. I looked around and everyone was eating with their hands so I did the same. It felt so stange to me since table manners was a major issue that my parents drilled into my brain. I'll put it this way, my mother eats her pizza with a knife and fork. Enough said. Anyway, eating rice with your fingers is a little tricky at first. I was just using my thumb and forefinger. Manickam yelled at me, "Use all. All fingers!". It felt weird, but I dove my whole hand into my messy leaf of rice, sauce, and chicken. It was the best rice, sauce, and chicken ever! Maybe not ever, but it was really good. When the bill came, Jeff went to pay, and Manickam grabbed it instead. He said "We friends now. I get." How nice. I have my first Malaysian friend.

Harry Potter

This has been a monumental week for me as a Harry Potter fan. I preordered the last book at a bookstore in one of the many malls. I thought it was pretty cool that I would always know that my last Harry Potter book came from Malaysia. I did verify that it would be written in English before I ordered it. I picked my book up this past Saturday. I can't wait to start reading it.

I also saw the latest Harry Potter movie this past Tuesday. The book and movie all in one week! What more could a Harry Potter fan ask for? The movie theaters here are cool. They have assigned seating. When you purchase your tickets, you get to pick which seat you want. Even though we had assigned seats, Brooksie and I, being the silly Americans that we are, went into the theater about ten minutes early. Not a single soul was there. We took our seats and were the only ones there until showtime. It wasn't until exactyly 3:20 which was showtime that everyone else started to coming into the theater. By everyone else, I mean the twelve other people who watched the movie. The movie was great. Probably the only Harry Potter movie I will ever see with Malay and Chinese subtitles. It was fun.

Hope everyone is doing well. I miss you all. Talk to you soon.

I love Bounce!

There is a "grocery store" called Giant a couple of blocks away from Brooksie's complex. It is actually like a Wal-mart meets a grocery store. It has everything. It sells refrigerators, kitchen appliances, linens, bicycles, furniture, carpets, clothes, bakery, seafood market, butcher shop, produce, and everything in between. It is amazing how many western products the store carries. They love Kit Kats here. I think it is because a traditional Malay cookie is a waffle styled cookie so smother that in chocolate, and it's a Malaysian sweet tooth's dream come true. Anyway, as I was saying, they have all of the western brands here: Honey Bunches of Oats cereal, Luminarc glasses, Bausch & Lomb saline solution, Dove soap, Old El Paso, Prego spaghetti sauce, Downy fabric softener, etc. The first time I went to Giant I was all prepared for a wonderful cultural experience. Like Costco and Sam's Club, the Giant has samplers everywhere. The first sampler I came to asked if I would like to try Campbells Chicken & Mushroom soup! I was crestfallen! I flew halfway around the world for Campbells Soup!!!

I went another time to pick up a few things. Bounce dryer sheets was on my list. Unfortunately, they didn't have any. When Brooksie & I went to the other grocery store, Cold Storage, I looked again. Still no luck. I love Bounce dryer sheets. I love the way they make your clothes smell. So my next trip to Giant I again searched for my beloved Bounce. Again to no avail. I was baffled. Walking up and down the aisle searching for my dryer sheets. Wondering why they would have I Can't Beleive It's Not Butter but not Bounce. Then it dawned on me...

Nobody has dryers. They all hang their clothes out to air dry! It only took me two weeks to figure that out. Two weeks and a hundred buildings like this one across the street from us.

This is Brooksie's complex.

Batu Caves

Brooksie and I went to Batu Caves last Saturday. Batu Caves is north of Kuala Lumpur. Kuala Lumpur is located in what is called the Klang Valley and is surrounded by mountains. Batu Caves is a Hindu Temple buillt into one of the mountains. It is absolutely amazing. The structures and statues are ornate and beautiful, and the cave itself is just awe-inspiring. Enough of the background info.

My grand plan had been to take the train to KL Sentral where we would switch to the Monorail and ride it to the end to Lake Titiwangsa. The monorail is fun to ride, and it gives you a great tour of the city. According to my trusty tourist map, Batu Caves was only 3 or 4 km from the Lake Titiwangsa monorail stop. I figured we would take a cab to the caves because no trains, lightrails, or monorails go the temple, only buses. We hailed a taxi for our 4 km ride actually turned out to be about 15 km. Needless to say, Brooksie and I were both relieved that I hadn't suggested walking from the monorail station.

You walk through the big gates at Batu Caves, and the first thing you see is an enormous gold statue. When I say enormous, I mean it is probably about 5 stories tall. It stands to the right of the 272 step staircase. There are also Hindu buildings around the entry. The colors and design are really amazing. There is an entry way built at the base of the stairs with colorful, beautiful, detailed sculptures.

While all of this is lovely, my interest in the beauty, spirituality, and uniqueness flies completely out the window when I see...A MONKEY! It was the coolest thing ever! There were monkeys running around all over the place! They would run up to people who held out food for them, snatch up the food, and run away. They were so much fun to watch. After standing near the entry to the staircase watching all of the monkeys for about five minutes, I finally tore myself away to walk up to the cave.

As we walked up the staircase, I was still fascinated by the monkeys who were still running up and down the steps. They would perch on top of the beautiful, decorative posts along the stair rail. I was filming them with my camcorder as I walked up the stairs (quite amazed with myself that I could do both at the same time). There were a couple of mommy monkeys carrying their babies. It was so neat. When I got to the top of the staircase, I turned around with my camcorder to film the view and the flight of incredibly treacherous steps (actually very well made) when I heard this low voice very close behind me say something in Malay. I turned around and screamed. So much for the crazy American being low-key. The man behind me was carrying a HUGE snake around his neck. The snake's face was literally inches from me. I am terrified of snakes. So like any rational person would do, I screamed and ran away knocking over a few innocent Hindis and small children who were standing in the way of my escape. Don't worry. I'm kidding. There were no small children. Kidding again. I just screamed and jumped back, but no innocent people or monkeys were injured. Then I felt really badly because I'm sure I offended the poor man. Not badly enough to get any closer to him though.

So now we are in the cave which is such a wonder of nature. I had never been in a cave that large. Brooksie had been to Carlsbad Caverns, and he said it was similar. I was just in awe of the size of the cave. You walked through a section that is about the length of 1.5 football fields to another set of steps which takes you to a smaller cavern with a large opening at the top. It is really an extraordinary thing to see. You are in a large dark cave and walk towards this smaller cavern where the light is shining through the top and illuminating the temple. Quite a beautiful scene. When we went up the steps to the smaller cavern, I was delighted to see more monkeys since I hadn't seen any in the larger cavern. They were all over the place. Running and begging just like before. I looked up on the cavern walls which were covered with the textures of rocks and moss and various other foliage. As I looked at the wall, I wondered if the Hindis used some sort of hallucinogenic in their worship because it looked like the wall was moving. It had monkeys all over it! They blended into the terrain.

Again the temple was beautifully constructed with colorful, ornate sculptures and tilework. And again, I was much more fascinated with the monkeys. Somebody had given one of the monkeys a Sprite, and the sucker was chugging it! Of course, I was concerned that it wasn't good for the monkey, but Brooksie pointed out that it probably is used to being fed a bunch of crap from tourists and has been fine thus far.

As we headed back down the steps, I gained a true appreciation of the importance of the temple to the Hindis and came to appreciate the spirituality of the location. We passed an elderly Hindu woman crawling up the 272 steps. She wasn't on her knees, but she would put her hands down on a couple of steps ahead, then move her feet up a step. It takes true belief and conviction to do that all the way up to the cave so you can pray. We saw another woman walking up the steps with her husband. She was carrying a jug on her shoulder and was obviously in pain. I read somewhere that women carry the jugs filled with something as an offering to the gods. These two women reminded me that I was not just at a beautiful temple inside a cave with lots of monkeys. I was not just at a tourist attraction. I was at a holy place. I was at their holy place. I am glad they reminded me of this.

We got to the bottom, soaking wet with sweat, where I got a mango from a food stall. Then we got in a taxi and went home. It was a great experience.

One Utama

I went to a gigantic mall called One Utama the other day. In a previous posting I had called it Lilitama because that is what it sounded like Jeff was saying, I figured it out myself from handy tourist maps that it is actually One Utama. The fact that I was so resourceful in figuring it out myself was lost on Jeff as he proceeded to make fun of my post where I misspelled it. That's ok. I can give as good as I get. Don't worry about that.

Anyway, as I said, One Utama was huge. Even though I had sworn off malls, I was trying to give my sunburn a break from the sun so I decided to stay indoors. I was there for five hours and only walked less than half of the mall. They have the typical stores you would find in a US mall: The Gap, Banana Republic, Polo, and others. The department stores they have here are Parkson and Jusco. There are also plenty of stores with local wares. I started to understand why the Malaysians love their malls. They have everything in them. They have the hardware store, the craft store, the grocery store, the linens and housewares stores as well as every kind of cuisine you can think of. They combine all of this with lots of activities and stimulation for the kids. They don't have Walmart, Home Depot, Michaels, and Chuck E. Cheese. They have malls.

The malls are a great opportunity to people watch. I grabbed a mango juice and took in the show. While Malaysia is a Muslim country, it is actually quite diverse. There are a large percentage of Chinese and Indians here as well. It is fascinating to see the different cultures co-mingling. Most muslim women just wear scarves over their hair. Absolutely beautful scarves of which I am very jealous. Some wear the more traditional long tunic and skirt in beautiful, colorful fabrics. Others wear jeans and t-shirts. I have seen only a few women in the full black dress with the scarf that covers everything but the eyes. The first time I saw a woman dressed like this, my initial reaction was fear. I didn't process what or who it was. It was just a figure covered in black from head to toe with a slit for the eyes. I suddenly thought I was in Scream IV and started looking for some stairs so I could run away from the exit and get trapped on the roof with the villian of a horror movie. It only took a few seconds to register that I was not in a horror movie, and it was indeed just a woman taking her children to the mall. I can't imagine living life dressed like that though. The subsequent few times I have seen other women in the full muslim dress, I have still had that intiial fear. I feel kind of guilty about it even though it has nothing to do with the person or the religion or anything like that. Just scary American horror movies. At least I didn't scream out in horror. That would have been an uncomfortable situation.

Well, I'll write again soon. Hope all is well with everyone. Thanks to those of you who have written comments. I love to read them. Selamat jalan!

Maybe not daily

Who was I kidding? A daily blog! Sorry to those of you out there waiting with bated breath for more exciting adventures from Malaysia. I'm sure you all rush to your computers every hour to see if I have written anything new. I should have known a daily blog was impossible. It takes me five days to recover from one exciting day! Seriously though, this is obviously not going to be a daily blog, but I will keep posting!

I've tried to abandon my manic need to see, touch, feel, taste, and smell everything. The latter two probably as a result of melling and tasting the "King of Fruit" here, the durian. It smells like a mixture of very potent urine and vomit (I'm not exaggerating), but I refused to allow that to deter me from trying it. I took a bite about the size of my baby toenail and tears immediately welled up in my eyes. It was all I could do not to spit it out. While the Malaysians and Chinese love it, it definitely tops my list of foods I would not want if I was on a deserted island. Certain pockets of Malaysia always had a weird smell when I walked through. I have now identified that smell as the durian. Now when I smell it as I'm walking around, it triggers the taste memory, and my stomach starts throwing punches. Not pleasant. I thought Jeff was just a stubborn, Born-in-the-USA, good ol' boy

1st Trip to KL (Kuala Lumpur)

On Tuesday, I had my first adventure in KL. I decided to take matters into my own hands and bit off more than I could chew as usual. My big plan was to walk to the train station despite Brooksie's warning that it was too far to walk. I looked at a map, dammit! It didn't look too far! I should have been a little concerned when I saw Manickam (our regular taxi driver) at the apartment building, and he tried to get me take his taxi. I declined and started my morning walk to the unknown. I really should have been concerned when he pulled up next to me on the street and tried to take me to the station for free. Again I declined. I told him I really wanted to walk through the town. He kept saying "Very far, very far. I take you. Very far". Silly man. Obviously he didn't know who he was dealing with. As Brooksie said, tell me it's too far, and I will walk it twice just to prove you wrong! In this case, he was right.

Since I don't have a watch, I gauge time by the number of songs played on my ipod. I figured it would be a 5 song walk. It was more like a 12 song walk. Which really wouldn't have been too bad if conditions in Malaysia were more accomodating for walkers. At first it was quite pleasant. I was definitely the most popular girl walking along the road. Of course, I was the only person, let alone girl, walking along the road. I perfected my beauty queen wave on the journey. I felt like Princess Diana waving to her admirers. At least that is how I prefer to look at things. In actuality, they were probably honking and laughing at the silly white girl walking along the road. When I say "road", I mean highway filled with crazy drivers and tons of people on scooters who do not have to obey driving rules. If you try to cross the street thinking it is safe because all of the cars are stopped, watch out! Suddenly a scooter will come flying up between the cars. It's rather disconcerting. But I digress.

So I am walking along the highway, waving to my fans, enjoying the new cultural experience while entertaining the locals. To give my fans what they wanted, I even managed to completely lose my footing on some uneven ground and almost fell on my ass. Twice. More entertainment from the crazy, waving, white girl walking along the highway. It was about that time that the sidewalk ran out and many areas did not have a shoulder. So then I was the crazy, clutzy, waving, walking-in-the-road white girl.

There were no signs telling me where the train station was. Thank goodness I had asked a man at the 7-11 (yes, I said 7-11) who had given me good directions. He had said turn left at the light after the flyover (overpass). There was not a single sign for the station. And the road was a step up from a dirt road. I asked a taxi driver coming from that direction, and he said the station was down there. So I'm walking along this little road, past all of these little food stalls and cafes where all of the locals stared at me like they had never seen a silly white girl walking along that road, which I am certain they hadn't. I'm pretty hot and a bit tired by this point as well as frustrated because I have no idea where I am going. One either very nice Malaysian or serial killer Malaysian pulled over to offer me a ride. Even in my near-delirious state I had the sense to frisk him before I accepted the ride. Just kidding. I declined and continued walking. A couple of my fans are pulling out of a parking lot and smile and say something that I don't understand. I point straight ahead and ask "Train station?" They point to my left and nod. It's this little dirt road! There are no signs! I would never have found it! I now understand why the people on the Amazing Race get lost so often. I had always just thought they were dumb.

So I go down the little dirt road, passing shacks for houses with all kinds of chickens just roaming around the streets in front of the yards. That was pretty cool. I finally get to the train station and crawl up the steps on all fours (some creative license here). I purchase my train ticket with no problem. It was 2 ringgits which is about 60 cents. Thanks to my epic journey to the station, I had a pretty good sense of where I was geographically in comparison to KL. I waited on the platform. On the other side, I saw the train come and go in the direction that I wanted to go. I was on the wrong side! Trains here, like cars, travel on the opposite side than I am used to. Curses! So I went to the other side and waited another twenty minutes. The train itself was just like the metro in DC. It was cool(temperature) and comfy.

I was so tired and drained by the time I got on the train, I wasn't sure how long I would stay in KL. I took the train to KL Sentral which is a major hub where you can transfer to other public transportation to wherever you want to go. I decided I was going to do a walking tour of Merdeka Square and Little India. Merdeka Sqare is where Malaysia had declared its independence from the UK fifty years ago. They have a big festival planned for late August to celebrate their 50th birthday. I took the light rail to Masjid Jamek, a beautiful mosque at the intersection of the Klang and Gombak rivers. I know this now because I looked it up, but on the video I took I believe my words were, "This is a beautiful building, but I have not idea what it is. I can't get to it because there is a large river of slime between us."

Anyway, even though I had a little walking tour guide from my touristy tour book, I still couldn't seem to figure out where anything was. I couldn't find Merdeka Square to save my life so I changed my itinerary to a walk through Chinatown. Of course I couldn't figure out where that was either. I think I walked the same four blocks for about an hour, but they were a beautiful and interesting four blocks so I didn't really mind.

I ventured down this little alley where it looked like the locals where having some lunch at some hawker stands. I had an Indian iced tea and some fried bananas, both of which were delicious. I finally got on the right track for the Chinatown walk. It was interesting and fun. I went to Jalan Petaling which is the center of Chinatown and a very cool open market. I did some haggling with salespeople and did very well I think. I bought a few things(which I can't reveal because some are gifts). They had originally asked for 220 ringgits, and I got them down to 100 ringgits. I was so proud of myself I dropped my video camera. Then they tried to sell me a new one! Fortunately, mine was fine.

I decided to head to the monorail station to go to KL Sentral and catch the train back to Shah Alam. After getting lost and walking to the top of some stadium because it looked like it could be a monorail station, I finally found it. I loved the monorail. You get a great tour of the city. I am going to go back and just ride the monorail from one end to the other.

That's about it. Not wanting to make the same mistake twice, I called Manickam the taxi driver from the train and asked him to pick me up at the train station. He proceeded to laugh at me the entire ride back because I had insisted on walking. He is going to take me to an Indian restaurant for lunch next week which I am looking forward to because I love Indian food. Well, that was day six. I spent day seven by the pool, recovering. Life is really tough here. Hope all is well. Selamat jalan (good bye)!

Photos

The pool in Brooksie's complex.

Brooksie in front of his aparment complex.

The Blue Mosque in Shah Alam

Another view of the Blue Mosque.

Turtles hanging out on the grounds of the Blue Mosque